cactus burritos

when i visited the desert a few weeks ago, i ate dinner with my family at a mexican food restaraunt. i judge mexican eateries by their ability to feed me a good veggie burrito. the one on the menu here was thin on veggies, thick on dairy. wasn't going to work. i asked them what vegetables they had in the kitchen that they could throw in, and she said, "mushrooms, tomatoes, cactus..."

you had me at cactus. after hiking around all day in the fantastic borrego springs landscape, i'd come to remember the latin names of the cacti i'd studied in college. i felt intimately connected. and yes, i wanted to eat it.

i had a great burrito that night, and raved about it to friends, who, a month later, coerced me into throwing a (what's the word for dinner party, minus the stuffiness, plus extra fun?) so that they could try cactus burritos.

i had a blast researching how to cook cactus. this is the website i ended up following: he gave a step-by-step tutelage. i also made beans and rice from, like, beans and rice (not minute rice and canned beans) which was a first for me. the whole thing was delish!

i asked everyone to bring something - chips and salsa; mexican beer; gluten-free tortillas; soda pop; and, specifically to one friend whose apartment has a litter of half bottles of liquor - some tequila.

after dinner, we took a celebratory tequila shot. dan has only 2 days left of work at a miserable job and then gets to start a great internship, and i finally landed 40 hours at the church. we took our shots out of plastic cups decorated with tinkerbell and strawberry shortcake - i live with an 8 year old - and toasted to bright new beginnings.