On Salsa... Oh So Briefly (and Other Things, Too)

There’s one thing I just have to say before I even get started… home-made is BEST. It’s always been so, and probably will always BE so… with just a couple of caveats: (1) you gotta know what you’re doing and (2) you have to have the proper ingredients. Number Two is key, yanno. Some folks can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but that ain’t the case when it comes to salsa and its prime ingredient: chile. The ol’ IT saw… garbage in, garbage out… applies to salsa, in spades.

I might could be a salsa connoisseur, but I’m reluctant to bill myself as such. Let’s just say my experience with the art form goes back well over 40 years and I’ve eaten a tremendous number of varieties of this essential condiment… ranging from the exquisite to the mundane (and worse). And speaking of “exquisite,” The First Mrs. Pennington is a past master at creating the most delectable salsa you can imagine. Apropos of nothing, the lady kept me supplied with it (the salsa) during my one-year sojourn in Beautiful-Sinop-By-The-Sea via frequent Care Packages containing Mason jars of her salsa. That salsa was jealously guarded… believe me… and accompanied me to the chow hall every morning to grace my eggs and every evening to make other things edible (Army food SUCKS). Her salsa was also much in demand from friends who knew about the wonderfulness of salsa in general and hers, in particular. A few friendships were made because of her salsa, but let us not digress further.

One of the absolute worst periods of my life where salsa is concerned was spending over ten years in the Great Salsa Desert, also known as the northern tier (read as: Detroit and Rochester, NY). People in that part of the world have absolutely NO idea about salsa… and their concept of “good salsa” is limited to Pace or Old El Paso. Blech. Either of those two brands are to salsa as ketchup is to marinara sauce… i.e., they’re both red, but the resemblance begins and ends right there. And you know what’s strange? I can go to Wally-World right here in P-Ville and BOTH of those brands are featured prominently on the shelves. Go figure…

One of the reasons I make my bi-weekly trips over to The Big(ger) City^TM is to pick up a couple weeks’ supply of El Pinto, my current favorite salsa. El Pinto used to be available in P-Ville but for some reason the managers at Wally-World decided to discontinue it… more than likely because it ain’t the cheapest brand available, and Wally-World is ALL about cheap. But we digress… yet again. I truly believe El Pinto is the absolute BEST commercial salsa I’ve ever tasted and comes awfully danged close to home-made. It’s also available in several different formulas, from the usual mild to hot, to various permutations of red, green, and other varieties. And there’s good news for those folks who aren’t privileged to live in New Mexico, otherwise known as The Capital of the Chile Universe: you can buy El Pinto salsa on-line. My two favorite flavors are illustrated at left.

So… just as life is too short to drink bad beer, it’s most definitely too short to tolerate less than the best salsa. You DO have options. Use ‘em.

―:☺:―

Via Johnny Dollar at Olbermann Watch… a most excellent segment from last Friday’s Red Eye:

The whole Halftime Report is here… if’n ya wanna go. It’s worth the trip.

―:☺:―

While we’re on about politics, there’s this:

Looking for all the world like the sweating floor manager on the late afternoon shift at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in an unbuttoned shiny black shirt and undersized sport coat, Rush Limbaugh leaned his meaty hands on the lectern at the CPAC conference and slipped a greasy dollar bill into the G-string of the writhing conservative dead-enders packed into garishly lit Omni Shoreham in Washington DC.

Jowls rolling like thunder from the right via CNN's unfortunate high-definition feed, Limbaugh took control of the sad and tattered remnants of the mainstream conservative movement, and urged continued allegiance to the noble Lost Cause of Reagan, metaphorically carrying his rebel-yelling followers into the hills like modern-day Quantrill's Raiders standing firm against change.

Judas Priest. The above takes the proverbial cake in the Purple Prose Sweepstakes. Isn’t there some sort of web site dedicated to over-reliance on one’s handy-dandy thesaurus and bad writing, in general? Why, yes… yes there IS. I’m thinking you’re seeing the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton winner, just above. All others should just give it up… there’s NO topping Mr. Watson. Elementary, and all that.

A Public Service Announcement (AND a Re-Run!)

You long-time Gentle Readers know that I go on (and on!) about El Pinto salsa and chile sauce, which is New Mexico's best... and that, by definition, makes it the WORLD'S best salsa.  I was amazed and gratified to learn that everyone in these United States can enjoy New Mexico's finest chile because you can now buy it on Amazon.  Witness:

You may wonder why I bought El Pinto on Amazon and you'd be right to wonder.  The main reason is because a uniformed official from United Parcel Service will deliver the chile right to my door, saving me the trouble and expense of driving all the way to The Big(ger) City^TM to purchase same (no store in P-Ville carries the green chile sauce).  So there's that.

Oh, yeah.  I said I had a re-run for ya...

Monday, August 29, 2011

Does My Diet Make Me Look Fat?

I got to thinkin' that Michelle O would NOT be pleased at the way I eat.  Sometimes.  We all do this sorta thang occasionally and I know nary a soul who hasn't eaten a whole bag o' Oreos (or the equivalent amount o' junk food o' choice) and called it dinner at one point or another.  But consider my entire caloric intake from yesterday, in rough chronological order:

• Eight cups o' strong espresso-grind coffee, lightened with moderate amounts o' half-and-half and sweetened with raw cane sugar. Oh, and one level teaspoon o' Ovaltine, per cup.
• A complete bag o' home made tortilla chips from Juanito's restaurant, accompanied by a quarter jar o' El Pinto Green Chile Sauce (consumed in concert with the following)
• Three beers (Sammy Adams Octoberfest x2, Newcastle Nut Brown Ale)
• Four Nabsico Pinwheel cookies
• Two large glasses o' whole milk (we do NOT do 2% or any other sort o' perverted and unnatural food acts here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington... in the truest sense, meaning we also reject anything/everything labeled "organic" or "light")
• Four fingers o' Cragganmore (well, mebbe just slightly more)
• One tin o' Crown Prince Kipper Snacks
• A half pint o' Häagen-Dazs butter pecan ice cream
• One Centrum Silver vitamin pill 

I don't worry about the calories... I get plenty o' those in one form or another... but there are times when I just don't want to cook, even to the point of nuking sumthin' out o' the freezer. So, we just graze when terminal laziness hits.  Am I wrong in this?  Or is Michelle O just an overbearing, dominating, more-than-slightly-addled, busybody?  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Yup.  El Pinto... it's what's for dinner, sometimes.  And now YOU can do it, too.

Well, Yes. Yes It IS.

An appropriate 'toon for the day, eh?  We won't be casting any stones or aspersions at Black Friday shoppers, mainly coz some of 'em are near and dear to me.  But I'm of the opinion that shopping is best done from the comfort of my study...

Speakin' o' which... we just tried to order some of this:

This is a Limited Edition SuperHot Salsa and a collectors item for people that love heat! El Pinto put the New Mexico Scorpion pepper in a salsa for the first time and is bringing it back to satisfy the demand for heat.

Scorpion Salsa is brewed with the New Mexico Scorpion super hot chile pepper, grown in southern New Mexico, which tests consistently at over 1 million scoville units. The New Mexico Scorpion pepper was certified by the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University as one of the top four hottest peppers in the world.

“New Mexico Scorpion chiles are extremely rare,” says Jim Thomas, one of the Salsa Twins who oversees chile supply at El Pinto, “and not all Scorpions are created equal. They have to be grown properly to achieve the record setting heat level and proper flavor which fills your mouth for that chile pepper “high.””

Scorpion Salsa is characterized by waves of intense heat that combine with a distinctive taste unlike anything else. “We created an edible superhot salsa that can easily sneak up on you. If the first bite doesn’t get you, the second will,” said Salsa Twin John Thomas. The one million scoville heat units (SHU) of the scorpion peppers were brought down to a little over 10,000 SHU for Scorpion Salsa, but the sting that will satisfy those who love intense yet edible heat remains.

It appears El Pinto's web site is down, though.  I suppose that's one drawback to Cyber Monday, as opposed to Black Friday.  Brick and mortar stores rarely crash... unless it's from people crashing into YOU.  Meh.

My Car Is Officially Old (And So Am I)

Cadillac unveiled the New! Improved! 2014 CTS this past Tuesday, making The Dowager Tart officially obsolescent, if not obsolete.  There's this about that...

 

Cadillac generated a lot o' press with this unveiling, with articles here, here, and here.

So, here we are... our Tart bein' less than a year old and already out o' date.  This isn't the first time this has happened; we bought our 1983 Baby Beemer which was upstaged by an all-new platform in 1984 and our 1996 Impala SS was discontinued the year we bought it.  History repeats itself... always and ever.  That said... we love our Tart and will continue to love her even as she's been pushed aside by the New! and Improved! model.  (sigh)

Tuesday was also my birthday, wherein we turned 68 years of age.  That ol' cliché that goes "if I knew I was gonna live this long I'd have taken better care o' myself" certainly applies here.  That said, we don't look all THAT bad... witness this cheesy cellphone pic from Monday evening:

We... Diego (who took this pic), Felicity, great-granddaughter Mya, great-grandson DJ (not pictured), Buck, grandson Sean, and me... celebrated my birthday with drinks and dinner at El Pinto in ABQ, an establishment I've gone on about in the past.  El Pinto could very aptly be described as "the Restaurant At the End o' the Universe" when it comes to quality... there are none better as far as Mexican restaurants go and precious few restaurants, in general, that exceed El Pinto's quality.  They make damned fine salsa, too.

We split our actual birth date between family and friends, more specifically the SN1 family in the morning and Blog-Bud Lin and her friend (and house renovation contractor) Kyle in the afternoon.  I arrived at Lin's place early Tuesday afternoon at which time we proceeded to drink copious quantities o' beer and smoke cigars, plural.  I let it slip that Tuesday... this day... was my birthday and Kyle immediately responded with "Well, if today's yer birthday, then you need a present.  Wait here, I'll be right back."  Kyle went out to his car and returned with this:

That, Gentle Reader, is a Ruger 22/45 target pistol.  My mouth fell open and I sputtered protestations that I couldn't accept the gift but Kyle wouldn't be denied.  So, there you... and me... have it.  Is that cool, or what?

Our evening ended with a scrumptious dinner of Salmon Almondine accompanied with prodigious quantities of fresh asparagus.  We would have topped off the evening with tumblers o' Johnnie Walker Green but, alas.  I hit the wall and fell into bed at 2230 hrs.  We'll save the scotch for another time.

So.  We're home and it was a wonderful week away, spent with family and friends.  It was almost TOO much fun, Gentle Reader.  Almost.

Does My Diet Make Me Look Fat?

I got to thinkin' that Michelle O would NOT be pleased at the way I eat.  Sometimes.  We all do this sorta thang occasionally and I know nary a soul who hasn't eaten a whole bag o' Oreos (or the equivalent amount o' junk food o' choice) and called it dinner at one point or another.  But consider my entire caloric intake from yesterday, in rough chronological order:

• Eight cups o' strong espresso-grind coffee, lightened with moderate amounts o' half-and-half and sweetened with raw cane sugar. Oh, and one level teaspoon o' Ovaltine, per cup.
• A complete bag o' home made tortilla chips from Juanito's restaurant, accompanied by a quarter jar o' El Pinto Green Chile Sauce (consumed in concert with the following)
• Three beers (Sammy Adams Octoberfest x2, Newcastle Nut Brown Ale)
• Four Nabsico Pinwheel cookies
• Two large glasses o' whole milk (we do NOT do 2% or any other sort o' perverted and unnatural food acts here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington... in the truest sense, meaning we also reject anything/everything labeled "organic" or "light")
• Four fingers o' Cragganmore (well, mebbe just slightly more)
• One tin o' Crown Prince Kipper Snacks
• A half pint o' Häagen-Dazs butter pecan ice cream
• One Centrum Silver vitamin pill 

I don't worry about the calories... I get plenty o' those in one form or another... but there are times when I just don't want to cook, even to the point of nuking sumthin' out o' the freezer. So, we just graze when terminal laziness hits.  Am I wrong in this?  Or is Michelle O just an overbearing, dominating, more-than-slightly-addled, busybody?  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Random Notes

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We saddled up fairly early… for me, anyway… and headed out to the Big(ger) City™ to run a few errands. We got the oil changed in the car, dropped an item off at the UPS Store, and did a little light shopping for to restock the larder with comestibles not available in the charming village of P-Ville… such as four jars of El Pinto, a couple of bags of butter lettuce (why is it P-Villans only eat romaine or iceberg lettuce, apparently?), a pound of brie (same thing with cheese… if it ain’t cheddar, Swiss, or Monterey Jack, it AIN’T… in P-Ville), a Folly Pack from New Belgium (12 bottles of Fat Tire, 1554, Trippel, and Mothership Wit… which might just as well be called “The Buck Pack,” since this is what we drink here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington) and a luscious carrot cake. Among other things… all of which were bought at Albertson’s… which also served to delay the inevitable commissary and Class VI Store run by a couple of days.

I thought my tab was just a bit… umm… pricey when I checked out at Albertson’s and gave my receipt a quick glance to make sure I wasn’t charged double or triple for any one item. And… shock. Since when did the price of brie jump up to 15-frickin’-Yankee-Dollars a pound? Granted, this was the imported French variety, there being none of the usual Made In USA product I usually purchase. But, still! So… I went googling to see what the actual tariff is on brie and was shocked to discover this:

No one's likely to starve as a result, but the pending 300 percent duty on Roquefort, which could be imposed as soon as April 23, would drive its price into the unheard-of range of $60 a pound.

Dang. I almost always buy domestic cheeses, as indicated above. But I find these tariffs (see the linked article) abominable. Here’s the direct impact on me, aka The Consumer, of trade-wars. So, EU… you won’t drop the tariff on US beef? Good luck selling your Roquefort. (I still don’t know what the actual duty imposed on brie is, but I’m pretty sure it’s substantial, given the price of the French stuff is at least three times that of the domestic.)

And about the UPS Store. More sticker-shock. The last time I shipped anything via UPS was back in 1999, when I boxed up the album collection and shipped it off to Maine for safekeeping in SN2’s basement. That was a rather pricey endeavor, but we’re talking four large boxes filled with approximately 500 vinyl LPs… going from Ra-cha-cha, NY to Maine… via UPS Ground.

Yesterday I sent my 28-135mm lens back to Canon for service (we have focus issues with this lens)… in California… for the princely sum of 23 Yankee Dollars and change. Granted, I sent it Two Day Air… but still. Again. Perhaps I need to get out more, but I found these two examples of sticker-shock to be rather surprising.

―:☺:―

I am NOT a Happy Camper when it comes to teevee… I’m looking at YOU, Versus… coverage of the play-offs. Versus will cover Game One of the Detroit-Columbus series and then nothing more until Game Five, which happens on April 25th. That’s just not right… as the Wings are The Defending Champions!!

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: A Breakfast Tableau. A good healthy chunk of that carrot cake was sliced off and consumed right after I took the photo. One of the bennies of being an adult: “Cake for Breakfast.”

Well, Now! How About THIS?

We were sorta perplexed when The Brown Truck O' Happiness pulled up in front of El Casa Móvil De Pennington this afternoon, as we were most certain we hadn't ordered anything of late... or at least nothing that would be delivered by one of Our Favorite Ladies In All the World.  Said Lady inquired as to what sort of goodies she was bringing me today as she put the package in my hot lil hands.  I shrugged my shoulders and said "I dunno!"  "Well, it's from Albuquerque," said she.  And so it is... and it is this:

Six jars of the best salsa in the Free World... El Pinto...  specifically two jars each in three different flavors, including a special Balloon Fiesta Commemorative variety, which I've never seen before.  And all of it courtesy of long-time reader Bob Reese.  

Wow... Thanks, Bob!  There WILL be Mexican food for dinner tonight, you can count on that.

Yum! (And Other Thangs)

Apropos o' everythang, this:

I say that coz we're off to ABQ tomorrow to spend time with DIL#1 and fam'bly.  Mayhap I could talk her into having dinner at El Pinto while I get a half-bag o' chiles, roasted especially fer ME...

―:☺:―

We were gonna take off and go to ABQ this past weekend but I was held hostage by the USPS.  That's coz SN1's birthday is tomorrow and I was waiting for Godot... err... a shipment o' cee-gars from cigar.com that never arrived... until yesterday.  I had ordered a box o' SN1's favorite smokes, half o' which I intended to re-ship to him for his birthday.  But those kind and oh-so-efficient folks at the post office decided it would be a Good Thang to send my shipment to Puerto Rico, the upshot o' which was I didn't actually receive said shipment until yesterday, when it was far, far too late to re-ship.  But we had a Plan B, whereby we contacted the ever-helpful Tim at cigar.com and got him to ship directly to SN1 at his Undisclosed Location^TM in the desert.  Then I find out from SN1 that he's gonna go off on a TDY to yet another Undisclosed Location^TM on his birthday, which is tomorrow.

You just can't win sometimes.  But I guess his birthday present will be waiting for him when he returns early next week.  And then we should see a photo like this:

SN1 at Kandahar, in the near wayback.

Hopefully.

―:☺:―

In other news... we made a Command Decision: we're gonna go the implant route on our upcoming Adventures In Modern Dentistry, Part Deux.  We briefly flirted with getting a partial plate... at half the cost of implants... as an option, but we decided against that and are goin' to go the full-implant route.  I just don't wanna mess with false teeth and all the hassle that option involves.  It's a "quality o' life" decision and one that I HOPE I'll live to appreciate, which might could be problematic given my advanced age.  But, Hey!  Whatevah.  Ribs and corn on the cob will be viable options in future, dontcha know.  The launch date for our latest AiMD is set for 09/06/2012, when we'll lose six teeth in preparation for the follow-on implants and stuff.  But his latest adventure should only take a maximum of 45~60 days, or so I'm told... not like the two year journey o' times past.  We takes what we gets.

What's For Dinner, Buck?

Home-made red chile tamales!

Out of the nuker and before peeling

Peeled, smothered in El Pinto Green Chile Sauce, and ready to devour

When it comes to culinary delights, there ain't much in life that's better than home-made tamales.  Mmmm-mmm-mmm!

DIL Erma's sister Sulie stopped by the day before yesterday and dropped off a dozen of these beauties, relieving me of evening kitchen duties for three or four days.  Well, cooking duties, I should say.  We still had to make a salad and pour our beer. 

Life's been Hell since the maid quit, but kindly relatives help ease the pain and the inconvenience.

On the Horns of a (Quite Minor) Dilemma

So... we're just in from what passes for The Grand Tour here on The High Plains of New Mexico, to wit...

P-Ville====> The Big(ger) City^TM ====> Cannon Airplane Patch ====> P-Ville

... and we're all re-stocked as far as El Pinto, beer, and yes... even food... goes. And everything in its proper place, too.

So here's the dilemma: It's SUCH a lovely day outside... which is to say mid-70s, relatively calm (a five mph breeze), and brighter than your average day elsewhere but quite the norm for these parts. The sort of day that has my deck chairs whispering "Buck.... Buck... we need you out here, we really DO." So... do I pop open a 1554, re-light the cigar I didn't quite finish on the way home, and indulge my inner sloth? Or do I complete the blog-rounds, begun this morning but not yet finished?

Complicating factor: Game Seven is being played in Dee-troit tonight and we'll have an early start-time, i.e., 1700 hrs local. Which... only two and a half hours away. Just about enough time for part of my remaining agenda today, but not all.

Well, I think you know how this story ends. As much as I love my blog-buds, The Great Outdoors and beer is a siren-song that's proving irresistible. I'll catch up later.

Really.

News From the Poor and Obscure... as Opposed to the Rich and Famous

There’s light at the end of my Adventures In Modern Dentistry tunnel in the form of a date: September 21. That’s the day I get my new prosthetic molars installed. Yays!

I had a follow-up with Dr. Thompson yesterday and he says things are looking good. We need to give everything six months to heal, “everything” being the recent (last month) installation of screws in my jaw that hold the prostheses in place. I now get to begin thinking just where I’m gonna go to enjoy my first steak in over a year and a half. It’ll be ABQ, Amarillo, or Lubbock… I’ve eaten in excellent steak houses in all three cities. Neither P-Ville nor The Big(ger) City^TM have first-class steak houses and The Golden Corral… or even Cattle Baron… just ain’t gonna cut it, yanno?

OTOH… I could buy a slab of beef and grill it myself. But let’s be honest here. NO one grills a steak in his or her backyard to the same standard as that found in a first-class steak house. I do good work, true, and so do some of my friends. But I’d give the best backyard steak I’ve ever had a B+… no higher. And this occasion calls for an A… nothing less.

―:☺:―

Speaking of The Big(ger) City^TM… we were over that way yesterday to run the periodic errands, like giving baby a bath, picking up the week’s supply of El Pinto, and such. And new de-flappers for the awning, too. The Velcro strap on one of my old de-flappers came apart in my hands as I was cinching it down yesterday, and de-flappers ONLY work in pairs… one just doesn’t cut it. I bought a pair of High Plains of New Mexico Class de-flappers (which look like they’d be suitable for tornadoes and such), meaning they have approximately four times the clamping surface area of the old units. They may not work any better than the old ones, but they sure as Hell look impressive.

I also have a new scar on The Green Hornet. I was attacked by a passel of tumbleweeds on the way over to Clovis… including about three really big suckers… all of which came at me like a Greek phalanx. There wasn’t any sort of evasive maneuver to be had, at least not for a vehicle confined to two dimensions. So I just held on as I plowed through them, one of which had the nerve to jump about a foot into the air as I made contact. The resulting collision was with my hood and windshield (as opposed to the bumper area which got yet another two or more), leaving a noticeable scratch on my hood. I’m just glad the damned thing didn’t land inside the car (the top was down, of course)… coz those things HURT.

Ah… we do have SUCH exciting news, don’t we?

―:☺:―

Predictions are in for the Wings-Ducks series, which begins tomorrow evening in Detroit. ESPN’s Scott Burnside sez Wings in six, MLive.com's own Ansar Khan sez Wings in seven, The Hockey News sez Wings in six, Eric Duhatschek (Toronto Globe and Mail) sez Wings in six… and so on. Curiously, neither the LA Times nor the OC Register make predictions… and that might be telling. Or not. As for me? I went on the record day before yesterday as saying Wings in six. But these are the playoffs... and anything can happen. See: New Jersey.

One common thread: everyone agrees this will be a fun series. I’m thinking they’re right.

Guar-an-TEED to Make Yer Mouth Water

Well... mine, anyhoo... especially the shots of the roasting chiles:



Would you believe I haven't been there for about five years?  All these trips to ABQ of late and not one visit to El Pinto.  Sumthin's seriously wrong here.

But it's only been two days since I've had some of their salsa.  Over half of that jar of Scorpion Salsa is GONE...

What's a Body To Do?

Our weather just went all to hell overnight, as far as the temperature and our normally brilliant blue skies go.  It's pretty chilly out (about 55 degrees or so as we type, with 100% relative humidity) so that precludes any sort o' outdoor activity for YrHmblScrb, seein' as how we are soft in our old age.  Yeah, I COULD put on a sweatshirt, dump the collected rain water out o' the camp chairs (we did get some a lot o' rain, which is a great good thang), and sit outdoors for Happy Hour... but the only thing I would get out of THAT would be a wet ass and a bad disposition.

So we had a better ideer.  We mashed up four avocados that hit their ripeness peak just today, sliced and diced half a sweet onion (and that dicing was finer than frog-hair), squeezed half a lime's worth o' juice into the mix, and finished it off by adding two tablespoons of El Pinto Green Chile Sauce, after which we mashed some more.  The result went into the fridge so the various ingredients could become acquainted with each other.  That was two hours ago, this is now:

Some Happy Hours are better than others, Gentle Reader...  this one's pretty good.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack Project

Two avocados, half a red onion (no Vadalias at the store, dammit) chopped finer than frog hair, half a lime, and about three tablespoons of El Pinto.

Let the flavors marry in the fridge for about an hour or so and then... Happy Hour Bliss!

Bachelor Cooking...

... or: when in doubt... fix breakfast. Ya can never go wrong with a Big-Ass cheese omelet slathered with El Pinto, bacon, and toast. Never.

Still Under the WX

The actual WX matches my mood and state-o'-being... it's cold, gray, and wet outside, with a possibility of snow.  And we need to go out today if we want sumthin' other than corn flakes for dinner.  I'm not looking forward to that expedition...

I went looking for an answer to a comment Darryl made about yesterday's post, specifically where he asks for my guacamole recipe.  More on that in a minute, but in the meantime I stumbled upon this, which concerns yet another post I put up recently, that one bein' about writing on-line dating ads and trolling and stuff.

Blog-buddy Morgan has had admirable success in the realm of on-line dating (see his comment here). Ah, would that I could make the same claim. In those same comments linked in the preceding sentence I gave you the “Reader’s Digest” version of my issues with on-line dating. And now for a short war-story about this sort of social activity…

I was pretty active in the on-line dating game for a few years, most notably in Rochester, NY, and during my two-year sojourn in the Peoples Republic of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. It was in SFO that I had one of my most traumatic on-line dating experiences…

It started as these things always do…I read her ad, dropped her an e-mail, she responded, we spent a few hours on several consecutive nights in instant messaging conversation, followed by several phone calls. We both decided we should meet, and we did. She turned out to be everything she appeared to be, and I was happy with that. There were distinct possibilities, in other words, for something other than casual dating. In a nutshell: articulate, intelligent, owned her own business, a voracious reader, great conversationalist, and not at all hard to look at. Fetching, if I may go that far.

So. It was on our fourth date, and we’re having coffee and cognac after dinner at one of SFO’s numerous superb restaurants. We don’t have any firm plans for after dinner, and I casually ask “Well, where to now?” She smiles and says “Your place?”

There couldn’t possibly have been a better answer.

We get back to my place and I’ll spare you most of the details, Gentle Reader, save for this one tiny thing. The lights are low, things are getting hot and heavy, we’re in a state of dishabille, and the deal is about to go down. Suddenly, and I DO mean suddenly, she sits up on my couch, pushes me away to arms-length and says with a very serious look on her face “I have something to tell you.”

“Uh, OK,” sez I, thinking “WTF?”

“I have herpes.”

Wow. Talk about mood-killers! So. The lights come back up, I go to the kitchen, freshen our drinks, and return to the couch, where we spend the next hour or so discussing her problem. “There are ways to work around this,” sez she. “Umm-hmm,” sez I, nodding. The bottom line, as she suggests, is that we should both give serious thought to where we’re going and what we should do. I agree. We finish our drinks and I take her home.

And that, save for two subsequent phone conversations wherein I explained myself in great detail, was that. Work-arounds or no, herpes is forever. I wasn’t willing to take the risk. She understood, and we went our separate ways.

I’ll always appreciate the woman’s honesty, if not her timing. I hope she found someone because, with the exception of this one tiny (?) flaw, she could have been a potential mate.

There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them. But it’s pretty illustrative of my experiences with on-line dating. I don’t have any good stories to relate, in other words, Gentle Reader, and I have a couple that are worse. Much worse. But let’s not go there.

And now you know why I decided, in part, not to place that ad on Craig's List.

But about the guacamole.  My first reaction was "recipe?  what recipe?"  I do exactly what Darryl sez he does... I mash stuff up.  But I mash stuff up to taste, and I suppose that's the important part,  given that I'll add more onion, or more avocado, or a pinch of salt, or more lime juice, during the mashing process to ensure I get things right.  Here's that post I went looking for:

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack Project

Two avocados, half a red onion (no Vadalias at the store, dammit) chopped finer than frog hair, half a lime, and about three tablespoons of El Pinto.

Let the flavors marry in the fridge for about an hour or so and then... Happy Hour Bliss!

That's MY recipe... such as it is.