September 5, 2005
Section: Borderland
Page: 1B

Tempting salsas trump rainstorm
Michael D. Hernandez
El Paso Times

El Paso Times
Mother Nature cooled off the Texas Avenue Salsa Festival Sunday, sending spice-chasing connoisseurs, entertainers and dejected vendors for cover as a powerful afternoon thunderstorm struck Central El Paso.

Still, the steady rain and dark skies could not dampen appetites for salsa.

"We came to eat some good food, some good salsa," said Lower Valley resident Mari Tinajero, one of many at the event who huddled inside a vendor's tent to wait out the rain. "We're not leaving until we do that."

With its professional and amateur salsa-making competitions, salsa- eating contests, live salsa and jazz music and an appearance by the exceptionally fit Fantanas (dancers who promote the soft drink Fanta), the single-day event was expected to draw about 12,000 people, said Martha Farias, with the El Paso Empowerment Zone.

The festival is one of several events created by the empowerment zone to attract more businesses to Texas Avenue and help forge the thoroughfare into an entertainment district, she said.

But what mattered most to Master Sgt. Louis Dinatalo and his family from Biggs Army Airfield were the fiery flavors they dove into.

"I don't know what kind this is but they called it Rey Rey's recipe," Dinatalo said, caressing a container loaded with green salsa. "This stuff comes down like a train -- slow and steady."

Dinatalo's wife, Cathy, said she intended to enter the jalapeño-eating contest, while their 12-year-old son, Colin, was reeling from salsa overload.

"It's all so spicy," Colin said. "It makes me feel dizzy."