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[Desert Droppings] Marmite and Green Chile (This is a title, NOT a recipe!)

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A member of our family is British- a charming chap, who, in addition to being a great cook, can fix, organize, or explain just about anything.  So,  when such a brilliant fellow leaves behind a wee jar  of his favorite condiment, doesn’t it behoove one to sample a spot of it? That’s how I behoove-ably came spoon tip to tongue tip with an intriguing substance called Marmite.

According to the fine print on its little brown jar, Marmite is made of “yeast extract, salt, carrot and onion extract, spice extracts” and a few vitamins. It has none of the ingredients so demonized by the colon-cleansing set like high fructose corn syrup and transfats. Sounds sort of healthy and tangy, right? What could be bad?
I’ve learned to savor hot chile salsa for breakfast and grew up loving my Bubbe’s stuffed kishke, charred onion and chicken fat spread, and boiled cow’s tongue – with a glob of chopped liver and a hunk of gefilte fish for special occasions. So downing a schmear of Marmite should be a piece of cake.  Only Marmite’s not cake. Not even close. Not even in the same galaxy as cake!
Marmite has a curiously pungent taste-at once sharp, bitter, medicinal, herbal, and whattheheck?!- A taste that raises  concerns that the dark, sticky, nearly solid gel in the jar has passed its “Best By” date by decades, maybe even centuries! The label bears the ominous warning, “Spread thinly.”  Distinctly unnerving. In a world where food companies constantly urge you to consume as much of their product as quickly as possible, one small jar of Marmite could easily last until the Patriots stop fumbling the play-offs and win another Super Bowl victory.
The. Marmite label has no merry cartoon figures, no super athletes, or rosy cheeked tots gobbling the stuff down.  There are no cozy recipes  that mingle a dollop of Marmite with canned  cream of mushroom soup, leftover meat bits, Velveeta cheese, and bread crumbs for a Marmite Country Kitchen Casserole.
There is, however, a serving suggestion and I quote,”…for a treat, try Marmite on a crispbread with cottage cheese. ” Does “treat” have some weird alternative meaning in British-speak like “bonnet” or “lift?”  Across the pond, could “treat” mean “hold your nose, grit your teeth, and down stuff like kale and quinoa and Marmite in order to achieve the Boomer dream of everlasting wellness and high testosterone levels”?

Having no crispbread in the cupboard, I spread Marmite (thinly) on rice cakes. A word about rice cakes…Rice cakes, as every Desert-020514-marmitericecaketwo-bit improv wannabee will tell you with a smirk, look and taste like Styrofoam.
Once, while eating plain rice cakes in a break room, I was approached by a co-worker trying to be snidely “helpful.”
“You know, ” she confided, “rice cakes come in chocolate, too.”
When I told her that I was allergic to chocolate, her “caring” facade dropped away like boxes of Wheaties from the gluten-free shelf and she declared emphatically, “I’d rather be dead!”
I left that break room with its blackened guacamole, week-old birthday cupcakes, soggy chips, and dubious dip, and never went back.
Rice cakes bring out everyone’s I’m-so-clever- cute-and-funny side.  Another family member, born in the USA, commented that,”Eating Marmite on rice cakes is the exact opposite of putting lipstick on a pig.”
Now I know  I could get all passionate and Google-up a whole gooey bowl full of Marmite factoids: “Marmite has played a key role in English history since the British Isles were a mere chip off the old tectonic plate.” (I made that one up, but if Wikipedia wants it, jolly good!”)

If you care to delve deeper into Marmite’s viscous depths, delve  away , while I swing over to a hot topic in ABQ- Denver’s pre-game Super Bowl chile gaffe that got the cold shoulder from NM. It seems that as part of the media-marketing  Super Bowl frenzy, Denver’s mayor made a bet with Seattle’s mayor that involved signature local foods like Seattle’s salmon and Denver’s green Green Chile“chili.”  Denver’s what?!  An irate article in  The ABQ Journal (“Seeing  Red Over Denver’s Green Chile Wager” by “Upfront” columnist Joline  Gutierrez Krueger accused Denver of chile “fraud ” and bad spelling. (BTW, it’s NM’s “chile” and not a CO’s ” chili.”)
So, Denver, get your Rocky Mountain (legal) high from some other state’s official vegetable.

You’ve already got Welker, so how about some Boston baked beans!

Marmite and green chile –  DON’T  try this at home!

[Dessert Droppings] Let the Cowchips Fall Where They May

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Blog laws require me to produce a 2013 retrospective and behold, the ABQ Journal arrived with its 2013 Cowchip Awards. Annual Cowchip Awards are a Journal tradition which highlights sick, twisted, tasteless NM happenings from the past year. So before we anxiously move on to brave the potential  pitfalls and downfalls of 2014, I herein present (with personal commentary) choice chunks from the 2013 Cowchip Awards. From the stomach-churning to the heart-warming, meet a selection of award winners.

Uber foodie, Anthony Bourdain, did a “Parts Unknown” segment on NM and falsely accused a classic Santa Fe restaurant of making its signature Frito pie out of “canned Hormel chili” and a “DayGlo orange cheese-like substance.”
This is the same Anthony Bourdain who can smack his lips over flame-roasted scorpion-on-a-stick in some dank jungle outpost that never heard of hand sanitizer and never once accuse the native street vendors of using canned scorpion.
I actually watched that particular Bourdain episode thinking some of my favorite eateries would be featured. I was feeling all flattered that NM cuisine was about to be showcased on national TV. But, no. Bourdain ignored the owl-shaped Owl Cafe’s legendary chili cheese burger; never went near the luscious pies and cakes at The Flying Star; and turned his gourmet gullet away from the green chili chicken stew at The Range.  Instead, a substantial part of the show was devoted to Bourdain squatting in a remote patch of desert, fawning over a group of cowpoke wannabes  who were  preparing a pot of lumpy buffalo goulash over a campfire.  A campfire! NM is withering in the throes of a multi-year drought!  What shmuck would build a campfire amidst the instantly flammable desert shrubs and grasses?
Bottom of the food chain to  you, Anthony Bourdain!

Another winning event:
A public meeting to discuss the mind-numbing topic of ABQ traffic roundabouts turned all pissy and patriotic, when an audience member shouted down the use of the “unAmerican” word “queue” to describe traffic flow.  To reach the meeting, our irate defender of the mother tongue, despiser of a “foreign” word with fewer q’s and u’s than ABQ, had to drive down Lagrima De Oro Road, over Paseo Del Norte Blvd, and west on Avenida Caesar Chavez.

A number of Cowchip Awards went to animals for their loco escapades:
I’ll skip the part about the cow that cut short a bus trip for the Gallup High School track team and get right to the eagle. The noble Dessert Droppings- 010714-eaglebird, lovingly rescued and rehabbed by an ABQ nature center, headed swiftly for the Mexican border on being released, without so much as a “Gracias!” Sure!  Exploit our welfare system and run, will you!  You birds are all the same!

And finally, a Cowchip Award for this hare-raising tale:
An award-winning rabbit was kidnapped from the Southern NM State Fair.  The blue ribbon bunny was found stuffed in a pillowcase on the NM State University campus and returned to his grateful 8- year old owner.
Prints and DNA on the pillowcase led to the arrest of the wascally wabbit-snatcher.  Ha! Ha! JK!  Ever hear of CSI New Mexico?  Neither did I!

Farewell 2013!  Don’t step in the cowchips on your way out!

[Desert Droppings] Cougars In The “Q”? Yule be amazed!

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Hey, this is easy.  My post is due on 12/24, so of course I’ll write about…let’s  see… candy canes, uncontrollable consumption,caring and sharing…C…nah…COUGARS- That’s it!

Eagerly anticipating botoxed, buxom belles groping the pool boy under the mistletoe, are you?
Someone’s on the naughty list!  I’m talking wildlife, claws, stalking unsuspecting prey.  No, not Hapless Housewives of Hoboken.  This is a family friendly blog here.  Your family does what?…uh huh….could be fun…maybe next post.

So about cougars- I celebrated my winter Holiday back around Thanksgiving, which leaves  me free from jolly, jingly, egg-nogged Dessert- 122413- Openrevelry. Instead of oohing and aahing over what Santa splurged on, (and hopefully not at Target or, Happy Holidays- you just bought iPads for every village in Nigeria!), I can take a brisk hike on one of ABQ’s mountain trails. Just 5 minutes from my house is a so-called ABQ Open Space, because it’s , well, open and..uh…spacious and no developer has yet bribed the Town Council to re-zone the area for adobe  and glass mini-mansions with “breath-taking mountain backdrops, spectacular city views, and cougars.”
Yes, cougars.
At the entrance to the Open Space Trail, there’s a sign warning hikers about cougars.  It’s an old sign, faded and warped.  Easy to think that the cougars are long gone in search of pristine wilderness untouched by klutzy hikers with their poopy pets, clutched cell phones, and monogrammed L.L.Bean water bottles.  Except- while browsing Dessert- 122413- Tagaround a recent ABQ charity event where intensely helpful organizations solicited donations to carry on their good works for man and beast, I was handed a bright orange plastic tag that read “Cougar Smart New Mexico- Keep Kids & Cougars Safe!”  In a city where the cougars are statistically smarter than most of the kids, this was ABQuirky through and through.  So, here I am, alone on a possibly cougar-infested trail, while everyone else is knee deep in tidings of comfort and joy,  with only a tag and an old sign between me and cougars out for a Yuletide feast.
“It is very rare to see a cougar…” the tag coos. “But, here are safety tips to keep in mind in case you ever do see one.”
How many of you kiddies find that reassuring?  I didn’t think so!
Read on- “To help prevent an encounter with a cougar:
Hike in groups.
Make noise every so often.
Carry bear pepper spray.”
HEY GROUP!  I’M UP HERE!  WHAT THE HECK’S A BEAR PEPPER?!”
There’s more – “If you see a cougar:
Stay calm.
Back away slowly, but do not run or scream.”
Right,  got it.Dessert- 122413- TagBack
Dee,dee, dee- slowly backing away, not running, calm, slow, CALM SLOW
There’s something rustling in the bushes and it’s not Saint Nick-
Check tag! Check tag!
“If the cougar attacks:
Fight back!”
Really?!
And-” If you encounter a cougar, call Game & Fish Dispatch.”
And what? They’ll come running with an XBox and a trout?!
Aghhhhhhhh walkingslowlybackwardstalkingloudlycalmly!!!

Next Christmas I’ll go a-caroling,and a-wassailing, and a-carrying out Chinese food!

[Desert Droppings] Black Friday stuffs Thanksgivukkah Thursday!

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Once in 70,000 years, it happens (no, not another collision with a meteor carrying extraterrestrial life forms- another?  Yup.  Where do you think quinoa came from?). I’m talking about Hanukkah, which as an ABQ Jew I celebrate.  November  28 is an astronomically rare chance to revel in Hanukkah and Thanksgiving on the same day.  The media, ever ready to wallow in shtick, has dubbed this cosmic convergence “Thanksgivukkah.”  The turkey shaped menorahs, menurkeys, are selling like Sunday morning lox at the deli (if ABQ actually had a deli). Recipes for pumpkin-cranberry latkes are claiming full -page spreads in that fish-wrappers’ friend, The ABQ Journal.
But, all is not gobblers and gelt in the Big Q and elsewhere.  There’s a conspiracy, a plot, a Wall Street ploy to send families scurrying  from Mom’s drumsticks and brisket to the MALLS!
Black Friday store openings have oozed like The Blob onto Thanksgivukkah Thursday. Thanksgivukkah, a once in a lifetime celebration of two legendary (ie not quite believable) events has been transformed into a frenzied feast  – a Two Tums Up experience.

So, with apologies to Hallmark, get ready for my Thanksgivukkah card to you. Imagine on the cover a sweetly smiling multi- generational family lighting Hanukkah candles before a steaming golden-brown turkey.  Holy Norman Rockwell!
Inside the card, in huge Target-red letters, the inscription, NOT THIS YEAR!…and this verse:
Forget over the river and through the woods.
It’s race to the stores and snap up the goods.
Quick! Spin the dreidel,  ’cause you can only play ’till
The Gates of Greed swing wide.
Count your blessings and your coupons
Say a fervent thanks to Groupon,
And shove your way inside.
Inside Walmart! Inside Target!
Anywhere your shopping carts get.
Snuff the candles. Freeze the meal.
Line up for that early bird deal.
Thanksgivukkah comes once an eon,
But who cares, it’s buy 2, free 1!
L’Chaim!  Cheers!  Good will to all!
God Bless America and our local mall!

Happy Thanksgivukkah !
Anyone for leftover latke-encrusted turkey cutlets?

[Desert Droppings] Walter White’s Guacamole

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For those of you who think Texas is bordered by Arizona, you’re wrong!  Between Texas and Arizona lies a big glump of mostly barren, sparsely populated, possibly radioactive land called New Mexico. Albuquerque, affectionately abbreviated to ABQ, is the largest city in the middle of said glump and not very far from areas that might just glow in the dark. (Oh, hi NSA.  No, no. Just silly me rambling on with light-hearted  stuff for a little ole blog post.  Ha ha. You know me, old and light-hearted.  Just kidding.  Really. Ok…I’ll move on.)
Breaking Bad fans, you heard ABQ (That’s Albuquerque, remember?) and immediately thought of the show, right? Let’s talk. DISCLOSURE – I’ve never seen one single episode of Breaking Bad, not one!  You see, I have the Golden Supreme (i.e. cheapest) cable package and AMC is in the Platinum Premium (i.e. squeeze more $ out) package.  Thanks a lot, Direct TV. Yeah, yeah, I know there are probably ways to download/stream hulu or voodoo or yoohoo Breaking Bad episodes, but I don’t have a 12 year old handy to do that stuff.
So, here’s my celebrity-adjacent claim to fame.  I ate the very guacamole that figured prominently in one of the final season’s shows.  Wait, there’s more!  I bought the guac at the very restaurant where the episode was shot and (pant, pant) bought it from the very waitperson who played “second lady at the bar” and said, I quote, “It was awesome!”  Whoooo…red carpet-adjacent.  Oh, and I have the rare eBayable  “obituary” for  Walter White which appeared in the ABQ Journal (not to be even remotely confused with  The New York Times even though they’re both still printed on paper.)
And guess what I have on my kitchen table under a pile of grocery flyers, junk mail, and Halloween candy wrappers?  A genuine ABQ Journal supplement all about Breaking Bad with an honest-to-goodness map of nondescript places around town which are now famous!  Thanks  Breaking Bad.  Stop by and I’ll show you the car wash, strip mall, sleazy motel, and high school which have been forever touched by stardom like movie sites in the Hollywood Hills.

I’m ready for my close-up now.  Guacamole, anyone?