A BEET-utiful Trip to Sunny Spain!

Yesterday I was kind enough to share what I know about the very interesting Bastille Day and how the French people of the city were able to save General De Gaulle before the people of the party burnt him at the stake! If you go south in France and turn right you will come to some big mountains. The are the dividing line between France and Spain. The biggest of these mountains is the Matadorhorn. It got its name because its twin peaks resemble the hats the bull fighters (aka “matadors”) used to wear on their heads.

A smart and careful reader might have noticed that I wrote about bullfighters wearing these hats in the past tense. That is because now, in Spain, Cows and Bulls are considered sacred.Now, in Spain everything revolves around cows. Yes, there was a time when they had bullfighting there, but that is a thing of the past. Today, you will see cows walking around Spain wherever they want to go and the people all love it! I was on the bus the other day and who should walk on but a cow! It just climbed on to the bus, showed the driver its pass and took a seat.

A group of cows preparing to board an airship to visit Betelgeuse.

No one knows how or when or why cows became so revered in Spain but the truth is cows have special rights and privileges and no one would dream of taking them away! Cows (and bulls) can get away with stuff that would get you or me (assuming you are a person and not a cow) into a heap of trouble! For example, the other day I watched as a cow - without the least embarrassment! - DEFECATED in the back of a truck it was riding it! Poop was everywhere, flying through the air, landing on the street, splashing other cars and pedestrians!

I can’t say for certain but I am willing to go out on a limb to say that if you or I did that (assuming you are a person and not a cow) we would get some hairy eyeballs from people! So for whatever reason cows in Spain just have way more rights than homo sapiens. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just different.

Those differences show up in all different ways. For example, all Spanish money features cows. All of the famous art features cows. If you turn on the radio in Spain, all you will hear and discussions about cows. If you go to the movies in Spain they will all star cows. Do you like music? In Spain all music is now played and sung by cows. (I have to say, most of the time it is absolutely MOO-tiful!) If you are going to see a dance in the theater be prepared! All of the dancers are cows now!

All over Spain, Cows (and bulls) are replacing people in one area after another. Airline pilots? Cows. Stock brokers? Cows. Clerks? Cows. Lifeguards? Cows. Babysitters? Cows. Judges? Cows. Tight Rope Walkers? Cows. Urologists? Cows. Pizza chefs? Cows. Calzone chefs? Cows. Stromboli chefs? Cows. CEOs? Cows. Middle school teachers? Cows. Puppeteers? Cows. Fine artists? Cows. Little by little, cows are taking over - and who can complain? They are smarter, work longer hours, make fewer mistakes than we people do.

But don’t for a moment imagine that we are the only thing cows are planning to replace! The cows - not surprisingly - a strict vegetarians and have insisted that meat be removed from every menu. Of course everyone agreed because no one wants to offend our bovine overlords! When the cows learned of my delicious #BeetTuesday recipes they immediately called my at my compound and asked me to come to Spain to make a delicious meal for them using beets. I, of course, agreed and climbed into my rocket ship for the trip to Spain.

On the way there, I looked out of my rocket ship’s window at space and decided I would make a beet recipe using an outer space theme! I tried and I tried to think of a beet thing from our SOLAR SYSTEM but I kept coming up blank but then I remembered one of my FAVORITE galaxies Betelgeuse and the wonderful documentary the director Tim Burton made about life on one of its planets!

If you are an avid film buff like me, you will recall that the character Lydia has a thing for food with a lot of MSG. (In case you are not a famous chemist and scientist like me, MSG is MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, a delicious salt-like substance that is mined on the dark side of the mood. In ancient times, an alien race gifted this tasty treasure to mankind!)

So what will I make with BEETS and MSG that based on my trip to Spain? Why Beet Encebollado of course!

Ingredients

• One TEASPOON of vinegar AND lemon juice - these are both astringents (I think) and so will give the beets and unique stringy taste)
• FIVE TABLESPOONS of MSG - this dish is very tasty and MSG will ENHANCE the flavor, Si, por favor!
• 10 dried oregano leaves - when I work with oregano it is very hard to piece the leaves back together. I find having a magnifying glass or microscope on hand is very helpful!
• A bunch of CORN OIL - I get a bunch of corn on the cob (the best, the very best you can find) and put it into a food processor and blend the heck out of it - the sludge you have left is, I’m pretty sure, corn oil)
• 25 lbs of BEETS - cut these up into teeny tiny cubes. Any that are not perfectly symetrical should be discarded.
• 10 lbs of onion rings - fresh or frozen, either kind is fine since you will be cooking them anyway. You may want to consider buying one of my latest (and greatest) inventions, the ANDY LAM ONION ROBOT; I don’t have the time to extol this great piece of machinery but it has a 25 gallon reservoir for artificial tears!
• A little bit of adobe - you can use other clay - or even cement - if you don’t have access to adobe

  Instructions

1. In the biggest dish you have, mix the adobe, the MSG and oregano leaves. Put in the BEETS with the corn oil and toss around like a wild person. Put all of it together and put it in the icebox for 3,600 - 43,200 seconds to marinate.
2. Put some of your corn oil in a great big frying pan and put in the beets and all the other stuff and put it over some heat for 600 seconds.
3. Put the beets onto a plate (or plates) and put the other stuff on top of them.
4. ENJOY!

And there you have it, a dish fit for a VACA REAL! The next time you are in Spain you should try this - and if you aren’t in Spain you should make this yourself at home using these easy steps I have given you! I love #BEETTUESDAY!

With a cancion en mi corazon and some remolacha en mi vientre, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!