Your Favorite Salad Is From Tijuana
Plus, the first review of my new book is in!
Dear Friends,
Welcome back to The Crunchwrap! If you’re a new subscriber (hello), please know that the erratic publishing schedule and subject-matter promiscuity are actually features of this newsletter, not bugs.
This week, we’re going to Tijuana, blushing over a lovely first review of my forthcoming book, 99% Perspiration, and singing the praises of Gary Oldman.
First Crunch
When I’m not newslettering, I’m usually either napping on my couch or out reporting on other things. I’ve got a few exciting stories coming up, but last month for the excellent business news upstart Sherwood, I wrote about how weird the consumer ecosystem has gotten when it comes to actually paying for things.
Specifically, I’ve been fascinated with how more and more small mom-and-pops (delis, hardware stores, meatball dispensaries) are offering discounts to customers who pay with cash. A big reason seems to be that these businesses are trying to avoid credit-card transaction fees, which have ballooned in recent years. (These fees, sadly, are how credit-card companies subsidize some of the rewards points they dish out.) At the very same time, big businesses (fast-casual chains, nearly all sports stadiums) have tried to make it impossible for people to use cash. (This is in part to reduce labor costs/automate, but also to steer customers to spend more money and surrender their personal data.)
The result is a convoluted world of payments, which adds to the sort of consumer irritation that goes hand-in-hand with inflation. People tend to sneer at these kind of gripes, but for many it seems to reflect a sense that the playing field isn’t level. Take Biden’s new “Click to Cancel” initiative from yesterday.
Salad Days
I also recently headed to Southern California and Tijuana for a story I’m working on. Before I left, I asked around (and/or mistakenly searched Reddit) for recs about what to do in Tijuana. And the answers – outside of visits to the red-light district and all-night beer benders – were three activities of particular interest to The Crunchwrap:
Visit the birthplace of the Caesar Salad
Engage in medical tourism
Eat a bacon-wrapped hot dog
I’m going to devote a Crunchwrap to all of these pursuits and I should start by saying that I had absolutely no idea that the Caesar Salad is purported to be from Tijuana or that this culinary invention happened exactly 100 years ago. (For further reading, I recommend this great piece by Bill Esparza on the history of the salad and an incisive tribute to Caesar obsession by Mehr Singh.)
A lot of Californians made fun of me when I confessed to being clueless about the origins of the Caesar. Apparently this is common knowledge? Well, if there’s one thing I think I’ve made clear in my many years of work, it’s that I’m not a goddam salad expert, okay?
I had little sense of what to expect when I pulled up to Caesar’s on Avenida Revolución, one of the main commercial drags in TJ. In its youth, the restaurant had been a magnet for wealthy Americans carousing, gambling, and skirting Prohibition in the 1920s. Over the decades, however, the restaurant had crumbled into obsolescence. It briefly closed in 2010 before being rescued by its current owners before being lovingly revived and restored to its dim-lit glory. This is a busy way of explaining that Caesar’s is a beautiful place in a sort of masculine way; dark wood, leather-bound menus, framed pictures of men in vests.
With both a doctor’s appointment *and* a bacon-wrapped hot dog on my afternoon docket, I heroically tamped down the impulse to indulge in the luxury-thrift of a $16 strip steak or a Beef Wellington and I just had THE salad, which was lovingly and formally assembled tableside by an ensaladero with the ceremony you’d expect.
For those wondering what goes into this particular Caesar dressing, the breakdown goes garlic, whole anchovies, Dijon mustard, Parmigiano-Reggiano, lime juice, olive oil, salt, freshly black pepper, and a coddled egg yolk. Was it good? Obviously yes.
What I appreciate most about the Caesar origin story is that its creator – which is disputed like everything else in culinary history – is said to be an Italian emigré to Mexico named Césare Cardini. That’s it. It’s not a wayward reference to historic tyrants or named for what to eat when feeling betrayed by your friends, it’s just Caesar because of Caesar/Césare. It’s the very same direct way that we got nachos…from a chef named Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya…who worked at the Victory Club in Piedras Negras…another Mexican border town just across the line from Texas.
Book It
Folks, I’m less than three months away from the release of my second book, 99% Perspiration. The book is about the culture of work in America, the bootstraps and self-reliance myths, and how these things divide and deplete us.
I wrote this over the past two-plus years, reporting from Oklahoma, St. Croix, Baltimore, Wisconsin, Indiana, Normandy, Alabama, California, and beyond. I spoke to small-town pastors, rural teachers, big-city mayors, four-star generals, and former presidential candidates about the American Dream — and reality.
And earlier this week, I got my first review from Kirkus, the notoriously cranky industry reviewer, which top-lined it thusly: A welcome call for a return to fairness and common sense. They add that, “Work is simply not working—for many, if not most, Americans,” which is something I got deep into while interviewing people around the country. Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom: “Chandler argues that social crises have often presaged wide-ranging reforms.” Many of the folks I met were hard at work on ways to cure what ails us, socially, economically, and politically.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sorting out details for some live events (and at least virtual one) for early 2025, but the book is available for pre-order, including the audiobook, which will be read by me. Do I have a killer Benjamin Franklin impression up my sleeve? You’re going have to order to find out.
Nu, What Else?
You haven’t watched Gary Oldman as a cranky, rumbled spymaster in Slow Horses yet? The Times unpacks his crusty allure (gift link).
“Every time I’m around her I feel the genuine love and care. She really cares. Sometimes you don’t feel that way around people.” Here’s a sweet LA Times piece on intergenerational friendships.
Incarcerated men learning culinary skills and serving five-course dinners to the public using produce grown in prison gardens? Click.
That’s it for this Crunchwrap! I will be back to haunt you with news, updates, and another dispatch from Tijuana before the month is out.
Thanks as always for reading along.
Love,
Adam
Can't wait to read the new book!
Thank you Tom!