Some weekends, all I want to do is curl up in my bed and read or binge watch television. Sometimes, I just want to hang out with Josh and our dogs.
Other weekends, I’m ready to get out and explore the city, and hang out with our friends. This was one of those weekends!
It started on Friday, when we went to a barbecue at the home of one of my friends from work. Our busy season at work starts next weekend (pray for me), so this was one of our last opportunities to hang out before we all get SO BUSY. We hung out and drank and at delicious burgers, and then we played trivia games. It was such a nice, relaxing way to hang out away from our facility. At work, people used to ask if you have a best friend at work. It’s a quick way to make sure people feel included and appreciated. I have a few best friends at work (some not even at my facility), and most of them were at the barbecue, so it was wonderful!
On Saturday, Josh had a quick work thing, then we went to dinner and an NBA game with some of our other friends! Mace and Isabel live south of Atlanta, so we use our hang-out time to explore the city and try new places. Isabel and I read the same kind of books and she’s a total foodie, so we all get along super well! They were some of our first friends in the south, and so we’re always happy to see them.
We went to Alma Cocina and it was wonderful. So. Josh and I are often very skeptical about Hispanic food. We’re not super snobby, but for some reason, when people find out that we’re Hispanic/from New Mexico, people want to take us to eat their version of Mexican food. I don’t know why. It’s a super strange phenomenon that happens no matter where we go (Arkansas, Georgia, etc.). It’s unfortunate, because we come from a place where MOST places had delicious Mexican food. Like, it’s someone abuela cooking in the kitchen. Every other hole in the wall place is super delicious. Plus, we grew up on New Mexican food. By that, I mean that we ate really regionally-specific Hispanic food. Different regions of the southwest eat different types of food. For example, I had never had a fish taco until I was much older, because my family was in New Mexico for generations. Instead, we ate green chile. If you don’t know what green chile is, please try to find it. It’s THE BEST THING EVER.
Josh’s family, on the other hand, spent some time in California, so Californian-Mexican food (including fish tacos) were a big part of his family’s food life. We also really love red chile, which is a big part of New Mexican cuisine, and chile rellenos with green chile and not poblanos (which I don’t really like). So people think that all Mexican food is the same, or even that all Hispanic food (between Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, etc.) is the same, and that is definitely not the case!
I feel like I just went into a strange, long diatribe about Mexican food, but all of this is to say that we’re skeptical about Hispanic foods because sometimes people think it’s all the same, and it’s NOT! So Alma Cocina is Hispanic, but a nice mixture of different types (like mole, which is Mexican), and some Peruvian foods, etc. And overall it was SO AMAZING.
It wasn’t spicy, per say, but super flavorful and delicious. I’m a sucker for salsa verde, and they had this Chihuahuan cheese in salsa verde, and next time I’m just getting that and eating it all, because it was so good.
Then we went to watch the Atlanta Hawks play the Washington Wizards. It wasn’t as close as we would’ve hoped, but it was still super fun to be there with our friends.
Sunday, we relaxed all day. I should’ve done a million things (folded laundry, finished dishes, meal prepped, etc.), but I didn’t. I just relaxed and read and hung out with Josh, and it was perfect.
How was your weekend? Anything exciting?