Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick

Detailed notes and recipe links.

• Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Soyrizo, 3 packages, divided. Need to use a larger size next time.
• Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Cuban Black Beans, 2 cans. Need to use a larger size and fill it.
• Small round 2 qt (White), Velveeta (2 lb.) and jar of salsa. If we ever do it again we need to stir it several times during the prep time. Better would be larger crock with nacho cheese sauce.
• Medium oval 4.5 qt (Geoff's), Velveeta (2 lb.) and a can of chili. See above.
• XL Oval 6 qt (silver), Carnitas, 9 lbs. of meat. Need more next time!
• XL Oval 5.5 qt (black), Tex Mex Shredded Beef, 8 lbs.
• XL Oblong 5 qt (white), Chicken, 8 lbs. This was too much meat, and the large amount of garlic powder and cumin actually caused it to cement together. Need to re-tool this recipe for large crockpots.
• Large round 4.5 qt (blue), Ground Beef, 6 lb., using 3 packets of the Trader Joe's taco seasonings and 3 cans of diced tomatos.
• Large round 4.5 qt (old blue), Chicken Mole, 7 lbs. of meat, 3 boxes of Rogelio Bueno brand Mole Poblano sauce. Probably should have used 2 boxes, and no more than 6 lbs. of cut-up chicken breasts. (Got a good price at "Sprouts" on the chicken.)
• Large round 4.5 qt (green), Spicy Pork with Peanut Sauce, 3 lbs. of meat. Should have made a bigger batch, or just have lots of Carnitas on hand.
• Medium round 3.5 qt (brown), BBQ Pork, 3 lbs. Used a bottle of barbecue sauce. It got too hot and melted through the slow cooker liner. I don't plan to repeat this next year.
• Medium round 3.5 qt (orange), Teriyaki Chicken, 6 lbs. This was pushing the capacity of the pot, should have kept it to 5 lbs. Used the Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce/Marinade. Might use a different sauce if I repeat this one.
• Shredded lettuce/salad -- got two bags at Sprouts of mostly-lettuce.
• Also got a bag of shredded carrots.
• Sour cream, 2 pints. Could have used another.
• Green onions (Scallions), chopped.
• Onion, chopped.
• Tortilla shells, corn, 12.
• Tortillas, 6-inch flour "fajita size," 192. I was using a rough guide of 4 tacos per lb. of meat. Next time I want to try a ratio of 6 to 1.
• Tortilla chips, big bag from Costco. When we ran out of tortillas, these were handy. We had three serving dishes, so generally only one ended up empty at a time.
• Cheese, shredded, 3 lbs. Used one serving dish, should have had two.
• Rice, one batch from a 2-lb. bag. Should have bought more rice, should have had two rice cookers going.
• Salsa, jar from Trader Joe's. Perhaps have more than one bottle.
• Tapatio hot sauce. Actually went through half a bottle!
• Guacamole. About 4 or 5 packages of prepared guacamole. We served it in a dish, but perhaps we should have just served it directly from the package it came in. And we needed more.
• Freeze-Dried Jalapeños. I saw a jar of these at Sprouts, and was surprised how popular they were.
• Moon Pies, box of assorted mini. Could easily have gone through two boxes.
• Limes, 4, cut in wedges. Probably could have gone through twice as many.
• Oranges, cut in wedges. Not popular.

Things we forgot to serve: chopped tomato, cilantro.

Should have had signs outside the room explaining what they would find inside the room. You can come back in line for seconds. Due to limited space, we ask you to move outside with your tacos and coffee. Yes it's all free, sponsored by Animé Los Angeles and Costume Camp; tips are gratefully accepted. If we've run out of something let us know, we have more taco fillings to bring out later. We'll be closed from time to time for cleaning and re-stocking, please bear with us...

Photos online. And most of them have captions. Help me fill in the gaps!
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 354: Coral Cafe (18-Jun-2009) et seq.
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 356: Coral Cafe (25-Jun-2009) et seq.
Irvine Cosplay Picnic at Mason Park (20-Jun-2009)
Anaheim Gardenwalk and the Anaheim Marriott (21-Jun-2009)
Napmobile and a fenderbender (21-Jun-2009)
Anime Los Angeles 6 meetings part 2: Exec Dinner/Meeting (26-Jun-2009) et seq.
Anime Los Angeles 6 meetings part 6: General Meeting (27-Jun-2009) et seq.
Moving Melissa (28-Jun-2009)
Victoria's Picture Gallery: Anime Expo 2009: Saturday (04-Jul-2009)
Melissa and the Fan Gallery cases (11-Jul-2009)
Anaheim Marriott Tour (16-Jul-2009)
La Verne Cosplay Picnic at Las Flores Park (18-Jul-2009)
The picture of neo_serenity is from the exec dinner.

( Losing my camera at Anime Expo really rocked me back... )

Oh, there's more going on than just my emotional state, of course. I've taken more photos since Anime Expo, but the photos in the queue have been on hold because of other non-photo, non-blog reasons. Family health issues and household management issues, and if I can be discarding and shredding old papers any of that comes before puttering around on my website.

I've just spent a few nights (in my copious free time) captioning some of the backlog. I think I've got to stop taking so many group photos -- they slow me down so much in the captioning phase!

I've been putting a few inconsequential updates on my facebook. Nothing major, but I wanted to repeat here the bigger items that I've mentioned there.

( The Potluck Party Room at Costume College was a big success, so we'll do it again at PMX... )

Between now and PMX: I'll be at Tiki Oasis this weekend (just for fun), Anime Vegas (in a convention center), and a small anime convention at CSU Northridge. So PMX is the next opportunity to do any kind of hospitality beyond giving away granola bars and candy at our table.

For loscon, I'm hosting a Confirmation: Westercon 63 party. "Poofy dresses (especially white ones), shirt and tie, or school uniform" will be the dress code. We're toying with the idea of using a "Confirmitzvah" theme, stay tuned for that.

( Some small convention news... )

I mentioned last month that I've purchased a new camera. I haven't found the "sports" setting yet, but I've started playing with the High ISO option for available light shots. You can see I've started posting the first crop of photos from the new camera.