Fajita & Chimichanga; Golf Slang

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FAJITA & CHIMICHANGA

     From JANE BUTEL'S TEX-MEX COOKBOOK (1980):

Pg. 97--CHIMICHANGOS Wheat-Flour Tortillas Filled with Beef and Deep-Fried
     In the cities nearest the Mexican border, particularly in El Paso and
Tucson, a new favorite has become established as one of the specialties.  In
restaurants featuring chimichangos, the managements seem to agree that they
have become their most requested dish.  Since the recipe is kept closely
guarded, I found I had to develop this recipe myself after many samplings and
conversations with the secretive restaurants.
Pg. 126--BEEF FAJITAS
     Hailing from the citrus groves of South Texas near Brownsville, this is
an authentic recipe developed by the Mexican citrus workers.  Many so called
fajita marinades and rubs are available, but they are only maufactured and do
not produce the traditional flavors this recipe does.  Chicken breast
flattened (not pounded) or shelled shrimp can be substituted for the beef if
desired.

     From NUEVO TEX-MEX: FESTIVE NEW RECIPES FROM JUST NORTH OF THE BORDER
(1998) by David Garrido and Robb Walsh, pg. 103:

     Fajitas are a Tex-Mex phenomenon.  Ask for fajitas in Mexico City and
you will probably be directed to the nearest lingerie store.  That's because
in Spanish _faja_ means "girdle" and _fajita_ means "little girdle" or
"little belt."  Sound strange?  Well, consider that the word _fajita_
actually describes the same piece of meat we call skirt steak in English.
     The skirt steak was one of the many lower grade beef cuts traditionally
eaten by ranch hands in northern Mexico and Texas.  When the ranch owners
slaughtered a steer, the prime cuts would go to the ranch house and the rest
of the animal would be divided among the help.  Many old border dishes such
as _barbacoa_, from the cow's head, and _menudo_, from the stomach lining,
trace their beginnings to this custom.
     With the advent of refrigeration and commercial slaughterhouses, the old
ranch customs of meat distribution died out.  Ranch hands and ranch owners
bought their beef in the grocery store like everybody else.  By the early
1960s, most Texas butchers threw the skirt steak cuts in with the other
scraps they used for ground meat.  But some butchers in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley put the inner skirt aside for customers who still liked to grill the
fajitas the way it was done in the old days.  One of those traditionalists
was Sonny Falcon.
     Sonny Falcon, the man whom the _Laredo Times_ called the Fajita King,
set up a concession stand and sold his grilled fajita tacos for the first
time at an outdoor festival in Kyle, Texas, in 1969.  Falcon's tacos made
fajitas famous, but they bore little resemblance to what we usually think of
as fajitas.  Falcon used only the thick meat of the inner skirt in his tacos.
 He never marinated the meat.  It was simply trimmed, butterflied (cut in
half lengthwise), grilled, and then chopped against the grain into bite-sized
pieces.
     Falcon's fajitas became a favorite at fairs and outdoor events all over
Texas.  But when people tried to cook Falcon's fajitas at home, they ended up
buying the tough outer skirt because it had the same name and was less
expensive.  The marinades and tenderizing treatments that are associated with
fajitas are a result of this confusion.  But whether they were made with the
tender inner skirt or the tenderized outer skirt, fajitas became such a fad
that the price of fajita meat skyrocketed.
     One of the first establishments to cash in on the fajita craze was the
restaurant in Austin's Hyatt Hotel.  But since fajita meat required so much
preparation, they substituted sirloin.  The Hyatt also began the practice of
serving the sliced, grilled meat with a pile of soft flour tortillas (Pg.
104--ed.) and other taco fillings such as guacamole, sour cream, and salsa,
so that patrons could roll their own tacos at the table.
     The meaning of the Spanish word became fuzzy as more and more
restaurants used the word _fajitas_ to describe a tabletop buffet of grilled
meats, soft tortillas, and condiments.  As a result, any grilled food served
with fillings and tortillas came to be called fajitas, including chicken
fajitas, shrimp fajitas, fish fajitas, and even veggie fajitas.
     For years, Sonny Falcon argued that fish fajitas and chicken fajitas,
which might be translated as fish skirts and chicken girdles, were completely
meaningless terms.  But no one paid much attention to the finer points of
Spanish translation.  Eventually, Falcon gave up.  In his shoort-lived
restaurant in Austin, The Fajita King, he too started serving chicken
fajitas.  "It killed me to do it, but I got tired of trying to explain it to
everybody," Falcon conceded.

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GOLF SLANG

THE LITTLE BOOK OF GOLF SLANG:
FROM FRIED EGGS TO FROG HAIRS, WORDS TO HELP YOU PASS AS A GOLFER
by Randy Voorhees
Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1997
92 pages, $4.95

    This book escaped my radar because it was with all those small "checkout
counter" books and not with the slang books.  There is no bibliography, no
etymologies.  Accept it like one of those internet lists of terms.
     Included are:

Ace, Afraid of the dark, Airmail, Albatross, Amateur slide, Backdoor,
Backhander, Bail out, Banana ball, Barky, Be the ball, the Beach, Bite,
Blade, no Blood, Bo Derek, Bob Barker, Bogey train, Bomb, Borrow, Boss of the
moss, Brassie, Broom, Bunt, like a Butterfly with sore feet, Cabbage, Can,
Carpet, Cart girl, Cart golf, Cellophane bridge, Center cut, Central America
putt, Chew, Chili dip, Comebacker, Cuppy, Cut, Dance floor, Dead, Deuce, Die
it in the hole, Digger, Double dip, Down and dirty, Downtown, Draino, Drive
for show and putt for dough, like a Dropped cat, Dub, Duck book, Duffer, Egg,
Elephant burial ground, Elephant's ass, hit it Fat, Feather, Flat bellies,
Flier, Flop shot, Flub, Fluffy, Flying elbow, Four-jack, Fried egg, Frog
hairs, Frosty, Fuzzy, Gas, Get down, Get up, Gimme, Go to school, Golf
lawyer, Golf widow, Good good, Greenie, Grinder, Grip it and rip it, Grocery
money, Grow teeth, Growl, Hacker, Hand mashie, Hanging, Hog's back,
Hollywood, Home hole, Horses for courses, Hooding the club, Hot, Hunching,
Iffy lie, In my pocket, In the leather, In the linen, Is that any good?,
Jail, Jaws, Jerk, Juice, Juicy lie, Jump, Jump on it, Jungle, Junk, Kick,
Knee-knocker, Knife, Knockdown, Knuckleball, Lag, Large, Launched, Lay the
sod over it, Leaf rule, Leak oil, Leaner, Lip out, Liz Taylor, Lockjaw, Long
and wrong, Lurking, Make the turn, Members bounce, Military golf, Milk the
grip, Monday's children, Money player, Move, Muff, Mulligan, Nassau, Nasty, a
Natural, the Neck, Needle, never in Never up, the Nineteenth hole, Nip it,
Nuked, OB, On the deck, On the screws, One a side, Oscar Brown, Overcook it,
Paint job, Peg, Pencil bag, Pencil hacker, Pick it, Pigeon, Pill, Pinch,
Pitch and putt, Plate, Play 'em down, Plugged, Pond ball, Pop, Pose, a
Position, Preferred lie, Press, Pro side, Pull, Punch, Push, Put a tack on
it, Quail high, Quick, Rake, Rattle it in, Ready golf, Ringer, a Rinse,
Robbed, the Rock, Roll it, Rope hook, Routine, Run, S-word, Sandbagger,
Sandy, Scats, Scrape it around, Scratch, Scuff, Set them up, Shag bag, Shape
it, Shooting the lights out, Short grass, Short stick, Shotgun start, Sitter,
 Skull, Sky, Slam-dunk, Slice, Slider, Smile, Smother hook,Snake, Snap hook,
Sniper, Snowman, Spinach, Spraying, Stake it, Stand on it, Stick, Sticks,
Stiff, Stoney, Stop the bleeding, Striped it, Suck back, Sucker pin, Take it
deep, Talk to it, Tester, Texas wedge, That dog will hunt, Three-jack,
Throw-up range, Tight, the Tips, Toe, Top, Tossing balls, Touch, Tracking,
Trap, Trouble shot, Trouble wood, Turn it over, Ugly, Up and down, Valleys,
Victory lap, Waggle, Weekend warriors, Whiff, Wind cheater, Windmill hole,
WInter rules, Wolf, Woodpecker, Work the ball, Worm burner, X, Yips, You da
man!, the Zone.