h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Posting something a little earlier tonight--our sitter is feeling better, so we'll be going out tonight. Tom's birthday is later this week, so we'll probably be going out for Mexican food. I like Mexican alright, but I tend to like the less basic stuff (if anyone ever gets around to visiting, I may have to take you up to Brookings and go to Le Fleur de Mexico. Just sayin'.) though it's been long enough now that I don't need to see if there's any seafood on the menu of whereever we go tonight.

Yep, Tom's going to be 36, which means I'm going to be 40 3 days after Christmas. Given the teasing I gave out to a few folks the past few years, I've braced myself

If you're on Skype, I want phonecalls for my birthday. You can search for my first name and the bit after the aka in my h2g2 name, no spaces, all lowercase. Or search my real first and last names, and know that I'm the one with paperlady in her name

What do you mean by "less basic stuff?" I'm always interested in Mexican food.

Something beyond bean/chicken/beef/cheese tacos/burritos/enchiladas/tostadas/quesadillas with rice and beans and tortillas (the flat bread, not the egg dish). Not that any of those are bad--they can just get boring, and are easy enough to make at home.

I rarely eat the "standard" TexMex dishes like those you mentioned. When I do get a taco or burrito, I'll usually get barbacoa or carne guisada or even lengua. Oh, or fish tacos/burritos. Those are usually delicious. Other of my favorites are fideo (a Mexican chicken noodle soup) and stuffed avocado. I also order fish and shrimp dishes.

On a Saturday morning though, every once in a while I'll treat myself to menudo.

Hope you had a lovely time last night Amy! and remind us all about Skype, again, nearer the date, it would be fab to actually speak to you, rather than to type.

I'll throw some hints into the volunteer chat--I'd say 95% of my Skype contacts are in there

I tend to go for the seafood options, too--La Fleur has crab and shrimp enchiladas

We ended up just going to Denny's last night, but that's OK, too

There was a great restaurant called Sol Azteca on the next block when I lived in Brookline. I remember the chicken with mole sauce. I'm not sure putting chocolate into a chili-based sauce works that well, but it at least was a bit different. Arroz con pollo is pretty popular in Cuba, from what I hear.

It depends. If the chocolate is unsweetened, dark chocolate, I'll try it.

Unfortunately, when I ask I usually find that they've used a sweetened chocolate, so I pass.

This definitely tasted unsweetened.

Well, good.

The Aztecs never considered sweetening cacao. They used it in recipes with chili peppers.

HN makes *wonderful* chili truffles. The only reason they're not my favorite is that I tried her mache ones Not something you'd think would work, but, oh, my, it most certainly *does*.

Just a reminder, as requested, about Skyping on the 28th. Probably be a good idea to point out that I'm in the Pacific Standard timezone, which makes me 8 hours behind the UK and 3 hours behind the US east coast. I can post on the status thing on Skype when I get up/am available--I plan to sleep in, and to take advantage of Denny's free birthday offer--I just don't know at what time. I may try to convince PaperKid to have her birthday present to me be the use of her tablet, since it has a camera, in case anyone wants to see me in which case my being out and about won't be that big a deal. Tom has to work that night, so we're delaying our now traditional birthday trip until the next day--we need to arrange for someone to watch the girls! I'll remind Tom of that in the morning...