Carne asada stuffed potatoes

In Southern California, there’s a dish called carne asada fries. It’s a pile of French fries topped with carne asada, cheese, and a variety of other toppings, such as sour cream and salsa. While I’ve sadly not had the pleasure of eating these, my friends who live in Southern California tell me that they’re good. Very, very good in fact. I’ve been eager to try them.

That said, since I have no immediate plans to travel to Southern California but do plan to visit Texas this summer, I began asking around to see if these fries were offered in our great state. Unfortunately, however, my search only turned up one place that had them—a California-style Mexican restaurant in Arlington. After that, I came up with nothing.

To me this seemed a little strange. Texans love meat and Texans love potatoes—why wasn’t this combination more common? Sure, in Texas you’ll often find chili cheese fries, of which I am a fan. But I had a craving for the combination of steak with guacamole, cheese, with potatoes, not chili and cheese.

Then, as I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t find the fries in Texas, I came across something even better: baked potatoes stuffed with carne asada. And this dish, often called simply papa asada, is found all over the state—from El Paso to the Valley, from San Antonio to Dallas.

The most common spots offering the carne asada stuffed baked potato are taquerias that specialize in grilled meats, such as the pollo asado joints like El Pollo Regio and/or taquerias that have roots in Northern Mexico, such as Taco Tote or Taco Palenque. Though the more I searched, the more I found it on a host of menus—clearly I just hadn’t been looking for the right dish.
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Avocado-coconut ice cream

If your mom is anything like my mom, then she probably loves avocadoes. While everyone in my family enjoys this tropical fruit, I most identify it with my mom, as when I was growing up it seemed that she ate an avocado every single day.

Her favorite lunch was a batch of nachos, and with these nachos she’d mash an avocado with hot sauce and lemon juice for a quick and easy guacamole. When she wasn’t making nachos, she’d also dice avocadoes and then toss them into salads, or slice them into thin slivers and then serve them with fish or tacos.

Of course, my recollections may be hazy and perhaps she didn’t eat them every day, but it sure does seem like there was always a bowl of ripe avocados sitting out on the counter, waiting to be peeled, pitted, sliced, and served.

Now here’s the sad thing. I didn’t like avocadoes when I was a kid. I’m not sure if it was the soft texture or if it was because they were green, but it wasn’t until I fell in love with Ninfa’s green sauce that I became a fan.



Apparently, I’m not alone. When I was reading Gabi Dalkin’s new book Absolutely Avocadoes, she also admits she thought she wasn’t a fan of avocadoes, at least until she, too, had a transformative moment with avocadoes at a Mexican restaurant in Arizona.

She’s since made up for any lost time, and is now very passionate about the fruit. As she says in her intro, writing this book was a dream assignment since she loves avocadoes so much, and you can feel that love as she shares all that she knows.(It's also a beautiful book as fellow Texan Matt Armendariz took the photos.)
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