Recent Foodsville publications

Chicken, Zucchini and Tomato Bake

jjbbrrdd@yahoo.com — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:36:20

Delicious and hearty for a cool day. This is a quick version of Chicken Cacciatore. Enjoy.

How to roast a turkey with Chef Scott Cutaneo

alpinebluesky@yahoo.com — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 08:25:14

You can do it, really you can, and it’s not that difficult. If you never cooked a turkey in the past, or perhaps had a subpar turkey experience, this year is different. Chef Scott from Le Petit Chateau guides you through the basics in this easy to follow video recipe for roasting the perfect Thanksgiving turkey.

First, brine the turkey. Why brine? Because it adds moisture and flavor to your turkey. Wikipedia has a great explanation of the chemistry here. Mix 2 cups of salt mixed with 2 gallons of hot or boiling water (or an appropriate ratio, 1 cup of salt per gallon of water), making sure the salt is completely dissolved. Let the salt water mixture cool and soak your turkey in the mixture using a large soup stock pot or a large roasting pan, making sure the entire bird is covered. Let the turkey soak for 1 hour per pound of turkey, in the refrigerator. You will to do this the night before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day: Before you are ready to roast, discard the salt water, rinse and dry the turkey. If you wish to try a fancier version of brining, chef Scott has a special version using sugar and bourbon found in this video.

The rest is easy.

Watch the full roasted turkey video here.

You will need, in addition to the brined turkey: onions, carrots, thyme, oil, butter, salt, pepper, and trussing string.

Into your roasting pan, add onions, and carrots, celery, and tyme, place the turkey on top of the veggies and herbs, twine the turkey per chef Scott’s instructions, brush it with an oil and butter mixture, add salt, pepper, and 2 inches of water to the bottom of the pan. Cook as directed for the weight of your bird, basting every hour or so. Check the temperature on the back of the breast with a simple meat thermometer, Scott chooses 155 as the perfect temperature before pulling it out of the oven, as the meat will continue to cook even after it is out of the oven. If you are a directions follower, simply follow the directions per pound for your bird. Dinner is served, take a bow, and relax!

Cuisine Phallique et Vaginale

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:14:44

Gastronomy is art. It is the art of many senses. As graphic, structural and musical art appeals to our sensory urges as well as our intellectual beings, so does the presentation of food. Actually, our mouths are the last to appreciate what we eat (forgetting for now our nether regions). Our eyes and olfactory senses precede our oral satiety. They are the prelude to the ultimate oral poetry of good food.

I may one day – but not yet – cease thinking about and enjoying sexual intimacy and all things associated with it. Until then, eroticism will continue to be an aspect of what I serve and how I serve it. While I am heterosexual, this approach applies with equal relevance to homosexual gastronomy. But it is beyond mere lewd food.

Dining is so often the overture to sexual intimacy that it is appropriate that sensuality begin with the first note of an evening’s music; the first sip of the first wine; the first aroma that wafts from stove or oven; and the first sight of each dish.

Sensuality is the accommodation of one’s inhibitions to the sharing of physicality. It is the process by which one begins to feel secure, comfortable and unthreatened, and to become sufficiently relaxed to begin to contemplate intimacy as something to be sought rather than resisted or simply surrendered. Surrender is for bad movies. Pheromones are secreted and sensed by an organ in one’s nose that is directly connected to the limbic region of the brain, the seat of emotion and passion. Each gender is programmed to sense pheromones and to react to them. One never needs to “come on” to anyone. The food, the music, the aromas, consideration, generosity, kindness all speak/sing to this music, Mutuality of desire is the summum bonum of everything gastronomic.

By way of contrary illustration, I recently dined in a very good local seafood restaurant at which the chef was more interested in expressing the functionality of descriptiveness, to the point of missing a great opportunity at effective marketing. He offered a dish that he dubbed Crispy Snapper. How bloody awful! Who would ever think of putting his mouth on a snapper that had such a texture? Snapper is supposed to be warm and wet and somewhat redolent of tumescence, with or without hair. Crispy Snapper sounds like a snapper that needs medical attention. I intend to visit with the chef on my next encounter and explain to him that practitioners of oral intimacy are not enthused by the suggestion of crispiness.

Someone in my group ordered the grilled cote de porc, which came with a mustard cherry sauce, painted on the plate with an impression in its middle running down the imprint of the sauce. It was red and luscious looking, and that streak of impression running down its middle made the whole thing look like a slightly opening vagina. As it was placed on the table I exclaimed, “Ah. Sauce vaginale!” The waiter cracked up and had to leave the scene immediately to regain his composure. He reported it to the chef who did not look amused. Hmmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t discuss with him my notion about the Crispy Snapper.

Halve a chicken. Remove all the bones except the leg bone. Stuff the now open chicken demi carcass with your favorite savory, very yummy, most delectable Thanksgiving kind of stuffing – very comfort food stuffing – forget the fois gras and any other fru fru crap. Close the carcass around the stuffing ball so that it stands on the stuffed ball of chicken with the leg bone pointing skyward. Oil and season the now erect plat du our and roast it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (Check internal temperature for proper doneness). Serve it after a small salad, with olives and roasted and seasoned chick peas, ala Grec (salt, pepper, garlic oil – roasted at 425 for 30 minutes and drained on paper towels spread over a cloth dish towel).

Wines? Try a Chateau St Jean Fume Blanc – the L’Etoile bottling and Tomassi Ripasso.

Desert? Each other. If it’s the first date, try Sacher torte and Brut Champaign.

You can thank me later.

Apricot Jalapeno Sorbet

chefchops@gmail.com — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:38:41

Thsi is a Sorbet that will satisfy your sweet tooth while soothing your love for spice. This also goes well with sponge cake, angle food cake, or with a couple of short bread cookies.

An Almost End User. Chain saws and Thanksgiving

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:03:48

    Winter is coming. We are already a week into November and the leaves, even this far south in NYS, have finally turned colors right before the wind and rain arrived and are dropping like – leaves. About two weeks ago I received a delivery of a half cord of firewood. I thought at the time that perhaps the sticks were too long for the stove, but paid the man and let it go.

   Turns out that much of it was too long for the stove. Most of the pieces were 20” to 24” and our stove will handle up to about 18”, but anything longer has to go in catawampus and the stove door won’t close so all the heat from the fire, plus a lot of the heat from the furnace, blasts out the chimney making a mockery of the whole efficient, low pollution wood stove. I figured that I already have a heavy carbon footprint, what with the house, the cars, the fireplace and all so how much could a little chain saw action add to the grand total. (Turns out about a quart of oil and gasoline is how much in this particular instance)

   I haven’t used this chain saw in a while. I bought it some years ago from The Home Depot, used it a few times and like most homeowners with chain saws put it away against the eventuality that I might one day need a such a tool and when that day came obtaining one would probably be pretty difficult. When a tree falls on the house it is likely because there has been a storm and the power is out; not only your power, but the big box store’s as well. Buying a chain saw when you really, really need it RIGHT NOW is not the time to go shopping for one.

   So, I had this foresight all those years ago and bought a bright nauseous green Poulan saw, a homes owner’s edition with an 18” bar. You couldn’t go logging with this thing, but it would probably be hearty enough in a pinch to clear a tree from the front lawn or off the roof. I imagine John Gotti might have kept something like this around for reasons that don’t bear thinking about. Forget that I brought it up.

   The saw made short work of the long logs, turning them into stove size and leaving me with dozens of 4” to 6” cutoffs. These are great for starting a fire and that’s what I will use them for when they dry out. I got the wood stacked before the rain came, but not the cut offs. To stack the wood, I had to haul it from the front yard where the man delivered it to the back yard. This was done with a hand truck made of steel and rubber. The wheelbarrows that my son loves to use were never an option in my mind. The barrow would have had to be freed from the summer weeds that hold them tight to the fence and the hand truck was just too handy and has the advantage of limited my stupid self to how much I could attempt to move at any one time.

   While the chain saw made this work possible, it wasn’t the entire solution. Several years ago a friend, noticing that I had four sawhorses and he had none, insisted on appropriating a pair. He lives in an apartment so he took the apartment friendly fold up models with the doohickeys that clip on top to hold odd shaped things - like split logs - and they have had their being there ever since. This made it necessary to modify one of the heavy wooden horses.

   Clamps and other thingamabobs combined in an improvisation that made it possible for me to mostly keep two hands on the saw and the split logs mostly on the horse. While I spent time bending and lifting and getting sorer by the minute I started thinking about lunch – I worked through that – and then dinner. That led to Thanksgiving and thinking about how much effort goes into that meal – any feast – today even, but especially a few generations back.

   I talk a lot about eating close to the source and then staying close to the ground with the preparation. The ancestors did it because they had to. They might have had kitchen help, but even the wealthy were never very far from the food or what it took to produce and prepare it. Today is about as close to that time as I am comfortable getting. While we won’t cook Thanksgiving dinner with this wood, it will burn in the living room woodstove. Some of it might fire the primitive smoker; there is some likely material there.

   The turkey will come from a local organic grower and has been ordered; two actually because I ordered one from Heritage Foods and then found another, certified organic, heritage breed, scratch in the dirt, semi-local turkey for about half the price on Local Harvest. One of these fancy birds will rest in the freezer for a month or two until the first one gets used up. There will be a hunk or two of venison. That came all the way from South Carolina, but I harvested it on the family farm and was intimately acquainted with it. The vegetables will be whatever I can scrounge at the farmer’s markets and whatever local produce the local stores will have. If I manage to get to Emile's, there will be pork of some kind, too. A fiber challenged meal, yes, but well advanced in proteins and other nutrients. There will be rice, grown in SC or maybe Texas depending on whom you believe. The Saffron for the rice, always a luxury item, is from Spain by way of Costco.

   The oysters – now there’s a problem. Blue Points from Long Island are scarce and maybe dangerous even cooked. It is likely that the oysters will be from somewhere else. I don’t feel too bad about this. Humans have been moving oysters great distances for as long as they have been eating them. They will just have to be from where ever they be from.

   When it becomes possible to buy good area wines for a price approaching good French wines, locals will grace the table. In the meantime, wine comes from afar. Water comes from the tap. The coffee and tea come from South America and Asia. Again, these are foodstuffs that have usually been considered luxuries and you get them where you get them. The only tea plantation in America is in Charleston, SC and I have never heard anyone rhapsodizing about a cup of Carolina grown tea.

   Desserts will come from frozen fruits and whatever we can get from the area. That means apples. Likely these will be prepared as a cobbler of some sort and a tattin. The cream will come from a cow and be whipped in the kitchen with vanilla from – Mexico is the closest producer - but maybe from somewhere even more exotic and sugar from the sugar barons of South Florida and Brooklyn, NY.

   Even with all these ‘labor saving devices’ – chain saws, hand trucks, mixers, electric stoves and gas burners, getting a feast ready still isn’t nothing. I didn’t raise the turkey and process it. The deer took care of itself and the butcher made it into manageable pieces. Farmers all over the Hudson Valley have been growing things for us and as at most Thanksgivings, there will be more than one cook in the kitchen - or out on the deck with the grill or the fryer.

    In the end, we look to be somewhere in the range of twelve end users give or take one or two this year. None of them will have had to cut wood, though. They can probably stand it.

Golden Barley Pancakes

chefchops@gmail.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:17:25

I was making crackers with barley flour and I had some leftover. This morning I needed breakfast, so I took a basic pancake recipe and adjusted it for the strong flavor of barley. I hope you find these pancakes as tastey as I do.

Be On Food Network!

zandraleah@hotmail.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:24:28

Hi Everyone,

I thought you might like to check this out! The Food Network is currently casting for their new show Dear Food Network. See the notice below if you are interested you could end up on the show!!

Love to watch the Food Network but can’t cook as well as your favorite star? Now’s your chance to have your Grilling question answered, possibly even in-person! Inspired by letters from fans, Dear Food Network features top chefs answering your cooking concerns, problems and challenges.

Have a question about global grilling (Mexican, tandoori, Italian, Korean), improving an All-American dishes (hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken), seafood, or how to make a tasty dessert on the grill? Our Food Network stars are here to help improve your recipes and grilling skills!

We’re looking for fun, creative 20-second videos (DVD or MiniDV) to incorporate into the show. For video guidelines please contact me at foodnetworkseries@gmail.com. Also send us your stats (name, age, city/state, living situation, contact info) plus a recent photo, a little about yourself, and your cooking questions. Does your chicken always come out burnt, maybe you’re a baker who wants to take it to the backyard or perhaps you want to learn how to make ribs that will wow your whole family?

The best questions/videos will be used on the show and some people will get to have their question answered in person by his or hers favorite chef! Please send your DVD or MiniDV to:

Embassy Row

Att: Dear Food Network

110 Leroy Street

7th Fl.

New York, NY 10014

All entries must be received no later than Monday December 8^th.

Walk-In Wear Brings out the Culinary Attitude

sales@walk-in-wear.com — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:19:29

Virginia Beach, VA , November 2, 2008- Chefs and cooks around the globe know that life in the back of the house is a world unto itself. Created by Chefs’ and for Chefs’, Walk-In Wear attitude apparel highlights some of the funniest moments from the kitchen. It takes a certain sense of humor to survive the rigors of the professional kitchen and Walk-In Wear appeals to anyone that has spent a night in the weeds. www.cafepress.com/walkinwear

Since its inception in 2007, Walk-In Wear has developed a cult following among food service insiders as the only source for affordable casual apparel that truly represents the lifestyle of working Chefs. Whether it’s the highly popular Escoffier shirts or the outrageous kitchen commentaries, Walk-In Wear addresses the world of the hard core culinarians.

These designs have also become increasingly popular with students from various culinary schools around the country.

With over twenty five original designs currently offered, Walk-In Wear continues to add new designs and is unique in its approach by inviting customers to submit their ideas and stories for future consideration. In addition, Walk-In Wear will soon announce their “Where Do You Wear Your Walk-In Wear?” competition.

Through Walk-In Wear’s MY Space Page http://www.myspace.com/walkinwear customers from around the world are encouraged to submit their photos from unique locations while wearing one of the Walk-In Wear designs. Winners will be selected monthly and will receive free products from the website.

For additional information contact

Sales via our websites at Walk-In Wear

www.walk-in-wear.com
www.myspace.com/walkinwear

<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/6qrguds8qf" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>

Easy as 1,2, 3 Pumpkin Cheesecake

jlb316@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:32:30

Black Bottom Cups

okclan@juno.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:34:07

Pillsbury Bake-Off recipe winner. These creamy-filled cupcakes are reminiscent of black bottom pie, a rich dessert with a dark chocolate bottom layer and rum custard top layer.

Crescent Burritos

okclan@juno.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:11:25

Pillsbury bakeoff recipe winner.

Striper true to Form

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:25:56

It’s October – late October – the time of year that Nagle goes fishing for Striped Bass off Long Island. The call came Friday, “I have stripers, come get some …” I got there this morning after a trip to the Hastings Farmers Market to pick up the end of season vegetables. I loaded a cooler with some venison and plowed down to the city.

Nagle gave me a side of stripper and what looks like an equal amount of blue fish. Blue fish is a favorite of mine, but Nagle-caught striper almost straight from the ocean is something rare. He asked what I planned to do with it. I got the feeling that if he didn’t approve I would have to give it back. I said I would do a couple of things, one of which was to poach some of it as a soup sort of thing.

He looked pained. “You’re gonna make soup with fish like that?!” I hesitated and he said, “At least expose some of it to hot steel right now – for lunch.” I allowed as how I had planned to do that as well with salt and pepper and butter. He didn’t like the butter idea and recommended that the fish be rubbed with a little tasteless oil like rapeseed and then treated to some salt pepper and garlic and then to the sauté pan.

I didn’t want the garlic with it just yet, so when I got home, I cut the belly piece loose, rubbed it with some peanut oil and seasoned it with salt and freshly ground pepper. This went into a HOT pan and relaxed for two and one half minutes whereupon I turned it over. The cooked side looked really nice and brown and I rubbed a little butter on it while it was still hot. After another two and half to three minutes, I turned it over again and rubbed that side with butter.

The little butter that ran off each side turned brown in the pan and I turned the fish every thirty seconds for the next two minutes. Yes, it was obsessive, but the heat penetrates more evenly with the frequent turning. I added a tiny bit more butter each time.

Out of the pan and onto the plate and it was Proust and Madelaines all over. I had to tell everyone about it. Sometimes when I was a little kid eating breakfast on Edisto there would be fresh caught, pan sautéed white fish with nothing but salt and pepper and butter. Here it was again.

I think some things just don’t get better. They get different, but the archetypal form of freshest fish sautéed in a little oil and butter with salt and pepper defines the form.

Maybe I won’t make soup. Maybe I’ll just do the rest the same way and try not to salt it with tears of joy. The blue fish is going into the smoker later tonight …. after we have a little piece of that done in a similar manner, of course. The wife don’t like bluefish. Oh poor, poor thing.

Crescent Cabbage and Beef Bundles

okclan@juno.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:28:53

Pillsbury Bake-off recipe winner.

Berried Delight

okclan@juno.com — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:09:37

Here's a simple-to-fix chilled dessert everyone will find "berry" delightful.

Suck The Love Juice Out Of My Hot Pupusa

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:28:58

There are few sights that compare with a really lovely woman wearing a big smile on a face that is shiny from the juices of a just sucked pupusa. It’s a shame that so many people are just too uptight to allow themselves to put a hot pupusa into their mouth, bite down on it a little and experience that hot steaming pupusa love juice explode into their mouth. Most conservative Christians, Muslims and Jews would never think of ever putting anyone’s pupusa into their mouth. But face it. God doesn’t want them to enjoy the pleasure and passion of a mouth full of hot pupusa. They live in fear of dying with a mouth full of someone’s pupusa and showing up before Saint Peter with that hot pupusa juice drooling down their chin.

That hot pupusa smell! Who can resist it? It produces instant arousal, like a picture of a very young girl. Regardless of one’s sexual orientation, it is impossible for anyone not to want to get a mouth full of hot pupusa once that aroma wafts. Pupusa has sexual significance for men as well as for women. A real man will do anything to sink his face into a hot and juicy pupusa. A real man does not care that Saint Peter may be able to tell that his death was associated with a mouth full of hot, juicy pupusa. A real man would prominently display on his professional resume that his face often reveals that he has just eaten pupusa. A real man can provide testimonials about how competent he is at eating pupusa. All women love a man who is good at eating pupusa.

And afterward, all you want to do is take a nap. That’s why pupusa is better than a real woman. When you’re done with a pupusa, it’s ok to take a nap. A pupusa won’t be offended if you doze. You don’t have to reassure a pupusa that the experience you just had with it was superb. It already knows that and is happy if you lapse into sleep. You also don’t have to buy a pupusa expensive presents or make promises to a pupusa that you know you will never keep. You don’t have to marry a pupusa or worry about making it pregnant. A pupusa never gets old. When you are done with a pupusa, it is done with you. You don’t have to call or send it flowers.

There is no such thing as counterfeit pupusa, though many are trying. The latest fiasco is the Taco Cabana pseudo pupusa, a mayonnaise Mexican concoction designed to titillate the palate of a Presbyterian yuppie. Taco Cabana management obviously thinks that because God made a vagina look like a taco (which is obviously why people will eat a taco), they can pass off some ersatz club sandwich greasy ass griddled cheese whiz bullshit as a pupusa. FORGETABOUTIT!!

This is Houston. We know what real pupusa tastes like. Eating that phony Taco Cabana crap is the gastronomic equivalent of wanking as you mope along in rush hour traffic.

For many years I have been unable to convince any Anglo date to put a pupusa into her mouth or allow pupusa in her tummy. The very word pupusa is so erotic, so unbelievably sexual that they think that going to a place called El Pupusadromo is where they would be expected to enter a contest to show which woman could put the biggest pupusa into her mouth and hold it there until hot juice squirted down her throat. To them it sounds somewhat beneath what a “good girl” was told by her mother could be done without ruining her reputation. How could she go to work on Monday and tell her friends that she had spent an evening in a Pupusadromo (sounds like a pupusadrome where pupusa swallowing contests might take place while guys bet on which gal could swallow the most pupusa). How could they even think of having to confess to some priest that they had put pupusa into their mouth? The question “How many pupusas have you eaten” sounds like a direct attack on their character. They fear being known around town as a pupusa slut. Who would ever want to marry a girl who had frequently eaten pupusas with men? They have nightmares that guys are writing their names and telephone numbers on men’s room walls with inscriptions about what great pupusa dates they are – “For great pupusa, call Mary Beth”.

Much to the amazement of most of you, pupusas really are food. Pupusas are exquisitely Salvadoran, and anything else is bullshit. The trinity of pupusa heaven consists of Loroco (cheese and flowers – strong smell), Chicharron (pork – yum) and Revuelta (cheese and pork). They can be made from/with wheat, corn or rice and can have beans as well. They are accompanied by pickled shredded vegetables (curtido) and sauce. Here in Houston, we have a sizable Salvadoran community and authentic pupusas, including a small chain, El Pupusadromo. It could be that the next big franchise offering will be a Pupusadromo opportunity. It will be a great windfall for bankruptcy attorneys. You cannot Americanize pupusas. The pupusa is the ultimate definition of a specific food preparation. It is not a gordita, a chalupa or an empanada. It is not a taco, a burrito or an enchilada. This week’s Houston Chronicle Dining Guide contains an exquisite tour of pupusadom. It is not Mexican, Cuban, Jewish, Italian, Polish or Greek. It is the Salvadoran pupusa.

My good friend Dave Wilson doesn’t like pupusas because he claims they don’t have enough lard to be really greasy-juicy, and you have to get your pupusa juice from the sauce and the pickled veggies that are served with it. Dave would much prefer a drippingly wet/greasy gordita – also one of my very favorite foods. Dave also reminds me that only a real macho man would ever take a woman out for pupusas. No woman, so he says, will ever put out for pupusas, as they might, for instance at a grande luxe dinner at some swanky venue. If you get laid after a pupusa dinner, it’s because you are simply irresistible as a lover. So if you really want to see whether you have what it takes just as a matter of raw sex appeal, take your next date to a pupuseria. Dave has lived in El Salvador and knows whereof he speaks. He says the real treat is to go back in the kitchen and watch a real Salvadoran woman make a pupusa. After they press the cheese or whatever into the dough/masa and cover it with a dough fold over before adding other ingredients, they slap the pupusa back and forth from hand to hand to form and shape it. Face it, some women slap pupusas in more erotic ways than others. Dave says that a real Salvadoran woman slapping a pupusa gives him a great erection. He also said that I should not allow facts to get in the way of telling this story any way I want.

People sometimes don’t believe me when I tell them that Houston is the most international city for gastronomes on the planet. We have a wonderful Salvadoran community here who work hard, take care of their families and make a great social contribution to our community and society. The Salvadorans here have reason to be very proud of who they are and of their wonderful culture. The Salvadoran neighborhoods are just a few minutes from here, and I can eat and shop in San Salvador in about 15 minutes by car. The pupusa is practically their national food.

To be sure, the genre is not unique to El Salvador. Flatbreads and stuffed flatbreads abound in many cultures, from the Mexican tortilla to the Middle Eastern pita and oiled souvlaki pita and pitas already impregnated with herbs and nuts and other exotic flavorings, to the Indian naan and keema naan, and so on and so forth. But those are altogether beyond the scope of this commentary. Culturally, flat breads are found where there are no eating utensils and the social regimen calls upon people not to simply stick their often filthy hands into a communal bowl of food. Pieces of the flatbread are broken off and used to grab or scoop food. Amongst Arabs and Bedu, for example, taking food with one’s left hand is taboo, as it is the left hand that is used to clean one’s bum after a bowel movement. One should regard any culture that does not recognize tableware and toilet paper as a socially retarded group. I suspect that it is in parts of the world where water is scarce and there is little forestation and people cook with dried animal dung for fuel.

If you were to do a search on Google using the word pupusa, you would find that there are pupuserias in most major cities. You can even get a pupusa in Boston, home of the bean and the scrod, where Lowells speak only to Cabots and Cabots speak only to God. I doubt that anyone would go all the way to Boston for pupusa, but here in Texas, people have been known to drive from Austin to Houston just to shove their faces into pupusas, or to shove pupusas into their faces.

My personal tastes run more to the greasy gordita, just like my pal Dave Wilson. The pupusa is more of an occasional excursion into the exotic. When I come home from eating gordita, the cats are all over me, as they just love and go wild for a shirt that has been decorated with gordita drippings. You cannot eat a real gordita without getting it on your shirt. Oh, I suppose there may be someone out there who can pull that off without the telltale stain, but I don’t know that person and don’t want to know that person. Gorditas should be eaten while wearing a wife beater shirt. Fortunately for me, I can metabolize a pick up truck, so what I eat is not a matter of concern. Sometimes, when I have a real nightmare, I am being persecuted by all those health compromised people who have been forced to watch me eat. Before I gave up on the dry martini, the dream was populated with all the people who used to go on pub crawls with me who are no longer amongst the living. Was it really my fault that they couldn’t resist that excitement? Was I to blame – as their wives seem to believe – that they would rather have drunk themselves to death with me than go home and spend time with their families? I’m amazed I have not been sued by the widows and children of my former drinking mates. Hopefully the statute of limitations has by now run out on all those claims.

I agree with Dave that the curtido, the spiced pickled veggies, are really what makes the pupusa work. But pickled veggies abound in most cultures. Germans have sauerkraut; Koreans have kimchee and many other assorted pickled veggie accoutrements; Japanese have assorted pickled veggies including several varieties of pickled ginger; Indians have their pickles and chutneys – and so on and so forth, ad nauseam. In south Texas we have rajas – YUM!

But pupusas will probably delight yuppies for numerous reasons – all too disgusting to mention. In reality, I wrote this story because the word pupusa has such double entendre potential. You can conjure with the word pupusa and come up with the most disgusting/delightful pornographic descriptions. BUT! Try them your own self and make your own decision.