chips, salsa + guacamole
hi friends, lovers + people probably related to me -
in act four we will discuss my newfound obsession with coordinating/and or matching sweatsuits, just kidding
it’s really nice and comforting that you can turn on the food network at any time and find guy fieri
all my best restaurant memories involve endless chips + salsa
when I’m feeling fairly ambitious - I make my own salsa. It’s not an all the time thing because I’m v. lucky that my go to grocery store (cermak produce) has great salsas, especially this spicy green one, but that’s a story for another time.
my youngest sister turned 13 on monday + she wanted a taco party so of course I made my own salsa(s).
if you know me then you know that i have v. strong opinions + decades of love for mexican food.
two words, table salsa - the kind that is tomato(y), onion(y), garlick(y), fresh + maybe slightly spicier than you anticipated. my platonic ideals of table salsa are from los (the one on roosevelt) - again if you know, you know, long dinners at cozymels with the duggans going through literal bowls of it, montezumas in gettysburg,pa - dinner with the fam, dates + the volleyball club team.
table salsa is tricky - because when it’s good, it’s really good + when it’s not - it’s just sad. confession time - i have definitely cried in the pantry over a table salsa i made that didn’t turn out right. but then i remembered this recipe from bon appetit - which is a v. good place to start
3-4 medium to large ripe red roma tomatoes
cilantro
1 white onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 lime
2/3 serranos or jalepenos depending your heat preference
olive oil
salt + pepper (of course)
turn your oven to broil (it’s not that scary, I promise)
quarter your tomatoes, slice your onion in fat rings, cut the tops + bottoms off the serranos, leave the garlic cloves unpeeled (this is my favorite, roasting the garlic in their little jackets)
put them all in the same sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, salt + pepper - broil them till everything starts getting a little brown + burnished. peel off the jackets from the garlic it should be v. easy + transfer everything to the blender/food processor situation of your choice - pulse till combined but still slightly chunky. Taste - with a chip + also with a spoon, add more salt + pepper, a squeeze of lime + a little chopped cilantro - I will say maybe also wait for this to cool - not everyone can get past the feeling of slightly warm salsa. I tend to make mine a day before or morning of I want to eat it, so that the flavors can meld.
i have a necklace with an avocado charm on it - that’s all you need to know
I always make my own guacamole for any taco tuesday, fajita friday - whatever else there is. also when I don’t feel v. much like cooking or after a v. long day I make (just) guacamole for dinner. it’s enough chopping that I feel calm afterwards - but easy enough that you can’t eff it up. when i do this I like to have a couple of glasses of white wine with ice in them - channel the upper middle class mom to which i aspire (hope everyone read that sarcastically). i’ve gone through phases like college, when I put bell peppers in my guac (gasp), 2018-early 2019 when I was v. anti-tomato (read somewhere, that it wasn’t authentic enough), to now where i’m a fan of an obnoxious amount of cilantro, chopped onion, lots of lime + if the tomatoes are fresh sure throw them in there.
2-5 ripe avocados (depends on size + how much guac/how many people there are), chopped red or white onion, lots of cilantro, 1 big clove of garlic, salt + pepper, 1 serrano or jalapeno + possibly too much lime. just taste it - if it feels like it’s missing something, add it + taste it again - sooner or later you’ll end up eating the whole bowl.
particularly good things I consumed this week
“vampire weekend? what are they like hex girls adjacent? tell me that doesn’t sound like a scooby doo band” - my younger sister, megz
haley nahman’s lastest edition of her newsletter, maybe baby on recklessness
re-watching easy a
a decadent homemade ice cream cake covered with caramel, fudge - supported by an oreo bottom and a cookie dough layer
the trailer for rebecca
my first windburn of the fall szn
this article about the biggest wave of the year, who surfed it + why the world heard nothing about it
currently consuming
such a fun age: kiley reid - probably going to stay up past my bedtime to finish it
these whimsical retro(y) floral sculptures that I found via the awesome/terrible instagram discover page
catch ya on the flipside,
MK