Taco Bell's Finest Creation: The Blackjack Taco

A little thing called the Blackjack taco at Taco Bell has been violently beckoning me in some very indiscreet ways the past couple weeks. First off, over the years, I have consistently fallen victim to the novelty of their promotional creations like the Volcano taco and the Crunchwrap Supreme. Just when I thought that the marketing geniuses at Taco Bell couldn't possibly outdo themselves, they revealed the BLACK (JACK) TACO. I need to meet the stoners that dreamed up and approved this. I also would love to see the footage of the boardroom meeting where these guys presented a Powerpoint of the "Blackjack Taco" complete with illustrated pictures of what it would potentially look like alongside pie charts and statistics displaying the demand for artificially dyed fast food. I imagine there was a post-presentation awkward silence and a slow clap, followed by rounds of high fives and bong hitting.

Second, the commercials are just too incredible. I've been voguing in my car along to the radio commercials for a good two weeks now and I've discovered the television commercial via youtube so now I can vogue to this song til my hands melt off my wrists. Also, as a fashion school graduate, I am well aware of the fact that the color black is very chic and slimming so hats off to you, Taco Bell for attempting to appeal to the fashion world.



So when my homie Steph made me listen to her eat one over the phone and I heard her rave over how amazing they were, I needed to have one too. She wasn't sure if the taco shells were made of blue corn tortilla or not and I decided I needed to demystify this elusive taco myself.


There was no special wrapper of any sort. CHEAP.


Okay so I'm pretty sure its just a regular taco shell dyed black and not a blue corn taco shell because it doesn't taste any different from their other tacos. It has some kind of special pepper jack sauce in it along with their signature mystery (chihuahua) meat, lettuce, and cheese. But it could very well be a blue corn tortilla shell because what the fuck do I know about blue corn vs yellow corn vs white corn. Maybe its time I grabbed a magnifying glass and a machete and do some hardcore Googling in a corn field.


In conlclush, its a regularass taco that has a black shell. Luckily for Taco Bell, everyone knows damn well that everything on their menu tastes the same and people would drop dead if that were to ever change.

After all the Black Taco excitement, I found myself caught up in a fury of fatness that could only be stopped by one force: Fenton's. Fenton's is only the single most magnificent ice cream place in Oakland or better yet, the Bay Area. Sorry Mitchell's/Bi-Rite/whoever...Fenton's makes FAT, glorious sundaes AND they have beautiful ranch. I mean, I don't get sundaes topped with ranch but if it were socially acceptable and not embarrassing to eat with company, I would maybe attempt it...BUT only at Fenton's.



I ordered a SMALL sundae with toasted almond ice cream, peanut butter hot fudge, whipped cream, almonds, and a cherry. SMALL as in DIET. They make their own ice cream at Fenton's, they have all sorts of inventive and delightful flavors like toasted almond, banana nut, coffee cookie crunch, cream caramel almond crunch, and the list goes on and on.


This picture could make a grown convicted felon cry. The peanut butter hot fudge is what I want my body to be enbalmed with when I die because you know, formaldehyde and methanol are just not cute.


Mozzarella sticks with marinara and their world class RANCH.


MMM MMM MMM....cheese so sexy, its awkward.

And that's that.

Yeah, I Made That: Spinach Dip Burgers

I am taking a break from my busy schedule of watching Lifetime movies and contemplating exercise to update the most riveting and thought provoking blog on the internet. Be grateful.

Contrary to what online IQ tests may claim, I am actually a genius. How do I know this? Because I invented a little something called a SPINACH DIP BURGER the other day whilst leading health care reform negotiations in the Senate and writing my acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Multitasking is child's play, I am more of a multi-innovator, if you will. Although that is neither here nor there, the point is that I am the brainchild behind an epic creation that will revolutionize the culinary scene in such a way that people will forget about the Kogi truck entirely. Actually, I was fantasizing about creating the ultimate burger and this is what I came up with. It's a Parmesan Spinach Dip Burger with caramelized onions, bacon, and arugula.

As we all know, the beef is the most important part of any burger and what kind of beef one uses in their burgers reflects a persons character and values. I consider myself to be a boss bitch of the highest caliber, so I sought out to find the finest ground beef within a 1 mile radius of my work place. As luck would have it, I work within walking distance of San Francisco's Ferry Building, which happens to be where Prather Ranch Meat Company is located, they are highly regarded for their all natural dry-aged certified organic meats. Check out the goods...



If you want to make juicyass burgers, you need FAT in the meat. Don't scrimp on the fat or else you will make dry, shitty burgers. If you're concerned about cholesterol, I'd suggest seasoning the beef with Lipitor or perhaps reconsider eating a burger altogether.

LE RECIPE:

Burger Patties
- 2 lbs of Prather Ranch Ground Beef (Makes for four 1/2 lb burgers. These are big boy burgers.)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic Powder




Season the beef and you can make four 1/2 lb patties or more if you like small, girly-men burgers.


Grill those fat little fucks to perfection.

Parmesan Spinach Dip
I actually stole this recipe from Epicurious.com.

- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 3/4 cups chopped onion
- 6 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1 10-ounce package ready-to-use fresh spinach leaves
- 1 cup (packed) grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Their recipe says: "Melt butter with oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté until onion is tender, about 6 minutes. Add flour; stir 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in stock and cream; bring to boil, whisking constantly. Cook until mixture thickens, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in spinach, cheese, sour cream and cayenne (spinach will wilt). Season with salt and pepper."


Kindly refrain from splooging directly into the pan. We had trouble with that.


Caramelized some red onions for that sexy effect.


SMOKED APPLEWOOD BACON. I have been affectionately staring at this photo for hours and am dangerously close to making out with my brothers computer screen. TMI?


The final product. Threw some arugula on top cause its tasty and pretty. LOL SMILEYFACE!!!!!!

Let's not ignore the fact that I made Parmesan Tater Tots to accompany the burgers...


Just sprankled some parmesan on top of the tots while they were baking in the oven. We like to call it the Lee family ancient Chinese tater tot recipe, courtesy of my homie Jizzo.






I was like, "FUCK YOU, BUN!!" and threw it aside.

So the burgers were good, but I think next time I'm gonna make it with a cold spinach dip (probably store bought) because I personally like those better than hot spinach dip. Also, making my own spinach dip was a pain in the ass. Which is the root of my distaste for cooking...it requires movement.

So I had extra Prather Ranch ground beef so I decided to get creative again and made a "Taco Casserole." I'm sure the Prather Ranch people will probably ban me from their store if they find out what kind of atrocities I've been creating with their beef. WHATEVAAA...


I am gettin that little dude on the corn rocket tattooed on me. I heard Casa Sanchez gave anyone with the tattoo of little dude free food for life back in the day. They no longer do that but I still want the tattoo just because it would look gorgeous on my forearm.


So basically I made taco meat out of the ground beef by using taco seasoning and Cholula. Layered the Casa Sanchez tortilla chips, taco beef, and some shredded cheese and baked it until the cheese melted. Did about two layers of that.


Topped it with guac, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and more cheese. So basically, I made a bigass tray of nachos. Taco casserole my ass...

What To Feed People Before They Move To China

So one of my best friends and band mate, Gabby or "G-Beats" as us industry folk like to call her, decided that it was her American duty to go off to China and teach babies the alphabet. I honestly don't know how her ass is going to survive that long without a proper burrito but she is what I like to call a masochist, so I can see how burrito deprivation would thrill her. Anyhow, we had to inseminate her with as much non-Chinese food as we possibly could before sending her off to the Chinese countryside. This involved lots of pho, burritos, Anthony's Cookies, and an ungodly amount of Bi-Rite Creamery.

At the second to last supper, we went to Cha Cha Cha's on Haight Street in San Francisco. Don't let the name fool you, it is NOT CHINESE. It's actually Caribbean influenced tapas restaurant and it is BOMB.MOTHERFUCKINCOM. Peep game...


It's universally understood that you must order sangria's from here because Cha Cha Cha's is synonymous with the word "sangria." Why? I'm not sure, but everyone seems to have sangria war tales from Cha Cha Cha. All sangria's taste the same to me, except for when I make them out of Carlo Rossi, Hennessy, 7up, and fruit cups. (I made that up right now but I WILL make it and hopefully live to write about it.)


The fried potatoes with chile pasilla aioli sauce. Unfortunately, I had to share these with the other losers at the table.


Fried calamari with lemon garlic aioli. Holy cannoli, I love AIOLI. Calamari with aioli is fool proof if you ask me...so needless to say, I punched some bitches in the face while trying to fight for the last piece. When I say "some bitches," I mean my friends.


These were the grilled marinated chicken wangs with a guava-chipotle glaze. WANGS is WANGS and they were doin' they THAAANG! That glaze was some of that real sticky icky icky. OOOHEY...PUT IT IN THE AIR.


Now THIS is what people should really be coming here for...the CAJUN SHRIMP with spicy cream sauce. We passed this bad boy around and took turns motor boating it til the dish was completely spotless. As you would expect, the gentleman callers at the surrounding tables took a liking to the our shrimp cream encrusted faces and showered us with pitchers of sangria.


Sup baby?

Afterwards, we went to our favorite watering hole down the street...HOBSONS! We got us a bigass bowl of spiked punch and bobbed for vodka til we couldn't see straight anymore.


We really only like to drink alcohol that that would appeal to children.

Afterwards, I believe we stumbled into a bar called Alembic and I ordered a gin tonic. The bartender and I had a conversation that went like this:

Me: I'll have a gin tonic.
*He makes the drink, it takes him 9 hours and it looks like he's concocting some kind of liquid explosive. I am wondering why he is being so obvious about slipping me a roofie.
Me: WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THAT?
BT: It's a gin tonic.
Me: What's in the little bottles?! Wheres the squirt gun?!? WHERE THE FUCK AM I?
BT: You're at ALEMBIC.

The conversation ended with me spinning in circles with my arms out, screaming "WHAT IS ALEMBIC??" until I pissed myself. I don't exactly know what the drink ended up tasting like, but I'm pretty sure I made a life long friend out of that bartender. Apparently, Alembic is some kind of boughie bar that makes top-notch cocktails that have nothing to do with Alize or Boones Farms. I should probably go back when I'm conscious and order something that needs to be muddled with an ivory muddling stick.

So for the last supper, we had the following...


BAKERS SQUARE! This box beholds the single greatest pie known to man...


FRENCH SILK PIE! This pie got me through the first two years of college. I don't know why I just said that...I think it's cause I ate it once while studying. Whatever, this pie means a lot to me.


We found a sock on the table? Trivial things like socks on the table don't really matter when you're dining with good company.


CHICHARON aka PORK RINDS. I only ate a few because my dieting competitor was there and didn't wanna look fat in front of her.


This pretty much speaks for itself.


And alas, the RED STRIPES and the champagne in the background.

We ate other things like homemade sashimi (no one died) and shrimp but I felt more compelled to share the sock and the pork rinds. We then jumped in Gabby's parents minivan and they drove us to Bi-Rite to get ice cream. Went back Gabby's parents house and then took a 2 hour nap together. We are all 23 years old.

SEE YOU IN A YEAR, LITTLE BROWN!! (That is, if you don't get deported or abducted before then.)