What's za'at?

Purple cauliflower retained it's colors after roasting. With za'atar spices. I just like saying za'atar! Za'atar! The spice-lings were not all that amused when last I visited the Spice House. Za'atar!

Holy crap delicious. It was about time I made something Spanish after watching hours upon hours of Spanish cooking shows. Migas, a Spanish peasant dish composed of fried breadcrumbs and "whatever" ingredients you may have present. I made mine with apples and hen of the woods mushrooms. Holy crap delicious. I doubled the recipe that served 4. And then I ate the entire batch by myself in one sitting. 8 servings my ass! I would wager that Spanish peasants didn't eat like waifish coked up supermodels.

Dinosaur kale with almonds and cauliflower hearts. I didn't want to open a new bottle of white wine, so we'll use red. Now we're color coordinated with the roasted purple cauliflower.

Calamari fritto. Delicious! I bought the squid off the back of a truck at the farmer's market. They gave me extra tentacle bits because we agree'd those were the best parts. (And I was doing my best flirty flirty with everyone that day.)

Still hungry late at night, so for dinner #3, I fried up some of the frozen Thanksgiving celery root ravioli.

Butt but

Garlic roasted potatoes. With rosemary. I miss Ro.

Simple herbed roast chicken, enema style. I didn't have any beer cans, so I threw herbs and wine into a IKEA stainless steel pencil cup and shoved it up the chicken's ass. Twas definitely one of the more flavorful and moist roast chickens I've made. But the skin not as golden as I would like. Perhaps I need to play with the oven temperatures a bit and coke up the herb rub with sugar. But definitely tasty. The chicken should be like Donatella Versace. Crispy golden skin with herbs and booze flavor running throughout. 

Farewell to arms

Day 2 of our Mexico adventure brings us to our third family. Jesus welcomes us on our path. Well, not exactly us. Technically, Jesus faces the Tijuana Costco. His outstretched arms welcome value priced plasma tv's and aisles of mayonnaise as far as the eye can see. But that's pretty close to what I imagine heaven would be.

Our travels today take us to the hill country outside of Tijuana proper. Gorgeous views, unpaved roads, overweight car. Freak winds and rain.

Our task today- pouring the concrete roof. 10 tons worth of concrete.

And once again, there's a view of my ass.

Roof poured. Biceps sore. Seeking shelter from the driving wind and rain with a bit of nosh our familia kindly prepared for us. Then back across the border to our own complacency.

Burrow y burro

Across the border in Mexico again. This time, we gringos had the opportunity to support Eduardo's soccer team at their state championships. Go team Tijuana! Watching these kids run around made us realize how tired and out of shape we are. Sigh. Not a good thought to start a weekend of ditch digging and hauling concrete buckets. But we all learned the correct way to say "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!" Eduardo is the one that looks like Tigger.

The Ditch. Aie! The Ditch. Rocky, compacted, sticky, dense soil. Mucho pick axing chip chip chipping away at the limestone. I could have sworn I hauled out the same boulder multiple times today. My elbows call out for a jackhammer. Where is the jackhammer?

I befriend Preston's Mexican cousin. Su nombre es "Donkey."

Me thinks this rock is following me. Me thinks this may be sun stroke.

Me thinks this may be a dinosaur femur bone. Me thinks me needs to talk to photographer as all me photos are of me ass.

Wendy con familia feliz.

Fun guy

It doesn't take much to trigger a chorus of "My Humps" in my head.

Hot today. Over 100 degrees. It's nearly October. Damn climate change. I blame Dick Cheney.

Wild mushroom spaghetti. Well, not exactly wild. The 3 different kinds of perfectly unblemished hen of the woods, king trumpet, and shimeji mushrooms were cultivated at a Japanese laboratory under strict temperature and humidity conditions. Once the $50 million dollar, 250,000 square foot, green energy powered, zero landfill mushroom lab opens near San Diego, these mushrooms would be both organic AND local! Not exactly the kind of local organic farming the hairy pitted granola earth moms have in mind. But tasty.

Bad ass

Tomatoes again. No fresh basil leaves in the house, but I have emergency pesto. See... thinking ahead.

Preston's butt cancer lump is getting bigger.

Bam boooo!

Woody wagon paneling was looking a bit faded. It's time to start fresh with something new. In light of the current eco-chic trends, I may put up bamboo panels next. Faux vinyl bamboo panels to be exact. In this country, most of us embrace environmentalism only if it's convenient and makes us look good. And we only do it half assed.

Booty tang

Hannah drove down to visit for the new year's. Her chariot announces her presence.



Uncle Davy's chariot announces... well, Uncle Davy is Uncle Davy.



Hannah likes the picnic table her uncle got her. This is the no adults allowed table. The clever product design filters out people with large asses.



I'm not even sure Hannah even recognizes anything Nemo. No clue why we're waiting 2 hours in line to ride the yellow submarines to see an animated clownfish in a movie she's never seen.



No Nemo yet. But at last we're sitting our fat asses down.



The It's a Small World ride will be closing for "upgrades" soon. Disney needs to make the boats more buoyant. And parts of the track have to be deeper and wider to allow for a wider turning radius. Such is the effect of our country's expanding waistline. Brought forth by our unnaturally monoculture corn based food supply. Itself a consequence of some well intentioned, but flawed farm subsidy policy dating back decades. Which have deepened our petroleum dependance because of corn's reliance on petroleum based fertilizers. So that we can feed our beef and tilapia, animals which are not biologically designed to process corn. And produce the multi-syllabic chemical food components that make up nearly every aisle of our grocery stores. To which we drive miles and miles back and forth inside our air conditioned 12 miles per gallon automobiles. But boy, sometimes one of those hostess cupcakes really hits the spot.

Butt crack

Dear Santa, I've been a good boy this year. Please bring me skunks and squirrels and chipmunks and possums and ducks and geese and cows and sheep. No cats please. And I like the dog biscuits that smell like stinky ass.



Some killer swiss chard from the backyard. I may have been a bit aggressive with the chile peppers.



Mushroom pasta, and tuna bean salad. Just one fish this year. We'll ease into Italy's traditional feast of the seven fishes slowly.



Some rosemary lemon chickens. Christmas goose would have required a lot more planning and effort. This year's holiday theme is Sloth. So this year's Christmas dinner I pulled out of my ass in a couple of hours.



And my pumpkin pie cracked. I may have to dial down the temperature of the oven.

Manteca de cerdo

Pig butter. First day of winter means my ass needs more insulation. So we're cooking with lard!



Resulting in the world's most bestest ever tomatillo braised pork loin.



Other than clothing sizes, many many good things are marked with three X's.

Food pron

Luggage cast-off romantical novels in the guest room. Girl porn. I tried reading these and I got bored out of my mind after a couple pages. Where are the pictures? Where's the sound and video? What's with all this needless story and plot thing?



So I played with food and made lasagne. Much more satisfying.



And it keeps on giving for days.

Happy Birthday Davy

Not only did Davy get a Dim Sum birthday involving chicken feet at the Empress Pavilion with the Josh and the Flip and the MK and the Megan. But I found super deformed kiwi's at the farmer's market. I especially like the ass-shaped one. And we saw Mrs Rossini from Who's The Boss a few tables over.