spicy

My friend Richard has been trying to get me to do a project with him for awhile and I finally agreed to it since it dovetailed nicely with this whole thing my other friend Ryan was doing, and also because I self-identify as a designer. But Richard, lo and behold, finally got a job so he's bailing. I'm working with his friend Mason now, and I'm kind of thinking ok, lets figure out what we can put together since I've already invested some time on a basic site analysis. I'll be the developer, he can design the buildings. We'll see where it goes.

Took the bus to Lux today. Cool coffee shop. It expanded a lot since I was last in Phoenix. I'm actually happy to see. You can sit there all day and work and drink free coffee refills. Really comfortable place, but a bit noisy with people talking and music. If you can get around that, its amazing. Heard about a cocktail called "The Last Word" which I need to try sometime.

Applied to Oliver Schulze today, a Danish architect/urban planner. Also spent some time drafting a cartoon proposal for a donut shop downtown.

Made guacamole and beans for dinner. The beans took forever, and turned out incendiary spicy, so we just ate the guacamole, which mom and Larry both raved about. Mom said it was the best guacamole she's ever had, which is saying something. I got the recipe from the Rick Bayless cookbook. It's not that complicated, just a lot of preparation.

There's a strange balance in the cookbook between convenience and work. On the one hand, his recipes call for all the sauces to be made by hand from scratch from the freshest, most basic ingredients available. If you're going to make a red chili sauce (chile colorado) you need to buy dried red chiles, devein, seed, and stem them, toast them lightly, and then soak them in hot water just to get to the point of having red chiles ready to be pureed. However, he is totally fine using store-bought grilled chicken, and even recommends store bought tortillas.

My fingers are still burning from the chiles I put into the beans. I've washed my hands numerous times tonight and I can still get a light burning under the fingernails. I'm going to have to temper it with serious cornbread. The flavor is good, but damn, picante.