The Earl of Sandwich is sometimes credited with popularizing the frequently-eaten convenient meal, but I’m convinced he’s been out done by Señor Burrito, or whoever invented the Mexican treat. Okay, so apparently the word “burrito” is supposed to mean “small donkey”…but let’s face it, that sounds retarded, so I’m sticking with my delusion of a mustachioed jumping out of bed with sudden inspiration, rushing to the kitchen, and wrapping some beans and rice in a tortilla.

Whatever the real story here, someone deserves the Nobel prize…or at least some sort of prize. While sandwiches may keep your hands relatively clean (apparently, the Earl’s main goal was to keep his hands from getting greasy while playing cards), they can still be sloppy. The bread gets misaligned, the contents fall out the side, and there’s a lot of space devoted to bread.

Consider the burrito: you can fill it with whatever you like and it’s all wrapped up in a nice, neat package. If it’s well made, the only way the contents can get out is through the end facing your mouth. Isn’t that the idea?

I’ve eaten burritos for the last two nights. And had one for lunch yesterday. Lunch today? Viva Burrito. Viva burrito, indeed. You can’t get bored of these things because there’s an infinite number of varieties. And who can argue with the convenient packaging.

The best part is that, in these hard economic times, burritos can be a wise investment. For relatively little cost (as little as $1-2, even at places like Whole Foods), you can equip yourself with a frozen burrito that will be a delicious and nutritious lunch. The key with these is to prepare them properly. If you just microwave them as instructed, they often turn out gummy and fall apart easily.

Ideally, you buy them early enough so they can thaw through the morning. Either way, start with an abbreviate trip through the microwave to warm them up: I use one minute for a thawed burrito, and maybe one and a half for one that’s still frozen. Then take it to the toaster oven until the tortilla starts to brown. This gives the burrito a bit of a crispy crust and allows time for the cooler center to warm up.

Dinner leftovers often are handy to have around the house, whether it’s for a quick snack, a easy lunch, or even the next day’s dinner. Figuring out what to do with these remainders becomes considerably more challenging when the dinner is sushi. Spicy tuna sushi, to be precise.

My wife and I were both full, yet there was still a fair amount of the spicy tuna left in the bowl. Considering the price we had paid for the high-grade fish, I wasn’t going to just throw it away. Does raw fish really keep until the next day? I just slapped on some plastic wrap and closed the fridge door, determined to worry about it later.

The next morning I became inspired. After having shelled out half of my bagel to meet the demands of my two year old in the neighboring chair, I retrieved the bowl and got to work.

It tasted…neither spicy nor like tuna. Perhaps I needed some wasabi cream cheese to give it a kick. Or perhaps “day old” and “sushi” are words that really don’t belong in the same sentence. It didn’t seem that far off from smoked salmon, but I guess it would have caught on by now if it was really the culinary breakthrough I had been hoping for.

Though I’m usually the cook in the home, every once in a while my wife comes up with something creative for dinner. After a trip to the Japanese grocery store, she returned with some high-grade tuna, real wasabi, and tobiko. After making some sushi rice and wrapping everything together, we ended up with some nice spicy tuna rolls.

In the absence of any decent coffee in my office, I’ve resorted to drinking my latest creation of necessity: the “laboccino”:

• overextracted espresso from the office machine
• a splash of milk
• a bit of hot water
• microwaved for 20 seconds

Not great, but better than nothing.

My trusty Reneka Techno semi-professional espresso machine has served me well for years, but recently started tripping the GFCI outlet on my wall. Hoping that it was the outlet’s fault, I tried to see what would happen when I used a regular outlet. The results aren’t pretty.

Looks like it’s back to drip coffee for a while..

For years, I’ve enjoyed making cappuccinos at home, but recently my aging espresso machine starting shorting out the circuit it was on, likely due to some failing hardware. I had basically given up on trying to repair it and was getting read to start planning for a replacement when today it suddenly kicked back in. I saw a small window of opportunity and new I needed to pounce.

Unfortunately, i was all out of my usual Lactaid, so I had to hit up the regular milk. We’ll see what the consequences are in an hour or so.

After reading this Wired article about the Clover coffee machine, I knew I had to try it. In case you haven’t yet consumed enough caffeine to get you through the article, the quick summary is that the Clover is a new machine designed to brew a single cup of coffee with great control of the variables that can affect a cups’ taste, including brew time, exposure of grounds to water, and water temperature. Those who have tried it describe a kind of re-awakening, as if they were tasting coffee for the first time. Colors seem brighter, smells more intense, and the world just generally seems to be a better place after a cup from one of these machines. 

The other day, a co-worker and I headed down to the nearest Clover-equipped Starbucks to see what all the fuss was about. (Starbucks CEO Shultz apparently bought the company that makes these after sampling the goods, so soon Starbucks will be the only place to try one). We entered expecting to see the place plastered with ads for the special brew, but there was nothing. In fact, we figured we had been duped, that the machine wasn’t even there yet. We reached the register and cautiously inquired.

“So…um…do you have the..um…Clover?” we asked in hushed tones, as if we were asking for something illegal.

“We do!” said the woman at the register, a bit too loudly for my taste. After ushering a geeky-looking coworker to the main section of the shop (presumably the only certified Clover-operator in the store), she led us to the machine. I got the feeling they didn’t let this guy out from the back very often, but he seemed harmless enough. He gave us a tour of the five types of beans selected for use on the Clover. We settled on the Costa Rican, since it was the freshest (my biggest complaint about Starbucks is that their beans often become stale as the sit on the shelf). 

The Clover operator carefully weighed the beans on a scale next to the machine. I noticed a stray bean sitting on the scale and wondered if I should tell him about it. I decided it would make me appear to be too obsessive so I held my tongue. He ground the beans and dumped them into a hole in the top of the machine and appeared to push a button. A jet of hot water (presumably exactly 202 degrees…or so) shot out of a tap and into the chamber. He reached for a rubber spatula to stir the concoction briefly (wait…didn’t the Wired article say he should use a wire whisk…). After some churning I was handed a cup of coffee.

I carefully sipped from the cup, bracing myself for a life-changing experience.

It was…ok. More drinkable than the usual Starbucks brew but certainly not the best cup I’ve ever had. I was a big fan of Starbucks’ Gold Coast blend in the past, though even that has now waned in quality as the beans have been allowed to steadily oxidize on store shelves. 

I haven’t given up hope. Apparently there’s still a non-Starbucks Clover shop in Cambridge somewhere, so I’m going to keep dreaming about that perfect cup.

There are times in our lives when we do things we are proud of and want to share these achievements with the world. There are other, darker times, when we lose sight of our values and stray from the path we have set for ourselves. I like to think of myself as a good person, an honest person. But I was truly inspired by John Edwards’ words tonight. “Edwards’ words” sounds a bit awkward, doesn’t it? Well, maybe that’s appropriate. Because this is awkward. Telling the truth that is. Anyway, John said that it’s no longer good enough to be “99% honest”. We must tell the truth. And so I am. Or will. Give me a second, here. 

John Edwards admitted that, in 2006, he had an affair. Despite this, he thought somehow he could run for president after this. That doesn’t sound like a great idea to me, but hey, what do I know. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, right? Well, it’s time to lay it all on the table. Not that I’m planning on running for president. Besides, John Edwards waited until after he lost to admit his wrong doings, while I haven’t even started campaigning for anything. Does that make me a better person? I’ll let you judge. You being the American People. Unless you’re reading this from outside America. Then I guess you’re a citizen of the world. So, I’ll let the Amiercan People and the citizens of the world judge me. Happy?

Here’s the situation. I could tell you a “99% truth”, that all I did this evening was cook some salmon and broccoli, and add a little couscous for a healthy meal. And that’s true. But it’s not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It’s just part of the story. Not really a lie, but still misleading. Is that all the food I ate? Well, that depends on what your definition of is is. Or actually what your definition of food is. After all the lights were out, I snuck into the kitchen for a snack. I’m not really sure what happened…it all went by so fast. It’s almost as if I was outside myself, watching someone else take the actions. 

I found myself with a piece of bread on a plate and some fresh-ground Whole Foods honey-roasted peanut butter. I started making a peanut butter and should have just stopped there, but no, I had to go on. As if moved by some unseen force, I opened the cabinet, took out a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and sprinkled them liberally on top. I’m already ashamed and wish that was the end of it. But it isn’t. I then took the resulting Frankenstein-like monstrosity and placed it in the toaster oven. I cannot bear to give you the details of how I toasted it, took out the bread, folded it in two, and ate it in one sitting, but if you can stand it you can look at the evidence. 

I understand if you never want to read this blog again. Or let your children read this blog. Or let anyone you know read this blog. I can’t promise you I’ll be perfect. But if you’ll give me another chance, I will do my best to re-earn your trust. Thank you.

Thou are much hotter and much more likely to inflict pain.

Burritos are a routine part of the dietary cycle chez Infobhan. Give me a Whole Foods, a good knife, and a decent cooking set up, I can take care of the rest. And so it was this weekend. I headed down to my usual organic paradise to pick up the necessary items:

Lime – check
Avocado – check
Cilantro (organic, natch) – check
Onion – check
Tortillas – whole wheat
Meat du jour – got it
Beans – in the can
Tomatoes – vine ripe
Jalepeno…

Where could it be? I paced back and forth through the vegetable aisles, knowing there must be at least one hiding somewhere. But nothing. Not even the an empty basket and sign to suggest a jalepeno smuggler might have just cleared out the lot. I was about to ask one of the workers when I had a sudden fear that this would turn out like “The Forgotten”, the Julianne Moore movie from a few years back where everyone acts like her son never existed. Except this would be with jalepenos. They would just stare at me blankly. 

“Sir, we’ve never had any jalepenos.”

I grabbed the closest replacement I could find and scuttled off to checkout.

Fast forward to a few hours later at home and I am “enjoying” some extremely hot salsa and chasing it with large amounts of water. Turns out that my replacement was a raging-hot habanero, widely respected as the most fearsome of all peppers. My mouth still burns just recalling the episode.

I hope this salmonella scare passes soon.

Growing up, I was occasionally drawn to the “deep dish” options in various pizzerias, only to find them relatively dull and not all that different from the traditional fare. At one point, Pizza Hut started advertising something called “Priazzo Italian Pie” which looked a lot more interesting, but at the time Pizza Huts were almost non-existant in Massachusetts. It looked so good on TV…one day I would have to try it. At last, on a family vacation, I convinced my parents to stop for lunch at the Hut. There it was, on the menu…at last the Priazzo would be mine. When the waitress arrived, I proudly declared my selection, only to have my hopes dashed when I was told it was no longer being offered.

Fast forward to early June, 2008 on a brief trip to Chicago. Having attended a wedding here 12 years earlier, I remembered watching the hotel information channel and hearing about a place called “Gino’s East” which served deep dish pizza that looked much like my beloved Priazzo. Somehow I managed to convince my wife to stop there for dinner. And by stop I mean wait for the nearly 45 minutes it took to prepare the deep dish classic. Note to self: never go to a place where you have to wait the better part of an hour for the food to be cooked when you’ve got a hungry, irritable 17-month old who is ready to terrorize the restaurant. Luckily there wasn’t a line when we arrived. The pizza looked impressive and was really served in a deep dish (or what looks like a small cake pan). We had ordered a medium but barely managed to devour half of it even after taking turns taking our son for walks to maintain some semblance of order at our table. My impression? If you like cheese, you’ll love this pizza. It must have taken mountains of mozzarella to to make this thing. The crust itself was quite thick and buttery – almost biscuit-like. Even though we had only managed to reduce the pizza to half its size, it was still followed by the requisite reclining on the hotel bed proclaiming “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!”

Yet only two days later I built up enough courage to try again. This time, I learned lessons from my prior mistakes: get take out, order a small. We hit up Giordano’s a local favorite many seemed to prefer to Gino’s. The take out made managing the little one a lot easier, but the pizza was also better. Unlike Gino’s which is basically a cylindrical bowl filled with cheese, sauce, and the occasional additional item (they’re not really “toppings”), Giordano’s covers the top of their pizza with a second crust, making it much more like a pie. The crust is a seems a bit thinner and lighter than Gino’s, so the net impression is about the same amount of bread. Still, there’s not the overwhelming mass of cheese that the Gino’s experience bring with it, and overall Giordano offers a better experience (yes, it is an experience). Despite ordering the size targeted at “1-2 people”, we weren’t able to do much better than we had with Gino’s. Still, it was worth it. Not something to eat every day, but definitely worth a taste if you are in the windy city.

I think I feel like some pizza tonight.