OK, am I the only guy who finds this a little suspicious, following so quickly on the heels of this? Oooh, look, shiny objects.
SLA means ‘So Long, Asshole’
Well, Herself ran away from home today, bound for New Orleans. She claims to be attending a librarians conference, something called “The SLA 2010 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO,” but Momma O’Grady didn’t raise no fools. I mean, what kind of library outfit would hire James Carville and Mary Matalin as its keynote speakers? Puh-leeze.
I practically invented that really-honey-I’m-working dodge, telling her for years that I was going to Vegas to spend a week covering a bicycle-industry trade show called “Interbike.” And she bought it. Ho, ho. There’s one born every minute, but I ain’t one of ’em, Toots.
So it’s just me and the cats here, enjoying some of the filthiest June weather in recent memory. If it’s not pissing down rain, it’s blowing 40 mph or thereabouts, and sometimes it’s doing both, causing the furnace to click on.
These conditions are not limited to Colorado, by the way — the poor saps racing the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de Suisse have had to break out the rain capes. Happily, I do my little bit of business indoors, where’s it’s dry.
Meanwhile, Herself just rang me up and said she can’t find red beans and rice, jambalaya or gumbo at the restaurant she’s supposedly at. Just sushi. She’s not nearly as good at lying through her teeth as I am. Hell, I bet she’s not even in The Big Easy. She’s probably in Vegas.
• Quick, all you librarians — from which work of popular fiction did I steal the headline on this post?
Satiated sirens
We had an old pal from Weirdcliffe pop in for a two-day visit beginning Thursday, and she brought her mom along, so I was required to cook. They’re all smiling in the picture at right, so I must not have poisoned anyone this time around.
The dinner menu was, of course, New Mexican — chicken quesadillas with salsa fresca and jalapeño-stuffed olives on Thursday, and posole with salsa verde on Friday. I was going to whip up some guacamole, too, but spaced it out, which means we can have that tonight with the leftovers.
Wines came from Spain, Portugal and France, including a delicious 2008 Château Miraval Côtes de Provence rosé called “Pink Floyd” that Kelli’s mom, Mary, bought for us. The 2009 iteration placed fourth in a top-10 ranking in a recent Wines of the Times piece by Eric Asimov.
Kelli had requested the posole, which I used to make all the time when we all still lived in Weirdcliffe, so I reprised my old recipe instead of the one I’ve been using from The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook. Posole v1.0 uses plain water instead of chicken stock, canned white hominy and a tad less garlic, plus I don’t sauté the onions and garlic — I just chuck ’em into the pot with all the other ingredients.
It’s a lazy man’s posole, but Mary liked it enough to ask for the recipe. If you’d like it, too, here it is:
Lazy Man’s Posole
1 29-ounce can of white hominy
1.5 pounds lean pork, diced
2-4 dried New Mexican red chile pods
2 cups chopped onion
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp. Mexican oregano
1 tsp. freshly ground cumin seed
6 cups water
Salt to taste
Remove the stems and seeds from the chile pods and chop with the onions in a food processor. Mince the garlic. Throw the whole shootin’ match into a pot, bring to a boil and then simmer for 2-3 hours until the pork is tender. Add water as necessary. Serve with warm flour tortillas and small bowls of various garnishes — I usually chop up a few jalapeños, radishes and scallions for folks to add to the posole as they please. Coarsely chopped cilantro is nice, too.
This serves about six light eaters or three to four bicycle types, so I usually double up on it to be assured of leftovers.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Jesus. Aitch. Keereist. If I lived in California, I’d be thinking about relocating to Cuba right about now.
Divide and conquer
Now here’s a goddamn bike race for you. Only one stage — but it’s 2,745 miles long, from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to Antelope Wells, N.M., and there are no soigneurs, domestiques, chefs, team cars, buses, officials, checkpoints, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. Strictly a garage-band sort of deal. Ride or die.
The Tour Divide runs along the Adventure Cycling Association’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and the association has just hired the women’s record holder for the event, Jill Homer, as project manager and deputy editor of Adventure Cyclist magazine.
I like this note in the rules:
7. Tour Divide is a web-administered, do-it-yourself challenge based on the purest of wagers: the gentlemen’s bet or agreement. Nothing to win or lose but honor.
How refreshing.
