Salsa...

Let's talk about salsa, and I don't mean the music. Salsa is the sauce that makes our dishes at Big Star sing. A little smokiness, a little acid, a little heat, salsas are certainly a multi-purpose condiment.

At Big Star we like to keep things fairly simple. All of our salsas use roasted tomatillos as their base. The base is then customized with different blends of dried chiles, in the case of our salsa chipotle, or fresh chiles, in the case of our salsa verde. Each salsa is finished with a good deal of lime juice to brighten.

Use them to make your taco experience a little more personal.

Welcome patio season!

My apologies for the lack of recent blogs. Spring is upon us, and I will take this rainy spring day to reflect upon last week. You see, last week we opened the Big Star patio. After a couple of days in the pain cave, and everyone asking, "How are you going to pull this off?", I've got a little time to share with you.

We all knew it was going to be tough, but I don't think anyone knew exactly what we were in for. Paul labeled the weekend "Death by Honkytonk", an appropriate title. After I cut 100 quarts of limes for garnish of all sorts, it really sunk in. If I thought we were busy, I hadn't seen anything yet.

Tuesday night we stuffed the cooler full of prep, but by Wednesday night, our stores were completely decimated. It really took the wind out of my sails, but we had to press on. The forecast for Thursday and Friday said sunshine and warm temps, we were in for an uphill battle.

We had to make it happen, and make it happen we did. I want to use this post to give a huge shout out to my kitchen staff. They performed admirably when the odds were firmly stacked against us. Everyone pitched in, nobody complained, and we came out on top. Thanks guys! I'll also give a little thanks to the rain, ahhhhh rain. I think there is some sunshine in the forecast though.