I woke up yesterday morning frazzled by an early morning
message I received by a man simply known as ‘The Chen*’. The message was cryptic, much like a ransom
letter. In the subject line it simply
said ‘homemade burritos’. When I opened
the message, it had a picture attached of what appeared to be his
brother-in-law** being held hostage by a burrito.
The Chen is an established long-standing veteran of Mexican
Cuisine. Growing up in central Mexico , he has
been termed the ‘King of the Skirt Stake’.
He is known all throughout Mexico ,
as well as in New Orleans
and on the Westside of Milwaukee. He is
a man of legendary proportion, and his exploits, too wild to mention on this
site, are tales that will be told for generations to come. The Chen, though, being so crafty with the
skirt stake, does not always view the burrito in such a positive light. For him, it is an oversized American
bastardization of his wonderful native food. It lacks in taste to what he can
do in his own backyard or a nearby local park with a charcoal grill. Sadly for all of those who promote burrito
appreciation, 99 times out of 100 he is correct.
Not knowing what the Chen was up to or where he may be lurching, I decided it would be
wise to lay low. This proved to be a
problem, though, because I had the jones for a burrito. I decided that maybe I could be inspired by
the Chen’s subject line of a ‘homemade burrito’. Not feeling safe leaving my property, I
decided I would have to make due with what I had on hand. I had some ocean perch thawed out. Maybe I could season this up and place it on
the grill. In the crisper, I had some
cilantro, green onions, and guac…hymmm…these could be some tasty toppings. Finally, in the bread drawer, I had some mini
burrito flour shells (some may call these soft taco shells). For the final topper I had some salsa con
queso. Put these all together and pow,
we have a new invention, the Tommy Style Taco Fish Burrito!
Being my first burrito creation, I thought this was
wonderful. I can be a tough critic on
myself, though. Most things that I do I merely
rate on a scale of ‘pretty awesome’ to ‘ best thing in the world times a
million’. I will be objective on this
one though. I give myself a 45 out of
10. If I ever had mobility to plan this
out with more than what I happened to have on hand , chances are the rating
will go up in spades.
I’ll keep you updated on the situation with the Chen. I hope that his brother-in-law’s situation
ends peacefully and we can all have skirt stakes in peace again.
* Notice the craftiness of the name ‘the Chen’. Many times as Americans, we try to give a
name a Latin flare by naming something el ___, instead of the ____ (i.e. el
Nino). It looks like the Chen has turned
the tables on us by calling himself ‘the Chen’ instead of el Chen or simply
Chen.
**The man pictured is married to ‘The Chen’s’ wife’s
sister. I am no expert on genology or
family relationships, and I have no idea if this makes them brother-in-laws of
some other arrangement. For the sake of
this article, we will just refer to him as a brother-in-law.
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