The Cooking Critic

Maggie wants the world to know she isn’t a mooch. If you look over my posts in the last couple of months, it may look like she’s constantly stopping by on the off chance that something just came out of the oven, and why doesn’t she join me for dinner? But I must set the record straight. Not only did Maggie have Shahan and I over for a meal recently, she, in fact, had me over for dinner long before I ever returned the favor.

Maggie planned the meal, set the date and I said I’d bring an appetizer—the Vegetable-Avocado Salsa I made was an easy choice. I’d been eyeing the recipe for a while; the small picture of it in the upper left-hand corner of my Complete Outdoor Living Cookbook has been beckoning to me for a long time what with its festive colors and all. I even tried once to convince my non-avocado
-enamored mother to make it and bring it to a gathering because I wanted her to report back to me on how it tasted. On top of all this, I also had some Trader Joe’s avocados—despite my love for the avocado, I always have a hard time using up the four that come in a bag, and this salsa was a way to check one of my list. The dish required no oven either, a major bonus due to a recent heat wave and lack of air-conditioning in my apartment.

So I chopped and chopped and chopped the vegetables into fine little bits but left out the avocado initially because it makes the dip soupy if it joins the party but then sits around too long. I called Maggie and told her I’d be a little late because I needed to pick up a jicama on the way to her place. Maggie responded, “A jigga-what?” And I said, “It’s a bulbous, root vegetable that has the crunch of an apple but is mostly flavorless.” “Oh,” she replied.

I picked up my jicama and added both it and the avocado to the dip at Maggie’s place. And we happily munched on the dip then happily ate up Maggie’s red wine-themed meal. I’m not sure how I only just recently discovered intimate dinner parties are a great way to spend an evening, but I did. First we had cocktails with the appetizer, next we had wine with our meal served al fresco on the patio—it included a salad topped with blue-cheese stuffed mushrooms, eggplant parmesan and strawberries soaked in red wine sauce served over ice cream. As far as I can tell, the latter is the perfect summer dessert: wonderful, unusual and no stove or oven required (the heat has made me obsessed with the last criteria of late). After the meal, Maggie read our Tarot cards, which determined Shahan will never ever find love or happiness. I fared slightly better, though the multiple reference to “moving houses” made me nervous since there’s a For Sale sign in front of my apartment complex right now that I’m not pleased about at all. But the tarot cards predicted that in the end I’d be happy with the move. Perhaps my new place will have air-conditioning?

Adjustments: I used a jalapeño instead of a serrano chile but will try the spicier latter next time. And I used frozen corn instead of fresh since I’m on a freezer initiative right now. I ignored the instructions to make your own baked tortilla chips and instead bought some blue corn Tostitos.

Assessment: Shahan called this dip “a winner” and declared it a great fancy alternative to traditional salsa or guacamole. The different textures are wonderful: soft avocados, crunchy carrots and crisp jicama (of course, now I’m looking for recipes to help me use up the rest of the jicama). Be sure to salt and pepper the salsa appropriately since the seasonings help the flavors meld. Also, Vegetable-Avocado Dip is very beautiful. And while this dish wasn’t difficult to make, there is a lot of chopping, so I’m going to say it’s relatively easy with an emphasis on the “relatively.”

My alternative guacamole reigned supreme at Guac Bowl ’06 and all is right with the world. First, a quick recap of the winners (very punny for the uninitiated):

Best Traditional Guacamole: Guac Cousteau (Lisa and Jason VanBorssum)
Best Presentation: Guactanamo Bay (Melissa MacRae)
Best Alternative Guac: Tequila Guacingbird (me! Me me me me!)
Icarus Award (for the one who flew too close to the sun): Guac-king Stuffers (or stockings filled with peppermint guac and Christmas carols playing in the background, Brandon Oropallo)

Let me take you through my day:

Woke up. Made guacamole. This year I was going to use a really basic recipe (avocados, red onions, jalapeño, lemon, cilantro, salt) and just add a couple of teaspoons of tequila with the alcohol cooked out to make it alternative. I used a Meyer lemon thinking this was my second secret weapon next to the tequila since Meyer lemons are supposed to be the best lemons in the world. As it turns out, I wouldn’t recommend using a Meyer lemon in guacamole. Meyer lemons should stick to desserts.

Between the Meyer lemon and the tequila, my guac was the most mouth-puckering thing you’ve ever tasted. So, I panicked. I tried to fix this first with salt, then more avocado, then more salt. Then desperately I threw in cumin and garlic powder. I eyed the remains of the Taco Seasoning Mix I made recently, and that got tossed in the bowl too. Then more cumin. Then it tasted too much like cumin, so I had to add another avocado. More cilantro, onion and salt followed. At one point, I lost my mind and added more tequila and lemon. I simply can’t explain what was going through my head at this point. So I sat there staring at what was sure to be losing guacamole trying to think of something to combat the tartness. Sour cream and mayonnaise came to mind, but being tangy in their own right, this made absolutely no sense. So I thought about lemon squares and margaritas and what kept the lemon flavor from seeming sour. Sugar! I poured in sugar. Relief—it tasted better! So more and more sugar was poured into the mix until the guacamole became mildly addictive.

When I got to Guac Bowl held at the Adam Pava residence, which is the premier food event of Atwater Village—why I’m not hosting the premier food event of Atwater, no one knows—there were already some strong competitors in place. The Guac-Ness Monster sat steaming in a bath of dry ice, ambrosia guac tasted shockingly better than expected, guacaroni and cheese was still warm and one of the two Guactanamo Bays was already taking up a fourth of the table space. I set out my tequila shot glasses filled with guac, stuck some birds I got from an arts and craft store in a few glasses and hoped for the best.

Competition got stiffer as the afternoon progressed with pomegranate guac, grilled cactus guac, blood orange and fennel guac and a guac called The Emancipation Guaclimation that stood in protest of the entire Guac Bowl organization and its desire to turn the usually passive guacamole into instruments of competition. There were many other amazing entries, but this blog entry is already long, and I simply can’t name them all.

Ballots were secret and clearly marked, and the winners were announced at halftime. I now have an enormous trophy of a man holding a wreath who appears only to be wearing underwear. Perhaps he’s a swimmer? And I’d post my guac recipe if I remembered how in the world I made it. I hope y’all enjoyed it while it lasted. It was a one-time thing.

And I think Pittsburgh won the football game that some people seemed to be watching.

(For Adam’s pictures, go to: homepage.mac.com/pundog.)

So I decided to try out one of my avocados to make sure their texture will be perfect come Guac Bowl. (They will.) For those of you unfamiliar with this event, some call it the Super Bowl of guacamoles. It’s a whole lot of mashed avocados in one room.

I’ve gotten to know the avocado pretty well since I moved to California and find they’re pretty finicky creatures. They either like to be in tact surrounded by their knobby skin, or they want to be in your stomach. They’ll hang out in guacamole for a while, but even there they’ll turn beige from boredom if left to their own devices for too long. A squeeze of lemon can do only so much. So you can’t leave an avocado hanging. You have to eat the whole thing.

One Half of the Avocado for Lunch
What I like about this Quesadilla recipe is it makes me feel like I’m really making an effort because it’s in a cookbook, but all I’m doing is making a Mexican grilled cheese sandwich with some extra bits stuffed in there. God bless Williams-Sonoma for including this recipe in their fancy entertaining cookbook.

I didn’t bother taking a picture because all quesadillas look the same from the outside. It’s the inside that matters (avocado, cilantro, green onions and cheese).

Adjustments: Cheddar for the Monterey Jack, and I threw chicken into this normally vegetarian dish since I have a roast chicken hanging out in my fridge. And who has time to roast, peel and derib poblano peppers at lunctime? Not I. So no peppers for me.

Assessment: As easy as a meal can get. Tastes good too. Add Mexican rice, refried beans and/or a salad to make more substantial.

The Other Half for Dinner
I had this beef and broccoli meal all planned for tonight, but it just wasn’t feeling like a beef and broccoli kind of night. I needed to use the rest of that avocado, and I wasn’t that hungry after running anyways, and then I remembered the Avocado Salad recipe I discovered over the summer. It was exactly what I wanted and made me happy beyond reason.

Adjustments: I never bother to cut up bacon or prosciutto before cooking, which this and many other recipes suggest—it’s too much of a pain to turn over all the little bits when frying them up. I cook it in slabs, then chop it up afterwards. Also, I think the vinaigrette could use a squeeze of lemon, so it got one.

Assessment: I especially like this dish in summer (from the appropriately named book Easy Summer Cooking); it’s light and refreshing. It tasted good tonight in the midst of the frigid Los Angeles winters we have too. And it’s easy. But I’m sad the battery in my camera died—my creation looked just like the picture in the book.