Tag: Cinco de Mayo

May 6, 2026 – Seis de Mayo

May 6, 2026 /

If you are anything like me, you are regretting that last margarita from last night. Five AM comes awfully early and I have to hit the ground running. I am kidding, I regret nothing and I am old enough to respect my limits and take my lumps if that it what it comes to. What I am dancing about is that my wife and I went out last night to see how our new town throws down for Cinco de Mayo.

If you are truly like me, then you don’t have a lot of desire to jump into another culturally appropriated holiday like St Patrick’s Day as another example. That being said, I am all gung ho to explore my new home town even if that means I need to have multiple margaritas to do it.

Last week, I agreed to go out to a Mexican restaurant because I wanted to know if it was any good. I was actually pleasantly surprised because my expectation levels are pretty low when it comes to Mexican/American restaurants. So, when I come away thinking not too bad, it is a huge win. That doesn’t mean that I am going to crave this place but it does mean that I am not going to wish I would have stayed home and made peanut butter and jelly if we do choose to go there.

I ran across something pretty neat a few months ago. It is called the Central Coast Food Trail. Take it with a little bit of a grain of salt, I am pretty sure the list is sponsored and not necessarily awarded. Nevertheless it is a good start on getting a bead on some quality food.

As a kid, my family came to the beach for two things. The first was camping but the second was fishing. Grade school and middle schools we typically made a trip to go salmon fishing and consequently we camped the weekend. When the salmon regulations were changed so that there was not a concentrated couple of weeks in late August, we stopped coming to the coast.

On my mom’s side of the family they were fairly smitten with the coast. So much so that several of them had beach houses. They were never fisherman and from the 1990s onward my trips to the coast were almost strictly leisure. They involved going out to eat and shopping. I am aware of some good restaurants in the area but I have a pretty limited experience level with what it offered.

I actually got to the point that I would prefer to stay home as to go to the coast. Many times my wife would spend the weekend with her friends and I would stay home with the kids. I have nothing personal against the coast, it was more a function having no desire to live a life of consumerism. I start to get board going too long into stores that I like, a whole day is dreadful.

I wrote the above to say that connecting with my future community in that way is revolutionary. It is a completely different way to see this area. It is not simply a collection of restaurants that primarily service the weekenders and the spring breaker families but people that are growing and harvesting with the same amount of passion that anyone, anywhere would exhibit.

It is not just restaurants either. I learned that there is actually a culinary teaching center here in our town. I don’t know much about it at this point but I am definitely going to look into it. That sounds like a good date night idea.

I think that it goes without saying but that the ocean translates into seafood. There are opportunities to get salmon, rock fish, halibut, Dungeonous crab, bay shrimp, clams and oysters. Depending of the season, there is also tuna out there. You just have to go way out. Seafood is great, but it definitely needs to be paired with other items. Finding out about local produce and seasonal fair is critical for top notch meals at home.

End Your Programing Routine: I am getting to the age that I don’t need an excuse to drink or eat enchiladas. I like to go to bed at 9:30 after I have made and eaten my enchiladas. That being said, it is kind of fun to open the doors to someplace I have seen my whole life but never stepped inside. While I don’t really want to spend my time frequenting these places but I would like to be somewhat of an authority of my new home town. Last night I sucked up my preferences and hit the town with my wife. You just have to do that sometimes, even if the reason is flimsy.

May 28, 2025 – Air Fryers and Frozen Burritos

May 28, 2025 /

I do these things so you don’t have to. I am still looking for a best use (or any use) for this air fryer. I will talk about some of my other results a little later, but first I thought that a fast food machine might be best used on some prepared burritos. It is like terroir in wine, pair the food with the wine from the region. In this case, pair the food cooked with the method of cooking.

My wife was in Las Vegas during Cinco de Mayo. She kept sending me a bunch of pictures from the city wide ‘street party’ with giant margaritas and festive food. I can’t say that I didn’t feel a little bit jealous that I had planned beef bourguignon that night. I wondered if using the air fryer with prepared burritos. I liked them in the oven better but it seems insane to bake for 45 minutes.

I thought I would buy some bean and cheese burritos so that we could all eat, meat eaters and vegetarians alike. I would doll them up with some fixings like you see at a Mexican restaurant and they would be something like a chimichanga or fried burrito. So, that is what I did.

I didn’t make much in the way of sides so I had a couple of mangos that were end of their lives, leftover whipped cream and I paired that with some shortbread to make a shortcake kind of desert. I sprinkled Tajin on the top of it all for that flair.

I won’t lie, you can see the picture as well that I thought it looked pretty good. In actuality, the burritos were terrible. The tortilla was like leather. The bean and cheese filling was kind of tasteless clay. The added vegetables and salsa made it somewhat palatable. My mango shortcake was excellent however.

This critique comes with two aspects. The first is frozen burritos are a low quality product. I mean, what would you expect at $1 a piece. Once I get through these, I am done with them forever, unless I am starving to death. I feel like thirty years ago I used to like them as an occasional, inexpensive snack but I am also sure that the quality ingredients has steadily declined in that period as well like everything else in the food industry..

As to the air fryer… For sure, the air fryer didn’t help with the exterior. They turned part of that tortilla into leather and other parts into a cracker. I have used this air-fryer probably half a dozen times now and I am about to give it the pass in my kitchen.

Last night, I made steak fries and the outside was definitely crispier but the inside was potato-y. They were very dry in texture overall and not appealing to me. That pretty much sums up my experience with the air fryer. It does make the outside crispier but is also dry’s out the food, leaving a less than taste.

I won’t say that an air fryer doesn’t have utility. It is convenient when I am using the oven for something else at a different temperature. But if the results are going to be substandard, I don’t know if it is worth the utility. I have also found that I can run the air fryer and the toaster on the same circuit at the same time. I didn’t do the math before I tried it, but I was definitely surprised.

Before I let the air fryer rest in peace I have one more complaint. The overall volume is very small. When I have made something like French fries for dinner, I have to make them in batches. This results in either eating cold food or eating in batches, neither of which is really satisfactory.

End Your Programming Routine: I would confidently say that I have used the air fryer enough to determine that I wouldn’t recommend it. It is fast and convenient but the overall result is less than satisfactory. If it turns out that that my household becomes significantly smaller, then maybe but it would require a lot of experimentation. At this point, I am not willing to suffer through the investment of time when other methods yield better results.

May 5, 2021- Feliz Cinco De Mayo

May 5, 2021 /

This is one of those days that has changed in my lifetime. I suppose that with the rise of Latino culture in my area, there has become more awareness of the culture in general. I would equate it more to Saint Patrick’s Day where people are enjoying something that they have no idea what it is about.

Ask a typical American what is Cinco de Mayo and there is a good chance they are going to say Mexican Independence Day which is wrong. Mexican independence is September 16 Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of a victory against the French at Puebla in 1962. Huh, so what so important about that? Good question, not a lot. My wife who has lived in Mexico says that it really isn’t acknowledged as a holiday.

You can read all about it if you like, but now that you know the truth what are you going to do? I say enjoy it. I love Mexican food and the weather is (often) nice. Crack a cold one or two and start to get educated the real history.

Now that I have given permission to enjoy, let’s get serious. Mexican food is way (and I mean way) more diverse than tacos and Coronas. Just like the United States, Mexico is an infusion of culture primarily German, French, Spanish and native. For instance, my favorite Mexican beer is Dos Equis Amber which is an example of a Vienna style lager. In fact, all of the ‘brown’ beers like Negro Modelo are take-offs of the Vienna style lager. We all know about the Margarita (lime and tequila) but what about the Paloma which is grapefruit juice and tequila?

I am going to transition from drinks to food now but I was trying to give some recognizable difference to show what is under the surface but probably not known. So, food… who doesn’t love nachos? But what we think of as Mexican food is colored by a number of factors. First let’s start at a high level history of the food.

The basis of the food is the indigenous base. That means that it is different depending on the location. For instance, food is different in the southern region than it is in the northern and the inner regions differ from the coast. Because of the long history of different indigenous cultures, every state (in Mexco) often has variation of the same dish. It had to do with the spices and raw ingredients available. To the tortilla, wheat is from the north and corn is the most ubiquitous. It is also why I consider pairing wheat with beef but more often corn with everything else.

You take the base (or real) Mexican food and you start mixing food from other countries like France and you end up with very intricate and refined food. Sauces such as mole are extremely complicated and rich in flavor. Don’t be fooled with the restaurant mole, this can be highly refined and delicious. I would submit that Mexican food can be fine dining and held up against anything else in the world or dressed down to street food.

As food and culture migrate, so does the interpretation. Frequently what we see as ‘Mexican’ food has been coopted into Tex-Mex and American tastes. It is kind of like when I had a hamburger or pizza in China, close but not right. Our typical rice, beans, entrée plate has become what is synonymous with Mexican food but it runs much deeper than that.

End Your Programming Routine: Enjoy Cinco de Mayo. I haven’t decided what is for dinner yet, but it is either going to be ceviche (not originally Mexican but already made) or some fresh made chorizo (Spanish origin) I bought yesterday. Take the time to be educated in history and culture so that you make your celebration about the right things like just having fun rather than thinking you are some culturally sensitive, woke dumbass.