Queen of America
Page 47
Shredded cheddar cheese
For the Chiles Rellenos
1. Put a frying pan to heat with the oil.
2. Make 2 small holes in the pasilla chiles with a knife.
3. Place chiles in frying pan. When chiles start to inflate on all sides, take them out and set in a bowl and cover with a wet towel to cool off. Reserve the oil in the frying pan. Once the chiles are cooled, you peel the skin off, make a cut on one side of the chiles, and take out the cores and seeds, then fill with Monterey Jack cheese. The amount of cheese is to your liking. Close the opening by running a toothpick as a stitch.
4. Separate the yolk and whites of the eggs in two separate bowls. Beat the egg whites with a mixer until fluffy and they don’t spill or fall out when you turn over the bowl. Once you get the egg whites to this point, you mix in with a spoon the egg yolks and the cornstarch until blended with the egg whites. At this point, the frying pan with oil should be once again heated.
5. Put the flour on a plate and cover a stuffed chile completely with the flour, then place the chile in the egg mixture and use a spoon to cover with the eggs all over, then place in the frying pan and fry on both sides. Once done, you take the chile out and place on a plate and continue with the flour and egg mixture until all chiles are done.
For the Sauce
1. Put tomatoes to boil in 2 cups water. Once it starts to boil add the onion, garlic cloves, and oregano. After 3 minutes of boiling, pour into a blender and once blended pour back into the pot to boil again. At this point add salt to your liking.
2. In 1 cup cold water, add the cornstarch. Stir cornstarch in water. Once it is mixed well, add to the pan of tomato sauce while it’s being heated. This mixture will thicken the tomato sauce. Heat the mixture to desired thickness of the sauce, then remove from heat.
3. Place one or two chiles on a plate, cover with tomato sauce, and sprinkle the shredded cheddar cheese on top to your liking. If needed, heat up in a microwave for 1½ minutes.
Chilaquiles Teresita
From Chef Randy Placeres of Aspen Culinary Solutions. Randy catered a dinner party for the Aspen Writers’ Foundation in my honor. I was so impressed, I had to ask him for a recipe. He’s the real deal.
Serves 4–6
Vegetable oil for frying
6 corn tortillas cut in large strips or triangles and dried out overnight
Salt
Chili
8 tomatoes
4 jalapeños
Salt and pepper
½ of a bunch cilantro, chopped
1 onion
1 pinch dried oregano (optional)
6 eggs
Chopped onion
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Cilantro, chopped
Frijoles, cooked (beans de la hoya) (optional)
1. In a pan, add vegetable oil and fry the tortillas until golden brown. Transfer to a plate with a paper towel. Season with a pinch of salt.
2. On an open flame or grill, blister the tomatoes and the jalapeños on all sides. Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or place in a zip-lock bag. Let stand for 10 minutes. Peel off skin, remove stems, and transfer the tomatoes and jalapeños to a blender and blend. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add cilantro and onion after blending.
3. In a pan, simmer the Chili and add a pinch of dried oregano, if desired. Add tortilla chips.
4. Cook eggs over easy in a separate pan.
5. To plate, place tortilla chips with warm Chili, then place eggs on top of the tortilla chips. Add chopped onion, shredded cheese, and chopped cilantro. Add beans if desired.
The Queen of America Margarita
From Chef Isabel Cruz, who created the Queen of America Margarita for a book party in her San Diego restaurant Barrio Star. She’s doing great things with her string of amazing restaurants throughout San Diego and Portland, Oregon. Visit her at isabelscantina.com.
Serves 1
Ice
2 ounces 100% agave blanco tequila
2 ounces pomegranate juice
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon agave syrup
2 torn fresh mint leaves
Salt (optional)
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add tequila, pomegranate juice, lime juice, agave syrup, and mint. Shake well, pour over ice into salted (if desired) margarita glass.
Also by Luis Alberto Urrea
FICTION
Into the Beautiful North
The Hummingbird’s Daughter
In Search of Snow
Six Kinds of Sky
Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush (graphic novel; artwork by Christopher Cardinale)
NONFICTION
The Devil’s Highway: A True Story
Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border
Nobody’s Son
Wandering Time
POETRY
The Fever of Being
Ghost Sickness
Vatos
Acclaim for LUIS ALBERTO URREA’S
QUEEN OF AMERICA
“Striking…. Urrea deploys the passion of a visionary, making music with his phrases, evoking a world in the ebullient manner of antique storytellers while employing effective modern narrative techniques…. The novelist’s powers work their way in this entertaining and intelligent historical fiction, studded with delights, rich in image and metaphor, the voice strong and at the same time comforting as it creates a universe replete with a multiplicity of characters, complete in body and soul. And as in the best of fiction, though the novelist himself is not physically present, his voice speaks worlds.”
—Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
“I am happy to report, a bit wet-eyed, that this new work holds its own, cleverly written so that a reader could take up the saga here…. Urrea’s touch with secondary characters is Dickensian; his long years of research into remote time and place inspire our surrender. Best of all, perhaps, is the sensual, musical prose set to English. Urrea dances along the fertile crescent between Spanish and English…. Queen of America reads like a thrill, and its conclusion feels like a blessing.”
—Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Urrea has given us that rare breed of literary sequel, a story that will satisfy fans of the original while standing solidly on its own…. Paints an informed and entertaining portrait of a country still trying to find its footing in the first years of the new century…. At once magical and corporeal, grounding and transporting, Queen of America tells the compelling true story of a young woman caught between worlds, between her childhood in Mexico and her adulthood in the United States, between the spiritual world and the material world.”
—Michael David Lukas, San Francisco Chronicle
“ ‘Who is more of an outlaw than a saint?’ one of Luis Urrea’s characters poses. The answer is this ferocious, ribald romance of the border. Jaunty, bawdy, gritty, sweet, Queen of America has a bottomless comic energy and a heart large enough to accept—even revel in—all of human folly.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of Emily Alone and Songs for the Missing
“Captivating…. With deft humor and a poetic lyricism that seamlessly folds one scene into another, Urrea unfolds the story of his real-life great-aunt Teresita, a teenage saint who was known for healing miracles…. Each scene in Queen of America unfurls gracefully like delicate wisps of smoke. Whether Teresita is being held captive in Northern California by a band of profiteering medical professionals, or being feted like a queen in New York’s social circles, this epic novel paints a portrait of America—and its inhabitants—with grace and style. It will spark fire in readers’ hearts.”
—Megan Fishmann, BookPage
“Urrea has exhumed Teresa’s past and perched her high…. Queen of America weighs in at nearly five hundred pages of suspended reality and dream states leavened with jolts of history…. The reward is clear in reading both Queen of America and The Hummingbir
d’s Daughter. Urrea’s voice—blended with those of his family—animates that family urge toward story. Urrea does so with poetic prose and devilish dialogue. He is serious, irreverent, and magical.”
—Dianne Solís, Dallas Morning News
“Enchanting…. Fantastical…. Urrea has stitched a seamless end to the saga.”
—Mythili G. Rao, New York Times Book Review
“Sometimes the connection between an author and his subject is so strong that it seems as if he’s fated to write a particular book. That’s the case with Luis Alberto Urrea…. Teresita remains a wonderful character: a combination of deep mysticism and unpretentious common sense…. Most provocatively, Urrea’s description of how the nineteen-year-old’s ordinary, girlish desires for pretty dresses, for romance, for independence from her loving but domineering father, suggests that divine grace may be as much a burden as it is a gift.”
—Marcela Valdes, Washington Post
“Queen of America not only brings Teresita’s story to a satisfying and emotionally powerful conclusion but also complements themes of family loyalty, clashing cultures, spirituality, and magic that helped make Hummingbird a beloved best-seller…. Urrea lightens these heavy themes with a prose style by turns playful and poetic…. By the novel’s moving conclusion, we see Teresita in full: a living, breathing woman of faith. Urrea seems to be showing us that a saint’s spirituality can burn brightly in anyone’s life.”
—Clarke Crutchfield, Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Urrea delights in the texture of things. Turn-of-the-century America, particularly New York, comes alive at his fingertips: He sees both the silk and the mud…. In imagining the story of his great-aunt Teresita, Urrea might have chosen to make her a hero; that would have been easier. What we get is more complicated, more modern…. Hers is the story of what it means to have a gift, and how a talent can also be a burden.”
—Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
“A gritty, bold, and much-anticipated sequel to The Hummingbird’s Daughter…. Fiercely romantic and at times heartbreaking but also full of humor, Urrea’s latest novel blends fairy tale, Western adventure, folktale, and historical drama. Fans of Hummingbird and readers new to Urrea’s work will surely enjoy this magnificent, epic novel.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Colorful and exuberant.”
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
“Lushly written and smartly told…. Urrea’s eloquent language and warm sense of humor enrich the narration, which acts as a biographical chronicle of the saint but one that is enlivened by a particularly fine novelist’s view of her world.”
—Jim Carmin, The Oregonian
“Urrea spares no detail while brilliantly blending actual events with a well-crafted narrative of his own creation. He excels at enveloping the reader in the minute customs associated with life in the American Southwest in the 1890s, effortlessly placing readers in the sweltering, cavernous Arizona desert…. This all follows Urrea’s resolute literary style—part magical realism, part Southwest frontier diary, and part traditional coming-of-age story…. Luis Alberto Urrea’s noble efforts at reimagining the story of his saintly great-aunt manage to enlighten and entertain.”
—Michael Lopez, Willamette Week
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Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
BOOK I
PART I: IN THE LAND OF DEVIL-MONKEYS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
PART II: THINGS FAR AWAY AND DEAR
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
PART III: OF LOVE AND THE PRECIPICE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
BOOK II
PART IV: FAR AMERICA
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
PART V: NEW YORK
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
PART VI: GOING HOME
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Notes and Acknowledgments
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
A conversation with Luis Alberto Urrea
Questions and topics for discussion
Luis Urrea’s Instant Book Club Party
Also by Luis Alberto Urrea
Acclaim for Luis Alberto Urrea’s Queen of America
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2011 by Luis Alberto Urrea
Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Luis Alberto Urrea and Little, Brown and Company
Cover design by Allison J. Warner
Cover art: painting © Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY; bird © The Granger Collection
Cover © 2012 Hachette Book Group, Inc
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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