Nachos & Life, on the Line

A quiet night in can mean one of two things: the time to slowly cook something for a late meal or the time to cook something easy to enjoy on the couch while watching a movie. Each can be relaxing, and each has its place.

 

My current go-to for the couch potato fix is fish tacos and a tinfoil pouch of nachos drizzled in cheese and salsa.

 

The fish can either be grilled or just pan fried, seasoned as basically as with just salt and pepper or a bit spicier with cumin and paprika. Cook it till it flakes a bit but isn’t dried out. We tend towards tilapia because it’s often on sale, frankly, but salmon works just as well. I find you want something with a consistency you can bite into so it doesn’t get hidden under other toppings.

 

Toppings themselves can be whatever you want. I like a bit of diced cucumber or avocado. Mix them with a bit of garlic and sour cream, or not at all. Some sort of hot sauce, or roasted hot pepper puree. And a quick cabbage slaw of thinly sliced red onion, cabbage, fresh coriander, salt and pepper, and a dash of lime juice and olive oil.

 

The nachos are nothing fancy, but do the job. Make an envelope matching your level of appetite out of some heavy duty tinfoil. Do a base of nachos, sprinkle with store bought salsa (I try and go with the chunkier ones so the chips don’t get all soggy), black olives, and cheese, repeat till your tinfoil pouch is full or you’re out of chips. Seal up the pouch and toast it on a grill for just a few minutes. The bottom layer of chips may crisp a bit. That’s fine, you want to leave it on the heat long enough to melt the cheese. Serve with sour cream or guacamole, if you’ve got it.

 

It was sitting down to these humble fixings that we watched, really at random per Netflix’s suggestion, the documentary “Spinning Plates.” This a 2012 doc by writer-director Joseph Levy. It features three very different restaurants and their various successes and failures. It cuts between the stories, and it’s pretty melodramatic at times, waxing philosophical over the place of food and restaurants in a life and a life’s work. But it’s effective and engaging nonetheless.

More to the point, it features Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea. I’d read a longform article about the chef in the New Yorker back some time back right as he was about to gamble everything on experimental cancer treatment to fight stage IV cancer that was affecting most of his tongue, meaning he could no longer taste, and may very well never be able to again, if he even lived. I didn’t put two and two together until Achatz started describing the cancer and the treatment. I’m not one to watch food television, and most chefs are just names to me.

The guy was ridiculously articulate. A perfectionist in the way only a chef can be, and pompous as only someone who’s actually managed a crazy level of success can get away with (if barely). He’s just a year older than me and may end up joining Zadie Smith in my pantheon of personal nemeses. Say what you want, though, Achatz had thought deeply and passionately about what food was to him, whether it was the same for me or you, remains a question. He strives for something somewhat alienating, in a Modernist sense, that forces you to reconsider your stance and assumptions about what food is and how you approach it.

Following the documentary I sought out and read “Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat.” (A pretty big mouthful for someone who specializes in single-bite courses, granted.)

I won’t go in depth with a big review. The book is co-written with Nick Kokonas, with whom he’s opened Alinea and Next. It charts the evolution of Achatz’s palate and his work ethic, his struggle to open Alinea and then his subsequent bout with cancer. The prologue alone is enough to inspire. The rest is less about the craft of food and more about the business of a restaurant, so it depends what you were expecting. It’s an easy enough read, with a lot of drama built right into the subtitle.

If you’re going to read it on a tablet while eating nachos and tacos, I’d suggest just tracking down D.T. Max’s New Yorker article “A Man of Taste: A chef with cancer fights to save his tongue.” It’s shorter, and there’s less chance of spilling half your food. The profile was first published back in the May 12, 2008, issue, and it’s worth tracking down.