EatNopales

In Mexico some of the traditional first foods are: Egg Yolks Atole (Ground, Nixtamalized Corn porridge) Pureed Tomato, Carrots, Mashed & Salted Avocado, Potato, Sweet Potato, Beans, Bone Marrow Soup pureed with Tortilla, Pasta or Rice Barley Agua Fresca

My nominations: Peeps (really could there ever be a more blah & uninspiring waste of resources?) Cadbury Filled Eggs (because I always fantasize what they should be like and never are) Candy Corn (reminds me of the abomination that is sweet corn and then worse.. it is just striped wax with a hint of sugar) Swedish Fish (maybe they aren't even that bad.. maybe their texture is so bad because the average turns on package of Swedish Fish are once every twelve years) Twizzlers (a candy so bad it must have some kind of nefarious cult association... i.e., instead of secret handshakes the modern day Cabal splinter group of the Masons that controls the world identifies each other by their consumption of Twizzlers.. a practice that cannot be explained in gastronomic terms.. but in light of hypnosis) Whoppers (the candy that proudly chooses to evoke the aroma of baby milk vomit) Boston Baked Beans (mostly because they remind me that some people have the vile tradition of glopping molasses and/or sugar on to the noble Phaseolus)

I have never liked the commercial Coffee flavored yogurts myself but after Andie's post about homemade espresso yogurt... I was inspired to give it a shot. Boiled half a cup of home brewed coffee ( Masterpiece Roast blend of Kona & Jamaica beans a local Sonoma County coffee brand)... down until it was just two ounces, added two tablespoons of organic sugar to make a syrup Blended with half a cup Fage (BTW.. now that we are settled down after moving from Hawaii we are going to start making our own Yogurt this weekend)... voila This was delicious... if you like Tiramisu, Coffee Ice Cream or Fraps... you are going to like homemade Coffee yogurt.

Yup good stuff... reminds me of the artisinal Mexican yogurt you buy in bulk at the Cremerias (Dairy Shops)... their farm is 15 minutes from where we live & we buy their cheeses & yogurt at our farmer's market.

Or you could also consider that for every 1,000 seeming technological advances in cooking only 1 pans out & becomes part of tradition. The microwave is one of the most adopted technological advances in cooking whoopee do... lets all blindly absorb every new idea as the next fire. Finally... sharp stick, hot rocks & open campfire still produce some the best gastronomic results available. The fact that people would prefer to use a Microwave is more a blemish on our preferences than some great triumph.

Mrs Nopales picked up a sweetened Yuzu Tisane mix from Trader Joe's that was pretty cloyingly bad as a Tisane... but stirring it in to some Fage (about half a cup) was quite palatable. Japanese Yogurt.. check

That is a very important question.... Smoking causes Lung Cancer... eating Rare red meat causes Colon Cancer. Now don't get me wrong I love myself a venison steak barely scared on the griddle... with that opulent purpleish hue that looks more like Sashimi than steak... but there is a reason no sustainable, densely populated culture (of Homo Sapiens) ever existed on rare meats. Yes, just about every pre-industrial culture had its celebratory raw / rare flesh once in a blue moon... but you just can't build a viable society on eating raw / rare meats.... wait a minute.. this might solve the Social Security "crisis" as long as we are willing to allow health insurance exclusions for colon cancers... okay never mind... I am all for this... for the next stimulus I vote that every American household get a Sous Vide machine.

I second that metion... the deliciousness just jumps right out at you.

Made some savory Oat Bran cakes for breakfast with a dollop of Strauss Dairy Sour Cream & some Poblano-Onion Yogurt mole Porridge is sooo two millenia ago... griddled cakes are so much more palatable

If anything the whole concept behind Sous Vide is making cooking brainless not more complicated... I wouldn't be surprised if tidy consumer versions of Sous Vide machines become the next Microwave or Crock Pot. That said... i am not entirely sold on Sous Vide... despite what the business people tell you the plastic is gonna leach (I've tasted it on restaurant food)... for many foods you can obtain reasonably similar results by wrapping the foods in a natural / organic things (like Banana leaves) and cooking in a convection oven etc., I think in the end it will become a widespread convenience item... and the real cooks & the cool kids will shun them... c'est la vie

Well... statistically speaking... I would bet money that White people consume more Burritos than Hispanics do.... my guess is it would be a White Male

I've never used it, or even heard of it, but might give it a try. The Reynolds site doesn't say what it is, other than a "special, safe" coating. But, they seem to have a patent on the process, which you can find online. It looks like it's a combination of polydimethylsiloxane combined with a phenol of some sort. So basically a silcone-based coating. One patent link I found: http://tinyurl.com/3dyw8uw Awesome work finding the patent application... reading through it, turns out the "food contact safe phenols" are BHT & BHA both are believed to increase carcinogenicity & tumorigenicity... it was used widely in the 70's as a preservative but (althouth the FDA says it is safe in food)... food companies themselves have largely stopped using it. I am no chemist.. but it seems obvious from the patent that the BHT / BHA will end up leaching into the food. It is funny we go out of our way to by packaged foods without the BHT / BHA but would introduce it to homecooked meals (probably featuring great ingredients)?

I think it is complete bull, that they can get away with not having to tell consumers what the fk is in it.... and then we wonder why health care costs increase at double digit rates in the U.S. No thanks... there are natural alternatives with superior carbon footprint, known health & environmental impact etc.,

As they say on Ni Hao Kai Lan (Nickelodeon Jr.)... try it, try it... you might like it.

Agreed.... a boring old French style Foie Gras served with Masala Yogurt reduction would be pretty darn spectacular in my humble opinion.

Hey Chris.. you might like this: http://www.strikermanager.com/

Ay Dios... do we have any triathletes or ultra marathoners on the site? That has to be pushing 2,500 calories!

Hi EatNopales! Gotta say in my time lurking I've loved your posts, especially your foodblog. Maronites are actually from Lebanon, and Mexico has a huge Lebanese population, the vast majority of whom are Maronite Catholics. Iraqi Christians are either Chaldean (Catholic) or Assyrian (Orthodox). Hi.. thanks for the correction... sorry I oversimplified the diversity of Levant / Mesopotamian Christians. Looking for to your contributions! BTW... my mother & I believe her paternal grandmother was of Middle Eastern ancestry... her family was relatively new to the area & no one really knew where they came from, she & her sisters spoke a language no one else understood, regularly made flat bread from wheat flour & had some unusual religious practices while still observing Catholicism, and of course "looked" Lebanese.... and although her husband was basically indigenous (of the Tecuexe nation) her children (including my maternal grandfather) could have been dropped in Baghdad & no one would bat an eyelash.

Welcome... but no more Mexican inspired posts out of you until you have a Taco Arabe* to present to us. * The precursor to Tacos al Pastor was invented in the early 1930's by an Iraqi Maronite immigrant in Puebla.

Ok, I was starting to be convinced that cheetos and yogurt MIGHT not be so bad. Yogurt is close to sour cream, you can use sour cream to make french onion dip, and cheetos in french onion dip sounds kind of good. But the idea of cheetos blended into yogurt has grossed me out so much worse than when the whole conversation started. Yeah but if Grant Achatz did some kind of modernist Cheeto flavored Yogurt everyone (okay most "foodies" not everyone)would be swooning simply at the idea & marvelling at his genius while declaring it the best recipe of the Western Hemisphere in the last 50 years

We make something like that in the crock pot... but I bet the texture of baking might be better... what do you think?

I think that if you pulverize a cup of Cheetos... blend it with a cup of yogurt & then topped that with large, broken pieces of Cheetos.. it might not be bad.

Okay.. but what if we re-imagine it as an iced English Black Tea, Coconut Milk, Yogurt drink sweetened with Condensed Milk? Or how about an Earl Grey infused simple syrup stirred into a nice thick, plain yogurt?

Well... how does dipping Cheetos in Sour Cream sound? Admit it.. that kind of sounds good to you right? I really doubt most people could distinguish between Sour Cream & a medium thick, full fat Med style Yogurt / Jocoque in a blind taste test... specially if they were just told that they are tasting two different Sour Creams... I really doubt many people would say... oh wait a minute I don't think one of them is even sour cream.

Silken Tofu served in Japanese brown curry with drizzle of salted lassi... next.