Flavor Trippin' part 1: Uh, What?

Ok, so there's this trippy West-African plant called the Miracle Berry Plant, which yields the eponymous Miracle Fruit (which, in a bizarre coincidence, is full of the protein Miraculin). When eaten or, more precisely, when masticated and rolled around on the tongue, the pulp of the Miracle Fruit causes sour food to taste sweet. I know: miraculous.

So now all the cool kids are buying Miracle Berry, raiding the pantry, and flavor tripping. And doing shots of cider vinegar.

The experience is kind of like being marooned on Malacandra and having to taste everything around you to decide if they are tasty or disgusting.



Citrus fruit was quite divine, with lemon sprinkled with cinnamon seeming to come out as everyone's favourite.  Other combinations, like the lemon with jalapeño mustard above, were as horrible as you might expect, but in a truly different and unique way.  It was a terrible betrayal, like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant.

Flavor Trippin' part 2: The Horrible Truth

As much as we wanted this experience to be amazing and life-changing, it turned out to be mostly disgusting.  The problem is that the fruit changes your taste, but not your sense of smell.  And, of course, there are only five tastes; everything else is smell.






So while Tabasco might all-of-a-sudden taste as sweet as doughnut glaze, it still smells like vinegar and is, of course, still a bit spicy.











Sauerkraut suffers the same fate: the taste is new, sweet, and interesting, but it still smells like sauerkraut.  This was really the downfall of everything we tried: mustards, tequilas, vinegars, olives, pickled beans, you name it.













It also rendered the wine we had served with dinner undrinkable.

Taco Bell Challenge part 3: Pièce de Résistance

  Thing1 ordered both a Frutista Freeze and some Hi-C, in the hopes that an insulin shock-and-awe would sway the judges. Here, Thing 1 reduces the Hi-C down to its most basic ingredients: sugar and red.

  The Frutista Freeze didn't really freeze all that well. Of course, this could be because the Kitchen-Aid was in Thing2's domain. At any rate, it did eventually harden up enough to hold its shape, so long as it wasn't exposed to any heat, vibration, or strong language.

  Thing2 pestles some cinnamon twists. Thing2 really went for presentation on the dishes, a tactic that would probably have worked better if the two judges' scores were equally weighted.

  Thing2's final assembly.

Thing2's finished dessert: a master's class in thinking outside the bun.

Thing1's finished dessert: a variation on a theme by Brahms.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	1	3
un-TacoBell-ness	6	4
appearance	5	6
taste	6	5
presentation	5	5
Geoff-ness	5	5
originality	6	6
sexiness	6	5
showmanship	4	6
clarity	6	5
effervescence	6	5
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing1

Taco Bell Challenge part 2: Entrée Buffet Display

Thing2, driven mad by a miasma of small-chain TacoBell mercaptans and VOCs, a result of heating the ill-advised DoubleBurrito. 

Here, once again, Thing2 shows ingenuity by just asking for plain tortillas.  Thing1 spent fifteen minutes scraping off beans, rinsing under the sink, and getting cheese out from under the ol' fingernails.

Careful assembly is required for the all-important "presentation" category.  The over-all theme is quite visually arresting, almost hypnotic in its old-school, swirly way.


ShaZam!  Finished product, and a bitchin' hat.  No one would mistake this masterpiece for TacoBell roughage.




As mentioned before, here's Thing1 scraping beans off a tattered tortilla.  Thing1 was totally pissed when Thing2 didn't have to do this.

Cutting the "cleaned" tortillas into circles with the large biscuit cutter.  It's a good thing there were so many of these, as some of them weren't presentation-quality.

Spoon a small amount of the burrito cytoplasm back into the little rounds, and fold like tortellini.  Rinse; repeat; wipe hands on pants.










Bam!  Drizzle a little fire sauce, and off to the JUDGE.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	2	4
appearance	5	6
taste	3	2
presentation	4	6
Geoff-ness	2	5
originality	6	3
sexiness	4	4
showmanship	5	6
clarity	4	3
effervescence	3	3
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing2

Taco Bell Challenge part 1: Let the Games Begin

The Taco Bell Challenge: prepare a three-course dinner for one using only $10 worth of ingredients from Taco bell. Originally, the loser had to drink three shots of olive oil, but we decided against that. The new punishment was to try to cross a log across Lacamas Lake while being pelted with burritos thrown by the winner, but the weather has turned cold and rainy, and no one wants a touch of the hypothermia. The new new punishment is so brutal we can't talk about it yet.

As a handicap, since Thing2's only been seriously cooking for about a year or so, Thing1 had to use the camp stove and cook in the dining room; Thing2 got to use the kitcken.


Thing1's first course was a tortilla soup made from: water, minced potatoes from a potato burrito (the starch helps to thicken the broth), chicken from a Fresco Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco, and some left-over beans from a bean burrito. A packet of salt and a couple packets of pepper, and we boil down.














Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Thing2 shows off by bringing an X-Acto to a burrito fight. Thing1 had this menu all planned out for a month, while Thing2 decided, possibly, at the cash register. The end result being that Thing2 noticed and used "new" items on the menu, like the blue corn crunchy taco. Not captured in photos is Thing2 using tortilla strips to cast hexagrams of the I Ching, divining the magnum opus, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.


The completed masterpiece, a stark reminder that while there's always a little bit of the taco in your body, there's probably also a little bit of somebody in your taco.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	5	1
appearance	4	6
taste	5	4
presentation	5	6
Geoff-ness	4	5
originality	5	-1
sexiness	6	3
showmanship	5	5
clarity	4	1
effervescence	4	3
racism	4	3

Winner: Thing1

Habanero Poppers part 1: "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said

We found these spicy little numbers at the Portland Farmer's Market: two habanero plants (with little green peppers) for $2. Couldn't let that deal slip by. Put these babies in the ground, forgot about them for a while, came back and-Presto!-tasty fruit ready for harvesting. Exactly like raising kids.

Two by two, hands of blue: we washed, bisected, and seeded five peppers.

Then over-filled each half with a proprietary mixture of Tillamook sharp cheddar, cream cheese, bacon, cumin, and paprika.

Then breaded them with egg, flour, and breadcrumbs.

Habanero Poppers part 2: We can begin to feed.

Now a quick dip in the Ugly-Maker (so called because of JJ, who had a deep-fryer accident in our kitchen last year, and who, incidentally, we now just call J) at a balmy 350 F. This peanut oil was previously used to deep-fry a turkey, so it made the whole house smell like Thanksgiving.

Ok, we were expecting the habanero poppers to be pretty brutal; habaneros usually rank in the low 6-digits on the Scoville scale, compared to the lowly jalapeño which only tops out at a paltry 8,000. We have personally used jalapeño juice instead of contact lens solution and not known the difference. Long story short, those who think jalapeños are hot are big, squishy wussies.

However, these things had no heat. None. They were like crinkly little bell peppers. We were so disgusted.

So, of course, we added a drop of Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce to each one. Dave's is the sauce used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to judge all other hot sauces. It's not the hottest, but it's plenty hot, especially in the ratio used here.

"I weep for you," the Walrus said;

"I deeply sympathize."

With sobs and tears he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

Before his streaming eyes.