So, two Sundays ago, I applied my fried chicken learning and my new electric skillet to the task of making another batch of Alton Brown's fried chicken. I am honing in on the technique and tools.

I have recently completed a Mission Burrito Mission to the Golden Valley Panchero's. And since they are so painfully, obviously molding themselves in the Chipotle vein, it's only fair that I talk abouit them relative to Chipotle.

The menu is, for all practical intents and purposes, identical. Even more so than Qdoba's. Oh, you can get quesadillas there if you want, but otherwise, the meats, accoutrements, etc. are identical. Well, OK, when I was there, there was a special "Shrimp Scampi Taco", but that sounds like an awful fucking idea on every level, so let's ignore it.

Cheap food can be cheap for a bunch of different reasons. Well, OK, it's generally cheap for one reason - it's not very desirable. That reason can be for a bunch of different secondary reasons. It might not be very good. It might be difficult to work with. Or it might just be a secret - nobody knows how good it is.

So, sometimes I have ideas. This was an idea for a coleslaw dressing that combined three of my favorite things: charred stuff, tomatillos, and Mexican crema.

For a few years now, my brother has hinted/suggested/ordered that one of these years, I should make him Alton Brown's fried chicken for his birthday. I had demurred, because of completely incorrect memories of how complicated it was.

But this year I'm going to do it. And it's not bad at all, really. An overnight soak in buttermilk, a shake of seasoning, a dusting of flour, twelve minutes in a pound of shortening, flip, twelve more minutes. I did a practice run last night to work some of the kinks out, as I generally have trouble with frying, and learned some important things.

It's fucking astonishing. America decides, for one of the first times ever, that a close examination of what a fast-food chain is serving is warranted. And they decided to throw a shit-fit about Subway's "Footlong" sandwiches being eleven inches long sometimes.

A half-second of thought from anyone who's ever been to Subway twice and this thing would have disappeared like a fart in an empty football stadium. This, of course, did not happen.

So. You've stuck a seven inch Android tablet to your cupboard. What are you gonna do with it?

Well, the obvious thing is recipes and research off the Internet. Chrome is fine for that.

At last, it can be revealed. The Secret Kitchen Project is, in fact, Techno-Kitchen 3000, AKA a cabinet-mounted tablet.

Thought I'd forgotten about my I Could Eat This All Fucking Day feature? I have not. And the aloo tikka chaat at World Street Kitchen? I could eat that all fucking day for a fucking week.

Oh, this won't be good for my overall middle-aged health.

I've generally sworn off the snacks-at-the-work-desk thing in the past year or so to try and keep my heart from exploding, but I'm still sort of in the business of something that is mentally similar to coding, and there are certain times when that mental state demands the holy triumvirate of oil, salt, and caffeine.