A Bureaucracy of One

7 Layer Dip to Shake the Heavens

Sure, you can follow a recipe, but like jazz, the genius is in the improvisation and the execution.  Nominally, this recipe is from The Joy Of Cooking, but I've modified it.

1 1/2 16oz.Cans Refried Beans
3 Lg (or six Sm) Ripe Avocados
3 Tablespoons Lime Juice
1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
2 Cups Sour Cream
1 Packet Hot & Spicy Taco Seasoning
2 4oz. Cans Chopped Green Chilis
1 container Grape Tomatoes
2 Cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 Cup Mozzerella
Fresh Cilantro
1 Bunch Scallions/Green Onions

In a 13x9 baking dish evenly spread the refried beans

Mash together and mix Avocados, Lime juice, and Sea Salt, then spread over beans

Mix together Sour Cream and Taco mix, and spread over Avocado

Chop enough cilantro to cover Sour Cream, and spread evenly

Spread Green Chilis evenly over Cilantro

Dice Grape Tomatoes and spread evenly

Spread grated Cheddar evenly, and top with Mozzerella

Broil for 2 minutes to melt cheese

Chop Scallions/Green Onions and spread over Cheese

Serves 15-20.

You can also leave the dip in the oven after broiling it, and set to oven for 350 for about 10-12 minutes to warm the dip.

Just Because You Can eat It Doesn't Mean It's Edible

Fast Food franchises I'll no longer willingly patronize:

McDonald's

Burger King

Wendy's

Taco Bell

Arctic Circle

Panda Express

and now...

KFC.

The Carl's Jr./Hardees franchise still gets a pass because of their Crisscut/Curly Fries.

The crap that passes for food at these places horrifies me.  It used to not bother me at all.  Hell, I used to eat almost exclusively at Taco bell for about ten years after college!  The Spicy Chicken Sandwich at Wendy's satisfied my hunger on multiples of multiple times, as did the Orange Chicken from Panda Express.  But now, just the idea of entering those places fills me dread nausea!  My bowels begin to quake in fear - loosening in anticipation of needing to pass the poisonous gestalts of Super Science and Arcane Magics as quickly as possible - and my blood pressure drops as my body tries to slow the flow of viscous life-fluid throw my digestive track, as the less of toxins absorbed, the better.

I mean, have seen what passes for Macaroni & Cheese at KFC recently?  That.  Ain't. FOOD!

Nay, instead it is some eldritch horror drawn straight from the rotting bowels of H.P. Lovercraft himself!  An amorphous gelatin that reeks of hells unfathomable and chemicals so corrosive that the EPA can't even classify them!  One taste, and your puny mortal mind will shrink in gibbering terror from the mass of Stygian information conveyed by your now-atrophied taste buds!  And then, as if the incipient destruction of all that you are at the tendrils of this horror were not enough, CLARITY bursts through noxious fog like a suppurating appendix, and wraps the shards of your psyche in its necrotic tentacles.  It is then that you KNOW.  Sub-prime mortgages and Balloon Payments are  Wonderful Ideas!  Why, Rush Limbaugh is the very Voice of Reason!  War IS Peace!  Freedom IS Slavery!  And Ignorance...dear Dread Lord Cthuhlu...Ignorance truly IS STRENGHT!

And then you die.

Culinary Question Marks

See that picture up there?  That was part of dinner tonight; fried pickles.  Read that again.  Deep.  Fried.  Pickles.  Yes, there is a place in Salt Lake City, UT that serves deep-fried pickles.  Eat your cholesterol-laden heart out, Atlanta!