June 21, 2008
Kathy, Deena and Frank all went in together and hired Mad Coyote Joe to come out and teach me how to cook healthy food. This was a belated Father's Day gift (Mad couldn't do it last weekend). First, the boys (Joe, Frank and I) went to Fry's grocery store and bought $140 worth of ingredients, then we motored down to Food City, which specializes in Mexican staples and bought another $80 worth of goodies, then another stop at Epicurean Delight for two specialty food tools, including a hand blender ($60).

Meanwhile, the girls went and got their nails done, while the boys came home and started food prepping: cutting and dicing garlic, onions, chiles, cucumbers, reducing balsamic vinegar and drinking iced cold beers.

The girls came back at about two and we really got into it, making homemade mole (pronounced moe-lay), fresh salsa, grilled vegetables and salmon, a pot roast and spaghetti, to name just a few of the dishes. We sat down at about five and had a feast. Then divided the food and sent everyone on their way with the delicious results. By the way, Joe came on an electric motor bike he bought off of one of my neighbors for $50.

Really a ton of fun. Joe also threw out practically all of the spices, cooking packets and cooking utensils I have used for the past ten years. For example I use a brand-named seasoned salt. No-no-no, it's all salt, msg and sugar. Three things I don't need. And, I learned if you strain your pasta and run cold water over it (which I have done religiously), you strip off the coating on the noodles that makes the spaghetti sauce cling to it, and you end up with white noodles and segregated red sauce. If you don't run cold water on the noodles you get rich, red spaghetti with red soaked noodles. Amazing. I knew none of this.

"If we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago, we should all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told us, we should all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us, we should all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. We have been saved by the splendid thing called independence, and I want to see more of it. I want to see children raised so that they will have it."
—Robert Ingersoll