i gather treats to indulge my expectant guests, including the soon-to-be-famous spicy margarita.  full discosure: the spicy margarita came to me through stephan, the bartender at verana in yelapa, mexico.  but it has become an obsession all my own.  in addition to perfecting the recipe, i enjoy trying out each variation on as many visitors as i can. how else to know if i’ve discovered some universal truth in the essence of a handful of those delightfully hot little peppers, or if i’ve veered off course into some strange alt.-cocktail fantasy best kept private?  i have only a handful of converts so far.  too many people still scrunch up their faces and proclaim my liquid love child…”interesting.” that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.  still, i think i’ve found a combination i enjoy too much to tame down in favor of a wider audience.

1. put one bottle of herradura silver tequila, 3 each habanero, serrano and jalapeno peppers and 1 lime sliced into a pitcher.  cover tightly and let sit in a dark cabinet for five days. strain out the chiles and lime slices and return the tequila to the herradura bottle.
2. mix equal parts spiced tequila and fresh lime juice with just slightly less cointreau to taste.
3. shake with ice and serve on the rocks in a kosher-salt rimmed glass.
4. repeat as necessary
5. tip: you can make a pitcher ahead of time and stick it in the freezer. you’ll end up with a nice slushy, spicy treat ready for your own expectant guests.

highly addictive if you have the chile obsession.  if that gene skipped your particular generation, i weep for you.

cities are not nations anymore.  that era passed centuries ago, with only a few exceptions remaining today.  still, if a modern city could be said to have a national cuisine it would be san diego’s famous fish tacos.  like hordes of roman centurians spreading the glories of ceasar from africa to northern europe, san diego’s fish tacos have stormed through my palette and left me subject to swooning tyranny, a slave to the intoxicating smell of lime and masa on my finger tips.  ruth reichl (another hero of mine, and editor of gourmet magazine) says fish tacos, “introduced to san diego by restauranteur ralph rubio in 1983, have become the city’s most famous dish.”  indeed, they are available throughout the city in nearly endless variations from the classic, grease-infused, deep-fried original to super-gourmet versions with high-end grilled fish atop a bed of some complex slaw wrapped in a hand-made tortilla.  it’s almost impossible to go wrong, though, as long as the fish is fresh.

when i visit san diego i force my family through a minimum of one fish taco meal every other day.  i judge fish tacos on two scales, classic taco-stand and gourmet.  my personal san diego favorite is currently the bay park fish company, whose panko-crusted fish tacos rate at the very top of the classic taco-stand scale.  on the more varied and subjective gourmet fish taco scale, i’ve not found any better that portland oregon’s oba, where they have created an amazing slaw filling to wrap up with their excellent bits of fried fish.  that’s perfection.

the dark spot of my trip happened in a movie theater. i’m a reluctant cormac mccarthy fan. his books torture me slowly like a creeping disease but i can’t stop reading. no county for old men chewed me up and spat me out. why, then, did i think i should see the coen bros movie version in the theater on a cold, rainy night in seattle…alone? the movie is so well-made in all respects that it carries all the vile, putrid and irresistible agony of reading the book. mccarthy can really tell the story of a world gone so wrong it is unrecognizable, so can the coen bros.; read and/or watch at your own peril.

as dark a spot as that may have been, i found myself finally having time to sit and really listen to the shepherd’s dog, the most recent offering from iron & wine. sam beam is another favorite story-teller, and i was glad to find solace in the sheer beauty of truly great song-writer striking on all cylinders. my aural self started zeroing in early on the song “carousel.” i do that. i obsess. when a song gives me a gut check, i can listen to it all day. and boy did this song start to get to me. it wasn’t until i listened to it about 20 times in as many hours that i started really paying attention. i was surprised, even a little stunned, to find the lyrics of the song so complex but so clearly carrying the same message as no country for old men, the story of a world gone so wrong we get lost on our own streets. in this world it becomes so important to live by principles you can believe in and stick to. without personal standards we run the very serious risk of arriving someplace we really shouldn’t be.

from time to time we all find ourselves acting out dramas that we don’t belong in. we are a lucky lot, though, aren’t we, to have story-tellers like cormac mccarthy, the coen bros., and sam beam to reach really deep into our muck and pull out something so vital? i am obsessing over the lyrics to “carousel” and won’t even attempt to pass on what they mean to me. instead they are reproduced here for your consideration. i’m not sure it resonates the same without the post-mccarthy funk, but i’d love to hear your thoughts…

carousel: iron & wine

Almost home
When I missed the bottom stair
You were braiding your gray hair
It had grown so long
Since I’d been gone

And the perfect girls
By the pool, they would protest
The cross around their necks
But our sons were overseas
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees

Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a Persian rug
With your bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on a TV stand

And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk of Noah’s clothes

Almost home
We got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep
So the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed

And the cops couldn’t care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, “Please, before I go
May our only honored bone
Be the kinship of the kids and the riot squad”