March 2014 – GringoPotpourri

The (Long Awaited) Mexican Food Blog – Part One

This is a pambazo. You can’t really tell from the photo, but imagine a sandwich piled with grilled chorizo (Mexican sausage), potatoes, cheese, onions, lettuce, sour cream, and your choice or red of green salsa – all topped on warm sandwich bread. Sounds delicious? It is. I had never heard of pambazos before two weeks ago. I was hungry, though, and in a bit of a hurry, so I bought one from a neighborhood street vendor, as it took just moments to prepare…and upon taking my first bite I immediately ordered a second.

After experiencing that tasty goodness, I decided to finally crank out this post. I love Mexican food (who doesn’t?!), and have been intending to blog about comida Mexicana for months, but the cuisine is so varied, that as a subject to be written about, I barely knew where to begin. I have decided to save my observations about the customs related to food (restaurant hours, tipping practices, etc.) for a separate post, and for now will concentrate solely on the different types of food – a few of the many varieties from a few of the many categories. Here goes!

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Where am I #20

Seeing as my last two posts were dead in the water (you can read about them here and here if you are feeling so inclined), I thought I’d continue one of this blog’s most popular recurring features.

Spring is just around the corner…or so many of us hope. In the spirit of warmer weather, where am I in this pic?

Oscar 2013-14 – predicting the winners

I have been under the weather lately, and even had to cancel Thursday and Friday classes. Because I don’t normally get sick often, the roughly once-every-two-years happening always hits me like a ton of bricks.

Something that happens once every year is the Academy Awards Ceremony. The 2014 show (which honors the previous year’s movies, a naming quirk that has always confused me), is this Sunday. I just watched “Nebraska,” the Alexander Payne (“Sideways”)-directed, father-son road movie that garnered six Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. It is a good little film, but my point is that once again I’ve managed to see just about every nominated film before the live broadcast. The only nominee I’m missing is “August: Osage County.”

Here are my predictions on who will – and who should – win Oscars tonight. I am only an amateur but I seem to have a knack for this sort of thing. Last year I correctly guessed five of the six winners in the Picture, Director, and Acting categories. I hope to improve upon that number in 2014!

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