Cucina de Maria

Unprepossessing  from the outside

 One of the pleasures of this recent stay in La Paz was the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite restaurants. I'm pretty sure Larry didn't mind going along!
First on my list...Cucina de Maria, a humble yet cozy little place that held sentimental meaning for both of us; this was where Larry ate his first meal in La Paz and where he took me for my first meal. Really just a covered alleyway between two nondescript buildings, Maria's still sports linen cloths and napkins on the tables and excellent service. We are both able to order breakfast in Spanish now which is a good thing as neither the staff nor the owner speaks English. The morning we ate there was cool but comfortable and tiny birds twittered and flew overhead. The coffee was hot, the food perfect.

Mmmmmmmmm...

 As we were finishing, a friendly woman sat down near us, her dog doing a perfect "sit,stay" on the sidewalk. She was a fellow gringo and when we discovered we had a mutual friend living in La Paz she warmed up and told us the story of how she came to be here. Perhaps it's true of any countrymen meeting in a foreign country or maybe she was just lonely, but she seemed to want to share her story with us. We learned she and her husband had first come here as a cruisers from the west coast years before, and continued to return each year. Her husband, she told us, could not tolerate the hot desert summers so they had gone north every spring. When he  passed away this past year she decided to move here full time and she bought a house. She missed companionship and sought to fill an empty space by adopting  a dog. She found her new friend at La Paz Dogs, a rescue organization run by American ex-pats. The pup appeared to be healthy and happy and looked at her with  adoring eyes that said everything.

Happy and FULL!

In Mexico your table in a restaurant is considered "rented" for the duration. The waiter will never bring you your check until you ask for it which means people can, and often do, linger for hours over a cup of coffee, never once being bothered by a waiter unless he is there to offer more coffee. So that morning we talked for a long time and then said goodbye to our new friend, leaving Maria's with a,"Muchas gracias,". and plans to return soon"

Our waiter between the two cooks - Maria is seated to the rear