First Night

I made it to Austin (woohoo!) this afternoon, put everything in storage and got rid of the trailer, which makes driving a whole lot easier. Later, I  ate two tacos for dinner at the dog park, thereby combining two of the many things that made me so excited about this town.

The trip total comes out to just about two thousand miles in five days. I’m looking to really slow down the pace on the next leg, for increased enjoyment and reduced gas spending. First, however, are a few days of no driving while I do errands and take the last few tests.

 

Mi Pueblo

East Palo Alto finally got its own real grocery store a few months ago, which is great news for the town and for those of us who love tortillas, beans, cheese and peppers in all of their forms. As far as I can tell, Mi Pueblo seems to be a success, which is not surprising considering that EPA was a prime example of a food desert – it hadn’t had a grocery store in the town since the seventies. And their website intro is awesome.

Sarah went there yesterday to get ingredients for “real” quesadillas. She told her students in EPA what we think of as quesadillas: big flour tortilla with shredded bag cheese and whatever else you want to put in. They laughed at her and told her what she needed for an authentic quesadilla.

1. Corn tortillas.
2. Queso fresco.
3. Queso oaxaca.

She got some limes and tomatoes, too, and we made an awesome dinner, complete with tequila and chick flicks. This morning, after getting some asparagus, I took liberties with the tortillas and cheese to make some brunch quesadillas with egg and asparagus. Those were also pretty damn good.

Man gets day in jail for throwing taco at manager

Man gets day in jail for throwing taco at manager – Boston.com

Taco Bell tacos are pretty much only good for throwing, anyway.

Bean Foam

Harris is wearing a glow-in-the-dark spaceship onesie while he cooks a massive amount of beans. I think the onesie is the leisure version of coveralls. The beans soaked all day long and the water was dark purple when he rinsed them out. And then when he started boiling them, there was a great grayish-purple foam. I think that’s the stuff that makes the farts, right?

Other than potty humor, I haven’t added much to the cooking. I made a really fancy dinner for myself by putting a yam in the oven and forgetting about it for an hour while I got lost in some websites about tacos and burritos. I’m particularly enamored of Burritoeater and their twelve-point scientific rating process, but they should take some field trips down to the Peninsula. On that end, California Taco Trucks picks up the slack, providing some broader commentary, minus the in-depth rating system and moustache apparel.

Exploding Taco

Deep Sea Fishing

Sometimes this happen that totally surpass my childhood expectations about adulthood. Sometimes, you get something really awesome. Especially on a farmers’ market day, this is a really great email to get:

I went deep sea fishing on Friday as part of my bro’s quasi bachelor party, and nobody had a way to transport their fish home… except for me. So I’ll be returning home tonight with ~15lbs of fresh (as of Friday…) red snapper. I’m not a great cook, and might need some help, but who’s down for some fish tacos tonight???

And I’m pretty excited that my life right now includes that kind of stuff. Hell yeah. So, besides just glowing with the possibilities, we did actually do something with all that fish.

Meal one: fish tacos! Did I mention that I love tacos? We pan-fried the snapper, just a minute or two on each side, in olive oil. Also available for custom taco-making were endless cuban beans, brown rice, fresh salsa, and special select Costco bell peppers. Also, too-hot peppers from the market at the Civic Center in San Francisco, which I over-enthusiastically bought for $1/pound and have been totally unable to eat more than a quarter of a pepper in a meal without numbing my whole mouth. No wonder they were so cheap. We also chopped up lovely bright purple cabbage, one of my least favorite foods, but really perfect on top of it all.

Meal two: ceviche. Well shit. I… don’t really like ceviche. But it looks beautiful, all cilantro and tomatoes and onions (and fish, obviously). And although we made way to much (fifteen pounds of any fish-based dish is bound to be too much), everyone has really been enjoying it. What’s it going to take for me to get over that raw-fish issue? I like sushi, but the whole “cooking in acid” explanation doesn’t convince me. Yet.