Chicken Tacos for Me and Mom

Like mother, like daughter, so they say. Mom called me up tonight to tell me about the delicious chicken tacos she had just eaten for dinner, WHILE I was making chicken tacos for dinner. Not only that, but we were both having mango/cilantro salsa on them. She did a variation on the usual salsa (see earlier entry) and added cucumber. Since I just happened to have a cucumber, I decided to try it. Delicious. Nice and crunchy. I also added onion (which I usually find overpowering), but those gargantuan spring Maui onions (last sunday's entry) are so sweet you can bite into them like an apple.

A few weeks ago, when I was sitting in Orin's apartment with nothing to do (waiting for my door to be removed so I could get into my own house) I picked up a Cook's Illustrated he had lying around and read all about pulled pork. They discovered that by using a Mexican method of first braising and then frying pork in previously cut off and rendered pork fat, they got the perfect shred and flavor. Well, I think I accidentally discovered this once a long time ago while reheating chicken for tacos. The chicken was dry and sticking to the pan, so I added oil, and it came out a little crispy. SO, tonight I decided to try frying up my already cooked chicken (I pulled it off a roasted bird I hadn't finished) in....you guessed it...duck fat! DELICIOUS! It came out still moist but with a crusty outside, so crusty that it almost appeared to have a batter on it. Great in the the tacos.



I've been discussing having a pizza-making party with the Children's Book World gang for some time and decided to read up on pizza dough. I got so inspired reading about the most authentic way to make pizza as it has been made in Naples forever, that I went to the Italian grocery store and drove all the way to the Santa Monica farmer's market to go shopping. I haven't bought such great food in a long time. A giant jar of really good anchovies, fresh ricotta, mozzerella, pecorino, Parmesan, farro flower, jambon serrano, olives, a very good loaf of bread. I was in heaven. I'll be showing off more of the ingredients after our pizza party tomorrow, but here is a little preview. A sandwich on a crusty loaf (but not so crusty that you pull your teeth out trying to take a bite) with a generous amount of olive oil drizzles on the bread, fresh ricotta cheese, a slice of jambon serrano, and wild arugula. Below, my very favorite style of olives, Cerignola.