So…what shall I write about today? Can you spell “duh” boys and girls?

Reaction to the Black Dahlia has been mixed. I decided to look at that crime myself and see what reasonable conclusions might be reached. I was gratified to see that others considered that the killer might have been a woman. Whatever the case may be, it has been a :cold case” far too long to likely ever be solved - especially with irrefutable evidence leading to a conviction. So, this case is destined to join Jack the Ripper as an unsolvable crime.

There is a possibility that Elizabeth Short’s killer is still alive and there might yet be a “death-bed confession”. Trouble is; if that happens will anybody believe it?

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There are precious few Chinese restaurants in these parts. I told about one here in town that completely dumbfounded us in that they specialized in both Chinese and Mexican. How disparate can you get?

But this Summer we finally got up the courage to try it. Turned out it had went out of business - which fact might or might not be a testimony to the quality of fare there. I asked another resident here if they had ever eaten there. Turns out they did not have the courage to try it either. There is something about serving Mexican food and Chinese food in the same establishment that is a “put-off” on the face of it.

So, if you ever consider opening a restaurant that serves more than one ethnic cuisine, make sure the second one is American or at least one in the same ballpark - such as Mexican and Cuban.

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Mexican food is un a class all by itself. It is NOT like Spanish food or much like other Latin American food. But to be fair, Mexican food changes considerably from region to region within Mexico and that available in the U.S. has been modified over the years (especially in more recent years) to represent the American concept of Mexican food. What makes it vary from region to region is the availability of things to create it coupled with what seasonings are compatible with what is available.

What we have come to call “Mexican” is for lack of a better term commonly called ”Tex-Mex”. By and large it is simply the same basic ingredients “bent” in different ways - so it all tastes pretty much the same. You have a corn meal tortilla, usually yellow corn, toasted, fried, baked or not - folded over, open-face, or rolled. Some seasoned beef or chicken with maybe some cilantro, some refried beans, and a tomato sauce - variously seasoned. The seasoning is invariably a combination of chili powder and cumin with salt. And that’s Tex-Mex. No matter what they call it, it all tastes pretty much the same - because by golly it IS pretty much the same.

It’s pretty good but nothing to write home to Mamma about. I have to be in a receptive mood to eat Mexican or Tex-Mex. No matter how good it might be, it NEVER “hit’s the spot”.

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Refried Beans. What’s that all about? Well, it began as a method of using left-overs A pot of beans served the night before were simply fried to re-heat them for breakfast. Just a matter of being conservative.

But some enterprising Mexican mother came up with the idea of serving the fried beans wrapped in a tortilla and the burrito was born. They got that name because a cluster of them on a platter looked like a group of “little burros” - which tells us that they used to wrap them somewhat differently than they do now. Anyway, by doing this, that clever momma saved herself a lot of breakfast dishes to be washed.

Now, burritos range all over the map as to the way they are wrapped, what is in them, size, etc. The absolute worse wrap is the masa tortilla. Trying to eat it is about as pleasurable as eating a surgical glove.

I prefer just a basic bean burrito. I would not mind a beef & bean burrito if it weren’t for the fact that everyone has substituted ground beef for beef boiled until it falls apart. The reason for that substitution is obvious; it only takes minutes to cook ground beef where-as it takes in excess of 3 hours to cook beef until it falls apart properly.

Save-A-Lot sells frozen burritos that are pretty good. You micro-wave them for 2 to 3 minutes on one side then turn them over and micro-wave them for 1 to 2 minutes. That works if your micro-wave has a rotisserie but if not you have to stop it in-between and swap ends as well - which might add another minute to heating time (this is based on a one-speed low energy micro-wave) These are somewhat similar to what we make ourselves at home. I usually do the seasoning and use a bit more cumin than they do commercially.

Re-fried beans also vary all over the map - from barely mashed to a paste. If it is essentially a bean paste, “purists” like to stir in some whole beans. Some places make burritos so huge you cannot possibly get them in your mouth - but if you cut them in two, you can feed two people. Unfortunately, these “burro-grandes” are usually wrapped with a generous sheet of masa tortilla the size of a pillow case.

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One Mexican dish I developed a taste for is beans & rice. The usual way this is served is a helping of Mexican rice with a helping of re-fried beans beside it - the beans having a light topping of melted Mexican cheese (you can substitute Monterrey Jack). You eat a fork of rice and then a fork of beans, a fork of rice, a fork of beans. The combination is very good.

That was the only thing I ever got at Michaio’s (not sure of spelling) in Las Vegas and then only as take-out. The pronunciation is Mi-Kye-O’s - which sounds VERY Japanese but they swear to me it’s really Mexican. Guess it’s a chain of restaurants.

O.K. so…they call this stuff “Spanish rice” but it unlike anything I ever ate called Spanish Rice. It tends to be very dry unlike most Spanish Rice which is varying degrees of moist. So I have come to refer to it as “Mexican Rice” as it is unique to that cuisine. Very dry - difficult to eat all by itself.

Mexican Rice is rice and tomato sauce cooked together until the rice absorbs all the tomato sauce. Seasoning? Salt for certain and MAYBE just a little chili powder - hard to tell.

Cuban Spanish Rice is different and Puerto Rican Spanish Rice is apparently similar to the Cuban because a Puerto Rican girl told Sue that her mother always told her “You are not a good wife if you cannot make Spanish Rice.” The seasoning the Puerto Ricans favor is what they call “Cuban seasoning”.

It turns out that Goya of L.A. makes the seasoning, it is called “Sazon”. It is a blend of various things - don’t know what exactly other than chili pepper. I have several packets of it but have never tried it yet.

Spanish Rice has long been around Yankee land. It was usually served one a week in the school cafeteria - but my mother almost never made it. I loved the stuff. It was more moist than Mexican Rice and the only seasoning was likely salt and maybe sugar. You know about the 24 Thrones in Heaven - I always said there should be a 25th Throne for who-ever it was that invented Spanish Rice.

It is quite flexible. It is the basis of Jambalaya. All Jambalaya is; is Spanish Rice with a bunch of other stuff stirred into it. That other stuff is usually Andouille sausage, chopped onions, a bell pepper, a carrot, and celery. Since we don’t have that sort of sausage in Yankee land, I substitute a combination of smoked beef sausage and medium hot Italian sausage. Truth is (and I may ruffle a few Louisiana feathers) Andouille sausage sucks. Being raised around Germans, Dutch, and Italians, our sausages rock.

Now I want to warn you that New Orleans cuisine is different from basic bayou cooking. For example, you have a hard time telling Jambalaya and Gumbo apart. There is no Gumbo in New Orleans Gumbo. Both rely on an extremely dark roux which dominates (and in my opinion RUINS) the dish. Many demand that it have an assortment of shell fish in it as well. This is NOT necessary. Remember that these two foods originated as peasant food, easy to throw together and the meat they contained was whatever they could find that day - both are a sort of “Soup D’jour” (keeping in mind that Gumbo might or might not be made as a soup, Jambalaya is never a soup - I‘m just using that term to say that you never knew what was going to be in it).

Anyway, Jambalaya is in its essence; Spanish Rice.

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Lemme tell you about my own Spanish Rice. I make the rice separate and then add spaghetti sauce until I have the right balance of moistness. Since you can’t really get a good spaghetti sauce in a jar or can, I prepare the sauce in a separate pan and doctor it up. Works great. Put a bunch of meatballs on top and you’re good to go. Guess it’s really an “Italian Rice” though.

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It was back in the early part of the 20th Century that Chili was introduced to America. - maybe during the Theodore Roosevelt administration, but prior to World War I. It was I think the Ambassador to Mexico who brought this stuff to Washington and it caught on from there.

What is “Chili”? It is simply a tomato soup seasoned with Chili peppers. All the arguments about whether it should have beans or not are groundless. If it has beans, it is called “Chili con Frijoles” (Chili with Beans). If it has meat in it, it is called “Chili con Carne? (Chili with Meat). And if it has cheese in it, it is called “Chili con Queso” (Chili with Cheese). If you put all 3 in it, it is “Chili con Carne e Frijoles e Queso”.

In Yankee land it has been the tradition to have just neat and beans in it - no cheese. The meat is ground beef instead of shredded beef, the beans are Dark Red Kidney beans as opposed to Pinto beans in many parts of the South-West (if theirs has any beans at all).

Truth is I have never liked Dark Red Kidney beans so many years ago I began using Light Red Kidney beans instead - which was a mild improvement. Then I discovered Red beans sold under various house brand names such as Fame and Flavorite and under their own product name: Elf - by Preferred Products in Minnesota. That did the trick. Red Beans in Chili is the best bean for chili.

Then when I moved to Las Vegas I discovered that not all Red beans are alike. There are large Red Beans and there are small Red beans and in each size there are Dark Red beans and Light Red beans. O.K. so what you want is the Light Large Red beans.

That proved to be a guessing game because processors do not necessarily distinguish between them. So, then I discovered Pink beans from Goya and that solved the problem. Pink beans have become my bean of choice for use in chili, minestrone and other soups - including my own concoction “Pseudo-Chili”.

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Pseudo-Chili:

Back in the mud 1980s we drove to Texas to visit Sue’s sister, her niece, her nephew, and their families. They treated us to Texas cuisine…a chicken place that tasted like they cooked it in oil that was 3 weeks old, a fish place that tasted like they cooked it in the same oil as the chicken, and a pizza place because of the stained glass windows in the ceiling.

I was desperate for some just plain ole food but no. For breakfast I was treated to fried eggs and tamales. I begged to go to the German restaurant (the Eidelweis) but no-one else wanted to go there. It’s not that I was un-grateful but this stuff I was eating was making me nauseous. They on the other hand drank much beer which I suppose killed their taste buds and numbed their stomachs.

So when I left Texas I made it a point to stop in Arkansas to get something to eat. Forget it. In the mid 1980s there was NO place to get something eat along I-40 in Arkansas.. The choices were beef jerky or Honey Buns.

Thinking maybe I could find some real food in Memphis, I drove on. But when I got to Memphis I was sick and Sue had to drive.

To cut a long story short, when we got to Mt. Gilead, Ohio it was about 7 in the evening and Sue wanted o stop at Geyer’s grocery store and pick up something to fix when we got home. Guess what her mouth was watering for? Chili. Yes, after the ordeal I’d been through, she wanted to add insult to injury.

To tell you the truth, I have never really liked chili all that much anyway - so I grudgingly went through the aisles getting the necessary ingredients. It also fell to me to make the crap when we got home.

So anticipating the acid indigestion and flatulence that was sure to result, I began making the chili. I theorized that half-cooked onions might be part of the problem, so I chopped up an onion and boiled it in water with a little salt until they were clear. I carefully browned the ground beef so that it wasn’t over-cooked and “pebbly”. It was then that I discovered we were out of chili powder. Well, I was not about to run over to the neighbors to see if they had any so I substituted cumin. I heated up one quart of home-canned tomatoes and 3 cans of Elf brand Red beans, thoroughly drained the greasy water off the ground beef and threw the whole mess together and said, “Soup’s on”. I did not drain the beans, nor the tomatoes nor the water I cooked the onions in but just threw it altogether.

Well, it worked. And huess what? No acid-indigestion and no abdominal gas. In fact, about 3 days later Sue wanted me to make it again. So I had to recall what I did and re-construct the process. The result has become one of our frequently used recipes. I call it “Pseudo-Chili” because there isn’t any chili in it what-so-ever yet it seems like Chili.

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Tamales is something else that have been available in Yankee land a long time. My dad used to buy them occasionally as far back as World War II. They came in a glass jar, Derby was the brand name and they still make that brand today.

While in Las Vegas I ran across a brand at the 99 cent store that is in cans called Paramount. They aren’t too bad. The nice thing about them being in cans is that those in the jar are a bit difficult to get out but you can remove both ends from the can - and using one of the ends push the tamales out. Also works for removing cranberry sauce (jelly in reality) out in one neat piece.

These tamales are good enough for me. I’ve tried frozen ones - found one that is pretty good, wrapped in corn leaves, paper, whatever. Have bought them at Mexican markets, from street venders, etc. These latter range from fair to poor. You don’t know what you’re buying from a street vendor and often it is a lot of corn meal mush with very little filling.

Of course being a Mid-Westerner we were very familiar with mush. Basic mush is another one of those things we learned from the Indians. You grind up corn, add water and boil it the same as you do rolled oats. We also had such products as Cream of Wheat and Wheatena. Cream of Wheat had all the bran removed but Wheatena didn’t (and Wheatena tasted better). In any event, we made mush from all of these. Once you have it cooked up, you let it cool and it sets up or congeals where-upon you slice it and fry it the next morning in lard or bacon grease until the outside gets kinda crunchy and then salt it a little and eat. Actually, it ain’t bad.

Well, the mush used in tamales appears to be finely ground white cornmeal but it’s NOT masa as some people think: it is cornmeal mush. They are two different things although both start from the same kind of corn.

To make masa, you soak the corn until it softens and then squeeze the insides out. The insides become the masa. Hey, we learned all these tricks from the Aztecs and Indians all the way up to the Atlantic. They pressed the corn innards into thin sheets on a rock and dried the sheets in the sun and that’s what became the tortilla.

Indians also taught us how to make hominy. You soak the corn in lye water which makes the innards swell way up and pushes the outer shell of the kernel off. Then you rinse it real good to get rid of the lye.

One of the things one learns about Indians is that NO WHERE in the Americas did anyone make bread. Popcorn and masa came about the closest to bread as it got. So all this Mexican food? It is the result of applying Spanish cooking to Aztec foodstuffs. Which brings us to the fact that most all the stiff that makes up our diet was not available until America was found. Stuff like tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, squash (includes pumpkins), sweet potatoes, chocolate, vanilla, pineapple, mango, papaya, and the list is quite long - so long in fact that one wonders how people got along without all these things.

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Now I want to talk about empanadas. I don’t know if Mexicans make empanadas or not - my experience comes from a Columbian restaurant.

What is an empanada? Well, for you Yankees out there it is kinda like a small knish. Except the outer part is once again thin cornmeal mush. Apparently the cornmeal mush is rolled out and cut with a cookie cutter into a round wafer about 4 inches across. It is then filled with roast beef hash (NOT corned beef hash) and folded over to create a half noon and the edges sealed. It is then either deep-fat fried or brushed with oil and baked - not sure which.

That’s another thing that was problematic in Las Vegas; you could find corned beef hash just about anywhere but not a single can of roast beef hash. Weird, eh?

Anyway, what made them exceptionally good was that they were accompanied by “aji”. I suppose the Columbians pronounced it “Ah-hee” but I pronounced it in Portuguese (easier) “ah-zhee”.

What is “aji”? Actually it’s pretty simple. You make a water or “brine” of water with a little vinegar in it and add maybe a dash of salt and a dash of cayenne. Then you finely chop a handful of scallions (green onions) tops and all. Then you put the chopped onions in the water/brine and weight it under the liquid until you’re ready to use it. Here’ the catch; it’s only good for the same day you make it - tomorrow you have to start over again.

You eat empanadas when they are hot or at least good and warm. Take a nip outa one end and using the tip of a spoon put some aji with its water/brine in the end and take another bite - and so on. The empanada without the aji is not nearly as good as with it. The aji really compliments the empanada. Highly recommend the combo.

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Lastly I would like to talk about Sopapitas. This is a light pastry often available at Mexican restaurants. Sometimes they are good and sometimes not so good. For you Yankees, a Sopapita is kinda like Baklava. Sue came back from Texas the first time raving about Sopapitas and she even brought me one. Well, they don’t transport all that well but I got the general idea.

Later I got her to try Baklava. She liked that. Too. Both are made with very light dough - the Baklava with multiple layers of file dough, crushed hazelnuts (filberts), and honey. The Sopapita is also sweetened with honey so that they are somewhat similar. However it is best to eat Sopapitas while they are freshly baked where-as Baklava needs to cool first. I’m not too much into deserts, so I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.

Believe it or not, I could just keep on going with this. Butt I think I have enough here for this time around.

Shalom,

Searl Miller