Tapath

Within an hour after posting on the utter lameness of tapas:

• Patatas Bravas (fried potatoes with hot and spicy sauce)
• Salmorejo (thick chilled tomato soup [not gazpacho])
• Lomo al Roquefort (pork loin in a roquefort sauce)
• Maccarones con Salsa de Champiñones (penne in mushroom sauce)
• Cazón en Adobo (marinated dogfish)
• y Dos Copas de Vino Rosado

Hit the palate and ran 12,20 euros at a place called : La Gorda te da de Comer in Cádiz.
Lesson learned: Tapas is not a cuisine, it is a concept.
Death to potato salad!

Duck, You Sucker : Migas

Duck, You Sucker : Huevos Sucios

Ladies and gentleman, huevos sucios à la francaise.
Thanks to this place for the mole.

How Do You Like Your Horse Meat?

Verified: The French eat horse meat. They serve it as a mane: Seattle Stew with Seabiscuits. There’s even a TV show here called “Mr. Edible.” I could horse around all day, but apparently it’s time for the frogs to rein it in. At present, there are billboards all over the 13th arrondisement imploring an end to the Barbaro-ism. Or are they just beating, neigh eating, a dead horse?

Duck, You Sucker : Thanksgiving in Art Spiegelman’s Apartment

We have some friends-of-friends who rent Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s Paris apartment, and naturally, they invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. Realizing this would be a great opportunity to expand on the coterie of famous people with which we have exactly one degree of separation, we accepted.

Aside from apartment’s gargantuan bathroom, the most interesting thing about it was the wall hangings. Among them were a print of Chris Ware’s “Rocket Sam,” various New Yorker covers (yet only one was Spiegelman’s, his black-on-black post-9/11 homage), and a Dan Clowes poster that one of the girls who lives there had taken down because it gives her nightmares.

End result: fleeting pangs of homesickness have been sated by roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, Stove Top stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and of course lots of French wine, cheese, and bread. I was so full and drunk afterward, that I felt like torching an Indian village.

A re-interpretation of Art Spiegelman’s 9/11 cover. Deep... :

Duck, You Sucker : French Tortillas

Plus Tard has neglected to mention food.

One reality of life in France is that you spend exorbitant amounts of time either shopping at the market, cooking, or eating. Yet, post exile, I’m a notch down on my belt. I say it’s from lugging large canvas bags of food a full ten blocks twice a week with the notion of saving a Euro on apero fixings. And I just pulled that little muscle right under my shoulder blade. You know the one.

But let’s talk about Mexican food. They don’t make it in France.
This a problem after having had it three meals a day for thirteen years.

The crux of the problem is that the tortillas from Hyper Casino taste like styrofoam and cost a fortune. So I decided to make my own taco towels. Not so much. These also tasted like styrofoam, but this time they were unbending and carried the aroma of dried glue. Above you see the world’s first (and hopefully last) flour-tortilla tostada. People, there is no corn masa in France and the flour thing ain’t happening. Express mail me some fresh tortillas, and I’ll send you something from France that you can’t get where you live.