My DORITOS LOCOS TACOS Review!

Is the limited time item destined for fast food greatness, or is it a high-concept idea better left in the dorm rooms of Southern Cal?

Earlier this month, Taco Bell made the decision to start selling its line of Doritos Locos Tacos - at one point, a popular, regional-only item in California - as a nationwide menu offering. And if you’re enjoying one of them right now, I think you owe me more than just a bit of gratitude for the opportunity to chow down on one.

Now, I’m not saying that this article I wrote last Thanksgiving was directly responsible for Taco Bell’s decision to “nationalize” the item, but…yeah, it probably was. And if they ever decide to make those beefy crunch, Frito’s-lined burritos a full-time offering? Yeah, you might as well send me a tithe every time you bite it into one from hereon out.

To be honest, the news that Taco Bell had nationalized the item was sort of a shock, as I didn’t know it was a countrywide project until seeing advertisements plastered outside my neighborhood Bell a few weeks ago. Imagine writing “I wish they still made Pepsi Clear” on a message board and ambling into a Safeway the next day and seeing a huge ass display for the discontinued beverage right next to the cash register, and I think that about equals the amount of surprise that coursed through my veins and brain tissue upon noting the myriad Locos Tacos posters and banners taped all around the neighborhood eatery.

I suppose explicating the appeal of the Doritos Locos Tacos may be a hard sell for some. If you’re American, however - and especially if you’re a college-aged male in your early to mid-20s - the majesty of such a menu item is basically inherent. For a couple of decades now, really, really stoned/drunk/fat/stoned, drunk and fat college kids have been creating all sorts of bastard amalgamations of junk food, cramming them together in bizarre permutations like Dr. Frankenstein, pending Dr. Frankenstein dropped out of med school to watch “Dragon Ball Z” re-runs for four years on a general education scholarship.

The Doritos Locos Taco Legend began, I suppose, in the dorm rooms of Southern California, where munchies-craving trust fund babies got a dual hankering for both microwaved tacos AND super-salty corn chips shaped like nachos, and lo and behold…history was made. The logistics of how the first Doritos Taco came about however, is something that still leaves me a bit puzzled. Granted, I’ve seen some pretty huge nacho chips in my day, but one would have to uncover at least two gargantuan, once-in-a-life-time, freakishly over-sized chips for the idea of a “Doritos Taco” to even become a feasible consideration. There HAS to be some amazing story there, I am most certain. 

Alas, I guess the really, really big picture behind the nationalization of the Doritos Locos Tacos is that it means corporate America has officially hopped on the Gen Y bandwagon and started catering/pandering to us like some straight up food pimps or something. I guess you can say that Taco Bell is on the cutting edge when it comes to incorporating “user generated” foods on its real-life menu, which isn’t too surprising, since Taco Bell is just about every dope-head and career slacker’s favorite fast food haunt by far. I suppose one could say that it’s cultural co-option of the pettiest kind - essentially, finding a way to turn a profit through LEGAL fusion of already incredibly unhealthy junk food - in effect here, but you know what I say to that? WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, YOU COMMIE PINKO? Well, that, or it’s a pretty sound strategy, from a business standpoint. Since families these days are too dadgum broke to take the kids out  to eat (and all of those highfalutin, holier than thou neo-yuppies - think: your older brother and sister - avoid fast food because they’re all about veganism and freeganism and all that other post-Occupy nonsense that doesn’t mean anything to anybody), why not turn the DIY, hyper-ironic, food-obsessed youth culture into your target audience? They don’t have children, they haven’t declared bankruptcy (yet) and they really don’t give two inklings of a damn whether or not the high-fat, high-sodium gunk is going to turn them into footless dialysis users in 20 years time. All in all, I’d say that makes the Doritos Locos Tacos - a mishmash of corporate synergy AND pandering to the lowest common denominator (with a bit of youth exploitation thrown into the mix) - arguably the single most democratic thing a fast food business has ever done. 

As for the Doritos Locos Tacos themselves, you may be asking? Well, we actually get two models to choose from: a standard offering, and a supreme version. I guess the primary difference between the two - outside the fact that the supreme iteration will run you about 20 cents more than the regular variation - is that the supreme variety comes loaded with more veggies and sour cream. To some, this may be worth the extra quarter or so that they’re asking for, but in all honesty, it really doesn’t change the flavor or texture of the taco all that much. It’s a definite must-try mutation for completionists, but for the layman or laywoman, I’d advise saving those spare coins for laundry service or something.

To prove once and for all that God himself is opposed to the prospect of Doritos Locos Tacos being released, as soon as I got my bag of newfangled foodstuff home, the freaking electricity went out. Thankfully, daylights saving time was around to give me a little bit of light to do some fast food photography, which not at all masks the fact that I spent a recent evening stuck in my bedroom, eating awesomely gross food in pitch blackness like some sort of B-horror movie subject.

If you are an environmentalist or Eco-conscious person, the Doritos Locos Tacos are no-doubt going to horrify you. In addition to being wrapped in the typical Taco Bell cocoon of waxy paper, these babies also come wedged in a tougher, internal paper casing, which reminds you that, yes, you are indeed eating a Doritos Locos Taco.

You know, sometimes you can just TELL you’re looking at something that’s going to be revered by future generations. The same way New Coke came to “define” the consumer excesses of the Reagan Years, I’m pretty sure a good 10 or so years down the line, we’re going to be watching some special on VH1 with C-list celebrities talking about how amazingly stupid/amazingly great this thing was. Everything about this thing just screams “2012” to me, from the copious use of the term “awesomeness” on the package to the appearance of that now-ubiquitous phone scanner decal on the back of the lining. 

One of the things that STILL shakes me a bit about the item is why it’s called a “Doritos LOCOS Taco.” I’m not really sure why you would need to call it anything other than a “Doritos Taco,” but then again, it does have something of a nice alliteration to it. That, and perhaps it’s the company’s way of issuing the single most subtle mea culpa in business history - I guess what they’re REALLY saying is, to want to try one of these things, you’d pretty much HAVE to be crazy.

Empirically, the items really look like your typical, run of the mill hard shell offerings, until you catch that orange-gleam radiating off the taco. True to the namesake, these things are also guaranteed to give you a good case of the dreaded “Doritos fingers” syndrome, meaning that unless you eat this thing with a fork, you’re going to have orange dust all over your hands, your clothing, and most likely everything within ten feet of you once you’re finished with the meal.

So, the ultimate - and really, the only - question worth asking at this point is whether or not these things are actually any good. Admittedly, I wasn’t a huge fan of the items, primarily because I’m just not that big a fan of Doritos in general. As you can clearly see, you get A WHOLE LOT more stuff inside the shell with the supreme iteration, but don’t let your pupils fool you, because it tastes pretty much the same as the standard taco. While there is definitely a slight “Doritos” taste to the offering, it’s really a whole lot subtler than it probably should be, which is most likely a good thing - I suppose if they went ALL out and dusted the shit out of the shell with nacho powder, it would presumably be so overpowering and dry-mouth inducing that you’d have to dip your head into a bucket immediately afterward to avoid oral desiccation. 

To be honest, I do have some pretty weird culinary tastes. I mean, some really, really weird ones. That said, I think the Doritos Locos Tacos were a bit underwhelming, and something I really wouldn’t advise going out of your way to try…unless you’re like me, which means you hate money and owning a functioning colon.

But, of course…you’re going to try them. You have to, because alike me, you are hopelessly addicted to the tackiness of consumer culture, and since its relatively cheap, it’s a cost-effective means of quelling a night’s hunger pangs. That, and I really don’t think the national response for these things is going to be enough to warrant an encore, so if you want to give it a tryout, I’d surmise that now is probably your only opportunity to do so.

In other words? Yeah, we’re probably not looking at the next McRibwich - or hell, for that matter, the next Pumpkin Spice Latte - with this stuff right here.

In the mood for more fast food fury?

Check out my review of McDonald’s old school Halloween pails RIGHT HERE!

Read More

My Modest KRAVE CEREAL Reviews

In a glutted cereal market, do Kellogg’s latest products bring anything new to the (breakfast) table?

A few months back, Kellogg’s unveiled a new breakfast cereal called Krave. Actually, the company released two new breakfast cereals simultaneously, with el nuevo product-o coming in dual incarnations - one a chocolate version, and the other, a double-chocolate permutation.

There were a couple of things that initially struck me about this newfangled product, the very least of which was the fact that it kinda’ shared its namesake with a line of gay discos. Was it the embossed cereal chunks on the front of the package, or the fact that the company paid a butt load of money to mass campaign the poop out of the new product, or was it merely the notion that, all in all, there’s really not that much deviation in the cereal aisle stock from month to month? It’s insanely common to see new variations of products in the cereal aisle (the next time you hit up the grocery store, make a mental note of just how many damn varieties of Captain Crunch are being hoisted upon you), but seeing entirely new brands of cereal is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. The breakfast game is one clearly dominated by the old guard, so seeing any form of new blood on the shelving is a sight that’s sure to grab your attention…and make your taste buds just a wee bit curious as a result.

Eventually, consumer curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to recently try out both products. So is Krave destined to be the “next big thing” in America’s pantries, or is it destined to go the way of Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy? Cereal connoisseurs, keep a-reading…

I suppose the first thing to note is that, compositionally, there doesn’t seem to be that much of a difference in the caloric make-up of the two. Granted, the double-chocolate incarnation appears to have a bit more chemical weight to it (which probably explains why it’s expiration date is a month earlier than its uni-chocolate kin), but for the most part, the two items are nutritionally equals.

As far as packaging goes, you’re dealing with the same lingo on both. Clearly, the double-chocolate variety is aesthetically different than the single-chocolate variety, and this is reflected on the packaging for said items. The back panels for each cereal, however, are identical, with Kellogg’s inviting would-be consumers to join the “Krave Nation” (although I’m not really sure if that’s supposed to be a republic of the “democratic” or “constitutional” variety, to be honest.) Also, Kellogg’s makes note of its target audience - “chocovores” - as people that really enjoy themselves some chocolaty breakfast items. Or as other marketers (and most of the laity) are prone to calling them, “diabetics.”

I guess there really isn’t too much to say about the cereal chunks themselves. Obviously, the two are differently hued, and are about the size of one’s thumbnail (pending you’re not part of Andre the Giant’s clan or something). I racked my brain for a few days trying to figure out what these things reminded me of, only to come to the realization that these things bare an uncanny resemblance to those old-ass Skoal Bandit pouches - you know, those mini-tea bags of chewing tobacco that many a crude stereotype can be seen sucking and spitting out on cable television programming, or perhaps your neighborhood’s more rural-looking gas stations. Whether or not that’s something you can overcome while chowing down on this cereal, I am afraid, is something that only the individual can decide for him or herself.

The big selling point for Krave - both varieties, mind you - is that each granule of cereal is loaded with a an inner-chocolate core that makes the cereal interiorly chocolaty as well as exteriorly. The packaging on the front of the cereal makes it sort of look like the chocolate core is almost liquid magma, so for those of you well versed on your Gushers etiquette - well, that may just come in handy once more here.

Before trying the cereal myself, I decided to do a little whole grain biopsy, to see just how chocolaty the inside of each chunk actually was. Since the exterior shell and interior filling of the double chocolate variety are virtually identical in color, it’s pretty hard to tell just how much bang for your buck you are getting there. With the “standard” chocolate variety, however, there is indeed an inner nucleus of chocolate to be found, although I was mighty miffed to note that the chocolate was of a solidified - and not gummy, oozy and Ovaltine-like - nature.

After determining that the foodstuff was most likely edible, I decided to turn on my camera and film my first experience with said product - remember, what you are witnessing is indeed my very first time inviting Krave in my body, and as such, my reaction is one hundred percent undiluted and authentic. “Blair Witch,” this shit ain’t, folks.

On the whole, I would say that Krave is a pretty good cereal, and after digesting both boxes, I reckon I can give you a more comprehensive review of each product.

First off, the “standard” version of Krave actually has a more pronounced chocolaty taste than the double-chocolate variety, which, clearly, is weird as all hell. I think this can be attributed to the fact that, since the standard version has something of a grain-tasting exterior, once you bite into the chunk and get a rush of chocolate, said chocolate flavor is more noticeable than in the double-choc offering, since you really don’t know if you’re chomping down on the outside or inside of the flake.

If you’re eating the cereals side-by-side (or blind-folded), odds are, you probably won’t be able to tell the difference between them for the first couple of bites. Outside of the afore-mentioned pronounced chocolate-ness of the standard offering, the double-choc variety has more of a semi-bitter taste to it. That’s not to say it isn’t sugary or anything (because, dear lord, is it ever), it’s just that it has a sharper flavor than it’s “just-chocolate” sibling. It’s a distinct difference, but it’s not something you would really notice until you’ve gone through half a box of each - and even then, it’s not really that big of a difference between the two.

I really wouldn’t say that one variety is better than the other; if you’re looking for a more “traditional” chocolate cereal, I would go with the standard offering, and if you’re looking for a stronger bowl of cocoa, I’d vouch for the double chocolate blend. In all reality, the gustatorial discrepancies between them are so slight as to be negligible; in fact, if you mix the two into a single bowl and dig in, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell which cereal was which - which means that either Kellogg’s is slacking off in the formula department, or they’re making the absolute subtlest statement about the arbitrariness of race relations since “Ikaruga” on the Nintendo Gamecube.

So, at the end of the day, is Krave really worth your time, effort, energies and moolah? While I don’t think the stuff is on the fast track to dethrone Count Chocula anytime soon, it isn’t bad by any stretch, and both varieties have just enough uniqueness to their flavor to make them stand out from the million-billion Rice Crispies/Cocoa Peebles variations out there. All in all, it isn’t going to revolutionize the breakfast aisle in any regard, but if you’re sick of downing oatmeal and off-brand Pop-Tarts every morning, it might just be a pleasant change of pace for those of you seeking something different to stuff into your digestive tracts each morn.

Read More

Make Your Own Thai Pizza!

So, Who's Up For A Pie That May Or May Not Give You Extraordinary Knee Striking Capabilities? 

Before we talk about the many, many fine points of Thai Pizza (arguably the most delectable Franken-food I’ve yet to concoct), I think we need to address the Pinterest Revolution first.

I’ve always been the jealous type when it comes to people thinking up oh-so-obvious, multi-million dollar earning ideas. For example, have you ever seen those plastic spigots that you can snap onto an opened can of cola and sip like a bottled beverage? Well, the first time I saw that, I almost wept in the aisle. “Anybody could’ve thought of that,” was the comedy, “the fact I wasn’t that person that did” was the tragedy. Regarding Pinterest, I feel a comparable sorrow - anybody could have come up with a female-centric version of Reddit, but by golly, I just wasn’t that dreamer.

Pinterest is no doubt going to become a social phenomenon for years - perhaps even decades - to come. Forget YouTube, forget Facebook, forget Twitter, I think Pinterest is the only one of them that will have consistent value throughout the next 20 years. Whereas just about all of our other social networking sites have been targeted towards young males (even if older females made up the heaviest composition of users), Pinterest is the first major networking site I’ve stumbled across that caters specifically to a female audience - and not just a specific subset, I mean the entire female population of this planet. Since more females are being born AND outliving their male cohorts (not to mention that in the U.S., at least, females have purchasing power that FAR outweighs that of men), Pinterest’s long-term success is pretty much guaranteed, whereas the audience bases for stuff like Sherdog and IGN can only shrink as the gender gap widens.

In short; if you’re aiming for sustainability in this ever-changing world (wide web) in which we live, you better offer up some recipes and instructional arts and crafts projects. Or at the bare minimum, a sidebar with a link to wool wholesalers. I’m telling you, yarn is going to be worth its weight in gold if these trends continue…

…so, uh, yeah, what again? Oh, that’s right, Thai Pizza. I’ve got to say, this is perhaps the yummiest thing I’ve ever cooked up based on pure value of whimsy, and that INCLUDES a brownie graveyard (complete with Sour Patch Kids zombies) I made for last Halloween. It’s also the most preparation-heavy mega-food I’ve made this far, so bachelors, you might want to hold off on this project until you figure out how egg beaters work.

I really can’t tell you every ingredient that went into the recipe, so this photo will have to do you as far as making the peanut sauce base goes. Needless to say, you’re going to need some peanut butter (I’d go with creamy, but that’s just my inclination), some ginger sauce, some teriyaki and soy, some honey, and whatever that red stuff in the bottle is over there. Um, I’ll get back to you on that one in just a sec.

Once again, I really can’t give you a fixed amount regarding measurements and proportions and things of that nature, so let’s just reduce this equation by saying take all of the stuff I said before, throw it into a blender and hit puree for about a minute. The end result should look a lot like peanut butter, only more Southeast Asian looking. 

For once, I decided to actually make a pizza crust instead of just using a cheese pizza from Domino’s as the base for my pie, and I think that’s were this project went unpredictably right. Now, I’m no food dictator (a real Pol Kitchen Pot, have you), but I simply implore you to avoid a tomato base here - primarily because the peanut sauce (which, admittedly, looks a lot like Baconnaise when you first slather it on) really gels with both the crust and the veggies were about to heap on it, so…yeah. 

As far as veggies go, I’d say just get one of those mixed value baggies at Kroger and call it a day. As long as you have broccoli stems and something that kind of looks like snow peas in there, you are in good standing. And of course, just to make sure we cancel out any possible nutrients we may get out of the dish…

…it looks like it’s raining mozzarella in Bangkok right now. Set oven to 15 minutes at, um, hot degrees, and this is what you’ll be staring at in a good quarter hour: 

A lot of you will think I’m yanking your chain when I tell you that how delicious this is, but seriously, this stuff is phenomenal, and filling as all hell to boot. Normally, I’m a guy that, on a good day, can eat at least seventeen pizza slices in one sitting, but I was only able to muster two wedges of Thai Pie before falling over into a blissful food coma. There are local paramedics that can back me up on this one. In fact, several.

Admittedly, a lot of the food-crafts I’ve built over the last year have been made with very acquired tastes in mind. You’d have to be a very, very specific kind of person to even think of making a Pop-Tart sandwichwith seasonal Little Debbie snack cakes as the filling, let alone be one of those poor, contemptible souls that actually find such culinary abominations palatable. That said, this Thai Pizza is probably the first thing I’ve made that I would actually consider a legitimately great food mash-up, the kind of dish that is not only tasty as all hell, but something you might actually want to share with your friends and colleagues at some point. Heck, you might even manage to convince them that it was something fresh out of a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, and most folks would never be the wiser. 

The difficult part is in describing what the things tastes like. You’ll just have to take my word here and accept that it’s yummy, because I really can’t give you a one hundred percent accurate account of what it's like. Ultimately, the pie tastes more Thai than pizza, which is probably why I liked it so much; you really don’t feel like you’re eating pizza toppings as much you are a full fusion plate with each bite, and that, my amigos, is most definitely a good thing and then some.

All in all, there’s not much to say about Thai Pizza, other than the fact that it kicks all kinds of ass. In conclusion, it’s probably the 354^th best thing that’s ever happened to me, ranking mildly ahead of that time I found a copy of "Tecmo Super Bowl" on the original Game Boy at a thrift store for 89 cents and slightly behind that time I yelled “You suck!” at Michel Bolton when I saw him at the Georgia Dome, and he kind of acted like he heard me.

SUPER DUPER BONUS GOOD HAPPY FUN ACTIVITY TIME!

Your Friendly Neighborhood Jimbo’s Favorite Content-Relevant Food Jokes!

Q: What do you call a Thai Pizza-eating chicken?

A: A Bangcock! (get it, because Bangkok is the capital city of Thailand, thus making the joke an allusion to the city in question!)

Q: How many pieces of Thai Pizza can a Malay eat?

A: A Kuala Lumpur Two! (Because “Kuala Lumpur” sounds somewhat like “quite a lump or two!”)

Q: What does King Bhumibol Adulyade think about Thai Pizza?

A: It’s SUCHINDA good dish! (Because General Suchinda Krapayoon was the name of the general that seized power in Thailand in 1991 and killed a whole bunch of people!)

Q: What’s the difference between a Thai Pizza and a Tie Pizza?

A: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A TIE PIZZA, THEREFORE IT’S AN ABSURD POINT TO COMPARE SOMETHING THAT CLEARLY DOES EXIST WITH THAT WHICH IS HYPOTHETICAL.

Q: What do you call former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua while he eats a Thai Pizza?

A: A MUY THAI SPECIALIST! Wait…that’s what you would call him even if he wasn’t eating Thai Pizza, I suppose. Uh, never mind then. 

Read More

How to Make Taco Bell LASAGNA.

Who's Ready To Get All Mex-Italian Up in Here?

Burrito Pizzas.

Spaghetti Chili.

S’mores made out of nothing but seasonal snack cakes.

Is there really a visible cut-off limit for my culinary Franken-dish aspirations within sight?

This answer, we already know: not even close, bud.

The question, I suppose, isn’t so much how to create a lasagna dish made out of Taco Bell products, as much as it is why I would want to do such a thing in the first place. To help pass the food porn SLAPS test, the following is a brief list of the possible psychosocial reasons as to why I (and a lot of my contemporaries, perhaps?) have such a fondness/proclivity for designing such monumental food experiments as adults.
                                       

  The “Warhol-Duchamp” Hypothesis

As we live in a social system in which food resources are largely inexpensive and freely obtainable, such ostentatious food projects are in fact metaphors for consumer waste, over consumption and the general materialism of contemporary American culture. Our food experiments are actually symbolic critiques of commercialism and mass consumerism, with the food experiments themselves serving as post-post-modern, artistic protest.

The “Did You Ever See That Movie Angus?” Hypothesis

As children, we were either overweight and/or poor, and our proclivities for massive food projects is in fact a form of symbolic regression, a physical representation of our psychological scarring from being fat and/or economically disadvantaged in our youth. In this sense, the food experiments represent a psychical transference of our childhood traumas, which we symbolically triumph over via recreating and literally devouring them as dishes.

The “God is Dead But I’m Still Kind of Hungry” Hypothesis

As products of a post-religious world, we psychologically yearn for regimentation of some kind, which in this case, manifests itself in the ritualistic assembly and subsequent destruction of an arbitrary Eucharist. As modernity serves as our closest thing to a deity figure, the construction and ingestion of the caloric Christ represents a melding of body and culture, a fundamental mass in the form of mastication, digestion and ultimately, defecation.

Now, if you’re asking me which of the above hypotheses I’m buying, I’d have to say…none of the above. Why? Because technically, the idea for a Taco Bell lasagna was somebody else’s, and honestly, I’m just looking to post something worthy of trending on Pinterest.

But, as a social service (and because I really have nowhere else to post a half dozen photos of blurry, mashed-up burrito remnants), I’ll give you kids a run down of how to replicate my experiment, just in case you get a hankering for some fast food fusion at some point in the immediate future.

As far as Franken-foods go, this one is pretty simple to construct. The biggest question you’ll have to ask yourself going into the project is just what you want to use as the “lasagna” buffers for your plate. For my experiment, I went with three standard, hard shell tacos and three Beefy Crunch burritos (which, as we all can attest, really SHOULD be permanent menu items by now) in alternating rows of three - meaning, the first layer went taco-burrito-taco, while the next went burrito-taco-burrito. Depending on how large of a casserole dish you’re using, you could likely repeat this pattern ad infinitum - and yes, if you do manage to craft a dish with more than six layers, please send me photographic evidence PRONTO.

Considering the constraints of our dish size, I was only able to get two layers heaped on mine, which still gave me ample room to layer in at least one row of no-bake lasagna noodles. Obviously, you’re going to want to start by coating the bottom of the dish in tomato sauce, but from there, it’s up to your imagination. For the trial run, I started by placing one row of tacos directly on top of the sauce, sprinkling that with cheese and then laying down three or four lasagna sheets before starting the cycle all over again.

Of course, video evidence makes these sorts of things way easier to replicate, so here are two videos showing you the gist of the prep work for the dish.

As far as baking times go, I reckon the standard 50-60 minutes works just dandy for this one. So if you’re reading this from your shanty in the snows of Kilimanjaro, be prepared to wait awhile for your Taco Bell Lasagna to get nice and oozy.

The final product, I must say, looked a lot better than I expected. Even though we buried the thing in at least two bags of shredded cheese, the thing still looked more like an especially cheesy enchilada supper than it did any lasagna dish I’ve ever seen. Not that that is a bad thing in any regard - after all, why else bother making such a concoction to begin with?

As far as the taste of the dish - you know, the thing that’s ultimately the most important - I have to say it’s pretty good. Granted, it’s not exactly going to set the world on fire or anything like that, but it certainly didn’t taste like anarchy with a side of lettuce, either.

Clearly, the final dish ended up tasting more Mexican than Italian, and thanks to those Frito chips in the burritos, the thing took on this weird deep red hue that made the cheese turn an unnatural orange color. But, on the plus side, the stuff was remarkably simple to scoop up with a spatula…which is quite possibly the single most amazing thing I can say about the dish in its totality.

I think we need a couple of more videos detailing the intricacies of the completed meal, no? Oh, and pay real careful attention to that first one…if you listen carefully, you can actually hear the cheese bubbling.

So…Taco Bell Lasagna. Ultimately, I thought it was a pretty filling and mostly enjoyable dish, although it’s pretty apparent that this thing isn’t going to become a seasonal favorite at subsequent Internet is in America hootenannies.

Eh, she wasn’t a beauty, but she was all right; and if nothing else, it certainly laid out the blueprints for my inevitable chalupa casserole quite nicely…

Read More

Introducing...SPA-CHILI!

How To Make Your Own Hybrid Spaghetti/Chili Dish!

It’s a scientifically proven fact that Italian and Mexican foods are pretty much the best kinds of food in existence. Yeah, you can argue about the small stuff, like how, technically, pizza is really more of an American creation than an Italian one, or how most of the supposedly Mexican dishes we eat today are actually bastardizations of authentic Mexican cuisine, but what the hell ever.

As a proponent of fusion food, I am shocked, dismayed and saddened by the general lack of Italian-Mexican mash-ups floating around the Internet. Surely, in a world where gargantuan casserole creations and calorie-loaded comestibles are not at all ironically celebrated by the denizens of cyberspace, there has to be a veritable cache of Mex-Italian recipes on the Web, right?

You can do the Google search for yourself. Or even better, you can run the search terms through YouTube, and see what you get. Needless to say, there is a dearth of I-Mexican food combos out there, and it’s a social malady that I decided to rectify myself.

Spaghetti and chili are two dishes that practically every family in America has some sort of time-honored recipe/ritual for. Even if you aren’t particularly Italian or specifically Hispanic, both foods are most likely staples of your diet, and although you probably haven’t noticed it before, the procedures for making both dishes are strikingly similar. For example, both processes involve pots, and boiling, and, uh…can openers. I mean, it’s like the two are mirror images of each other or something.

Well, one evening, I got the inspired idea to merge the two foodstuffs into a singularity. Why not, after all? You’re pretty much tinkering with the same ingredients, and you really don’t have to use up that much stove space to prepare both simultaneously. The two dishes have been flirting for years, anyway, so why not let them finally lock lips in culinary form?

Spaghetti-Chili. Chili-Spaghetti. Call it what you will. Ultimately, I decided on the moniker “Spa-Chili,” but feel free to call the end result of today’s kitchen experiment whatever you want. And kids? Be sure to have your parents’ permission before you play with kitchen utensils and apparatuses. Unless your parents are nonfunctional alcoholics, at which point I’d advise you to learn how to use that shit as soon as you can.



First up, the list of ingredients. Although we here at The Internet Is In America are all about getting freestyle all up in various things, we recommend adhering to the shopping list as much as you can…lest you feel like tweaking the formula, and potentially making everything all crappy-tasting and what-not.

Two boxes of pasta, preferably ONE thin spaghetti and ONE ziti
Two cans of beans, preferably ONE black beans and ONE kidney beans
Two bags of shredded cheese, preferably ONE quesadilla cheese and ONE Parmesan cheese
ONE small container of garlic powder
ONE small container of red pepper
One can/bottle of your favorite Alfredo sauce
One small container of sour cream
One bottle of jalapeno sauce
One bag of meatballs A few notes here. At first glance, you may be tempted to substitute tomato sauce for the Alfredo sauce, since it’s such a commonality between spaghetti and chili. I would argue against this, primarily because the beans and sour cream clash HORRIBLY with tomato sauce, and once you get the jalapeno sauce in there, it’s going to have an overpowering taste that monkeys with the rest of the dish. Additionally, I would really, REALLY suggest springing for the jalapeno sauce, even if you aren’t a big fan of pepper sauce in general, since that’s basically our “secret ingredient” when it comes time to marinate the pasta noodles. And lastly, if you’re like me and a hippie, you can easily sub the bag of meatballs for a bag of meatless soy balls or something. But seriously, you still have to get a haircut, though. Really.

To get the project started, find two pots. If you’re a college student, that’s a lot harder to do then you think. Once said items are procured, boil the pasta noodles, and squeeze in a few drops of pepper sauce. It gives the noodles a very distinct taste that keeps them from clashing with the rest of the dish, so do it. Meanwhile, place the beans [with the can juice] in the other pot, add some water, and sprinkle in a dash of garlic powder and a smidge of red pepper. Stir both every two or so minutes - both dishes should be finished in about 10 to 12 minutes, so that gives you ample time to warm up the meatballs in the interim.



Drain the noodles and beans, and place the two in separate dishware. Break out the cheeses, Alfredo sauce, sour cream and meatballs, because its time to get this party started.

I suppose there’s really no wrong way to layer your Spa-Chili, although I’d recommend following this course of actions:

STEP ONE - Place noodles in bowl.
STEP TWO - Pour Alfredo Sauce over noodles.
STEP THREE - Pour beans over Alfredo Sauce.
STEP FOUR - Add meatballs to dish.
STEP FIVE - Add cheeses to bowl.
STEP SIX - Annex sour cream.
STEP SEVEN (optional) - For an added kick, squeeze a few more drops of pepper sauce on your dish. If you’re REALLY adventurous, try another pinch of garlic powder and red pepper, too.



Since we’re the User-Generated Generation, however, I’ve decided to include the following video, which shows you text-impaired cretins how to do the above via the magic of YouTube.



The ultimate question, I suppose, is whether or not the stuff was really any good. Granted, my concoction may not have been Rachel Ray quality or anything, but it was still - perhaps shockingly - palatable. The weird thing I noted about the dish was that, despite being comprised of equal proportions chili and spaghetti, the total creation really didn’t taste like either. Even now, I have a hard time grasping what the stuff tasted like: maybe more subdued Thai, or perhaps spicier macaroni and cheese? No matter what the stuff tasted like, I reckon the Franken-food was actually pretty damn tasty, and it might just become an annual tradition here at Compound The Internet Is In America.

And if Italy and Mexico meet up in the World Cup Finals in 2014? This ought to appease no matter which side of the table you’re serving.

Divertiti, Amigos Y Amigas!

Read More