Almost done with book events for Let’s Make Cocktails! Just one more event to go, and then I actually have a few weeks without any travel or talks or anything. ^_^

In the meantime, my dear friend Blanca, who also introduced me to the mangonada, was telling me about something called a “crispy dog” that her mom used to make her as an afternoon snack. I was so curious about it that she brought the ingredients over and we made crispy dogs together!

They were really good! I found this excellent article about the history of the San Antonio crispy dog if you’re interested in reading more. Short version: crispy dogs are a popular quick and easy snack made in a lot of Latine households in San Antonio, and you can also find them at a number of restaurants and diners there. The San Antonio Malt House (RIP) was serving crispy dogs as early as the late 1940s! They seem mostly unknown outside of San Antonio, but they’re super easy to make, and honestly, a textural delight. I’m not usually a hot dog fan, but wrapped in a crispy flauta exterior, these were pretty great.

Upcoming Events:

One last book event! Tuesday, May 12, at 5:30 pm I will be at Chicago’s American Writers Museum for their monthly Get Lit! event. We’ll be doing a drawing workshop and some cocktail demos, and it should be a super fun night. Tickets can be purchased here, and you can use the code BECAN10 for a discount!

What I’m Into Lately:

My book club has been reading Tracers in the Dark by Andy Greenberg, a thrilling international true crime story about the investigators who hunted and took down Silk Road, AlphaBay, and a number of other sites on the dark web. I find stories about crypto and the blockchain pretty opaque most of the time, but Greenberg writes about all of it in a way that’s detailed, entertaining and still pretty easy to follow. It was a fascinating deep dive into some very interesting news stories of the last decade or two.

What Toki’s Into Lately:

Toki is pretty mad about how often the suitcase has come out in the past month or two, and he’s been sticking real close to me.