My Night with Adobo

I love food.  Truly.  I memorized a recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies when I was six or seven.  I learned how to make a perfect omelet in high school.  When I studied abroad during college, I collected Ghanaian recipes and sent them around to all my abroad-mates.  And last night, oh last night, it was... amazing.  When I told my coworkers what I ate, they burst out laughing – look at the giddy white kid who just discovered Spanish seasoning!  That’s right, last night I marinated skirt steak in homemade adobo (although you could argue it was more of a sofrito) and in so doing, rocketed myself into a coma of pure foodie ecstasy.  After tacos, guacamole, salsa, three coronas, two packs of gushers, all while listening to my recently acquired Fragile LP, I passed out on the couch smiling ear to ear.

My first adobo experience was in Somerville, Massachusetts a few weeks ago.  Somerville isn’t exactly the mothership of ethnic diversity but the internet tells me that 1 in 10 people who live there is Hispanic/Latino and the internet never lies.  A buddy of mine grilled skirt steaks marinated in his adobo and after one bite, I knew I needed to make it myself.  Fast forward to last night.

I arrived home late but I was determined to embrace the spicier side of my heritage (despite my florescent complexion, my last name is Guimaraes and although that's not Hispanic, Latino or Spanish, we're close enough, dammit).  First off, you combine all the ingredients in a food processor.  For a boy, this is the cooking equivalent of a sword fight with the toll booth operator to pass through the toll.  Second, you can’t have tacos without guacamole and salsa so I gleefully made a righteous mess of avocados, onions and tomatoes.  Lastly, the recipe called for beer and they sell THAT in packages of six soooooo do the math?

After food processing and marinating, I spent an hour or so catching up on current affairs.  Back into the kitchen to broil the steaks – alas, I do not own a grill.  While the steaks were cooking, I perfected my lime-juice-to-corona ratio!  Without lime, Corona has an amazing ability to taste like mule tears (stay with me here) but squeeze a lime slice into it and you’ve just produced the green potion from Legend of Zelda.

DING!  The steaks are done!

Tortilla, melt some cheese, add lettuce, tomato, onion, cover with slices of steak annnnnnd: it was as if I had never eaten before.  I sat on the couch loving every bite of seasoned goodness, washing it down with corona, a chip here or there with salsa or quac.  I couldn’t stop from moaning.  My roommate told me to quit being so dramatic but she’s a vegetarian so how could she understand my heaven?  I told her, “You don’t understand.  This is the vacation.  When I head home this weekend, I’ll have to help my mom with her computer and clean out the garage and fix the car’s rattling AC but sitting here right now, eating this delicious food, relaxing - this is the vacation.  Nothing could make it–”  And that’s when I remembered my Fragile LP.

Like wine, some years of music are better than others.  2008 gave us tremendous albums from Fleet Foxes, Cut Copy, TV on the Radio and M83.  1971 gave us Led Zeppelin III and IV, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and Yes’s Fragile.  And like I’ve said in the past, vinyl is a great way to listen to music.  As Roundabout ended, as South Side of the Sky climaxed, as Heart of the Sunrise began... I simply passed out.  Apparently, I asked my roommate to repeat something as my eyes clothes and my head dropped to my chest.

I woke up on the couch around four in the morning still smiling.  A few hours of bed-sleep later, I cleaned all the dishes and fantasized about today’s lunch.  I’m listening to 808’s and Heartbreak (another 2008 gem).  Maybe I’ll do Indian buffet...