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A
BACHELOR'S
CUPBOARD
Mexican
and
Creole
Cooking
mous
San
Franciscan
artists
and
where
writers,
mu-
sicians,
and
painters
met
to
drink
Chianti
and
eat
spaghetti,
ravioli,
and
frittura,
and
through
their
smoke
wreaths
admire
the
w^onderfully
suggestive
frescoes
re-
calling
Gelett
Burgess
and
his
"
goops,"
Jack
London,
and
other
celebrities
whose
names
were
lettered
upon
the
border
together
with
those
of
"
Maisie,"
"
Isabel,"
"
Murger,"
"
Verlaine,"
and
other
good
Bohemians
who
know
how
to
live
—
and
to
die.
The
restaurants
of
Chinatown
passed
by,
there
was
that
of
one
Matias
in
the
Telegraph
Hill
region
which
was
unique
of
all
eating
places
in
the
West.
For
it
was
a
Mexican
res-
taurant
over
which
Matias,
an
Austrian,
presided
proudly,
and
served
his
few^
patrons
in
the
two
clean,
shabby
little
rooms
that
smelled
of
garlic
and
were
decorated
with
colored
prints
all
the
way
from
Spain,
showing
glorious
bull
fights
in
every
stage
from
a
hand-
some,
lone
matador,
calmly
awaiting
the
onslaught
of
Taurus,
to
the
gory
finish
with
rivers
of
blood;
and
from
without,
coming
through
the
open
windows,
all
the
clattering
tongues
of
Italian
and
Greek,
Mexican
and
Portuguese,
denizens
of
the
"
Barbary
Coast."
In
the
little
alcove
kitchen
in
the
rear
of the
first
room
stood
Matias's
w^ife,
a
handsome,
liquid-eyed
Mexican
woman
of
thirty,
busily
cooking
the "
Albun-
digos,"
"
Tamales,"
stirring
the
"
Chili
con
carne,"
and
rolling
the
"
Enchiladas
" for
the
Senor
who
sat
in
the
next
room
drinking
of
the
heavy,
puckery
Mexi-
can
wine.
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