I am now officially starving. I had a nice salad and some broiled fish for lunch, thank you very much, and a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast for dinner -- have this figger to protect, don'cha' know -- and now, I want a big ol' bowl of gravy in the absolute worst way.

When I lived in Santa Fe, home of more beautiful, wonderful, exquisite restaurants than you can imagine -- every cuisine on the planet represented there, just about -- and I was living with Michael the Chef, who absolutely insisted on "splendid" food on our table -- some days, I'd just get so hungry for REAL food. So I'd go to the Zia diner for lunch and order two sides of mashed potatoes with gravy -- and of course a spinach salad because I felt I SHOULD. I hardly ever really get a hankering for sweets, but good ol' potato-based home cookin' -- I simply die for it sometimes.

Here's an "ethnic" recipe completely unrelated to biscuits and grave:

Carne Adovada

*Get a pork roast or chopped pork stew meat (If you make it with beef, call it Carne Asada) *Rub all over with chopped garlic (I want someone to do this to me some day...) *Dump in a package of dried red chile powder (or crumble up dried red chile pods, if you happen to have a ristra -- that's actually what they're for, rather than decoration) *Pour water over the meat. *Salt a bit *Put in the fridge *Baste with the garlic/red chile/water mixture off and on for at least a day. *Put in oven on low heat -- 300 degrees F. *(Or in crock pot) * Cook slowly for hours and hours, basting periodically, until the meat is so tender it falls apart. Serve on hot tortillas, with a side of sour cream so your guests can cool the chile if they need to.

The best red chile comes from New Mexico -- the tastiest is from the Chimayo valley in Northern New Mexico. Green chile is a specialty of Hatch, N.M. If anyone is seriously committed to the Carne Adovada Project, I can help her or him score some chile.

Salud! WW