Jane Williams going to the foodie goodies in Mexico

Ole! This is what I call a REAL cookout!

BJ Advertising Art retiree Mike Williams (BJ 1968-2012) and wife Jane Spiess Williams give a new meaning to cookout.

Jane enjoys more than the food

They are in Mexico again, since Jane has trouble with the altitude in their previous haunt, Ecuador, particularly trekking up the Andes Mountains. 13,000 feet isn’t much fun for some people.

Photo is of Jane going for the uchepos at the Tarerio village booth at the Cocineros Tradicionales food festival in Morelia, where the wandering Williamses hung out last year, too.

In January they were in Guadalupe.

Mike explains the cookout cavalcade:

“Cooking booths had an outdoor cooker of some kind out front. Several guys kept busy with wheelbarrows full of wood, supplying the fires.

“Three huge dining tents sheltered several hundred tables from the strong sun.

“Last year we went on the weekend, could barely find two seats together. This year we waited til Monday, the third day, early, found it much more relaxed.”

Jane is Mike’s interpreter for the Spanish because “she speaks it much better than me,” Mike said.

Jane became fluent in Spanish because her first husband was from Ecuador and they spent a lot of time there.

Mike with John Olesky during the Papa Joe's lunch days

Jane, being a woman, gives a better description of the cookout heaven:

“An area the size of a football field with several really large tents filled with tables with fabric tablecloths and staff ready to pick up your decorated clay tableware as soon as you are finished with your samples offered by about 100 vendors.”

Mike and Jane, who will celebrate their 37^th wedding anniversary in Mexico on March 19, have two sons, independent trucker Nathan Williams and chemical engineer Trevor Williams. Mike retired in December 2012 after 44 years, including coming under John Grimm’s wing in 1976.

Mike’s sister, BJ information technology retiree Linda Williams Torson, is married to Akron-Summit County Metroparks retiree Tim Torson. Linda was with the Beacon Journal for 42 years.

Another sister, former clinical dietician Cindy Williams Chima, worked in the BJ classified phone room in the 1970s and writes fiction novels for young adults.

Linda started in the Beacon Journal classified phone room in the summer at age 16 before her senior year in high school.  Helen Becton, manager in the phone room at the time, got a two-fer:  Linda's twin Cindy started at the same time.