About 15 years ago, I remember one of my many trips to a little produce store in downtown St. John’s named Lars. When I asked a simple question about the differences between apples, I received a (not unwelcome) half-hour lesson concerning eight varieties of apples, including a sample tasting session.
Today, I was in a large supermarket buying some vegetables, and the cashier stopped and stared in bewilderment at the produce on her digital scale. She held it up. “Leeches?” she asked.
“Uh, leeks,” I responded.
“…Same thing…,” she muttered under her breath, no doubt thinking I was a know-it-all.
May 21st, 2005
Finally back from the road again. This was my last time for a very long while, as the contract requiring me to give train in the various corners of the province ends on Monday. I’m a little sad in a way, since I do like to travel, but it’s nice to be home and not have to worry about things like how low my gas tank was reading, locating the people who were supposed to be unlocking facilities for me, and trying to find decent places to eat.
Okay, I’ll admit it: I am a very big fan of nachos. Nachos done right, that is. Crisp homestyle corn tortilla chips, lots of aged cheddar and monterey jack cheese, cumin-spiced meat, piles of fresh tomatoes, japepenos, green peppers and onions, and then there’s the homemade hot salsa and just-whipped sour cream on the side. My mouth waters just thinking about it.
But… my time on the road has taught me a very important rule of thumb. The population density is inversely proportational to the likelihood that:
- The torilla chips are stale, no-name Doritos coated with salt and MSG-laden “flavour dust”;
- The “cheese” is a watered-down Cheez Whiz knock-off that glows in the dark and smells vaguely like my Jeep’s transmission;
- The veggies (if there are any) are the remains of a salad that someone couldn’t finish last week;
- The salsa has the flavour, consistency and spice of two-year-old ketchup (but not the good Heinz stuff); and
- The meat (if there is any) is only slightly softer than road gravel, but with less taste.
Such is my insomnia that I spent a full night staring at the ceiling and trying to create a mathematical equation to describe the above rule, complete with multipliers based upon the longitudinal and latitudinal distance from the Texas-Mexican border. I actually did get some numbers down, but the light of day –and a very cold shower– made it seem rather… uh… silly. However, at the time it seemed quite an important theorem I had stumbled across, and I wondered why nobody else had yet discovered it.
February 27th, 2005
And now for something completely different….
A few years ago during the dot-com gold rush, I was shuttled across the continent for a weekend of consulting in San Diego. While the gig wasn’t anything memorable, two things were: my all-to-brief trip to the Natural History Museum there (my first face-to-face brush with dinosaurs), and a delicious never-ending supper at a little “mom and pop” Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of the city. The salsa, in particular, was so good that I brought a large mason jar back to the hotel, and I actually finished it off that night. It was symbolic of everything I love about good Mexican food: the “unprocessed” summer-fresh earthy taste, the zing of tomatoes, the heat of peppers, and its ability to induce my appetite to such a frenzy that I could eat three times my fill.
Now, most of the food I ate that night I could never reproduce with the limited ingredients available up here in Newfoundland, but the salsa in particular was something that I thought within my grasp. After all, most salsa is a combination of tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, sugar and vinegar. However, my efforts to cajole any recipes out of the waitress proved fruitless (my Spanish was certainly not up to the task), and I’ve never been able to find a recipe that captured that exact taste, despite some well-meaning help from a few friends south of the border.
Last night, o! miracle of miracles! — some slightly-withered sprigs of cilantro actually appeared in the produce department of our local supermarket, as well as some inexpensive greenhouse tomatoes. Seizing upon this rare opportunity, I gathered together some ingredients and brought them home for another attempt.
I think I nailed it this time.
The key to this recipe is super-fresh ingredients. I wasn’t lucky enough to find all of it fresh, and even had to default to a jar of pickled jalepenos, but it’s still quite delicious. Some of the ingredients were probably not in the original recipe, such as the celery, but I find that these give the salsa a little extra edge. Also, this version is tailored for ingredients more commonly used up here in the Great White North, and doesn’t really rely on “specialty” items or those with very limited distribution. Finally, a food processor is a boon in preparing this, as chopping all of this by hand might take you a little while.
The resulting salsa is pretty hot, so use less hot peppers and more tomato if you want it a little milder.
Summer-fresh Salsa
Ingredients:
- 6 large fresh ripe tomatoes (not beefsteak — those have less taste)
- 2 medium yellow onions
- 2 large celery stalks
- 1 large green bell pepper
- 1 375 ml jar of pickled jalepeno peppers, drained (or 1 1/2 cups banana/serrano peppers); or 6-8 fresh jalepeno peppers plus 1 tbsp extra vinegar
- 5 tsp (or cubes) of sugar (I use “plantation raw” golden sugar cubes, which give a slightly earthy taste)
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, preferably balsamic (substitute white if absolutely necessary)
- 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (this cannot be substituted with anything else, especially dry cilantro)
- 4 tbsp lime juice
- 4 tsp chili powder
Directions:
Cut the green pepper and onions into eighths, and the celery into 1/2 inch slices. Put this, the drained jalepenos, the sugar, and 1 cup water into the food processor. Pulse until chopped to the desired size. (Some people prefer salsa more chunky than others.) Scoop into large bowl.
Cut top core of tomatoes out, then section the tomato into quarters. Put four tomatoes into the food processor with the vinegar, garlic, cilantro, lime juice and 1/2 cup water. Blend well. Add the final two tomatoes and blend again, slowly, leaving a little texture to the final mix. Pour into the bowl with the other blended ingredients, add the chili powder, and stir well.
Spoon into jars, and the flavour will continue to mix overnight. This recipe will fill 3-5 medium jars and will keep for weeks, if you can stop eating it. Serve with tortilla chips, nachos, tacos, etc.
February 16th, 2005