Professor Thom’s Nachos, the Mount Doom of Deliciousness
With the Cubs and Donald Trump, both winning in unimaginable fashion, I felt it was time for me to tackle my longtime losing streak and impossible victory…the nachos platter at Professor Thom’s. As a fifteen year Major League Eater, I have had one achilles heel - I’ve never finished an order of the piled high chips, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, melted cheese like lava and jalapeños as large as Sacagaweas. It has been an embarrassment to my stomach and pride.
My nachos focus on the culinary aspect as opposed to the competitive eating one was revealed in the the new Dovetail Press book “!Buenos Nachos!” where myself, and various celebrities, chefs, and semi-geniuses contributed their personal nacho recipes (Bill Hader, ever the raconteur contributed a queso recipe.) This is a museum quality coffee table book of nachos, where the everything looks like art. Edward Lee’s Gochujang chili cheese chips channel the American abstract expressionist movement while Naomi Pomeroy’s Ultimate Asian Nachos prism like Victor Moscoso 1970s rock-and-roll posters. By far the ugliest, are my recipe for Swamp Thing inspired nachos with natto, cynar, Natty Boh beer, and artichoke hearts. My fever dream nachos are meant to highlight the intersection of madness and making food mountains; Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy Neary in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is clearly an early adopter.
To finish an order of the Professor Thom’s by myself, I had to put away the high falutin’ culinary creations in “!Buenos Nachos!” and focus on a journey to destroy the ragged chip, rocky mountain at the bar. The nacho mountain looked like Mount Doom, deep inside Mordor, so I channeled Hobbit Pippen Took’s appetite (Hobbits eat seven large meals a day) and dug in. Bite after bite, was delicious and filling, but my focus was to pair wetter dipping agents like salsa and quacamole with the dryer outside chips. I was concerned with flavor fatigue. Around me sat glorious sudsy beer, but I knew that carbonation would cause a powder keg effect in my belly, alerting the dark forces of urges contrary to swallowing and up-chucking my quest. Sauron, Saruman, and sour cream be dammed, I was close to the end when my spirit faltered. I asked the Prof Thom’s bartender to change the music to Elvish chants, but none was on Spotify, so we settled on Rihanna. I pushed on, folding the chips inside themselves, seeing only nachos fractals, but putting each piece into my mouth knowing that the fate of Middle Earth and whatever Earth we are on was is doubt (actually, The Celtics tip off was approaching and I wanted to catch the game.) At last, hours in, on my plate was one single perfectly ringed jalapeño - one jalapeño ring to rule them all. I cleared my throat, making an odd Gollum like sound, and popped the mighty ring in. Evil was averted and a mountain of Nachos had fallen and I was, as improbably as it seemed, victorious - a better man, a finer Major League Eater, and someone in need of a napkin. I was poured a beer and then left to my own. Around me, no one noticed the expansive empty tray, the mountain conquered. I learned then that Nachos are meant as a fellowship of consumption - to be eaten with a group and with a lot beer. Nachos, even those as large as the entire Shire, are meant to be eaten in fun with friends. The sour cream dripping from my dreadlocks made me appear like Radegast the Brown, but no wizard was needed to realize, the magic in Nachos is in the communal aspect of the pointy chips and toppings. I belched and then paraphrasing Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the dessert that is given to us.”
Crazy Legs Conti in Middle Earth can be found at the Prancing Pony. In this Earth, he’s probably at Professor Thom’s. On Internet Earth, he is at www.crazylegsconti.com