Lovely Rita

My father could make a margarita out of anything. At 88 years old, on the punishing day before his dreaded colonoscopy procedure, he added tequila and a twist of lime to the insipid prep drink. Despite his coaxing, I couldn’t bring myself to sample that colo-cocktail, but nonetheless I acknowledge its validity. Adding Herradura certainly would aid in the ability to palate the drugstore jug of nasty sea salt the patient nearly drowns in. And when I challenged the wisdom of such blatant disregard and pre-surgical disobedience, he only grinned and raised his glass.

“Bottoms up!” No comment.

Some would say Daddy was feckless to meddle with medicine. Now that I can tell the survival story of such foolhardiness, I boast that mi padre earned an A+ for creative genius under challenging circumstances and for making the best siesta out of an otherwise typical, boring anesthesia. He also scored high marks for level-headedness while under Rita’s influence, and on an empty stomach. Not to mention resistance under pressure: although the Saddleback Hospital physician’s explicit instructions called for clear liquid only, Daddy deftly rationalized and responded, “This, Doctor Sarella, is clearly liquid.”

“After agape, the fourth kind of love is agave,” his brother-in-law, my uncle, used to say. Orange County citizens are constantly reinventing the margarita, and to each his own; the rendering of ingredients has become a more hotly debated topic than gubernatorial candidacy (What election?), especially during the countdown days leading up to Cinco de Mayo.

Flourishing under my mother’s love, I was all but weaned on the cocktail that accompanies a basket of chips and salsa.. My father and uncle managed orange and avocado groves back when Fashion Island blossomed with nothing but the heady aroma of citrus. Caretaker Javier undertook to perfect their idea of a margarita that accompanied an abundant bowlful of guacamole, the one essential ingredient being his own orange “liqueur” from the crop.

Now, seated at Z Tejas in South Coast Plaza and nursing the Millionaire Martini Margarita, I can mimic his miracle and still imagine the citrus groves they owned not too far from this very spot.

First timers to the drink (Don’t worry; I once was one too) often sip what I call “the virgin,” which is mostly pulverized ice and a limeade-like margarita mix; very little tequila detected. My stepson in Mission Viejo likes his mixture of tequila, margarita mix, and anything “lime-y”; he’ll even take something from a machine (crying shame). My girlfriend in Laguna Niguel likes hers “naked”—Grand Marnier and Cuervo, room temperature, in any old drinking glass, but her mother, bless her heart—her 60-year old mother takes the shortcut and just does shots. Atta girl.

Skinny margaritas (tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice) have swept the scene—at last someone else finally sees that less is more—my father would be proud.

Tequila options are varied: there’s the rough, young Blanco, the peppery Reposado, the woody Anejo. And to East Coast connoisseurs of James Bond’s martini who point to the Orange Curtain with whispers about diminished culture and sand-washed imagination, I say no matter how you mix it, the drink of which Jimmy Buffet croons is as colorful as the lime flash on the Laguna Beach horizon at sunset and embodies more romance on a stem than any Fifth Avenue olive on a toothpick.

True aficionados like my father and my uncle never blend; only stir. I subscribe to this formula: long on tequila, short on Grand Marnier, and even shorter on lime. No mix. Three cubes. Never dilute to slush. If a blender renders, I’m tee totaling. Don’t sully this glass with salt, and pull up the bay front lounge chair so I need travel no further for the subsequent siesta.

Which brings to mind Thanksgiving at Balboa when Uncle Pedro mixed his magic while I ran an errand over to the Island’s Market Spot for a key ingredient to the pumpkin pie. Upon return, famished and ready for turkey, instead I found the buffet table untouched, and in the middle of the afternoon everyone splayed on chairs or sofas—except Pierre, my aunt’s reserved childhood school-chum who was mysteriously missing and subsequently discovered snoring on the back seat of the station wagon in the driveway while my parents pushed and shoved each other to see who could first get down the hall to the bed—at 3 PM. My mother, only slightly more nimble on her feet at that moment, won.

I touted this recipe as uncontested until I experienced Irvine’s El Cholo Restaurant, where they do all that, and with two tequilas, and then some: float a third, lethal Pulque on top. Enough liquid refreshment to submerge a rattlesnake, let alone a worm, this concoction hangs on but never over; it slithers down as smooth as suggestion and strikes as surprisingly as hypnosis. My husband ordered a second glass there one night while out to dinner with office colleagues and called me to slur that his “shurt” was certifiably “in the durt.” As I write this, I’m licking my lips.

When my five-year colonoscopy consultation rolled around last month I sat across from the specialist as he politely wondered if I had any questions. Glancing at the lengthy printed page of instructions, my eyes locked on the phrase “Clear liquids only.”

“Define ‘clear’,” I challenged.

“Water, broth, tea, or jello that is not red. Once you begin the preparation drink, add nothing but water,” he dryly spoke.

I might spend prep day at Z Tejas and take that directive with a grain of salt.