Thursday, August 30, 2007

Whatsa Happenin', Hot Stuff?

The celebration of the green chile continues. I peeled all the chiles I brought home from New Mexico, chopped them up, and put them in the freezer until I get ready to cook with them. The local grocery stores have been selling them for the last couple of weekends, and last weekend I stocked up. The store that I went to had two varieties – mild and hot. Since I figured that there was no way that “hot” could be as hot as some of the stuff that I had in New Mexico, I bought 3 containers of hot.

I wanted to use at least some of these chiles without freezing them, so I decided to make a green chile stew as my first dish using one container of the hot chiles. I used this recipe, although I was skeptical of the use of tomatoes (I love tomatoes but I have never had them in any green chile stew that I have had before). Side note: How in the hell is one supposed to "seed" a tomato? Due to my confusing “cups” and “cans” (14oz.) momentarily, I added about twice as much liquid as the recipe called for. This resulted in the dish turning out more like soup than stew. It has decent flavor, but I did need to add some salt. One other thing, though – this stuff turned out way hotter than I was expecting. From the first spoonful it brought the heat. Although I have curtailed my consumption of spicy foods over the last 3 years due to GERD, I have lots of experience eating some pretty hot stuff. And this stuff is pretty damn hot. I’ve found I can eat the soup if I eat much more slowly than I normally would. Which may be a good thing because I think it makes it easier to notice when you’ve had enough to eat. I can already tell that my tolerance for hotness has increased after eating this soup for three nights this week! I think for my next batch of stew I will use this recipe. I think the cumin will be a good addition. I may add hominy to make it more like posole. But, before I make more stew I’m dying to make some cornbread using this recipe (you have to scroll down for the cornbread recipe).

Today on the way home from work I stopped again and got some mild chiles. They are starting to run pretty low, but I think I have a pretty good supply. Tonight I peeled and chopped the hot ones from last Sunday. By the middle of the second container my throat and nose were burning and begging for mercy.


The green chile "soup"

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

E-Clips

Did any of you see the eclipse this morning? Or as our ancestors would have said: "Did you see that giant dragon eat the moon and then spit it back up this morning?" Anyway, I tried to take some photos. What kind of sucks is that only the very first photo I took of the red moon was in focus. Not coincidentally that was the only one where I could get the autofocus to work. Blah. It was so dark I was just guessing on the manual focus after that. And setting focus to infinity does not work on the moon! If I hadn't been trying to get ready for work at the same time I would have spent more time fiddling with it.









Monday, August 27, 2007

SPC - Patterns 4

Wow, I can't believe the month is already over. Nothing profound here, I just always wondered where that pattern for bandanas came from. I haven't found a very good explanation so far about this specific paisley pattern, that seems to be considered the "traditional" bandana design. To learn more about bandanas than you ever thought possible, this is an interesting article. All it says about the paisley design is "Interestingly, the paisley design was not originally a bandanna decoration, although it too is of Indian origin." Hmm, the mystery continues.


To see what other people are doing with this theme, click here to visit the SPC website.

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Baby Ate Soil

The strange search terms continue. One that has actually shown up more than once is “baby ate soil”. C’mon, really? I’m not a parent, but I imagine that the average baby is going to eat lots of things that are more worrisome than dirt. Like those “meat sticks” for example. In any case, this search term inspired me to write a song.

Baby ate soil
It gave her a rash
Even worse than the time
That baby ate trash

Baby ate soil
And me no like-a
Cause it could indicate
That baby got pica

Baby ate soil
Cause it tastes so good
It made her poop loose
Like you knew it would

Baby ate soil
It smells better than mud
Baby gettin’ awful sick
Of that Gerber crud

GUITAR SOLO

Baby ate soil
But don’t you worry
That soil gonna exit baby
In a mighty hurry

Baby ate soil
It ain’t no joke
Specially when you notice
Baby’s diaper done broke

Baby ate soil
But it ain’t no sin
Just watch baby shovel
That dirty dirt in

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Wabbit West Stop or Bunny Buffet

I'm all about teh creepy on here. So what could be creepier than... bunnies! I've had a plethora of lagomorpha leporidae in my yard recently. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm being really lazy about mowing this year so my grass is getting kind of long. I also think the fact that I don't have a dog helps. My backyard has kind of become a place for the neighborhood rabbits to chill and get their graze on. I sure hope rabbit pellets are good fertilizer!




I like this pose.







Look at this huge mouthful of grass!


Closeup

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

SPC - Patterns 3

This month's theme is patterns. This photo kind of made me think of that contraption that Hannibal Lector was locked into in Silence of the Lambs.





To see what others are doing with this theme, click here.

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Meow Mix

The Cat Power (AKA Chan Marshall) concert was quite the experience. I showed up about an hour before doors and brought my camera. I thought everything would be cool with the camera because several employees saw me standing in line with it (and the people behind me had an SLR too), and none of them said anything to me about it. When I got up to the will call window I heard them tell the person in front of me that cameras were not allowed. They said it all depends on the wishes of the performer and that CP had a big freakout that day and didn’t want any cameras in the place. I was pissed, but I noticed that after they gave me my wristband nobody was looking at me so I just walked in. After I was ensconced up front a guy came around and gave us a speech and all he said was that flashes were not allowed. So I thought I was golden since I didn’t want to use a flash anyway. I’ll come back to the camera issue in a moment.

The opening act was a guy named Micah P. Hinson. He did folksy/rock kind of songs with just an electric guitar and his voice. Kind of a Dylanesque trip. I liked his stuff, I thought he was enjoyable. There was a huge distraction for me during his set, though. While everyone was waiting for the show to start, these 2 Russian guys came in and stood next to me. They were just yakketty, yakketty, yacking their asses off in Russian. Before the show started I actually didn’t find them too distracting. In fact, I think listening to them was better than listening to people blabber in English. I get really distracted when I hear people talking, it’s kind of like my brain can’t help but focus on the conversation. The fact that I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying made it easier to tune them out. That is until the opening act came on. These 2 idiots just kept right on talking to each other throughout the whole set. And of course they had to talk more loudly to be heard over the music. What kind of idiots do this on the front row? The performer was clearly annoyed although he didn’t say anything. I think he played some louder numbers for the purpose of drowning them out. I shot them a couple of stinkeyes but it didn’t help. I was prepared to say something if they continued during CP, and I didn’t think CP would take too kindly to it either.

I was nervous about the camera, so I let the guy who was a couple of people over from me (and who also had an SLR) make the first move to see what would happen. He took some photos during the opening act, and no one seemed to mind, so I took a few as well. I thought I would do the same thing with CP, let him try it first and see what happened. I didn’t want to be the guy that caused her to flip out and end her show!

There was quite a long wait in between acts, about 45 minutes. People were starting to get restless when CP finally took the stage around 10:30. She came out with a cup of coffee (which now subs for the booze) and a cigarette. She set down the coffee and handed the cigarette to one of the Russian guys. I thought maybe she wanted him to hold on to it for a while, but apparently she was done with it. He either thought the same thing or wasn’t a smoker because he never took a puff. She started off with “The Greatest” and it sounded pretty good. I’m not sure if it was a function of being right at the front of the stage or what, but I couldn’t understand much of what she said all evening when she spoke into the mic. Apparently people further back could because they laughed at certain points. On the songs the vocals sounded kind of quiet, so maybe being right up front wasn’t the place to get the best sound. The band (Dirty Delta Blues Band) was great. Chan performs lots of cover songs, but you may not know that some of them are covers because of the way that she totally reinvents them. Pretty much only the words remain the same. Nothing else does – chords, vocal phrasings, or even melodies. “Satisfaction” was nearly unrecognizable. Thankfully the Russians fell silent.

I have to say that Cat gave her all during this show. She was dancing around a little bit, kneeling down at times, leaning against the monitors, whipping her mic cord around, and several times getting right up on the edge the stage in what seemed an effort to connect with the people in the back. It was very surreal for me to see her leaning against the monitor that was directly in front of me and looking down at me while she sang. Surreal, but amazing. She looked directly at me a couple of times, and I couldn’t help but smile. She smiled back too. Awesome. She lit up several times during the show and after taking a few drags would offer the cigarette to someone in the crowd (hey mom, I got mono from Cat Power!). At one point someone sparked up a J and then offered it to her. She took it and looked at it, but when she figured out it was a joint she gave it back. The whole smoking thing was kind of funny because this was a non-smoking venue. At one point the security guys made someone near me put out the cigarette they got from Cat. I heard them protest: “But it came from her!” Security didn’t care. And is Chan big in the lesbian community? The only reason that I ask is because there were a lot of women and girls just going crazy to get one of her cigarettes. They were practically swooning. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So about the camera. I kept waiting for the other guy to bring out his camera, but he never did. There were lots of camera phones going off, including many flashes, and there was no freakout occurring, so I finally decided to try using mine. I took a few photos, but it was very dark on stage so I wasn’t sure how well they would turn out. After about an hour and 15 minutes Cat said they were taking a break (I did catch some of those words) and said they would be back. During the break I was leaning against the stage reviewing some of my photos when a guy who worked there came up to me and told me I needed to stop taking pictures. He said they had kicked out about 40 people for using cameras and that I had to stop. I told him I would. I have no idea why he didn’t kick me out (maybe because I wasn’t using a flash?). If CP decided not to come back I was hoping that it wasn’t my fault! Thankfully after a pretty short break they did come back and I kept the camera in my camera bag for the rest of the show. Being fairly new to the world of CP, I don’t think I fully realized that this was something that actually could have derailed her performance. From what I’ve been able to determine she’s ended shows over less. Next time I’ll heed the warning.

The vibe was strange but interesting. It seems like the band didn’t have a setlist after the first handful of songs. Chan would kind of rely on the band to pick a song and then she would start singing if she approved of it. Sometimes the keyboard player would start playing a song and sometimes it was the guitar player. When she heard something she liked she got all excited and then would start singing at the appropriate point. At the end of many of the songs she would give a thumbs up or thumbs down I guess to indicate whether she thought it was any good or not. A surprising number of songs she rated as thumbs down, even though I thought they sounded great. It’s funny how people’s own perception of themselves can differ so much from how others perceive them. As the night went on though the number of thumbs up songs increased. This method of picking songs kind of resulted in a weird lull in-between songs that seemed to sap some of the energy from the room until the next song started. On the flip side though it also fostered a feeling of spontaneity and the feeling that something incredible could happen. She seemed to feed off of the energy of the crowd as the night wore on.

At one point she said that the song that the band started playing was her dog’s favorite song, and she brought her dog out on stage. The dog looked like a Boston terrier mixed with something else. The dog wandered around the stage and would sometimes come up to the front to get some lovin’ from the crowd. Chan kept a really close eye on the dog when she would go up to the front of the stage, and one time she came out and retrieved her after the dog went up to the front. The show came to an end at about 10 minutes after 1(!), after Chan had been playing drums with the band for about 10 minutes. Finally, I see another concert of Ween-like length!

It was a very entertaining show. You definitely got the sense that this was a mercurial artist that you were watching. I’m betting that you rarely see the same show twice with CP. We lucked out and all the seemingly disparate elements came together to make a satisfying stew (if you will). At times she seemed almost shy up there, and at other times she seemed like the consummate performer. You got the sense that this is someone who likes to take risks and experiment. You know, like an actual artist. Of course when someone does that they take the chance that the risks might not pay off, but when they do it can lead to interesting things. Apparently her shows were a lot more hit or miss when she was still drinking. There is still that element of unpredictability, though. Would I go again? Damn skippy. Why would so many people put up with all this craziness? That voice. Listen to it and you’ll understand.

MP3: The Greatest





The opening act - Micah P. Hinson





There was just something I really loved about how this amp looked in the light, and the beer sitting on top.

Here's his Bob Dylan suitcase.


Cat Power - AKA Chan Marshall




Did I mention how dark it was?


That's her coffee cup sitting behind her music stand.



And this is her shoe!


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Saturday, August 18, 2007

I Live to Give

I’ve gotten a lot of hits this week from people searching for the answers to life’s great questions. I hate to leave people going away empty-handed, so I’ll provide some answers.

To the person who searched for “Random Breakfast Facts”:

Random breakfast fact #1: Breakfast starts with a “B”.

Since I’m feeling generous I’ll offer another one:

Random breakfast fact #2: Breakfast is traditionally the first meal of the day.

To the person who searched for “What I Ate For Breakfast”:

If you are having short term memory problems you might want to try writing down what you ate for breakfast on a piece of paper immediately after eating. Then put the piece of paper in your pocket so you can refer to it later.

To the person who searched for “if she says she's busy is she playing hard to get”:

The answer is no. She thinks you’re a disgusting toad. Move on.

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Concert the Next

Lest you think I am only a fan of the sophomoric bizarro rawk, I must admit that I am also a fan of the distinctive female voice. Especially of the melancholy variety. I am going to see one in concert tonight - Cat Power. I must admit that I knew her by reputation only when I heard about this show. I had heard many glowing reviews of her work. From what I gather, this show is a one shot deal that she is doing because she is in Dallas to record her next album. I figured "why not?".


I bought her latest album and I have listened to it about 5 times now. It's pretty good. I'm definitely interested in hearing more of her stuff. I absolutely love the first song. You can listen to it in its entirety here. Go to their "Radio Granada" section over on the right side of the screen and scroll down until you see Cat Power. It's the first song on the list under her name. There is one other song of hers there as well.




I called the theater yesterday to ask about bringing my camera, and they wouldn't give me a straight answer. So it looks like I am going to have to show up early so I can take it back to the car if need be. Her website has a "Fan Photos" section (it's one of those Flash dealybobs so I can't link it directly), so I am hopeful that I will be able to take some pictures.

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Ween Night 2 - House of Blues

My second night of Ween in three days was at the House of Blues in Dallas. I’d throw them a link, but since they wouldn’t let me bring my camera to the show they can suck it. Matter of fact, from here on out they shall be referred to as “the venue”. The venue is fairly new so this was my first trip there. It’s nice, but security seemed a little overimpressed with themselves. I heard there were bathroom attendants, which is kind of cool, but I never set foot in there so I didn’t get to experience that.

I got there about an hour before the doors were scheduled to open. Even without the camera I wanted to be as close as possible. There were some people in front of me, but not too many. They finally let us in about 15 minutes late. It felt great to get back into an air conditioned space! Through some sort of connections, I surmise, there were already people along most of the barrier up front. I headed over toward the right though and found a spot over on the far right side of the stage. Oddly enough social JC showed up that night, so I talked to the girl who was standing next to me. All I had to say was “Have you been to any of the other Texas shows?” and she was off and running. She and her friends had been to all of them! That’s hardcore. She even bought me a beer. I guess sometimes it pays off to be social.

Overall I thought it was a great show, but I didn’t think it was the best Ween show I have been to. If I would have had any say about it I’d have voted for fewer repeats from Thursday, but that’s a minor complaint. The sound was really bass-heavy, and it was hard to understand Deaner when he spoke into his mic (although when he sang it was OK). Pretty good sound overall, although I thought the sound at Stubb’s was a little better, which is surprising for an outdoor venue. The Deaner-sung stuff absolutely destroyed, especially “I Got to Put the Hammer Down” and “Awesome Sound”. Deaner broke a guitar string during “Awesome Sound” and had to switch out guitars in the middle of the song. Not to mention that a drum had to be replaced during Claude’s drum solo in “Waving My D*** In the Wind”, and he didn’t miss a beat (heh). One oddity was that they played one of their new songs, “Fiesta”, twice. It was the first song they played as well as the first song of the encore. I’m guessing maybe they needed a song they could play without Gener because he didn’t come out with the rest of the band at the beginning of the encore. I don’t know, maybe it was just a screw-up. For me the highlights were “Awesome Sound”, “Hammer”, “What Deaner Was Talkin’ About”, “Big Jilm”, “Homo Rainbow”, and “Buenas Tardes Amigo”. Not to mention that the show closed with a 30 minute(!) version of LMLYP that included amazing bass and drum solos.

One good thing about the Ween is that you get great value for your concert dollar. This show was 2 hours and 55 minutes! The Austin show I went to was 2:45. This is why most other concerts seem so damn short to me.

I have seen people bitching on the Ween forum about the Dallas show. “The band was tired”, “The crowd sucked”, blah, blah, blah. These people don’t know what they’re talking about. The crowd was going nuts and sang along to every single song. Hell, listen to the torrent – the crowd is almost as loud as Gener. And the band didn’t sound tired even though they had every excuse to since this was the fourth show in four days. I think part of this is that a lot of people hate Dallas (understandable sometimes) as well as the fact that the night before in Austin was an epic show. You know that long setlist from my Austin post? On night two they played a setlist just as long with not a single duplication from the previous night, including one of my all-time favorite songs that I have never seen live – “Fluffy”. That’s something like 66 songs over 2 days! It killed me that I couldn’t be there on Friday, but I had a previous commitment that was set in stone. At least I’ve got the audio. Dallas was more of a standard setlist, but it was still a great show. Oh, and I bet that 2/3s if not more of that audience was at Stubb’s too, so a lot of the people in this “terrible” crowd were part of the “great” crowd too. I guess the poor babies were tired. Hell, there was even a guy who crowd surfed and ended up on the stage at the end of “Powder Blue”. What did we have to do, burn the damn place down?

After the show I lingered trying to get a setlist. No luck there. I almost got a drumstick. The roadie threw it towards the row of people at the front of the barricade. I anticipated that it would bounce off of their hands, which it did, and it hit a guy looking the other way and then hit the floor. I shamelessly dived onto the floor and grabbed it with both hands. Right after I did, this girl also grabbed on with both hands. We both stood up and I was unsuccessful in wrestling it away from from her. We were in a Mexican standoff - both holding on to the drumstick with two hands. She claimed that she had it first (which was total BS). These guys standing around said "Let her have it". I was pretty much screwed. What was I was going to do, punch her? So I let her have it (the drumstick). There's always next time I guess.

Setlist:
Fiesta
Take Me Away
Transdermal Celebration
Waving My Dick In The Wind
Mr. Richard Smoker
Slow Down Boy
Bananas & Blow
Spinal Meningitis
Voodoo Lady
The Party
Buckingham Green
Zoloft
Gabrielle
Touch My Tooter
Stallion Pt 5
Put the Hammer Down
Awesome Sound
The HIV Song
The Mollusk
What Deaner Was Talking About
Piss Up A Rope
Booze Me Up and Get Me High
Big Jilm
Sweet Texas Fire
Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
I’ll Be Your Jonny On The Spot
Homo Rainbow
Buenas Tardes Amigo

Encore:
Fiesta
Powder Blue
Ocean Man
LMLYP

If you want to hear The Ween for yourself, here are links to the torrent downloads:

Houston (I'm taking this one down, the sound quality sucks!)
Austin Night 1
Austin Night 2
Dallas



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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

SPC - Patterns 2

I've always noticed how how the multiple lights over my bathroom mirror cast multiple shadows on the wall across from the bathroom. What better time to capture this than during the month of "Patterns"? This is my head in silhouette.



To see what other people are doing this week for Self Portrait Challenge, click here.

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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Ween Night 1 - Stubb's

Update: Pictures added, but I'm not done yet!

Thursday I drove down to Austin to see Ween perform at Stubb’s Barbecue. You have to understand that Stubb’s is considered to be one of the best places to see the Ween. They recorded a legendary live CD at Stubb’s and have performed renowned shows there several times since. So seeing Ween at Stubb’s is kind of like some sort of Ween pilgrimage. I left work early so I could make the 3 hour drive to Austin with several hours to spare.

Upon arrival I checked into my fleabag motel and tried to decide what to do about dinner. Stubb’s is a barbecue joint as well as a performance venue, but I really didn’t feel like eating there. I wanted something that I could take back to motel room since I figured that being around humans for the 5 hours required for the concert was quite enough, thank you. I ate dinner and then headed for Stubb’s. The doors opened at 7, with the concert starting at 8:15. I got there around 6:40, which was later than I wanted to. I wanted to get as close to the stage as possible, but there was already a fairly sizeable line. I had not been able to determine whether I would be able to bring my camera into the venue. Ween allows cameras and recording equipment, but some of the places that they perform do not. The security people were far away from the gate and I couldn’t get their attention, so I asked the people at the front of the line who happened to have tripods and they said it was OK. So I went back to my car to get my camera and then I got in line.

Things moved pretty fast once the gates open and I headed straight for the front of the stage. Unfortunately all of the barricade space was already taken, so I just got as close as I could and proceeded to just stand around for an hour and 15 minutes (fun!). You never know if you’re going to get social JC or antisocial JC, but this particular night it was antisocial JC. I didn’t talk to anyone. I would have talked to someone if they talked to me, but no one did. So I just patiently waited for the show to start while gawking at people and taking a few photos of the stage.


The show was scheduled to start at 8:15, and it did. The sound was very good for an outdoor venue, although that may have been because I was so close. The crowd was really into it, and except for some mayhem during one song they were fairly well-behaved. I didn’t have to fight to keep my position all night like I did in Tulsa (F’in Okies!). The band sounded great and Gener was in fine voice. In case any Ween fans stumble across this review, the setlist is shown below. Some of the highlights were “The Golden Eel”, “Final Alarm”, “She F***s Me” and “Booze Me Up and Get Me High”.

During said mayhem there was a girl next to me who had just wormed her way up to the front, and she was holding some kind of mixed drink. People started getting shoved around a bit and that drink was making me really nervous. Sure enough, at one point she proceeded to spill some liquid in the vicinity of my camera. I was kind of getting pissed off and I yelled at her to lose the drink as I was putting my camera back into my camera bag. What kind of moron tries to keep a beverage in a cup during a mosh-pit type of scenario? She decided to dump it onto the head of the teenager in front of her. Hey, I just wanted her to dump it on the ground! But the whole ruckus caused her to leave, so that was good.

It was uncomfortably hot. The thing about Texas is that the humidity doesn’t go away when the sun goes down, which means that it stays hot and muggy until late in the night if not all night. If the day has been hot it can easily still be in the 90s at 10PM. I saw several women resort to removing their shirts in an effort to stay cool. Free bottles of water were being offered at the refreshment stands, but since I didn’t want to lose my place I didn’t try to get any. By the end of the show when I was singing along my lips were sticking to my teeth because my mouth was so dry. As much as I enjoyed the show I couldn’t wait to get out of there so I could get something to drink and turn on some air conditioning.

One very cool benefit of allowing shows to be taped is that most of them end up online fairly quickly. In fact, I already have this show burned to CD and it sounds great!

Setlist:
The HIV Song
The Golden Eel
Baby Bitch
Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down
Even If You Don't
Transdermal Celebration
Touch My Tooter
Slow Down Boy
Waving My Dick in the Wind
Voodoo Lady
Zoloft
Exactly Where I'm At
Push the Little Daisies
Piss Up a Rope
Final Alarm
She’s Your Baby
Frank
The Mollusk
I’ll Be Your Jonny on the Spot
Stroker Ace
Puerto Rican Power
Ocean Man
A Tear for Eddie
The Party
She Fucks Me
I Can't Put My Finger On It (With Arabian chant)

Encore:
Fiesta
Sketches of Winkle
Sorry Charlie
Booze Me Up and Get Me High
Someday























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Friday, August 10, 2007

Quick Concert Update

This is just a quick update. My full concert review will have to wait a couple of days. The Ween concert in Austin was great, even though it was hotter. than. Hades. Luckily I got to bring my camera, and I had a blast taking pictures from what would have been about the third row (had there been any seats!). More to come.






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Thursday, August 09, 2007

Green Chiles and Some Other Stuff

The food in Santa Fe was great. Unfortunately I only broke out the camera for one meal, although it ended up being one of the best meals of the whole trip. Most of the time I just forgot to bring it with me, then a couple of times I felt too scared to take pictures of my food. Finally, though, I just said "screw it" and went to get the camera. My friend was mortified, but I told him that we would never see any of these people again so who cared?


On the last day of the trip we ate at a place called Tortilla Flats, and I thought it was outstanding. Apparently a lot of other people agreed because it was very crowded that Sunday morning.

Now for some food porn:



These are the blue corn chips and salsa. The waitress told us that it would be a few minutes because they had to cook the chips (not sure exactly what that means). They arrived warm and non-greasy. We ate every last one. The salsa was pretty good too.


This is my friend's breakfast burrito with red chile. He loves green chiles as much as me, but he wanted to try the red and see how it was. He said the red was good, but the green was better.



This is my breakfast burrito with green chile. That's a piece of egg there on the side, I guess it fell out of the burrito. The burrito had egg, chorizo, and hash browns. The tortilla appeared to be handmade. It. was. awesome.


For dessert we ordered sopapillas. It took forever to get them, but when she brought them out there were two extra ones to make up for it. They seemed to have been freshly made and were still warm. Pillowy goodness with honey on top!

Amongst the other food I had was chile verde con machaca (green chile with shredded beef), tamales smothered in green chile, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce, an adobada burrito, a carne asada taco, a shredded chicken burrito with green chile, blue corn enchiladas covered with (what else) green chiles, and red chile posole.

In other news, I am heading to Austin this afternoon to see my favorite band in concert tonight - Ween!! They are playing at Stubb's. Then I get to see them again on Saturday night in Dallas. It's just a full-time party around here.

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Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Chiles A Go Go

I’ve written about my love of green chiles before. My love for them is starting to border on an obsession. And apparently I’m far from alone in feeling this way. I’m not really sure why I respond to them so strongly, but I think that their limited availability is a big part of it. What better way to make something seem irresistible than to tell someone “You can only have this for one month a year”? Of course, to me they also taste sublime, and the smell of roasting green chiles is hard to beat.

I knew that I would be eating lots of things with green chiles in or on them while I was in New Mexico, because those options are offered at many restaurants throughout the year. However, I really wasn’t expecting to see chile roasters while I was in Santa Fe. They don’t show up in Dallas until late August, and the Hatch Chile Festival isn’t until Labor Day weekend, so I thought I was going to be a little bit too early to buy some freshly roasted chiles. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was wrong.

I was determined to bring some chiles home with me, so I decided to wait until the last day of my trip before making my chile purchase so that they would remain as fresh as possible. At this point I had a traveling companion who shares my chile obsession. We decided upon the amount we felt we could safely squirrel back home in our luggage and the hotness levels desired. Five levels of hotness were offered – mild, medium, hot, extra hot, and extra extra hot. I bought a quarter bushel of hot, while my friend bought a quarter bushel of extra extra hot. He also bought a package of fresh red chile powder. The chiles made the trip home in my suitcase, which greatly improved the smell of said suitcase. Roasted green chile smell > dirty clothes smell. We bought some gallon-sized Ziploc bags and double bagged each portion of chiles to avoid any spillage or leakage. I will definitely be making some green chile sauce, and I want to attempt some green chile stew too.




Here are the roasters set up in the Big Lots parking lot! BIG LOTS!



They smell amazing.


Donovan McNabb takes time off from training camp to load a chile roaster.












OK, click on the pic to see the big version so you can see the heat waves coming off of the roaster!














The red ones are typically dried and then ground into chile powder.




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