09 Apr 2015
by scolgin
in Cooking Tips, Food, Humor
Tags: Better Than Bouillon, Caesar salad, Casa Tres Coronitas, chilaquiles, fish tacos, Knorr, margaritas, nasi goreng, tacos, Trader Joe's
I’m one of those fancy chefs who serves small portions, treats the plate like a canvas and uses flowers and ingredients you’ve never heard of. But I’m also a fan of shortcuts.
Many of the world’s best chefs will readily admit to resorting to shortcuts when they’re cooking.
While we were staying at the Casa Tres Coronitas in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, last October, I asked the house chef, Marilu, to show me how to make her famous salsa. She was giving me a lesson and it was nothing out of the ordinary — tomatillos, onion, garlic, chiles de arbol, salt. And then she reached into the cupboard to pull out her “secret ingredient” — Knorr powdered chicken bouillon. Sure enough, when I tried it at home (with the bag of Knorr powdered chicken bouillon Marilu picked up for me at the supermercado), it contributed a salty umami depth that was missing before I added it. Couldn’t have been the MSG, could it?? More
28 Feb 2015
by scolgin
in Recipes, The Pantry
Tags: cheese, chicharrones, Mexican cooking, Mexico, queso cotija, recipes, Saul Garcia construction, tacos
My friend, Saul, who grew up one of nearly a dozen children without electricity or running water on a farm some 45 minutes from the nearest village in Mexico, once brought me back from a visit with his parents a chunk of cheese his mother had made. Of course it was raw, of course it was artisanal — not in the self-congratulatory way of the contemporary foodie, but in the “what other way is there?” way of the peasant farmer.
“Mr. Chicharron, we’re ready for your close up.”
Not only was it a thoughtful and generous gift — it was delicious, with a grassy freshness pairing with a slightly tart complexity reminiscent of bufala mozzarella, a characteristic more often more evident in raw cheeses. More
26 Aug 2014
by scolgin
in Eating Out, Recipes
Tags: barbecue, Camping, ceviche, Mexican cooking, Santa Maria grilling, Sea of Cortez, tacos, Topanga, Topanga Community Club
I was a bit skeptical when I first got the email. Our local community club, which is always having some event or other, had dreamed up a new one: the Fiddle & Griddle family campout.
Albacore & shrimp ceviche
It was to take place on the baseball field on a Saturday in August, there would be a Santa Maria-style grill to cook on, games for the kids, campfire singalongs and so forth. It sounded interesting, but probably wasn’t our style of thing — I’m a reluctant camper, I find the packing up, unloading, setting up camp, breaking down, packing back up and unloading again a laborious process, especially for a single night a couple miles from home. More
18 Mar 2014
by scolgin
in Humor, On the Road, Recipes
Tags: Casa Tres Coronitas, cooking, corned beef, food, humor, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, recipes, St. Patrick's Day, tacos
We just can’t get enough of Mexico.
Today we boarded a plane and headed two-plus flight hours south of our home to our favorite spot, Casa Tres Coronitas on the coast of Pacific Mexico just south of Puerto Vallarta.
Sunset for St. Patty
Last time we came, in October of last year, my wife had had enough of Mexico. More specifically, she had had enough of the mosquitos that hovered in clouds around our heads, penetrated our mosquito netting and generally rendered the Mexican nights of what would have otherwise been a perfect vacation intolerable. October, you see, is the end of the monsoon season, and we had the misfortune of visiting a week after a hurricane. There was water — lots of water — everywhere, and the mosquitos were happy. More
08 Mar 2013
by scolgin
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
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