¡nachos!

Nachos were a hit today. "Best nachos in Korea," said my American coworker. "Very, very good," said the boss, who then added, "But you know what's missing? Jalapeños." I had forgotten to bring out the jar of jalapeños that I had bought for the occasion. In principle, nachos are simple, but there are a gazillion little components you need to keep track of, and I guess I forgot the jalapeños. Ah, well. Otherwise, the whole thing was a happy, goopy mess. I went for the red, white, and green "Mexican flag" look on my plate with the salsa roja, sour cream, and guacamole (as you see, I forgot the lettuce even though it was there to be used):

See the beans peeking out? They turned out not to be bad at all.

With goopy queso added:

Even my normally picky Korean coworker finished his plate this time. And I think the whole thing went over better with Tostitos chips than with whatever homemade monstrosity I would have brought. I just wish the store-bought chips hadn't been so broken up inside the chip bag. For whenever I do this dish next time, I need to work on my tortilla-chip game, that's for sure. I think I had done a good job making the corn tortillas (that's a pretty straightforward process), but next time around, I need to remember to dry the tortillas out before deep-frying them, and I can't allow them to get even a little brown.

Now, I have to turn my attention to the next May cheat day, which happens next week. I normally prefer to space my cheat days out into two-week intervals, but this is just how the calendar worked out this time. Friends are coming over for the first time since the pandemic began (unless there are any last-minute chicken-outs), and I need to master my new equipment: the Instant Pot and the smokeless grill. My plan is to make filet mignon, which is an easy steak to fuck up. The hack, with filet mignon, is to use a combination of sous vide—which cooks everything to perfection without much effort on your part—and reverse searing, i.e., searing the meat at the very end of the cooking process instead of at the beginning. This gives you a nice crust on your steak (which looks like the undead when it comes out of sous vide; it's totally cooked, but it's been cooked via moisture, so the meat looks gray and gross). About a minute per side on the grill at super-high heat should be enough to finish the steaks as you bathe the meat in a mixture of butter, garlic, and rosemary.

I normally serve a ton of food at these gatherings, but this time, I think I'm going to go for 300-gram steaks (a little over half a pound) with chimichurri sauce, plus fresh-cooked shrimp (possibly garlic shrimp), which I'll probably have to cook sur place right before serving. I'll put the surf and turf on a bed of mashed potatoes (maybe accented with a pool of creamed asparagus) and probably a side salad, which my buddy Tom won't touch because he doesn't do vegetables. Before the Saturday gathering, preferably by next Wednesday, I need to cook one filet mignon as proof of concept. I've seen the sous-vide-and-sear method dozens of times in various videos, so in theory, this ought to work out nicely.

Along with mastering new cooking techniques, I have to give my place a thorough spring cleaning. I've started already, cleaning part of my bathroom and my kitchenette. The kitchenette had been a grease-spattered horror show (including the overhead fan), but I cleaned up that area two nights ago. I need to thoroughly clean my floor, dust and de-cobweb all my apartment's nooks and crannies, and finish cleaning the bathroom, whose tiles are covered in several years' worth of soap scum. Gross. My shower curtain has a bit of nasty, discolored mold on the inside of the bottom hem; that mold was there when I first moved in, but I've long thought about getting rid of it. I can try rinsing it out with diluted bleach, but I'm actually thinking of just buying a new shower curtain. It's about time, anyway.

So—lots to do, and not much time to do it. It's going to be a busy weekend.