Earlier this month, I posted about a quest I’ve championed over the last few months- an effort to get Chamillionaire, the successful Houston rap artist, to follow me on Twitter.
Many people have given me some great suggestions on how to pull it off, some of which I am comfortable employing, and some of which are outright insane. Since Chamillionaire is very tech-savvy, he has a web forum dedicated to his fan base, also known as “The Chamillitary”.
I thought I would dig into this web forum and see if I would have any luck garnering enough support to get Chamillionaire himself to notice. Read the rest…
Facebook, MySpace, forget it. I started a Facebook account a week ago and I already hate it.
Twitter’s my thing. My name is @GunsandTacos, and with Twitter, I’m not forced to ‘reconnect’ with people I avoided back in school, or to help anyone move into a 2nd story apartment. I can be a big mystery if I want, and that’s the way I like it.
Twitter’s easy. All you have to do is talk a lot, and refrain from mentioning anything about loved ones, kids, politics, religion, boners, or pets. (especially pets).
When I discovered Twitter, the first thing I did was remove all of the Twitter-default celebrity followers, mostly because I didn’t know who they were. A lifetime Houston resident, I thought I’d lean toward Houston celebrities.
Politicians are boring, so I scratched them off of the list.
Artists are too cool to use Twitter.
Gun nuts like myself don’t use Twitter, because we are generally too busy stockpiling ammo for the upcoming zombie apocalypse to deal with these frivolities.
Sports? I’m not really into sports that don’t involve guys who are shooting, stabbing, or at least punching one another.
Musicians? Same category as artists. If they do tweet, I’m going to assume they’ve got some hot groupie tweeting for them. Yawn.
After ruling out each of these, I found a Houston celebrity that fits none of these categories: Chamillionaire.
@Chamillionaire has more followers than @JesusChrist Himself. No really, look it up.
The country of Argentina is a great place, but it has this one problem.
Millions of Eared Doves darken the skies in shapes, patterns and layers, devouring over 20% of their corn and grain crops in the Cordoba area. They don’t migrate as other species do. Years ago,the Argentinian government even sanctioned programs to poison the birds at their roosts, but this had disastrous effects all the way down the food chain.
Incidentally, wingshooting is about as much fun as a gunslinger can have, and Argentina is famed for its fine steaks and Malbec wines. I thought I might step up to the plate and help Argentina out a bit.
In-Flight Tetris. Suck it, American Airlines.
SYC Sporting is a world-renowned outfitter, known as a favorite spot for Tom Knapp, a world famous exhibition shooter. My dad and I booked three nights at Estancia El Cortijo, a world-class hunting lodge, built of local timber, with a magnificent thatched roof and furniture made from lacquered woods and cowhide.
They even had one of those things in the bathroom that European guys use to squirt water up their ass.
The overnight trip from Miami to Santiago, Chile was on a massive jumbo jet (LAN Airlines) with free beer, wine, and liquor for everyone. We each had a console where you could watch movies, listen to a categorized library of music, or play Tetris, the perfect game for being stuck in a tiny seat for an extended period of time. The stewardesses were these cute, trim, polite little uniformed robots that shuffled around and brought us stuff. And we were flying coach.
An agent from Estancia El Cortijo picked us up from the airport. We changed into our hunting attire, which included a recoil pad that straps onto your shoulder and around your midsection. You know, like a bra.
“I don’t need one of these. I’ve done this before”.
“You’ve been dove hunting in Texas and Mexico. You haven’t done this before”.
I reluctantly strapped on the goofy-looking recoil pad.
Closeup of the Benelli Montefelto 20 gauge.
I chose a 20 gauge Benelli Montefeltro, known worldwide for its durability and performance. Cordoba dove hunting is a wingshooter’s opportunity of a lifetime, and since thousands of shells would be running through the shotgun, I wanted to minimize any risk of firearm failure to avoid the necessity of performing repairs or maintenance in the field.
Not that I know how to replace shotgun parts or anything, but that sounded like a cool thing to say.
The Birds
When we arrived at our spot, waves of doves peppered the sky, flying quickly and erratically. Simply stated, if you have never been to Cordoba, then you have never seen this many birds at once.
Let’s put this into perspective. When shooting dove at a hunting lease in Santa Fe, Texas, I would go through one or even two boxes of shells on a good day. In Mexico, several boxes.
In Cordoba, you’ll go through two cases of shells in one hunt, easily. There are twenty boxes in a case. And you’ll be hunting twice a day. Do the math, that is like over a billion shells.
Birdboys Lalo and Cesar.
The Birdboy
Basically stated, a ‘birdboy’ is a hired hand whose job it is to retrieve the birds you shoot down. From my experiences dove hunting in Mexico, it will usually be a teenage boy or young man working for tips. Additionally, a birdboy will point out the location of incoming doves, by yelling out the “o-clock” number in Spanish, or yelling “Alto” for high, and “Bajo” for low.
In Cordoba, there is no need to point out doves.
‘Birdboy’ is a misnomer in Cordoba, because the birdboy role is taken to the professional level. The “birdboys” at Estancia El Cortijo are skilled armorers, and they are grown men that could probably kick your ass.
I’m not saying they could kick your ass personally, but they could certainly kick Daniel Craig‘s bidet-utilizing ass. Just wanted to clear that up, Ace.
Their main duty is not to point out birds, but to reload your shotgun for you as quickly as they can. Since we’re talking about thousands of rounds of ammo here, the bird-man will sometimes have tape wrapped around his thumb as he repeatedly shoves the shells into the loading port while counting the falling birds with a clicker they wear around their neck.
Put those ducks back, you idiot. We're dove hunting.
Shooting Scores of Birds
Remember “Duck Hunt” on the Nintendo?
It’s not like that at all.
Mostly, they fly in groups. Unlike other dove species, these tend to spot you a little better, so proper camouflage is necessary. More importantly, you need to find some kind of cover, such as brush, trees, or cacti. A swarm of birds will fly towards you from the fields, and they split into two directions when they see you. Decisiveness is key. Once you draw your line of sight on one bird, stick with it, even if an easier shot places itself in your sight picture.
It takes a few tries to get the hang of it, but once you do, it is a load of fun. The shotguns are of the semiautomatic variety, so if you miss a bird, you’ve still got a chance to hit it a second or even third time. The birds just keep coming, and you just keep knocking them down.
After a morning and an evening hunt, I had harvested 1,325 eared doves, and my dad yielded a slightly lower number (He’s the better shot, but he enjoys exhibition-style trick shooting). Dad was right about the recoil pad. Even with the thick padding, my shoulder was bruised and sore, and my hands and fingers were almost numb.
Returning from the evening hunt, we were greeted with an open bar and food for kings. Some hunters from Chile were also in attendance, and we thoroughly enjoyed swapping hunting and fishing stories with them.
The coveted “1000 Club” plaque rests in the dining room of the estancia, and both of our names were added. At the top of this board was a famous Spanish bullfighter, Paco Del Amo, that had harvested over 4,000 doves in one day (apparently, his record has held up for years).
How in the world did he do that?
Our translator and host Marcello Janik explained as he uncorked our third bottle of Malbec.
As the story goes, the bullfighter showed up at the estancia with a entourage of beautiful women and partied until sunrise. When he started his hunt, he requested that two shotguns stay loaded at all times, and had two birdboys that continuously loaded one while he fired the other. He was brought to the fields early in the morning, and stayed there shooting all day long, until the sun went down. What a badass.
I found it amusing that as Marcello told the story, I immediately pictured the dude in the Dos Equis commercials. (I tried to Google Paco Del Amo, but only found an hombre on MySpace that likes Freddy Mercury and LOLcats. I’ll assume he’s the wrong guy).
My Thousand Dove Club certificate. Somebody's going to have a problem with this.
Volume dove hunting in Cordoba was an unforgettable experience. Stay tuned for the next post, where I’ll show you a few photos of the food and wine at we enjoyed Estancia de Cortijo.
On a remarkably sunny and breezy Houston day, 10 something, I drove up to the empty Northwest Mall parking lot. A lone brown paper bag quietly tumbled across the lot, as I pulled into a parking spot with a faded wheelchair emblem painted onto the gritty asphalt.
Three men sat on the curb in front of Macy’s, which had been closed for months. As they stared, the largest of the three, wearing a straw sombrero, reached into a small cooler and pulled out a 32 ounce Tecate, or as we called it in Mexico, a “caguama”.
I stepped out of my large vehicle, advancing toward the men with a steady, unflinching gait.
I was wary, knowing there was no legitimate reason to hang around the infamous Mall of Ghosts, that is unless one were interested in purchasing cell phone accessories or airbrushed Scarface shirts.
As he smiled an evil grin, I then realized that this would be the beginning of an epic day. These men were here for tacos, and the long-awaited Houston Chowhounds Taco Crawl had begun.
The vehicles started pouring in, and we loaded the bus. Dozens of chefs, food writers/bloggers, restaurant industry folks, and tacoholics met up in this giant deserted parking lot with one mission in mind. Well, two if you include the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
We started out with two creatively named teams: Team A and Team B.
Team A was the taco party bus, which was a large school bus that held about 45. Team B included everyone else. Some of the taco hounds decided to come up with Team C, which included anyone riding in a convertible, though I think their loyalty to the group had more to do with following Peggy around.
You see, Peggy is a load of fun to hang out with, plus she had a convertible and a homemade batch of sangria that was eloquently composed the night before with watermelon juice, blood orange, papaya, thai basil and rosé; served with dry soda, vodka, and frozen grapes. Frozen grapes, because ice cubes are just boring.
I brought along a pinata that had been painstakingly shaped into the form of a famous Mexican luchador. As the bus departed in the exact opposite direction of Jarro Cafe, I handed out Mexican comic books to everyone, most with lowbrow illustrations of scantily-clad Chicana women on the front covers. Why not.
Meanwhile, the exotic and mysterious Lina Fuh, riding in the front seat of the bus, explained to the bus driver that she was probably holding her map upside down.
I’d brought along a small and powerful slingshot I had purchased at Canino’s on Airline the day before. You know, for some extra bus fun. I loaded a pack of Chicles, stretched back the band as far as I could, and fired toward the back of the bus. I missed, however, and it launched the Chicle pack right into the forehead of the guy sitting directly behind me. The chicle pack exploded on impact, and rained down onto the floor of the bus.
DAMN that had to hurt.
Of course I wasn’t going to let Mr. Cerebral Contusion get in the way of everyone’s fun, so I pocketed the slingshot, yelled “Heads Up!”, and threw the Chicles toward the back of the bus instead. And what do you know, on the first throw and the second, I somehow hit two different girls right in the cornea.
Don't let the bright colors fool you- these aren't child's play.
Both teams stopped in at the famous Jarro Cafeon North Gessner. Not only did they have the aptly-named “Neon”, the sauce with a 200-year half life, they also released two new salsas for the occasion. They were well prepared for the crowd, and got the orders out in a flash. In fact, they started giving out delicious free bistek tacos to anyone who wasn’t already stuffed with tacos. The tacos carnitas, marinated in orange juice, were popular as well as some of the less ordinary menu fare, such as the cochinita de pibil and campechano, a beef/chorizo combination which is hailed as their specialty.
Photo by Syd Kearney, 2995
Beaver’s superchef Jonathan Jones captivated the foodies with his fluent Spanish and upcoming recipes, while cake extraordinaire Rachelwowed the dessert crew with the exquisite art of buttercream preparation and food photography. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to siphon gasoline from both of their vehicles since the bus was running a little low.
Tacos El Mapache is a cool little restaurant, and it has a taco stand in the same strip center. We stepped over a guy that was passed out on the sidewalk with a half-full beer in his hand, so I quickly called dibs on it. Hey, there’s no beer like free beer.
We lined up at the taco truck, and everyone tried something different. The barbacoa and lengua were a big hit, and we enjoyed the Southern Mexico style pastor as well.
The crew set up camp in the parking lot. We were short on plastic cups, so I picked up a bunch of small brown paper bags to help the beer drinkers assimilate into their new surroundings.
About the time we had finished eating, Team B was back from Cocina de Colima. Cocina de Colima was one of our stops that make their corn tortillas by scratch and on demand, and they’ve got some of my favorite tacos al pastor in town. Overall the consensus was good, though some weren’t crazy for the ceviche or mojarra frita there.
Photo by Syd Kearney 29-95
We packed up and headed to our next stop, Tacorrey and Taqueria Mi Jalisco, again departing in the wrong direction.
Tacorrey and Taqueria Mi Jalisco are two separate taco trucks across the street from one another on Fulton and Berry Street. The various meats at Tacorrey were popular, as well as their tacos al vapor (steamed tacos) that they had cooked up just for the Chowhound crew. Some of the more adventurous eaters headed across the street to try the excellent tacos de tripas at Mi Jalisco, which were served with sweet caramelized onions and grilled jalapenos.
Most of Team A found a nice shady spot behind the taco truck to set up their lawnchairs. I had a great time talking tacos with Tex-Mex aficionado Jay Francis. I poked around at everyone’s tacos, finding out which were the favorites. We had plenty of room in the parking lot to hang around and chat in the beautiful weather. I was surprised to meet Adam Richman, host of the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food” grubbing out on tacos as well.
Behind the scenes, teams B and C were staging a coup. With the notorious J.C. Reid and Jenny Wang leading the way, teams B and C formed Team Rogue, a band of Taco Truck Crawl deviants who pledged a sovereign allegiance to go somewhere that was not on the printed itinerary. Also they were kind of drunk.
Team Rogue, led by J.C. Reid.
Team A took the party bus to Taqueria Laredo on Patton Street. Laredo on Patton has been highly reviewed by food writers across the city, regardless of the Mexican Barbie interior. The different meats were roasted and slow-cooked, and were served with handmade flour tortillas. Although I’m a big fan of the corn tortilla, flour can be a bit easier to work with when you’ve got a half-pound of green pork adobo dripping everywhere. In the nearby Fiesta parking lot, most of Team A headed to a churro truck which served amazing fresh cinnamon and condensed-milk desserts.
Amazing unplanned churro stop.
Meanwhile, Team Rogue was at Gerardos Drive In, enjoying Gerardo’s famed barbacoa straight from the skull, steamed right in front of them. I must admit, I was insanely jealous when I saw the picture below.
This is how it's done, folks.
After we got back to our cars, half the crew met up at Big Star Bar on 19th for the afterparty, and the other half made a pit stop at Mam’s House of Ice for snow cones beforehand to cool off their scorched palates before showing up at Big Star.
I’m fairly sure that everyone who had anything to do with Houston food was in attendance. After some beer and tequila, I disemboweled the pinata so everyone could try the unusual Mexican candy.
Although there were specials on Mexican beer and Lone Stars, I enjoyed Conroe’s Pine Belt Ale from Southern Star Brewery, which seems to be popping up everywhere lately. A nice fella named Mike Watson even brought a magnificent pork shoulder for those remarkable folks that still had appetites.
Someone even brought a keg of beer to the party. I have no idea whose it was, but I grabbed a plastic cup from the bartender and went to work on it, because hey, you know what they say about free beer.
Jenny Wang, food writer, founder of the Houston ChowHounds, and co-host of Southbound Food radio show on 1560
Jim Gossen, food writer and President/CEO of Louisiana Foods.
Me, a guy that likes tacos.
After agreeing to participate, I spent some time poring through chili aficionado sites, learning about the categories of aroma, consistency, flavor, piquancy, and the Scoville scale. I learned about unusual ingredients that chili guys use. Wikipedia gave this list: sweetcorn, peanut butter, pineapples, bananas, oranges, tomatillos, beer, chorizo, cocoa, chocolate, coffee, tequila, cola, honey, cinnamon, allspice, saffron, molasses, vinegar, wine (usually red), whiskey, and/or bourbon.
There were three categories- Best Chili, Most Original Chili, and Spiciest Chili. I thought these categories were interesting.
Of course, the Best Chili category makes sense, but the Original Chili and Spiciest chili categories worried me a bit. I mean, you could put Froot Loops in it to win the Most Original, and I’d still have to eat it. And if someone really wanted to win the Spiciest Chili category, there’s no limit to what they could do to it, and I’d still have to eat it.
Obviously, I like spicy things. But years ago, I watched a close friend chew up and swallow a habanero. There’s nothing worse than seeing a friend with tears pouring down his face, eating handfuls of ice cream and guzzling milk, with that pleading, “please make it stop” facial expression. Sadistically, there is also nothing funnier in the world.
I’d love to add a video of someone eating a habanero, but incidentally, people that intentionally eat habaneros on camera are also the most annoying people in history. I wouldn’t do that to you.
I thought I’d call on a good friend for advice, so I Googled J.C. Reid, a famous food blogger, and cross-referenced his name against city records to obtain his phone number.
“Who the hell is this?”
“Guns and Tacos.”
“What did you just say?”
“Nevermind. Do you know how to judge a chili cookoff?”
“Vote for the team with the hottest chicks on it. And don’t ever call me again”.
Now that I knew who to vote for, I had to get the appearance thing down. If I’m going to be a judge in a chili contest, I really need to look like I know what I’m doing. In Texas, you do that with a cowboy hat.
Anyone can just put on a cowboy hat. But not just anyone can wear it. To properly wear a cowboy hat, you also need to have a Western shirt, a large belt with a large buckle, a Western jacket, and you have to wear Wranglers. Of course, I have all of these things.
Me.
I arrived at the event in my large Cadillac. As I casually walked past the Texas flag, all of the area photographers took advantage of this rare opportunity to take photographs of me, The Chili Judge.
I was missing one more ingredient in my ensemble: A cold can of Tecate.
Unfortunately there was no Tecate, so I had a Lone Star. I wasn’t sure if it was okay for the judges to drink before the competition, so I hurriedly bought beers for each of the judges so that I wouldn’t be singled out.
The Zydeco Dots were playing, and amazingly, I don’t think they took a break the entire time we were there. Nothing beats the combination of Zydeco music and Tecate Beer Lone Star Beer on a Saturday afternoon.
I took my small composition book out of my shirt pocket, and placed it on the judging table next to the cup of fresh ginger slices I had brought to cleanse my palate between each tasting. I explained the purpose of the ginger slices, and Katharine and Jenny started laughing uncontrollably. I thought they were laughing at my ginger at first, but Jenny explained that they were just laughing at an old joke, and “not your fresh ginger slices that you brought to a chili cookoff in Texas”.
This is chili. Chili gets everywhere.
There were markers and paper on the table so that we could write down our opinions of each chili dish, served in styrofoam cups. Some were garnished with lime slices and crackers, some had cornbread on top, and some were covered in aluminum foil to retain the heat. Some had a strong beer taste, some had chunks of spicy venison sausage, and others had whole cloves of garlic in the mix. Each cup had a number on the bottom to help coordinate it with our notes.
“How do I know which cup belongs to which team?”, I asked the judge.
“You’re not supposed to know which cup belongs to which team. If you did, you would probably just vote for the team with the hottest chicks on it”, he explained.
I was then forced to choose a winning cup of chili based solely upon my flavor preferences and level of inebriation. At first, I insisted on eating all the chili that they gave me, but after about twenty cups of spicy chili, I thought it may be a better idea not to do that at all.
Jim Gossen, who is possibly the coolest guy in the world, got a bit of chili on his shirt, which was really funny to me until I realized that I had much more chili on my shirt.
We agreed on the Best Chili, The Spiciest Chili, and The Most Original Chili. I broke a sweat and had to use my hat as a fan once or twice, but there were no Froot Loops in the chili, which made me very happy.
"Come and Take It", the winning team from Sugar Hill Studios. Photo by Groovehouse.
Me, Katharine, Jenny, Jim, and Lone Star. Photo by Groovehouse.
This may or may not resemble the actual taco party bus.
I’ve been working on a lot of things for the upcoming H-town taco crawl on October 25th. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Jarro Cafe, the salsa champions of Houston, will be introducing two new salsas upon our arrival just for the Houston ChowHounds. If anyone has had Jarro Cafe’s primera salsas before, you know this is a really big deal.
Tacorrey will be serving tacos al vapor (steamed tacos) for our arrival. These are something special.
I’ve learned that tortilla factories aren’t really big on letting 90+ people tour their establishment, and Columbian security guards are kind of pushy when you approach their trucking facility. (I’ll work on it.)
Connie’s on Airline says they can handle 90+ visitors on any Sunday for a michelada stop. I have no idea how this would logistically work, because I’ve been there on Sunday and can barely get in the door. But hey, the young lady said she was the manager. (I’ll work on it).
That’s right. A Taco Party Bus, outfitted with missile launchers and a Spy Hunter-style oil slick button on the dash and furnished with dancing girls. None of these things are true, but you should know that it holds 40 something people.
Want to skip the caravan and get a spot on the bus? Easy. Follow this step.
1. Register on 29-95.com and post a comment to this article. If you’re already registered, just post a comment. The bus seats go out to the first 40 commenters.
Bring cash (smaller bills are better), folding chairs, drinks, booze. If anyone’s got a big cooler, bring it along. Feel free to make margaritas, micheladas, go on with your bad self. Instead of keeping our beers in paper bags like the real caballeros surrounding us, plastic cups will be supplied so we can stand around like a couple of dorks.
If you haven’t signed up for Taco Truck Crawl #2, you need to RSVP with the Houston Chowhounds. If you have any trouble registering, just send me an email. The event will be free of charge, but you’ll be buying your own tacos, cheapskate.
Keep posted for more details, I’ll keep you in the loop!
On Friday, Houston Twitter user @aynsavoy dropped a simple suggestion:
“@GunsandTacos – Are you going to lead a taco truck crawl any time in the near future? Because I would totally be down.”
She may have been referencing last year’s Houston Chowhound event, where a large group of taco fanatics took a tour of several taco trucks on Long Point in a large caravan involving lawnchairs and beer. The Houston Chowhounds are a 500+ group of Houston foodies that schedule all kinds of food-related events.
Before I could reply (much), dozens of Twitter responses, emails and comments on my latest post on 29-95.com were thrown around. Houston food celebrity Jenny Wang (@imneverfull), prominent foodie blogger, founder of the Houston ChowHounds and recent radio personality on 1560’s new Southbound Food show thought it was a great idea as well, which pretty much sealed the deal.
30 people formally requested to sign up for updates to the taco crawl on the first day. Jenny formally assigned a hashtag of #TCC2 to reference the event. After some discussion, the event date was set for October 25th, 2009, which is on a Sunday (requested by Textile’s award-winning dessert chef Plinio Sandalio).
So how do I lead this expedition, following in the footsteps of the first Houston Taco Truck Crawl? The taco trucks chosen for the first epic adventure were loosely based on Robb Walsh’s Top Ten Taco Trucks list, diligently composed in 2007. There’s no telling how much blood, sweat and salsa went into composing that list, which I’ve referenced once or twice in previous posts.
My Houston area taco truck favorites span far and wide. It’s going to be tough choosing a few favorites and navigating a chosen path, a yellow adobe road of tacos- but hell, that’s what I do. If you’d like to participate in the event, you can sign up here or just email me and I’ll keep you updated on the details.
Click your heels together, folks. We’re going for a ride.
