Back to the Future

Chicken pan-roasted with smoked paprika and garlic, fettucine Alfredo, buttered haricots verts with toasted almonds

I ate this while watching the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Data, the android, confronts not ony his father and his evil twin, but also what it means to be human. Data's conclusions differ from my own. I've said it before and I'll say it again: fettucine Alfredo is what separates us from the Klingons.

I always thought that, out of all the pretty interesting things they could have named an android, "Data" was an exceptionally weak choice. If you're goin' down that road, why not "Lieutenant Commander Information," or "Lieutenant Commander Facts"? Or "Lieutenant Commander Straight Poop"?

Rutherford's Chocolate River Rocks

I don't really "get" chocolate, but I suppose if I have to eat it, it may as well resemble inedible bits of granite.

Heirloom Tomato and Hothouse Cucumber Salad

Field greens, balsamic onion, wrinkled black olives, Greek feta cheese, fresh oregano

Those depraved-looking heirloom tomatoes--corpulent, misshapen, bug-scarred, bizarrely colored. I love to put them out of their misery of a summer's eve.

Leftover Hamburger Bun

Old Forest Salami, Jarlsberg, red onion, Shaller & Weber Bavarian-Style Sweet & Spicey [sic] Mustard

Packagers of hamburger buns are tools of the patriarchy. They conspire against the single gal on the go. What's with the 8-packs? How many hamburgers can a person realistically be expected to eat before the rest of the buns rot on the counter? You know what that says to me? It says: you are nothing without a huge, unsustainable family.

And why are hamburger buns universally constructed out of styrofoam? I resent the implication that the hamburger enthusiast is a tasteless redneck broodmare breadophobe. When will somebody bake a bun out of something besides suckanasia?

Shrimp Tacos

Chango's, South Lamar, Austin TX

Best tortillas in Texas.* Chango puts spicy cabbage slaw and 3 quarts of cilantro on his fried shrimp tacos. You can also get'em with grilled shrimp, but I'd have to ask "why the heckfire?"

The sad truth is that these shrimp tacos are hit-or-miss. In fact, the batch pictured here was sub-par. The fryer girl cracked, or possibly snapped, at a critical moment, and did not retrieve the shrimps until they'd been scorched beyond hope. I have been advised to avoid this dish in the future, but the blissful memory of Chango's successful efforts in this quarter may prove too tantalizing an enticement.

* There is a slim possibility that this statement is somewhat untrue, as I have not yet actually eaten all the tortillas in Texas.