Don Day had a date with a beautiful woman this week.

But before I tell you about it, I should warn you, especially if you’re a married man like Don Day, if you’re considering a date with another woman, be very, very careful.

I thought I’d disguise it as a business meeting. But then I thought about all of those years, pre Don Day’s Wife, when I went out with clients or suppliers and, often, my only business goal was monkey business.

I had a bit of an excuse. I was meeting a fellow blogger. And I hadn’t had much experience with fellow bloggers. I wanted to know why someone other than me would be crazy enough to spend ten or fifteen hours a week curled up indoors with a laptop (in a part of the world that some say has the world’s finest of all climates). And why they would do this for a readership of a few hundred people and remuneration of exactly zilch.

We agreed to meet up in the Jardin. It’s the place where everybody meets up in San Miguel de Allende. And, as I was being very, very careful, I brought Don Day’s Wife.

Now of course, Don Day’s Wife had already checked my date out. Thoroughly. I’d seen her computer open to CupCakes and CrabLegs, my date’s blog site. And I knew that Don Day’s Wife was aware of the fact that for some reason unknown to most of mankind, women who bake, eat or are affectionately called Cupcake are always attractive.

There was also the woman’s name and where she was from. Susan York from Chicago. I could see it running through Don Day’s Wife’s brain. Susan York? Nobody’s called Susan York. It must be one of those stage names. And Chicago? The only Susan that Don Day’s Wife knew from Chicago was Suzie Lisowski. Now that’s a real Chicago name.

I’d suggested to Susan York we go to San Miguel’s weekly market for our date and, as the constantly competitive Don Day does, I added a little challenge: Why don’t we walk up?

Susan York emailed back, “I always walk to the Tuesday market. Both ways!”

Now, despite the fact that Don Day usually takes a cab back, this was actually good news. Because Don Day’s Wife does not walk to the Tuesday market. Either way. Especially if that’s where we’ll be eating (to those not familiar with the Tuesday Market in San Miguel de Allende, it’s about a two mile uphill walk from the middle of town and often involves an isosceles triangle type incline).

Don Day’s Wife has a golden rule about where she eats. She will take a taxi to virtually any hole in the wall but she will only walk to places that serve sparkling wine. So at least now I had an excuse to, if you’ll pardon the expression, ditch her right after the intros.

Susan York was already there when we arrived and when I saw that…or should I say when Don Day’s Wife saw that…she was a blue-eyed blonde (see what I mean about what Don Day’s Wife says about cupcakes), I thought Don Day’s Wife might actually make her first ascent to the market in quite a few years. But no, Don Day’s Wife jumped in a cab to join her friend Sally at the golf course. No, Don Day’s Wife doesn’t play golf; she just likes to walk the course and watch other people wrestle with their inner demons.

Susan and I discussed which route we’d take to the market. There are very difficult ways and there are less difficult ways. There are dusty, urban ways and there are quiet, country ways.  I think I was still remembering Susan’s “both ways” comment because I suggested El Chorro, the absolutely most difficult way which is 80% stairs with some at a 45 degree angle. I don’t know how many stairs there are but it’s definitely in the hundreds and there are a couple of shrines with the Virgin of Guadelupe on the way up probably to commemorate those blog writers who didn’t make it to the top. No new shrines were required on our ascent. In fact I was afraid Susan York was going to start sprinting.

Susan stopped a few times but only to take more pix. Her photography is what separates her blog from a lot of the others. I’m always jealous of the tight shots she takes of food; they’re the kind of shots that make you decide to eat dinner an hour earlier.

We arrived at the Tuesday market, a veritable smorgasbord (because Don Day doesn’t know an equivalent Spanish word for an enormous assortment of food) of stalls of some of the most interesting and delicious comfort food available anywhere in Central Mexico…no make that the world.

Since Don Day’s very first ever first date, with Patsy Dempsey when he was thirteen, Don Day has always wanted to play, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” on a first date. I asked Susan York if she was up for the game and damn it didn’t she want to go first.

She took me to the stall of the Rodriguez Family where she eats her barbacoa. I took her to the stall of Borreguita de Ora where Don Day eats his barbacoa.

She showed me the Bautista Brothers stall where she eats her carnitas. I showed her a different Bautista Brothers stall where Don Day eats his carnitas.

I was still thinking about Susan York’s “both ways” response to walking to the market. I still needed to one up Susan York. I needed to propose something she’d never done before. I suggested cabeza.

Now in his many decades of leading women astray, never in his life had Don Day ever had a woman agree to cabeza. It’s just something that a refined and proper woman never agrees to. Not just on a first date but on any date.

Susan York’s answer: “I’m up for absolutely anything.”

Now Don Day’s male friends, six foot going on seven foot something, 200 plus pound guys with crooked noses, thick ears and hockey stick scars on their eyebrows, have never agreed to cabeza. Especially when we’d arrived at the Tacos Lupita stall and Jose, the chef and son of the stall’s namesake Lupe has asked them what portion of the cabeza or roasted cow’s head they’d like in their taco.

Yes, Don Day wishes he had a picture of those macho man cringes when they’re asked would they prefer the ojo (eye), oreja (ear), cachete (cheek), lengua (tongue), or labios (lips).

When I asked five foot something, big blue-eyed Susan York what part of the cabeza she would like in her taco, she said, “Why don’t you choose?”

Don Day chose the eyeballs, the brains and the cheeks and the two chairs closest to the makeshift kitchen so we could watch what Jose was dishing out to the other diners.

Jose’s sister placed the tacos in front of us along with a side plate of jicama, cucumber, peppers and pickled cabbage. On our main taco plates, pink for Susan York and green for Don Day, which obviously had some deep psychological meaning (or they were left over from Christmas), were a sauteed onion and a triangular green something from the vegetable family. I took a bite of my taco and a bite of the triangular green something but couldn’t identify what it was. I thought it had a hint of anise. I asked Susan York what she thought it was. She nibbled off the itsy-bitsiest, teeniest piece from the corner.

“I’ll eat eyes and cheeks and brains”, she told me, “but I won’t eat things that are green”.

Susan had been a cabeza virgin before our visit to Tacos Lupita. I asked how she’d enjoyed her first time.

“I like it”, she said, “a lot more than the cecina (a dish made from salt cured beef leg that we had earlier in our day at the market). It’s really good with the pickled cabbage (which was white not green).”

Don Day thinks people expect cabeza to have a strong taste similar to liver or kidney but it doesn’t. It’s a beefy taste somewhat similar to the taste of shank. And when the meat is well butchered and chopped fine like it is at Tacos Lupita, it melts in the mouth.

Susan and I took another route back from the market, along Real de Xichu and down through Ojo de Agua, a route without steps but with grades where you feel you might end up ass over teakettle at almost any moment. We talked about why we were bloggers and the joy from knowing we had influenced another person to come to San Miguel de Allende or from persuading someone to try a little known restaurant that really deserved their business. We also talked about how we could encourage more readers because we were both aware that a lot of blogging is about ego and fulfilling some unfinished goals in life.

Susan York and Don Day were back at the Jardin. We hugged and Susan went off to get ready for an Oaxacan dinner at Casa de Cocinas. Don Day went home to write this blog but before he did, he weighed himself. He’d lost three pounds but he thinks he gained a very charming, very interesting, very attractive and very fit new friend.

You can read Susan York’s blog at http://www.cupcakesandcrablegs.com/. You can find Tacos Lupita every Tuesday at the Mercado Municipale in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. If you divide the market into six segments, it’s in the middle of the one that’s furthest to the North and East.