Chile Mojo

I first heard about Chile Mojo from the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market which had a Chilli Fest day. The owner of Chile Mojo, Joel Adams, was demonstrating how to make Chile Rellenos in the Market Kitchen. A Poblano chili, the people's chilli as Joel explained, is stuffed with cheese, battered and fried to make a rather delicious snack.

Chile Mojo the store is, or should I say was the store as they're moving to 381 Magill Road, a little bit of Mexico in Adelaide packed with all kinds of Mexican and Tex-Mex products you can't find anywhere else in town. There's a Wall of Flame stocked with a wide variety of hot sauces all with a heat rating out of ten. There's all kind of dried and tinned chillis, various Mexican sauces and spice mixes, bloody mary mixes and even tins of tomatillos which I just absolutely love.

They have a mechanised tortilla press to make their own corn tortillas using freshly made masa and these can be bought frozen and quickly heated up in a frypan. The on-site kitchen produces some delicious frozen meals as well as fresh side dishes. These are superb quality, way better than any from a local Mexican eatery, and very reasonably priced.

A few weeks ago I first tried their taco beef which had just been made. It was a lot better than any taco beef I've made using supermarket ingredients with just the right combination of flavours. This weekend I tried the frozen taco beef along with the frozen bean mix to go with the Chile Mojo tortillas and was impressed again.

The taco beef and beans both lost nothing from being frozen with the beans adding a nice complementary texture and subtle flavour. The tortillas were a cut above the supermarket corn tortillas in terms of both texture and taste. Buying the beef and beans ready to go made everything a lot easier and allowed me to concentrate on making my own take on pico de gallo sallsa: freshly diced tomatoes, canned diced tomatoes, diced red onions, minced chilli, coriander and lime juice.

I also bought a pack of frozen Chili Colorad beef burritos and these were amazing. The beef was deliciously tender with a rich, spicy blend of flavours. The way I put them in the oven, and I suspect the way they were made, these have to be eaten with a knife and fork just like in the restaurants. However these are better than anything that can be had in a local Mexican restaurant and I wouldn't mind paying more than the modest price that Joel, who is originally from Colorado, is asking which is a fraction of what you pay at a restaurant.

Having become hooked on Mexican food whilst travelling to America it is a great delight to find a place such as Chile Mojo. The packaging on the ready-to-go meals goes "THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD IS AT YOUR PLACE" and I would have to agree that it certainly is in Adelaide with Chile Mojo's offerings. For all your Mexican and chilli cravings Chile Mojo is the place, so everyone better go there and support it so I can keep having my Mexican fix!

Come Fry with Me, Come Fry, Come Fry, Come Fry

Yeah, yeah I know I've been slack. Perhaps I'll revamp this blog, perhaps I won't, I just don't know.
Continuing the theme of my personal notebook, I've been trying out all those lean cuisines/healthy choice/airline frozen meals.

They're actually not too bad when you compare to them to the slop you get at the cafeterias at the places I've worked. They're slightly cheaper, if you buy what's on special you can get them for under $5 which is actually cheaper than most cafeteria meals. Surprisingly they actually taste better than the stuff that passes for food at cafeterias.

Oh and apparently they're better for you and judging by the nutrition box they are. They're also actually quite filling which is a surprise given that most of them contain only a quarter of your daily energy intake at the most. After some soup, yoghurt, fruit and salad this manchild feels quite full by the end of a day.

Here's a summary of my frozen meal findings so far with the meal name and ratings for taste, texture and how filling they are (5 stars max for each from bad, poor, okay, good to excellent):

• Nestle Lean Cuisine Lean Beef Lasagne [4 | 1 | 3]: Possibly could have overcooked this one, the bottom layers were rather leathery but still quite nice on the top layers.
• Heinz Steam Fresh Beef Stroganoff with Curly Pasta [4 | 4 | 3]: Good flavour, beef was suprisingly tender.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Creamy Mushroom Tortellini [4 | 3 | 3]: Quite tasty although creamy pasta isn't my favourite, perhaps that's because it's usually rather greasy unlike this one. The green bits lost a bit of texture in the freezing and heating.
• Heinz Weight Watchers Pasta Italiano [3 | 3 | 3]: The pasta and sauce were quite nice texture and taste wise. They were let down by the quasi-salami, horribly textured and more frankfurter than salami.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Sundried Tomato Tortellini [3 | 2 | 3]: The pasta and sauce tasted alright enough. Texture was quite dry and mushy at the same time, perhaps not microwaved right.

Plenty of water, tea and diet soft drinks also help keep a fat bastard quite full. Here's a few of my favourite ones so far:

• Pepsi Max: I hardly ever drink Pepsi, yet this is a favourite, definitely beats Coke Zero.
• Sprite Zero: Not too much of a weird taste to it, still very lemonadey.
• Fanta Zero: Actually I'd say this is better than normal Fanta, as it's not as cloyingly sweet.
• Schweppes Diet Dry Ginger Ale: All that gingeriness hides the artificialness quite well.
• Solo Sub: Again the lemon tang hides that saccharine sweetness quite well, then again some days I'm ambivalent.

Pasta in a hurry

Despite pasta sauces being easy, quick to make and great value for money sometimes you just need a quick break from cooking. There are a lot of pre-made pasta sauces out there that are rather bland and definitely not worth the money, most of the big brands are guilty on both counts.

Lucia's, a local operation with quite a reputation, hasn't tickled my fancy at all despite all the hype. I found the pasta sauce to be quite bland and the service to be rather indifferent although I should try their much praised eatery sometime. In amongst a mass of bland pasta sauces I was pleasantly surprised to find two that actually tasted better than most fresh made sauces, although the explosion of very ordinary cafes doesn't set the bar that high. Both were arrabbiata sauces, a rustic tomato sauces with spiciness from chillies.

Whilst arrabbiata isn't that common here in Australia I did also try the chilli and capsicum sauce from Bertolli recently as well. The Bertolli Five Brothers sauce was actually quite a nice consistency and tasted as fresh as any pre-made sauce can be. However it just didn't have that moreness and depth of flavour that the other two had.

Barilla is one of the leading pasta makers in Italy and command a premium over their competitors. Their arrabbiata sauce demonstrates why this is so, with perfect consistency and depth of flavour that is right up there with the best of freshly made sauces. Sacla add whole cherry tomatoes to their arrabbiata sauce for that extra burst of freshness and plumpness. Whilst the sauce itself is not quite up there with Barilla's the addition of whole cherry tomatoes make up for that.

From a greedy guts like me these sauces with al dente pasta make for quite a meal on their own. Team them up with some flakes of tuna perhaps and some salad made up in the time it would have taken to make the sauce and you have a nice wholesome meal. The price premium for these sauces is more than made up with by the extra level of flavour these sauces give you. After all food that you don't enjoy is bad value regardless of price.

Nice Wines

With age comes wisdom, or so they say. Over the span of my relatively young obsession with wine, I've come to realise there's quite a few awful wines out there but also that there are some very good wines for a good price. Obviously my idea of a good price will change over time but the prices I'm thinking of are such that you would be able to bring a few bottles to a party without hurting your wallet.

Sangre de Toro, blood of the bull in Spanish, is made by Torres in Catalonia, Spain. The wine is a blend of Garnacha and Carinena, which we know more commonly as Grenache and Carignan. On their own, these varieties make rather insipid wines although Grenache can apparently make quite amazing wine from old, low yielding vines.

However the Sangre de Toro is a very drinkable wine that can be had for well under $15. It is a smooth drinking wine with a spicy aroma and dark berry flavours. As with a lot of old world wines this wine goes great with food and with all that spiciness marries well with hearty meat dishes.

Chain of Pond's Novello Nero is another wine in the Old World style but made in our backyard in the Adelaide Hills. It is inspired by the home made wines of Italian immigrants being an unoaked blend of predominately sangiovese with some grenache and barbera. This makes for a very appealing and moresome wine that can be had with a fair bit of change from $20.

Being unoaked, the wine is smooth and crisp with the grapes speaking for themselves. On the nose there is an aroma of dark cherry with spicy and savoury overtones. The spicy fruit theme continues on in the mouth with some meaty overtones. The spicy fruit with savoury overtones recommends itself to game dishes and anything with tomatoes in it.

Signing away my soul

Car Wars: Episode VI

My brother-in-law said even with half the value the trade-in was still a reasonable price so I decided to make the deal. With that done all I had to do was choose the colour, at first I went with pearlescent cosmic grey which suited the car quite well and changed colour depending on viewing angle. However that colour would not be available until late September which was probably too long so I went with the safer option of metallic alabaster silver which was readily available.

With that all done I ended up getting financing through the dealer as the rate was lower than the bank's. I also packaged the insurance and loan protection as well as the rates seemed pretty standard across board, the loan protection would cover the loan repayments if I became too sick to work or unemployed which I thought was a smart idea. Now all I have to do is sit tight till I can smell that new car smell, which unfortunately won't be until early or mid next week. Still I think I got a good deal and I can't wait to go on a road trip in it.

Haggling

Car Wars: Episode V

Whilst the Corolla might have served our family well for the last 6 years it's definitely on it's last legs without further work being done. There's a fair few rust specks dotted around the car, it's starting to smoke and drip fluid, creaks are starting to get noticeable and I just got sick of being tailgated by cars when giving it all it's got when entering lanes. The salesman asked me what I wanted and I gave the high end of the non-fantasy price.

With that in mind he then asked what extras I wanted, I asked for the obligatory mats, towbar, reversing sensors, side steps and six stacker. He did the usual discussion with the manager and came back saying he could give me the price for the car but I wouldn't get any extras. After a few flanking proposals he was quite adamant that any extras would have to be taken out of the price of the car.

He then explained that the side steps were purely for cosmetics purposes, dubious at that, that they served no protective function at all. The stacker could always be gotten later and from another source for less as they could be easily installed. With that in mind we finally agreed to halving the value of the trade-in and putting in the mats, reversing sensors and towbar.

To be continued...

Dust Me Selector

Car Wars: Episode IV

After looking in and around the CRV and test driving it was growing on me quickly and I was really impressed. The test drive showed me that the CRV had handling and responsiveness about as good as a sedan. As it was about the same length and width as a sedan it was fairly good at maneuvering and felt fairly stable as the centre-of-gravity was fairly low.

Being rather pleased with it overall I was ready to do a deal, of course not making it too obvious that I was set on it. First though I had to decide which model to get, I had a choice of three: base, Extra and Sport. I settled on the CR-V Extra as that had 16" alloy wheels and side airbags for the front seat for $1,600 more which was a bit cheaper than adding all that to the base model with the bonus of the Extra brand.

The Sport had a sunroof, colour coded bumpers, fog lamps and six stacker CD player with MP3 capability.However I didn't really want the sunroof and lamps and the colour coded bumpers would get scratched too easily off the road and with my careless parking. Furthermore the stacker could always be substituted for a better unit later on. Having made up my mind on what model to get the next phase was hammering out a price for the trade in.

To be continued...

CRV Test Drive

Car Wars: Episode III

So we did the obvious thing and took it for a test drive, my little nephew didn't have too much trouble getting in by himself. The hand brake and gear selection took a bit of getting used to but once I got used to them I appreciated them being put on the dash board to save space for the arm rests and fold-away bottle holders. It felt a bit weird at first sitting up so high when I'm fairly low in the Corolla but after a while it was all good.

With my brother-in-law in the middle rear seat the rear view mirror was pretty much blocked but visibility was still good with the use of the big side mirrors. It didn't handle like a big, ungainly four wheel drive, feeling more like a Camry. The engine was quite responsiveness, about the same responsiveness as my brother-in-law's Nissan Pulsar with gear changes being rather smooth, it was good to be able to blend in with traffic with all 118kW of power as opposed to the puny 83kW of the Corolla.

The brakes took a bit of getting used to as they were significantly more responsive than the Corolla but that's no suprise. Cornering wasn't too bad and wasn't making the fact the centre-of-gravity was higher up than usual too obvious, a fair bit better than the Corolla and not too bad for a big car especially considering the anecdotes about the cornering abilities of Mitsubishi Lancers. Suspension wasn't significantly better than that of the good ol' Corolla but not a suprise given the type of vehicle.

To be continued...

Inside the CRV

Car Wars: Episode II

After that I was more open-minded with regards to the CRV, especially after finding out that the petrol Civics wouldn't be available for at least a couple of months. This was probably too long for the old faithful Toyota Corolla. There were plenty of CRVs available for very attractive prices being near the end of the current generation. Since I can't resist a sale I did the next logical thing and had at the CRV, inside and outside.

The interior was very roomy with a flat floor and space to seat at least four adults comfortably, if not five, with access to the rear from the front seats. The interior was also versatile with the rear seats able to be folded right up against the front seats to give almost 1000 litres of space. There were plenty of storage compartments with a sealed one for wet clothes as well as attachment points for baby seats (for when hell freezes over), a sturdy fold-out picnic table and a power outlet at the rear.

So far the interior had impressed me and the rugged exterior was beginning to grow on me, especially the dark cladding around the front and back in the base and Extra models given my past bumper scrapes. Length and width were about the same as a Toyota Camry and fuel efficiency wasn't too bad at 10L/100km. The main question outstanding was how well it handled.

To be continued...

Civic Reception

Car Wars: Episode I

Armed with that letter, and feeling a bit like a pirate with a letter of marque, I went car shopping. Admittedly I use the term car shopping in a very loose sense as I had my heart set on getting a Honda and a Civic or Civic Hybrid in particular. The latest Civics have an ultra-modern dash and sleek styling with the Honda pedigree and engineering expertise.

The hybrid was a nice idea in theory although the financial savings derived from it's high fuel efficiency were marginal. However when you consider that the Hybrid had most of the features found in the top-end Civic Sport for the same price the asking price wasn't too unreasonable. So with all that in mind, I headed off to the nearest Honda dealer Saturday morning intending to get a Civic Hybrid or perhaps a Civic VTi-L.

The stars were aligned as such that the Honda Once-a-Year sale was on that Saturday as well although the Civics would not be on sale as they were a new release and had very limited availability. Still up to then I had my heart set on getting a Civic but then my sister and her husband pointed out the CR-V. This was on sale with no extra on-road costs and as a bonus for the sale had the warranty and road-side assistance extended to 5 years.

I wasn't too enthused on the idea at first, thinking it'd be too bulky and a fuel guzzler. However I started to sway when the salesman showed me the Hybrid. It didn't look too swish up close and the boot space was significantly less than I had imagined. The salesman himself wasn't too enthused about it and admitted that they had sold only a few dozen of them.

To be continued...

Money, Money, Money

A long time ago, in a financial institution far, far away...

Considering my credit card is like my swimming back stroke, I put a lot of energy in but I get nowhere, I had to get finance to get a car. First I approached the GE Money Genie, just to test the waters seeing as they claim to be rather accomodating. Instead I get a rather dismissive phone call from their local guy(or is that monkey jerk?), claiming that I had lied and that my recruitment firm said I don't work for them.

I tried explaining to him the subtleties of my working arrangement but he was pretty adamant that I had a business. He told me I hadn't worked long enough and that I show him a profit and loss statement for the financial year just passed. Of course I don't have a business, but he was quite dismissive and not helpful at all. No soup for him!

Anyway according to the bloke who did my taxes today these guys are rather dodgy, their interest rates are pretty high and they are really harsh on late repayments. The guys at work suggested I try my bank (which bank?) as they'd have a better understanding of my history and all that. So I applied online, got a follow-up from the lady from the local branch and was given a letter of approval-in-principal.

To be continued...

Now where do I hide all this?

Having gotten all that wine home with much paranoia I had to store them in the cellar which meant I had to finish assembling my 72 bottle Bordex wine rack. For anyone as uncoordinated as this manchild it would be safer, faster, easier and nicer to stick with the pre-assembled racks. In addition to the pre-assembled 42 bottle Bordex rack I got, I now have regular space for 114 bottles, disturbingly that isn't too far off from being filled with wine.

The good thing about the Bordex wine racks is that they can be joined together to add capacity as you need it and to make the use of odd shaped areas. As long term storage for wine they are both practical and elegant. In addition to being a blessing for the uncoordinated the pre-assembled racks also seem to be of better build. Then again that could just be because my clumsy hands haven't bashed them around.

Wine racks are fine for long term storage of, all together now, a-week's-worth-of-take-home-pay of Bin 707s if you got a cellar that keeps a lid on dampness and temperature. However for the majority of the proletariat what they class as cellar space is dank and prone to harmful fluctuations in temperature. There's an Aussie company that manufatures wine cabinets that recreate cellar conditions and are far cheaper than building a cellar or buying/renting a house with one.

The company builds wine cabinets to suit tough Australian conditions. Prices are kept down due to the lack of fancy trimmings as these cabinets are meant for long term storage of wine,, not displaying trinkets. The cabinets use Peltier coolers which don't use any moving parts except for a small fan. The reviews seem to be positive and definitely one to consider when I eventually don't have access to a cellar so I can sleep at night with all that wine resting peacefully.

Oops!

Went to a wine auction today and got a bit, okay that's an understatement, carried away at the start with the bidding. One of the lots at the start consisted of six bottles of the 1996 Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon. I was bidding away thinking that my bid was for all six bottles, it turned out to be the price for each bottle!

What I thought was a bargain was an average price for Penfold's flag ship cab sav. Not to mind, I can probably sell them at a wine auction for a better price. Even if I lose money I guess I deserve a stupidity/rashness fine.

All's well that end's well though, in addition to my-week's-worth-of-take-home pay in Bin 707s I also managed to pick up the following at very reasonable prices:

- 3 x 1979 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Hermitage
- 1 x 1947 Seppelt Para Liqueur
- 12 x 2000 Mitchell The Growers Grenache
- 12 x 2003 Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling

The Hermitage, which should nowdays be called shiraz, and the Para I got for sentimental reasons with 1979 being an *self-aggrandising* oustanding vintage. The Mitchell grenache looks so lovely in my wine rack in all it's foil splendour, more on the wine rack later, and was way below it's retail price. On the subject of bargains, the Hanlin Hill riesling was less than half the suggested Langton's price.

But wait, there's more! I also bought a bottle of 1995 Grand Finale Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix Tawny Port, sorry just be Tawny or something thanks to new wine naming laws. This came in a lovely wooden box, albeit particle board veneer, with a perspex cover. As the name suggests and from a guess, it was meant to commemorate the last Grand Prix in Adelaide or the first one in Melbourne. Damn Victorians!

All That Zazz

A week or so ago apcmag had an article on bargains for geeks. One of the sites it mentioned was Zazz. Zazz is one of those bulk buy web sites where they get a whole load of a product and sell it at a discount. What sets Zazz apart is that they do all this on a daily basis, selling a different product every day.

Having bought more than my fair share of useless consumer geek stuff I had to check it out. Unfortunately I had just missed out on a bargain priced laptop but they did have something for a wino like me. Although I have more wine racks than sense I still had to get some of these funky hammock like racks.

So far I've been impressed by the service from the good folks at Zazz. Somehow I had put something silly down for the number of racks I wanted to buy. That didn't faze the folks at Zazz, a bloke from there rang me up to clarify things and that was that.

Tonight I just opened the package with the 8 wine racks, enough to store 24 bottles, I ended up ordering for around $35. They came with a bottle thermometer, which is simply a plastic strip thermometer stuck around a semi-cylindrical piece of metal which you just wrap around a bottle of wine. Yes I know, I should make more use of my digital camera and post some pictures, perhaps when I get around to posting about my trip to America last year...

Anyway whilst the thermometer was more of a gimmick than anything, the wine racks look pleasant enough. However I'm yet to assemble the racks, so I can't say too much for their sturdiness but I probably wouldn't want to stack them too much more than two up. So far so good in terms of Zazz service.

Tonight I ordered a couple of USB sound cards, should be give crisper sound and better amplification than the built-in sound on most laptops. Whilst the things I've seen on Zazz for sale so far are cheap, there haven't been any really useful bargains although I guess Zazz never really promised lots of really hot stuff often. Having said that though I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a nice laptop or card pops up again.

Amazon Grace

Wrote to Amazon last night about the damaged spine of the data structures book I bought from them and received quite a prompt reply. Basically they apologised for the damage and will be sending me another copy of that book free of charge. As an added bonus, because it would be too expensive and fiddly to return the old one, I get to keep the damaged book.

It's enough to make a geek believe in the kindness of strangers. Still I guess reputation is vital to Amazon's business and they can't afford a single bad review of them. It's definitely affirmed my faith in them and I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for more obscure specialist books.

Horde of Amazons

Got the rest of my shipment of books from Amazon today. Unfortunately they charged my credit card only when they shipped, which was after the last financial year. Guess I won't be able to claim these ones, except for the cook book which is obviously not work related, as deductions for this year. The books that arrived are as follows:

Hearn, D. & Baker, M. P. 2003, Computer Graphics with OpenGL (3rd Edition), Prentice Hall. [Hardcover, US$83.75]

Bruegge, B. & Dutoit, A. H. 2003, Object-Oriented Software Engineering: Using UML, Patterns and Java (2nd Edition), Prentice Hall. [Hardcover, US$62.84]

Lafore, R. 2002, Data Structures and Algorithms in Java (2nd Edition), Sams. [Hardcover, US$40.79]

Chung, S. Y. 2001, Korean Home Cooking (Essential Asian Kitchen Series), Tuttle Publishing. [Hardcover, US$13.57]

Suprisingly these books arrived ahead of schedule, shipping for the books came to $US24.62 which is better value than the first shipment. The condition of the books wasn't as good as at a local shop but this is international shipping after all. Still it was disappointing to find the data structures book with a big puncture in its spine.

The computer graphics book is a good combination of graphics text book and OpenGL primer. It doesn't quite go into as much practical detail as the official OpenGL programming guide. However between that and resources on the web most things should get covered. The other two computer textbooks are pretty comprehensive and will make great references (well I should hope so after spending hundreds on textbooks so far this year).

The Korean cook book is actually written by a Korean woman living in Sydney. It contains a good range of recipes but some of the classics are missing such as kim chi jiggae (kim chi soup with tofu). Still it's my first and only Korean cook book, should keep me occupied in the kitchen for a while.

Amazon Delivers

Ordered some books from Amazon late last month hoping to get them in before the end of the financial year to claim tax deductions. Only two books shipped and were charged to my credit card before the end of the financial year and they were:

Barfield, O. 2002, History in English Words, Lindisfarne Books. [Paperback, US$9.31]

Vince, J. 2001, Mathematics for Computer Graphics Fast, Springer. [Paperback, US$16.97]

The shipping for this order ended up being US$12.31, definitely not worth the money to ship just a couple of paperbacks. I've got another four books on the way and they're all hardcover so the shipping should be a reasonable fraction of total price. Still should remember to ship the books all at the same time to save on the shipping charge for each order.

The books arrived in reasonable condition albeit slightly dog earred. History in English Words is a fascinating read although it can get a bit tedious due to the archaic language and idioms as it was published in the 1950s. The maths book is a useful reference although I did hope it might be a bit more depth but what can you expect from a book with fast in its title.