My cousin, Nancy, celebrated her 23th birthday last week but I didn’t get to see her until this week for our periodic Wednesday lunches.

We’ve had dim sum, tortas and tacos on our lunch dates. All our lunches are on the Eastside (or Chinatown) because it’s close to Nancy’s school. For this belated birthday lunch, I chose El Huarachito in Lincoln Heights. I’d never been before, but it comes highly recommended by both Chimatli and El Chavo.

There were a few other diners in the small restaurant. Nancy chose the huarache con chorizo so she could say she’s tried a huarache. Neither of us have ever had one, maybe it’s not part of Zacatecas cuisine? Who knows. I had the pollo en chipotle. The food was so good, that we didn’t leave anything. I lie, I had to take half of my food to go. Lesson learned: Chimatli and El Chavo know where to find good and affordable Mexican food.

We walked off our food by walking around in a neighboring grocery store. We tried to find interesting food labels, but all we found was a Barbie cereal and cans of La Morena jalapeños. I didn’t think she was all that morena.

Outside the grocery store, I noticed a tiled red wall. It was too cool not to use as a back drop for silly photos.

People walking by looked at us funny, but we didn’t care.

We stopped by the post office on the way back to my car to buy some of the newly issued American Journalists stamps featuring Ruben Salazar.

Nancy didn’t know much about Salazar, so she got a short lesson on the way back to her dorm. After explaining why Salazar is worthy of being on a postage stamp, I told her that now there are scholarships, awards and buildings named after him.

“You know, I think there’s a building named after him at Cal State L.A.” I said.

She brightened up and loudly exclaimed, “Ohhh, Salazar Hall! Most of my classes are there!”

That was cool.