What's in the fridge: salsa and more salsa

We always have a jar or two of homemade salsa in the fridge. Always. I can't think of a time when we haven't. It goes in nearly everything we eat in the Johnson-Mendez household. On tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, and migas, of course, but also [Chris, in particular, likes to put it on] mashed potatoes, chicken soup, meat loaf, turkey sandwiches, and pretty much anything else you can imagine, barring dessert. Next time I make salsa, I will be sure to post photos of the process (easy, easy, easy). In the meantime, let me show you what I have in the fridge at the moment. Two salsas: one more typical here in Texas, made with Roma tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapeños, and cilantro; the other, more typical in Central Mexico, made with tomatillos, árbol chiles, garlic, avocado, toasted cumin, and cilantro.

Roma tomatoes to the left, tomatillos to the right.

In the first salsa (pictured to the left) I roasted about 7 or 8 Roma tomatoes, 4 or 5 jalapeños (stems removed), one onion (sliced thickly), and 5 or 6 cloves of garlic (skin intact) on the comal until the tomatoes and onion slices are almost entirely blackened, the jalapeños lose their bright green color, and the garlic becomes gooey soft. Usually the garlic comes off first and the tomatoes last. Peel garlic, throw everything into a blender, and add one Tsp of peppercorns (I use extra bold Tellicherry) and a chopped bunch of cilantro before blending. You can jar the salsa at this point or do what many Mexican cooks do and "fry" the salsa, which kick starts the infusion of flavors and, with the addition of oil, counter-balances the acidity of the tomatoes and chiles. Mexican Foodie explains the process a bit here. Salt to taste carefully. It can be hard to gauge the salt-level in really spicy salsas when the salsa is still hot.

Horchata w/goat milk

Soak 1 1/2 cups of rice in 3 cups of water overnight or longer. Blend until smooth along with 2 or 3 sticks of cinnamon (depending on preference), 1/4 cup of sugar and one tsp of vanilla. Pour into a pitcher, or whatever you are going to serve/store it in, and add 1 cup of goat milk, water to bring it to the consistency you prefer (another 2 cups or so) and additional sugar to taste, depending on how sweet you prefer your horchata to be.

Notes: Horchata tastes best after it sits for a day or two when the cinnamon oils are fully infused and the uncooked rice begins to lose its chalky taste. Make it with brown rice and raw agave nectar for a healthier and nuttier tasting version (just be sure to soak it an extra day or two). A note on the inclusion of milk: I've had horchata with and without milk in it, in both the US and Mexico. People here in Texas tend to put tons of milk in their horchata and I find it too rich to be refreshing on a hot summer's day. I add a cup of goat milk to give it body but that can be left out. As for the vanilla, I am a fan of Mexican vanilla; it is made from a mix of water-based vanilla bean extract and vanillin (C₈H₈O₃) in a candy-sweet solution of corn syrup and alcohol. The mix of fake and real gives it an exaggerated hyper-real quality, like the flavor equivalent of an HDR photo. 

Before blending

Spice

Mom, somehow, always there at the beginning of everything.
Growing up in the northern suburbs of Seattle, when the city was less cosmopolitan than it is today, I did not appreciate my health pilgrim of a mother's fervent quest for the (in her words) "blood purifying" burn of chiles. I remember the comedy of projections sometimes played out in Thai restaurants in order to get the spiciest possible meal and enjoying the small transgression against suburban whiteness that our chile eating represented, although I couldn't have put it in these terms at the time. My mom, in a familiar scene:
–Thai hot, please.
–I don't know. It's very hot. Are you sure? Four stars okay?
–No, Thai hot please. Six stars. As spicy as you can make it.
As an adult, having inherited my mother's obsession for spicy food, I've relived this scene and permutations of it I don't know how many times. Although much has changed. More Americans seem to appreciate spicy food now. More spicy cuisines seem to be available across the country than before. [Ethiopian, Korean, Indian, Caribbean, Mexican, Szechuan, etc.]. More information about how to cook spicy world cuisines has become accessible, along with access to previously difficult-to-find chiles and spices.
 This may only apply to big cities. Small town America is still a mystery to me, I admit.  I remember eating in a Thai restaurant in Champaign, IL, with my friend Larry, another chile junkie, who had lived in Northern Thailand and who reminisced often about the absurdly spicy nam tok he ate there, called "waterfall" in Thai for the painful tears it would cause. It took some cajoling to convince the owners he could handle the heat. Larry used his Thai, "Ow pet pet (I want it very spicy)," which elicited visible embarrassment and a strained compliment, "your Thai is very good." A comfortingly familiar scene. I was back in the 80s with my mom, except this time I had some philosophy and literary criticism under my belt, along with a vague grasp of postcolonial theory. The scene I had lived with my mom became newly legible. Misreadings, projections, shot both ways. The expectation that spicy = authentic and that authentic = good, in one direction, and the expectation (driven perhaps by a sensible fear of losing clientele) that white people do not like their food too spicy, in the other direction.
I recalled a similar scene, this time in Guadeloupe, where my desire for authenticity translated into a request for hot sauce. Unlike Jamaica, say, which is used to accommodating largely Anglo-American tourists who have a relatively high tolerance for spice, Guadeloupe's tourism industry is largely oriented to a French audience generally intolerant of any degree of chile heat. I say this with some authority, having lived in France for four years. To give you a concrete idea, Mild Pace Picante Sauce would be the spice threshold for the average Franco-French palate. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, including the French of North African and West African origins, travel junkies and adrenaline junkies, etc.. But let me make just one more unfair generalization about France: although wary of spicy foods, the French do tend seek out "authentic" (read: exotic, orientalizing) experiences when on vacation, certainly more so than the average American vacationer. So, accordingly, business-savvy Guadeloupean restaurateurs have learned to include wording on their menus that promotes the authenticity of their food ("aux saveurs exotiques des Antilles"), which is, of course, not at all what people eat at their homes. The spiciest dish may hit a fifty on the Scoville scale, and might not even register as spicy to an American. The meats and fish are upmarket, etc.. Anyhow, after spending a day at the market in Point-à-Pitre, and having tasted some beautiful local chiles and hot sauces, my travel buddy (and food blogger, Christian) and I found a nice restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet for its authentic dishes. I can't remember what I ordered. Probably some sort of seafood fritters, maybe something with bread fruit. I don't know. But I do remember asking for some "piment" (the word means both "hot pepper" and "anything that adds spice, figuratively or literally, to s/t") and getting a small plate with a single scotch bonnet pepper on it, the equivalent of a "fuck you" from the cook. I think my inner hippie girl wanted recognition from the cook in a quasi-erotic communication ("I am not like the other diners, I recognize and want the real you"). The chef, who now I realize was probably trained in Paris and likely belonged to a high-ish rung of the Island's micro class system, responded as he/she should have ("It is what it is. More thought was put into this dish than any home cooked meal you'll get on the island. So eat it or fuck off. Also, please project your quasi-erotic authenticity fantasies in a way that is legible to me. In the French way I know"). I realize I am reading a lot into a single hot pepper and that the chef was probably too slammed to formulate any of these thoughts. For all I know it was the waitress who put the chile on the plate. What matters, though, is the revelation. First, that authenticity is not an interesting or meaningful measure when it comes to good food. Second, that eating others' food is never as simple an act as it seems, especially when traveling. And third, that I must keep hot sauce on my person at all times.