Gibblers

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Burrito Madness

If you're gonna go batshit over anything, you could do worse than going batshit for burritos.  I guess the only odd thing about it wuz the sheer volume of burritos I wuz taking down.  Like, two a day for a few weeks over the summer. Some were healthy, packed with veggie goodness.  Most were not.  Wuz this some weird craving brought on by my ever diminishing thyroid due to the two surgeries which removed it?  Perhaps.  Doth cancer make you hungry for burritos?  Not that I've heard.  No AMA articles on the connection between cancer and burrito-craving as far as I know.

Anyhoo, I guess sandwiches dominated my life before that.  Liz Lemon once said that all anyone wants is a good sandwich, and it's as good a summation of the human heart's desire as I can imagine.  So how did it all become about burritos for a month or so?  Maybe it wuz that California burrito I had at a Mexican joint in Festus.  It had french fries in it!  Totally awesome shit.  Of course, I've tried the french fries in a tortilla thang before when I wrapped up sum chili cheese fries from Dairy Queen in a thin layer of extra carbs.  That, too, wuz kinda awesome.  Maybe it's hard to really fuck up a burrito.  But lord knows my burrito madness lead to sum weird ideas.

Unfortunately, no matter how weird your ideas get in the internet age, some asshole has already tried it and blogged about it.  So, google "pizza burrito" and Google will not come back at you with "Are you crazy, you delusional piece of shit?  Burritos are good.  Pizza is good.  Don't play God and make them fuck each other!"  No, the internet is cool with pizza burritos.  And someone's already even tried the thing I did:  wrapped up a Totino's pizza into burrito form.  I added beans to mine, but then it got kinda hard to wield.  And maybe it's more of a chalupa with crust like that.  That's the thing...ontology becomes important if you get a case of the burrito crazies.  If I just wrapped up a bunch of chopped veggies and some lunch meat or chicken--even if I wrap it up burrito style--isn't it really just a wrap?  Is a burrito only a burrito if beans are involved?

Anyway, at one point my pal Rick Delaney axed me if I had any good burrito recipes.  I thought, at the fevered pitch with which I wuz experimenting on burritos, I might come up with some good ideas by the end of summer.  Well, they were good enough tasting ideas (for the most part), but I doubt that any of them were original.  The ramen burrito?  Well, some people just talk about that as if you're making the noodles conform to some burrito shape with or without (without is preferred) Elmer's glue.  But, shit...someone's even got a recipe for a fucking ramen breakfast burrito (with a tortilla) on the internet, which sounds more innovative than my diced chicken and ramen burrito.  The waffle burrito is an interesting case of burrito evolution.  I guess you could use the waffle like it wuz the tortilla, but I tried what's in the picture below.  Damn tasty, that.

And that brings me to my burrito epiphany.  As long as the food item in question wasn't fruity or sweet, I found I could wrap it up with a tortilla.  All manner of veggies can be chopped up, of course, tho' for my money you want a pretty fine chop so that a bigass piece of broccoli doesn't rupture the tortilla (not that I'd know; I mainly stuck with peppers and onions).  All manner of meat can be in a burrito, or a wrap, or whatever.  One time I got sum Chinese buffet to go and threw a bunch of that shit into a burrito.  Another time I removed all the mystery meat out of some Jack in the Box tacos and packed them into a burrito (not good).  Pasta burritos of all kinds are kickass if you wanna get your carb on.

Cuz, see, I'm no cook with any kind of discipline.  The epiphany I had is this:  to the extent that I cook, I cook like I collage.  I just throw everything I can find or think of into the mix as long as it doesn't break whatever minimal logic I apply to the creation (like the no fruits or sweets rule).  I ended up making burritos this way.  I make stir fry dishes this way.  And I make some kinda weirdass casseroles this way.  And the more things I can find in the fridge or freezer to throw in, the more awesome the dishes seem to end up.  I've also taken to making increasingly more intricate collages recently--as if I'm gonna win some Guinness record for "Most Insanely Detailed Collage."

Anyway, at least it wuz neat to discover that I can make burritos that are better than Taco Bell.  Maybe that doesn't seem like sum grand achievement to those who think TB is shit, but I've always digged it.  And I especially like it when they at least attempt innovation.  In fact...there's a lot of Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo places out there, so where's their damn pizza burrito?





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