Bienvenidos a Mexican Dining Week on OnMilwaukee.com. This week, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, we're spicing things up with daily articles about Mexican restaurants, foods, drinks, sweets and more. Enjoy a week of sizzling stories that will leave you craving Milwaukee's Latin offerings. Olé!
While on a University of Southern California fellowship a few years back, I had a clever and entrepreneurial young colleague named Gustavo Arellano. The son of Mexican-American immigrants, he wrote a semi-satirical Q & A column for the Orange County Weekly called "Ask a Mexican." It was so wildly popular, the column became nationally syndicated and got him an appearance on "The Colbert Report."
Gustavo has a talent for observing the collision of Mexican and American cultures with a humorously critical eye, and he has now published "Taco USA," an account of how Mexican food and drink became Americanized in this country. A review of the book in the online magazine Slate said, "If you've ever wondered about the roots of Taco Bell or why fajitas are called that or who invented the frozen-margarita machine, you'll find answers here."
Read this New York Times profile of Arellano and his book.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
