I Will Mess With Tex's
We went to Tex Tubb's Taco Palace this past weekend. I'd been looking forward to its opening for months. I mean look at the sign. It's so cool! Plus, It's like two blocks from my house and there's nowhere else in the neighborhood to get tacos (aside from taco bell). The Palace is supposed to be an "Austin-style" taqueria. While the urban cowboy decor and the employee t-shirt slogan, "Don't Mess With Tex's," flirt with theme restaurant classification, the place feels comfortable and cute enough. I have to admit I like the framed country albums and I absolutely love the gold glittery vinyl table coverings and blue walls. I hate when restaurants avoid color and interesting music in an attempt to satisfy everyone simply by offending no one. That can only result in bland. It's why most TV sucks. So the Palace has that (read: some balls) going for it. Unfortunately the tacos were kinda lame. The beef and pork tacos lacked any discernible flavors. You can't call your meat "pastor" if there's no kick, man. But the price is right (no taco being more than $3) and there's a lot of variety. Noah and I both liked the fish tacos best. The salsa bar is also quite good: it's got four fresh salsas to go with warm, fresh chips. Next time I'll try the chicken (fajita and fried) and maybe the flautas (I frickin' love me some flautas). After enjoying some decent inexpensive food and a few drinks with good company, all within stumbling distance of home, we were all feeling pretty positively about Tex's. However as we walked out one of the young waitresses sweetly drawled, "Bye, y'all" as if she'd been ordered to by the management. But you could tell she liked how "y'all" felt in her mouth. No manager had to ask her to say it. She was confident that saying "y'all" made her pretty frickin' adorable. Pretending to be a Texan is fun! Not to mention totally hip! I wanted to punch her in face. Take your self-imposed flair and shove it. That fake-ass Texan talk puts you squarely in theme restaurant territory, albeit a fashionable theme. I'm OK with a "How y'all doing tonight?" or a "Can I get y'all anything else?" That makes sense as we don't have a plural "you" in English. But "Bye, y'all" is just gratuitous. And a fake accent? If she worked in a Chinese restaurant would she have been as excited about trying out her Chinese accent? Y'all need to concentrate less on your accents and more on your recipes. That said, I'll definitely go back. I have to try the flautas.
2006-02-27 23:00:11 UTC
Icy Art
Noah and I will very likely be moving to Albuquerque before the fall. I've lived in Madison for ten years and in that time I've grown to love Wisconsin. I wish I could hump it tenderly. Being from Illinois, I'd never had a positive relationship with my state of residence. Who likes Illinois? Sure, Chicago has a unique culture and interesting history, but who cares about the rest of the state? I ended up in Wisconsin by happy accident. I keep thinking about the things I'll miss and the many things I never got around to doing. I will miss winter. While taking a walk this weekend, I stumbled across these ice sculptures in front of one of Madison's East Side homes. The lawn was covered in these bluish ice stacks and ice disks hung from the trees. It seems the artist used plates, cups, bowls, and saucers as molds. It was beautiful. It got me all nostalgic and shit. Click on the picture to see a small gallery of photos commemorating the ice of Madison.
2006-02-26 18:03:49 UTC
More Food for the Working Class
Have you ever had chilaquiles? They are really tasty and easy to make. Best of all, they're a perfect use for food that's on-the-brink. Now every once in a while I love to make a decadent meal with fresh ingredients (or ingredients that I would never have lying around the house) that I have to actually write down on a list and go buy at specialty stores. It suffuses me with the seemingly contradictory feelings of being both glamourous and nurturing, like breast-feeding in a ball gown. It makes me feel like the fantasy fifties housewife: cooking a delicious, attractive meal while looking delicious and attractive. But there's something more satisfying about finding new and tasty ways to use food that most people would (should?) throw away. It's a bit grittier and that's why it feels so good. When I get all fancy I'm choosing denial by deliberately ignoring my poverty. When I use near-spoiled foods, I'm fearlessly facing reality. I'm accepting poverty's challenge and winning. I'm telling Martha Stewart to suck it. One way to live on the edge is to eat food that's on the edge. Experience the hyper-reality of my stale bread and questionable milk concoctions! If you have the balls... or should I say cojones?
I'd had chilaquiles in restaurants before but I'd never tried to make them myself. I just kinda made up the recipe based on what was in the refrigerator. So this is just my version of them. I decided to try and make them when I got tired of looking at the huge package of corn tortillas that had been in the fridge for about 6 months. The other ingredient that needed to be used up was cooked black beans that were a few days old. First I fried strips of the tortillas in vegetable oil. I removed the strips once they were all crispy and golden-browny and placed them on a couple of paper towels (b/c those bitches were greasy, unlike our mexican friends from whom the dish originates). Then I tossed a big spoonful of crushed garlic (I buy it in huge jars) into the leftover oil along with some onion (if you want) and whatever peppers you have (I used chipotles). Once the onion softens, or when the garlic browns, add a can of crushed tomatoes, some cumin, some chili powder, salt, pepper, and a couple of big old ladles of beans (with the juice. Mmmm... bean juice). Cook it for a while (a few minutes is all that's necessary). Cover the bottom of a baking pan with a thin layer of sauce. Then put a layer of the fried strips on top of that. Continue layering the sauce and strips till you're out of both. Then throw a bunch of cheese all over the top (I like sharp white cheddar but most cheeses will work. I had feta in the fridge so I added some of that). Bake it in a 400 oven for 30 minutes or so at which time it will be crunchy, chewy, and full of flavor. My favorite way to eat it is with a fried egg right on top of it. The pictured egg was a month past its expiration date. Suck it, Martha!
2006-02-20 22:32:32 UTC
Has Anyone Heard About This Cowboy Craze?
Hey! Have you heard? Western wear is popular now. Eric Wilson, writing from a hole in the ground for the NYTimes Fashion section, has made the astute observation that lots of people who aren't actually real live cowboys are dressing like cowboys! No shit?! He attributes the new trend to the movie Brokeback Mountain, which "has made it acceptable to dress like a cowboy." Really, Brokeback Mountain's responsible for the ubiquitous hipster-cowboys? Wow, he sure is on the cutting edge. He must be deafened by the booming
pulse of contemporary fashion. Um, where the hell has Mr. Eric Wilson been for the past five years?! Urban cowboys have been crawling the city streets in their vintage cowboy boots and collar tips trying to convince anyone and everyone that they've always been into Hank Williams and Johnny Cash for what-seems-like-frickin'-ages! Why does dipshit Eric Wilson think movies like Brokeback Mountain and Walk the Line were so popular?! You know a trend is on the wane when Hollywood's caught on and the NYTimes has written about it.
2006-02-16 23:40:04 UTC
Spreading the Love this Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day, like most holidays, is just another opportunity for businesses to make a buttload of money off of stupid consumer guilt. To counter the insinuation that the amount of money spent on gifts directly correlates to the amount of love, we have the phrase, "it's the thought that counts." I hate that frickin' phrase. If a consumer only spends a few dollars, it's still money, right? That phrase is how those cloying bitches at hallmark make their money. I'm positive that most of the money made by businesses on valentine's day comes from small "thoughtful" gifts like crappy cards, chalky candy, and tiny teddy bears wearing t-shirts. If Noah ever gave me a card with some generic-ass cheesy love poem in that telltale frilly font I'd light myself on fire. I'd know that love was a big fat lie and I'd want to die. But Noah would never give me one of those dumbass cards because he's not an idiot. And I don't want one because I'm not an idiot. The holiday is even worse in Japan. The Japanese version of valentine's day is reversed: women feel obligated to buy chocolates and whatnot for men. Well, they don't just feel obligated, they actually are obligated. Apparently, women are required to give candy to all of their male co-workers. There's even a hilarious, ridiculous word for it: giri-choco (meaning "chocolate duty"). (I should confess my weakness for the unbelievable cuteness of the hello kitty chocolates). I'm left with the question: how can I make some money off of all these idiots? And I think I've got an idea. I'm going to start my own holiday. It's so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. All the money to be made from holidays is rooted in feelings of obligation and guilt, right? Well, why not tap directly into all that profitable guilt with a holiday that celebrates it for what it is? I'll call it something like Day of Apologies or I'm Sorry Day. If you forgot to get your lover a card on Valentine's Day, you'll now have an opportunity to get her one apologizing for your forgetfulness. Everyone is always apologizing for everything. There's a lot of money to be made in celebrating it as a society.
Getting back to Valentine's Day though, Noah and I did celebrate it this year. We went to a bar and handed out our specially-made valentine's fortune cookies. Each cookie had a different message of love buried inside authored by me, Noah, or the two of us. Here's an example: "You yelped and kicked like a scared young foal, for I had entered the forbidden hole." Touching, no? It's the poetry of my soul. I'd been told that making fortune cookies from scratch was more trouble than it was worth so I bought a couple of packages from the asian market. I removed the fortunes from them with a tiny pair of tweezers and then inserted my own. It took a retarded amount of time but I think it was worth it for the looks of shock, disgust, and delight on people's faces. Plus, the companies that sell custom-made fortune cookies charge a whole lot of money and I'm cheap! You'll notice that I dipped them in chocolate too. Though I've always loved the idea of fortune cookies, I've always hated how they taste. They remind me of body of christ. It's like someone left the eucharist out of its packaging (?) so it got all stale and then they tried to spice it up with some vanilla extract. (That gives me an idea: wouldn't it be cool if churches turned the hosts into fortune cookies? The message inside each one could be "Eat me"). So the chocolate and sprinkles helped mask the jesus flavor. If I've offended you, please let me know and I'll send you an apology email next I'm Sorry Day.
2006-02-16 13:59:06 UTC