20 Nov 2015 8 Comments
in Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: beef, chili cook off, Del Maguey, Engine 69, humor, Sonora, Tecate, Topanga, Topanga Community Club, vaquero
I guess it wouldn’t be Topanga if our annual Chili Cook-off was a legitimate competition.
Goofy chilis often win. Last year, in the traditional chili category, the top prize went to a Moroccan lamb chili. This year, second place went to friend Kali’s chili — which featured habanero whipped cream and strawberries. (And was actually quite tasty, once I got enough past my initial shock to try some.)
08 Mar 2013 5 Comments
in Food, Humor, Recipes Tags: Baja California, cochinita pibil, machaca, margarita, Mexican cooking, Mexico, Milton Brook, Nayarit, Sonora, tacos
Unless you’re a drug runner, things in Mexico generally move pretty slowly. I remember watching an entire construction crew working on a resort collapse in the heat and humidity of the late morning in Nayarit, and nap on site until the mid afternoon.
Machaca, mid-mash
A lot of the foods of Mexico are slow, too. In the Yucatan, for example, they wrap pigs in banana leaves and bury them in the ground to cook for a day. Nobody’s setting timers or watching the clock. And in the cowboy cattle country of the desert north, they hang strips of beef in the sun to dry out in the blazing sun. Up there, they call it machaca. More
23 Sep 2011 6 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Recipes Tags: art, finishing, Mexican, Mexico, recipe, serving, Sonora, soup, swiss chard, tortilla
A lot of the difference between what I (the average chef) do when serving a meal and what you (the average home cook) do can be summed up, at least in terms of presentation, as the subtle art of finishing.
It takes practically nothing but a little imagination to turn a dish from ordinary to inspired. Here’s a picture of some tortilla soup:
Looks reasonably good, right? And it tasted great! But now, here’s a picture of that same soup — finished with a couple tortilla chips, some sour cream, a handful of spicy pepitas and a sprinkling of ancho chili powder. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 