Taco Tuesday

Like most families we have a typical weekly menu we run through, with the occasional 'cooking-show-inspired' deviation.  This change is usually met with such unpleasantness that the old menu item is placed back into rotation- immediately. Obviously, moving to Australia has caused our old familiar favorites to change and adjust as we get use to the fare and what is offered locally. However, on a unanimous vote no substitutions were to be made for Taco Tuesday- we are Texans after all.

Now for a moment refer to your Atlas- we are roughly 9,000 miles away from Mexico- just like Vegemite is a specialty item in the US, so is chili powder in Oz. To pull off decent Mexican food in Australia it takes a perfect storm of culinary illusions so complex I might as well be cooking turkey dinner.

Let me set the stage. Old El Paso has the market cornered here- that said I am slowly but surely paying for every chuckle and snicker I had at some poor pale Midwesterner's expense in the Mexican food ISLE at the grocery store! Forget Goya or Herdez. Hell, I'd give my right arm for some Rosarita and Caldo Polo! I haven't seen a black bean since we landed and if Aussie's could make their Ketchup as thick as their salsa we would all be in a better mood!

We have been vanquished to the Old El Paso Taco Kit; a gastronomical charade that includes taco shells, taco seasoning and a soupy red sauce. To render these ingredients edible we fortify them with coriander (cilantro), Colby cheese (a pale, flavorless, poor melting version of longhorn cheese) and a three dollar lime. Oddly, avocados are readily available so we throw those in too.

I've looked for corn tortillas- and called no glory. Alas, we are stuck with flour tortilla look alikes that have a "freshness sachet" included in the package and expire mid-March of next year...TASTY!

The beans come in three flavors: vile, disgusting and salty. We like salty.

The result is a passable fast food taco. The savages are restless but sated. Ole!

Maybe soon we'll replace Taco Tuesday with something new like Meat Pie Monday or Vegimite Vacay. But for now we are stickin' to our guns!

Remember the Alamo!

The Atkinsons