street corn

y first experience with corn made in the Mexican Street Corn style was last summer when our local bar/restaurant extraordinaire, Hilltop Kitchen, offered Street Corn on their debut menu.  I've always been a fan of corn on the cob, but I was blown away by how much flavor it had and planned on trying to make something similar at home, but then forgot until I was at the farmer's market last week and one of the produce stands had a huge pile of corn that was calling my name.  I had some Cotija, lime, and cilantro leftover at home, so the moment I saw the ears of corn I knew that it was time to get my street corn on.  Not gonna lie, I basically inhaled this corn.  Oh, you thought one of those two cobs was for Dan?  Nope.  I ate both of them before Dan got home.  I justified it by reminding myself that Dan doesn't really like corn on the cob anyway.  So you know, it's cool.  I was performing a corn-removal service.
Despite the sweltering heat (which I swear is releasing my neighbors' inner crazy, we've had cops called on our block like 4 out of 6 days this week), I'm feeling inspired.  It's been a while since I had the idea mill rolling.  For a long time the idea factory in my mind felt like the workers were on strike and there were tumbleweeds blowing through the uninhabited assembly lines.  I think I was approaching it as if it owed me ideas.  Like, why isn't it doing it's job?  But like any factory, it needed work put in to get ideas out.  By sitting around and feeling uninspired I was only perpetuating more lack of inspiration.  Once I started deciding to just do things for the heck of it, just do them, do anything, I felt like someone flipped a switch and the factory lights started coming on and the machines started firing up.  Anyway, all that analogy was to say that I'm not hoping the feeling sticks around, because hoping is feeding into the idea that it's a force I can't control, when really I'm the one in charge of my own actions and feelings.  So, if you're feeling uninspired, throw off the shackles of hoping for inspiration and just do something.  Even if it doesn't turn out, it'll start to spark new ideas and get the engine going again.  
But first, corn.  Or, corn later.  In whatever order.  But corn.


Ingredients: 1 ear of corn, cooked (boiled, barbecued, etc) 1 tbsp butter 1/4 tsp smoked salt 1/4 jalapeno, minced 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped 2 tbsp onion, chopped 1/8 tsp paprika 1/8-1/4 c Cotija cheese, crumbled 1 wedge lime
Just spread the butter on the hot corn and then sprinkle all the other ingredients on top!  Ingredients above are for one ear of corn, so depending on how many people and how much corn you are going to be making, just multiply!  And I'd have extra toppings on hand, just in case people want to load up again halfway through.  I think it'd be fun as a barbecue buffet where people get to top their corn with all the different ingredients laid out.