Why "Mucho Poocho"?

Mucho Poocho Publishing’s name is a long-running joke between Lisa and her late father, Bill Leader. When Lisa was five, her family moved from Pennsylvania to Texas because her dad's military base closed. There were no jobs since the base was the town’s biggest employer. So, her dad reluctantly transferred his position to an Air Force base in San Antonio. The family lived in a small apartment until they found a house. They left all their family and friends behind in Pennsylvania. Her dad decided one morning to get breakfast at the inexpensive cafeteria at the base. He came home and told Lisa’s mom that he had the worst pancakes he had ever had and to quote him, “Texans can’t make pancakes.” A few weeks later, he was telling the story to one of his friends who had been one of the first in their group to make that move to Texas. “Bill, those are tortillas!” His friend told him. He explained that you put eggs, cheese, salsa, or whatever you want in them. Bill had put butter and pancake syrup on them.

Bill decided he probably needed to learn more about the Texan culture, which has a heavy Hispanic influence. He taught Lisa’s mom to call the Jalapeño peppers, “Hal-uh-pay-noes” instead of “Jalopy a nose.” Little Lisa, at this time, started taking an elementary school Spanish class. At dinner every night, they would discuss the few words Lisa had learned. Her dad began explaining tamales, breakfast tacos, pralines, and other delicacies to the new Texans.

One day, Lisa came home from school and announced that she would get extra credit if she taught her Spanish class a new word. Her dad would bring a word home from the people he worked with until one day he forgot. Trying to save the situation, her dad told her he would give her two words this evening. Lisa remembers being barely able to contain her excitement. Her dad said, “I’m going to teach you Mucho Poocho. It means big dog.” Not knowing better, Lisa went proudly to school the next day and was the first to give her word. She came home in tears. 

So, the term “Mucho Poocho” became the thing to say in the Leader household if you were trying to tell someone that they didn’t know what they were talking about. As they both got older, it became an endearment between Lisa and her dad, always making the other one smile.