you know what? food from south/central america and food from the indian subcontinent share (at least) three very important ingredients for me: limes, cilantro, and chile peppers. i invited people over on sunday for dinner, and rather than bother with cooking very many things i decided to make it a taco night. all i cooked was the meat; i chopped up the onions, limes, cilantro, tomatoes, lettuce, and green onions and put them in their own bowls. i also put out sour cream, cheese, taco sauce, and hot sauce. one of my friends came over and made her signature dip (sour cream, cream cheese, and other stuff i can't remember). there were hard taco shells and soft tortilla shells. oh and i put out a big bowl of refried beans (did you know that you have to buy vegetarian refried beans??? otherwise they have lard in them!). a couple people brought chips and salsa and guacamole.
when it was all over, i had a little bit of each item left over, so i made a 50 layer (slight exaggeration) "dip." and we've been snacking on it ever since. it's amazing; it reminds me of what i do with thanksgiving dinner leftovers; you can literally just layer all the ingredients, put it in bread/eat it with thick chips, and it's delicious. so i do that, shake on some hot sauce, and squeeze on a bunch of lime juice (had a lot of limes leftover) and voila- instant at-home baja fresh.
just to reiterate- i love limes, and i love cilantro.