Recently my husband “discovered” Dos Equis Lager, you know, the one in the green bottle with the clever marketing campaign that includes “the most interesting man in the world”? Well, as he sipped on his beer and talked about how much he loved this “new” beer, I had to laugh because some of my best memories involve Dos Equis Lager…

In my twenties I traveled to Mexico quite often. This was before the cartels, when groups of young Americans regularly visited Mexico to surf, drink and eat cheap lobster dinners.  I loved spending a weekend in Rosarito, San Felipe , Ensenada or Puerto Neuvo. My friends and I would load the car with surfboards and head over the border at least once every couple of months. I loved everything about Mexico: the people, the beaches, the food, the affordability (back then, you could spend a weekend for under 100 bucks!) and of course, the Dos Equis Lager. At this time, you couldn’t buy the Dos Equis in the green bottle (what we all called it) in California, so we would drink cases of it during our long weekends. We rationalized our eight a.m. drinking and said, “Well, we can’t drink the water, so we HAVE to drink beer!” There was nothing like coming out of the water after a long day of surfing and sitting down at one of the little fish shacks that dotted the beach. They were really no more than a couple of pieces of plywood, a few mismatched chairs, a cooler (or two) and a grill, usually fashioned out of an iron grate set atop some rocks on the sand.  The friendly man who ran it would pop open ice-cold Dos Equis Lagers, jam a wedge of lime into the top of the bottle and pass them to us. We were still wet from the sea and covered in salt and sand. That first sip was always the best, the salt from the ocean, still on my lips, would blend seamlessly with the tart of the lime and the crisp, nutty flavor of the beer. Heaven! We would sit on the rickety chairs, our feet in the sand, drink beer, watch the ocean and recount all the great rides we had that day. The entire time we were talking, the tempting scent of grilling fish wafted around us. As we drank, the man who ran the shack was grilling his catch of the day. He would fill paper plates with grilled fish, fresh salsa, guacamole and warm tortillas. We balanced this deliciousness on our laps and devoured everything he put in front of us. It was one of those perfect food moments when the stars aligned and everything simply “worked”. The sand in our toes, the waves breaking on the beach, the scent of a hot grill, the taste of smoky fish against spicy salsa and of course, all washed down with the beer in the green bottle.

I’ve had a few of these magical food moments in my life, but I must admit, that this has to be my favorite. Watching my husband enjoy his first Dos Equis Lager with lime brought all of this back and put a smile on my face the rest of the day.  Food and drink is so much more than just nourishment for our bodies, it is also what fuels our souls.