Furry T-Rex

Featherd T-Rex!

Lately I've been quite intrigued by the idea of feathered dinosaurs, I think they look very pretty or at least had the potential to. We don't really know exactly what they looked like after all.

So, here's a non-scientifically accurate feathered T-Rex!

"Furry T-Rex"

Pet Peevee ( Burritos )

The Culture Shock

Many years after moving to the United States I faced an unexpected culture shock, the size of burritos in America is monstrous, and not in a good way. The beauty of burritos is the fact that they have few ingredients, but carefully selected to deliver specific mouth watering flavors. In the case of meat fillings the meat is usually cooked in a nice sauce that will be absorbed slightly by the tortilla wrap. So every bite ends up being juicy and full of flavor. 

Burrito Raw Ingredients

Traditionally burritos are very simple, and just the right size. They have very few ingredients, and you can actually fit each bite in your mouth quite nicely. You can hold them in one hand as you read the news on your phone with the other, or you can wrap them in aluminum and put them on your back pocket as you ride your bike to school, or work! The possibilities are endless! 

Flour Tortilla Rising!

Well, okay, perhaps you shouldn't put a burrito in your pocket, any of them, but I feel that it should be small enough for you to do so if you have to. Like in the middle of an earthquake, you shouldn't leave your burrito behind, you must however have your hands free so you can raise them up in the air as you run around screaming.

Breakfast Burrito

Unwrapped Burrito

And like I said ingredients are also quite a few, and for a breakfast burrito practically all you need is flour tortillas, and eggs. That alone makes for a great burrito. However, pico de gallo (chopped tomato, onions, peppers, cilantro, salt and pepper) never goes wrong with this kind of thing. Lately I like to add it on top of the eggs and let the warmth of the eggs and the tortilla gently warm up the vegetables, but adding them to the eggs as you are cooking them works too.

Along with some orange juice, this is one of the breakfast dishes that makes me the happiest.

If you have sausage, ham, or bacon, you can also chop it up, scramble it with the eggs, and use that as your filling. And this is one of the only few times I will say this, but if you grate some cheddar cheese on top, just enough to give it flavor (it's not a quesadilla, it shouldn't be cheesy!), then you end up with an amazing breakfast.

Wrapped Burrito, Ready to Eat!

Mmmm, what a perfect way to start a day!

Nostalgic Evening

After a day of working in front of the computer I began to feel a bit of nostalgia about summer evenings while growing up. With the weather being pleasant, and homes being warm, it was only natural to go outside and grab a bite with your family to a nearby street food vendor. Eventually as I got older I was allowed to do it by myself along with my friends. If I was unlucky I would be made to drag my little brother to tag along with us. He was a bossy little brat, annoying as fuck, and I hated dragging him along. I also showed it.


In retrospect, I wish I had had the maturity to realize how cool he must have felt to hang out with the older kids.  But, I was only 10, and he really was bossy.

We wouldn't go grab a bite at a fast food chain because there were none around. Instead we'd go to a street food cart nearby. The options were many, from tacos, to tacos, to tacos (Only one of those was worth it, which one? Depends on who you asked...), to hot dogs, to one of my favorites (but only by a slight margin), the corn on the cob cart.

I greatly enjoy life now,  I love living in San Diego, but there's a charm that this city lacks that my birth city (Tijuana) doesn't. And that is the atmosphere of people out and about after the day has come to an end. Gathering around street food carts, with their families and their friends.


Sadly health regulations don't allow for that in my home town, definitely not within walking distance. You leave the confinement of your office/home only to enter another confined space.

Tonight I was craving corn like the kind I used to have as a kid. We would buy it from a guy that had a little push-cart that had only enough room for a huge pot where the corn  that he was selling would be steamed, and a space with a cutting board to prepare it. His wife would be with him, they both seemed to work in tandem, but he was clearly the one running things.


Your options were two: You could get corn on the cob, or corn in a cup. I liked corn in a cup, less messy, and tastier. Why tastier? I assume because by the time you get to the bottom kernels they already have been sitting in all of the juices from the top for a while. Also, if you eat it from the cob you end up with cheese and hot sauce on your nose.

The ingredients were the same. If on the cob he would fish into his pot for the right corn. If you were not too shy you could pick which one. I was too shy.

 He would stick a stick on one end, and then he would start to prepare it by covering the whole thing with butter, then he'd do the same but this time with a layer mayonnaise. With the wet ingredients out of the way, he would now sprinkle the whole thing with shredded cotija cheese, he then would add some drops of hot sauce all around, and then squeeze a fresh lime, sprinkle with salt.


If you chose to have your corn in a cup, he'd cut the kernels, he'd serve them in a cup, and then he'd top that with the same ingredients mentioned above in the same order. Then he'd drop a plastic spoon in before handing the cup to you.


There were some ingredients I was missing tonight, one of them the main one, fresh white corn, I only had frozen, and yellow. I also didn't have mayonnaise, so I had to make some from scratch (I'm amazed at how good it tastes! First timer here!), and I didn't have cotija cheese, so I used Parmesan instead. I also decided to steal some cilantro leafs from my plant outside and added them to my corn, I don't think he ever used that.


The end result? It all tasted like a summer evening from a few decades ago.

Starting Up Early

Waking up early has never been my strength, which is a shame because I love breakfast. Breakfast, I strongly believe, is the best meal of the day. But perhaps I feel that way because I'm usually late for it. Lately, however, I have come to find that one of the of benefits not being able to sleep at night is that you are awake just in time for breakfast (and sunrise!). And that, turns out, is perhaps the best thing of not sleeping (The worst thing? The upcoming early onset dementia.).

And yes, I'm fully aware that the rules can be broken and that breakfast can be eaten during lunch, or even dinner (Denny agrees). But let's be honest with ourselves, eating meals out of order is not as fun as we think it is. Unless you are stoned, or drunk! When that's the case you may find yourself eating a cheese burger in the middle of the night, shirtless, and on your bathroom floor. All while your daughter records it. Fun!

But, right now, I'm not drunk, and sadly I'm not stoned either.

So, loyal to the spirit of breakfast, as I tried to figure out what to eat that wasn't eggs, eggs, or eggs (stick around and you will find out just how varied are my breakfasts...), after looking at my food tracking app that said I was short on fiber, I knew what to have!

Cereal! And fruits!

Boring, I agree, and also unworthy of an essay. But that's why I added toast, honey, and butter (and a pinch of salt!)!

Still boring? Yeah, well, that's me in a nutshell.

But, something about the lightness and freshness of a bowl of crunchy flakes of bran, mixed with chunks of banana and raspberry with some really cold milk poured over it all felt just perfect. And it was. But it wasn't enough, and that's where bread and butter came into play, with some honey drizzled on top along with a pinch of salt.

Maybe some mornings are meant to be simple, light, and full of sugar. Sugar? Eh, I'll worry about it when I lose my first toe, in the mean time? They wiggle with joy and complete ignorance of their incoming sugar induced fate.

 Really, not a bad way to begin the last Sunday of June 2015.

Turning 30

Been thinking a lot about turning 30, in many ways, and as it has been for a long time, turning a year older is pretty meaningless to me, it is just like any day. Then again, most important dates that used to mean something mean a lot less as I get older, mostly because there has been a tendency in later years to chase a goal, a goal that must be fulfilled at all costs.

But, I have been thinking a lot about turning 30, mostly in terms of looking back at how the last decade of my life has been, realizing that my body and my mind is a lot different now than it was when I was turning 20, which, logically means that the years to come will be much different than the years that have passed.

One thing that will never change though, and that in the contrary gets reinforced as the years pass is my desire to be in control and to get what I want when I can. And so is the case of my birthday dinner. It was proposed by my family that they wanted to take me out to eat, then they got lazy and said they wanted to grill some chicken and call it a day.

Now, I appreciate that anything is done in my name to celebrate me, but, I can't help it and get picky when the topic is food. Food is the most exciting thing I can experience, and while I have not really celebrated my birthday in years, if I am going to do it this year, I thought, I want it to be special.

So, I proposed that for my birthday I would simply cook for everyone and I was not going to take a no for an answer. And so, I treated my family and myself to some home made sushi and my second try at making miso soup from scratch. To my surprise, it was some pretty decent miso.

So, here it goes, for 30 more! And may this year or the next ten bring me the guts to learn how to cut fish perfectly for other styles of rolls. At least, in my 30s, I finally got to make a decent miso, something I can't say I ever got to do in my 20s.

Twisting my Favorites

The past few weeks have been emotionally funky, I'm not entirely sure why, there really isn't any reason for my mood to remain below the surface for prolonged periods of times. Perhaps one of these days I should try to find out why that happens and should seek try to fix it because it isn't pleasant. But today, while riding at the top of the emotional wave I decided to have some fun in the kitchen!

Last week I pushed myself to hit the farmers market closest to my house. It is a small one, and I got there late so a lot of the produce and fruits were already ripening, it was a hot day after all. Though two things caught my mind: Anaheim peppers, and summer squash.

I love chiles rellenos, it is my favorite food in the world, I grew up with them and it was always joyful when my mom made them. The way she made them though was battered and fried, which is great and extremely tasty. They were also filled with cheese and then the chiles are given a bath of red spicy sauce. It is a cheesy delicious thing.

Since it is summer though I wanted to do something fresher, and also lighter.

In Mexico there's another very popular way to do chiles rellenos that does not involve frying or covering in batter, the dish is called Chiles en Nogada, and pretty much they are stuffed chiles with ground beef and covered with a creamy sauce. And that's what I used for my inspiration, but I decided to use my summer squash, corn, as well as tofu.

I had also bought tomatillo from the farmers market, and I figured that the best way to flavor my tofu was to make a green sauce with tomatillo and jalapeño peppers and marinate my tofu with it. Then I'd stir fry some garlic and onions along with my marinated tofu and the squash with the intention to use it as the stuffing for my chiles. Once stuffed the chiles would be covered with the Nogada inspired white sauce.

And that is exactly what I did, and I must say I loved it. It is a somewhat twisted version of what is traditional, but I thought I was successful in producing a very delicious vegetarian dish that is based on my own roots while also taking into consideration the things that are grown by farmers around me here in California.

That is ultimately the approach I want to have for my cooking right now, make things that are in season around me and find a way to fit those ingredients into the dishes I grew up loving as a kid. Well, except for the margarita I accompanied my meal with, that is an exclusively adult love affair!

I really hope my mood stays up because there's a lot of yummy things I want to make soon, I think I see local fish in my future!

Stay tuned! And stay hungry!

The American Dream ( I )

Sometimes you spend too long looking at porn. Too long wanking off.

Sometimes you spend too long in the shower, day dreaming.

And sometimes you just have too many things to do, too many things to think through and about, and a sphere with a tail to animate that you didn't get to animate properly the week prior because you were having the time of your life.

And those times you can always follow, and live, The American Dream.

Well, I mean, cooking wise, don't go around killing natives, overthrowing governments in South America via your central intelligence agency, nor go around yelling at buses filled with children. Because that's just mean. Instead just cook a goddamn hot-dog. And eat some ice-cream.