Looooo-cy! I’m home! You got some ‘splainin’ to do!
October 15, 2010
You know, I love my job. I love to travel. I just don’t like to do a whole lot of it in one big clump, as I’m in the process of right now. Two trips down, one to go, and I will have been away from home for 15 of the first 20 days of October.
OH, BUT BEFORE I GET INTO THAT: I AM ONCE AGAIN A FINALIST IN A FOOD 52 COMPETITION. PLEASE GO TO WWW.FOOD52.COM, CLICK ON CONTESTS, AND VOTE FOR MY MARINATED CAULIFLOWER! I would just be insufferably proud of myself if I could win twice, and get in two successive cookbooks.
Assorted travel notes:
Good, yes. How the West was won? Eh.
In ‘n Out Burger. Good fast food burger. Possibly the best fast food burger I’ve had since Back Yard Burgers was a fairly new concept and still did decent beef. It’s a thin patty; get a double if you want lots o’ beef. Comes standard with tomato, lettuce, pickle, a sauce that’s remniscent of good homemade Thousand Island. Can get it with a slab of grilled onion. Bun is flat enough to be manageable.
It was good. I wouldn’t throw it out. Meat was decidedly of the highest quality I’ve ever had at a fast food restaurant. Veggie were fresh. Sauce was spicy. Onion could’ve been grilled longer. But at the end of the day, it’s a fast food burger.
Albeit the No. 2 combo (single cheeseburger, medium drink, fries) will run you $5.15 including tax. That ain’t bad.
Elsewhere on the culinary landscape in Arizona….after that absolutely To Die For steak on Saturday night, my host-with-the-most, John, made enchiladas for us on Sunday night. John can make enchiladas for me any day, I might add. Thusly:
Shrimp, green chiles, cheese.
Shrimp with green sauce, left; chicken with red sauce, right.
The shrimp got an hour-long soak in a marinade of tomatillos, jalapenos, onion and cilantro, all whirred up in the FoPro. Then they and their marinade, which was left somewhat chunky, got a quick sear in a hot skillet. And when they got cooled down, they got lined up in corn tortillas (softened for a few seconds on a side in a hot skillet with oil), topped with a strip of jalapeno, a sprinkle of green chiles, a few onions, a sprinkle of cheese, and rolled.
Chicken got the grocery rotissere chicken, boned, plus the jalapeno-chiles-onion-cheese trimmings. Shrimp got canned green sauce, chicken got canned red sauce. They got about 45 minutes in the oven, and they were some fine enchiladas, I am here to testify. They were near-bout in Sweet Baby Jesus territory, and likely would have been had I not had a touch more tequila than I ought to have had the night before (because John makes SUCH a stinkin’ good maragarita), and my stomach was not as happy as it might have been.
Oh. The margaritas? Herradura tequila. Margarita mix. Triple Sec. Chambord. And a wedge o’ lime. They’ll hurt you, they’re so good.
Here would be Chef John with the finished product. His wife, Nancy, is a fortunate woman. But then, he didn’t do so bad, either.
- He cooks, he writes, he mixes great drinks. And he’s married, dammit.
Other than that, it was a relatively uninteresting week, culinarily. Beef medallions at the banquet Wednesday night. Junk food on the plane Thursday. Heavy hors d’oueves at the receptions Monday and Tuesday. And I took NS out to eat at the Purple Cow tonight.
