[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Properly prepared corn tortillas are great. Properly prepared flour tortillas are great. The key: do it right.

With corn, the masa has to be mixed fresh just before the tortillas are formed, and the griddle has to be at the right temperature to cook the corn just enough. Too much, and they’re too crunchy, too little and they’re doughy.

This. Properly prepared corn tortillas are fantastic. It’s always disappointing when I order corn tortillas and get a small stack of pale yellow discs that have never been near a griddle. They were steamed, most likely in a microwave. Those are truly crappy.

[ghporter]

You can warm flour tortillas in a microwave in an actually tortilla warmer. If they just got cold a few minutes ago, just pop ‘em in, but if they’ve been sitting for a while, add a “not quite dripping” wet half-sheet of paper towel. The lid is mandatory, because it allows the warmer to steam the tortillas.

Corn tortillas “can be” warmed, but it’s less effective. And they MUST be properly cooked in the first place, or you’re just inconveniencing a bunch of electrons for no reason.

[subego]

What’s superior to either corn or flour tortillas is a thick, chewy pita that’s had both sides fried a crispy golden brown.

There might be outlier tortillas that beat this, but a fried pita is generally easier to find, and the deviation in quality is much narrower.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by reader50 

It's not every day, but now and then, I need some Doritos.

Corn chips are great. But every time I've tried a corn tortilla as an instrument for holding taco contents, it has lacked the flexibility and ductility to properly contain my taco without spilling everywhere. Flour tortillas do a much a better job of holding my shit together.

Pancheros is the extreme end of that, they make their tortillas out of 5% spandex. I'm personally a fan, but I know not everyone is.

Originally Posted by subego 

Tostitos ‘hint of lime’ > Doritos

^^ They're my go-to for pairing with guac. Interestingly, one of the ingredients of the chips is sour cream, so they're not safe for my GF/DF friend like normal corn tortilla chips would be.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Corn chips are great. But every time I've tried a corn tortilla as an instrument for holding taco contents, it has lacked the flexibility and ductility to properly contain my taco without spilling everywhere. Flour tortillas do a much a better job of holding my shit together.

Lack of flexibility points to a corn tortilla straight out of the bag, with maybe 10 seconds of microwaving. That’s a horror. A nicely griddled corn tortilla is as flexible as any flour tortilla, and will easily scoop-up or carry whatever you put in it.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

But every time I've tried a corn tortilla as an instrument for holding taco contents, it has lacked the flexibility and ductility to properly contain my taco without spilling everywhere.

Flour tortillas certainly have more structural integrity, but I consider falling apart a bit to be part of the process. Corn tortilla taco is still easier to eat without spilling than a lamb samosa.

[subego]

With tacos, it’s also common for places around here to both double-up on corn tortillas, and go for smaller diameters then average.

Now I want tacos, but that’s a different irritant. Delivery is hell on tacos.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by subego 

Now I want tacos, but that’s a different irritant. Delivery is hell on tacos.

Instead of calling a restaurant for delivery, call a taco truck service. I'm sure they would send a truck to your address for the right fee. Super-fresh tacos at your door, piping hot.

Probably impressively expensive though. Might impact your coffee budget.

[Laminar]

I saw E15 for $2.80 on Sunday then all of a sudden yesterday it had bumped to $3.24.

[subego]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Instead of calling a restaurant for delivery, call a taco truck service. I'm sure they would send a truck to your address for the right fee. Super-fresh tacos at your door, piping hot.

Probably impressively expensive though. Might impact your coffee budget.

Went with a cheeseburger, so the coffee budget is still flush.

[ghporter]

My fave grocery/gas station has regular for $2.84⁹. Good thing, as we're kinda busy on the road for the rest of the week, and we're going (not too far) out of town this weekend.

[subego]

City is back up to $4.99⁹.

[Laminar]

Yeah we're back up to 3.49 here. Did Biden stop drawing from the strategic reserves or something?

[reader50]

Small bump here as well. Maybe it's the switch to winter gas formulation. Because demand should be falling.

[subego]

It’s already dropped 20¢ in places in the city, but then the burbs were the exact same price. Didn’t bother filling up.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Small bump here as well. Maybe it's the switch to winter gas formulation. Because demand should be falling.

Or, y’know, because they can.

[Laminar]

Filled up for $2.49⁹ E85 yesterday. The stations that are usually cheapest for regular gas for some reason had E85 at $2.75, but the expensive regular gas station (that actually advertises E85 pricing on its sign) had it cheaper.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Maybe it's the switch to winter gas formulation.

Oops, I got that backwards. Summer gas formulation is the more expensive one. The switch to winter formulation should drop the price a few pennies.

[Laminar]

Gas prices over the last 5 years.


US Strategic oil reserve level.


Apologies for the bad scaling on the chart, having the y axis not start at 0 is misleading.

[reader50]

Lam, is that gas price chart retail or wholesale? It says we've returned to the gas price about when the invasion started. But I recall the prices right before invasion, and my local price today is still about $1 higher.

Maybe averaging could explain it, with CA prices lagging. But that would require other areas of the US to have gas prices below their Feb 24 level. Recent posts in this thread do not support that.

[ghporter]

Well around here, the basic price for regular gas went from the mid $2.80s to over $3.00 at about the same time Ukraine pointed toward the Crimea and said "that's some important territory", then drove straight toward the Russian border. I don't think that was a coincidence.

Today regular is slowly drifting back under $3.00 in my area. My grocery gas station has it for $2.93⁹ today.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Lam, is that gas price chart retail or wholesale?

Sorry, I should have linked the source. Retail.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price

[Laminar]

Filled up with another tank of E85 for $2.49⁹. It was one of the slowest gas pumps I've ever used - we had time to go inside, browse all of the snackies, pick one out, pay for it in cash, get back to the car, sit there a while, really have to pee, prep the Fuelly app with all of the other fillup details, and be bored for a while before it finally topped off the 33 gallons.

[subego]

33 gallons? JFC. What’s your mileage?

[Laminar]

Not great.



This is all on E85, so it's 20-30% lower than regular gas.

I have a car I'm working on that I plan to daily, but haven't had the time to work on it that I'd hoped to, so I'm stuck with the truck.

We're continuing to draw on the strategic oil reserve to help gas prices, down to 416M bbl now.

[Brien]

Premium nearing $7. Grocery stores around here all seem to be critically undersraffed and out of half their inventories. Good times.

[reader50]

Yep, I clocked the Stickup at $6.59⁹ for regular today. Their premium was also close to $7. Grocery store had normal stocks though.

California has a local problem with gasoline refineries. We're getting choked by an artificial production bottleneck, which should clear up when more refineries come back online. Politicians are poking at the situation, to see if it was orchestrated, bad luck, or stupidity. No definitive answer so far.

[andi*pandi]

New England holding steady under $3.50 for 87. Spotted 3.29.

[Thorzdad]

Regular over $4 here in Indy right now. The missus had to take my car to run errands Sunday (her car had suffered a vegetable soup mishap and needed extensive cleaning) While she was out, she tanked-up my car, which takes premium. I didn’t ask the damage, but it couldn’t have been pretty.

[subego]

Filled up on Tuesday for $4.08⁹ at a Speedway in not my normal suburb.

[Laminar]

$2.97⁹ spotted today.

[subego]

Real or high fructose?

[Laminar]

E15, so...medium fructose. All of the new stations around here have it and the old ones are starting to get outfitted for it. Any modern car can run up to E15 and with all of the corn subsidies in Iowa it ends up a good bit cheaper.

[subego]

Was $4.15⁹ at my normal suburban Speedway. Didn’t take my normal route and foolishly passed-up $3.99⁹ at a Thorntons.

City was $4.69⁹, plus or minus a dime.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

$2.97⁹ spotted today.

NVM jumped back up to 3.37⁹ yesterday.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Gas prices over the last 5 years.


US Strategic oil reserve level.


Apologies for the bad scaling on the chart, having the y axis not start at 0 is misleading.

Oil reserve down to 405mil.

[Thorzdad]

Seeing $3.88 here the past couple of days.

[ghporter]

Here it’s been bouncing around quite a bit. Last Wednesday the prevailing price for regular was around $2.98. Yesterday just about every pump in the area jumped to over $3.15. It’s like the prices are tied to whether somebody’s hemorrhoids are acting up.

[Brien]

Back to nearly $6 for premium. WTF.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by Brien 

Back to nearly $6 for premium. WTF.

The price of new yachts keep going up.

[ghporter]

Day before yesterday I filled up at my favorite grocery chain gas station, but not the closest one. This one is far enough out that it typically has a higher price for regular, at least by a few cents. But Sunday, they were selling regular for $3.02⁹ when everybody else was selling for $3.15⁹.

Yesterday, the higher priced places had lowered prices by 4-5¢ per gallon, and the place I filled up at still had the same price. Not sure how this will play out, but I’m taking advantage of it.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Oil reserve down to 405mil.

Prices for E15 have dipped to $2.93 and have held for three days now. Oil reserve down to 390mil. That's a 35% drop in level from the same time last year. I'm kind of surprised they didn't stop pulling after the midterms ended.

[subego]

I’ll find out prices here tomorrow. Thankfully I have enough to get out of the city. I’m assuming there’ll be a turkey tax.

[ghporter]

I filled up yesterday for $2.67⁹ at a Valero (local oil company) station. That’s 8¢ per gallon less than at my usual H-E-B gas station at $2.75⁹. There’s been a steady decline in local* prices over the past couple of weeks, too.

*Local being the SeaWorld area of Northwest San Antonio.

[subego]

City is $4.39⁹ at a Thorntons by the interstate. My not normal suburban Speedway was $3.57⁹. Not too bad I guess.

[Laminar]

I just saw $2.52 for E15 this morning.

edit: false alarm, it was an 8 not a 5.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Prices for E15 have dipped to $2.93 and have held for three days now. Oil reserve down to 390mil. That's a 35% drop in level from the same time last year. I'm kind of surprised they didn't stop pulling after the midterms ended.

E15 is down to $2.71, E85 is $1.95.

Oil reserve is 389mil, they've definitely slowed the draw from it. Wondering if there will be another price spike before Christmas.

[Spheric Harlot]

Since Diesel and petrol prices have dropped considerably here in Europe, as well — is it safe to say that Biden doesn't have jack shit to do with gasoline prices?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

E15 is down to $2.71, E85 is $1.95.

Just filled up with E85 for $1.82, E15 is at $2.58.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Since Diesel and petrol prices have dropped considerably here in Europe, as well — is it safe to say that Biden doesn't have jack shit to do with gasoline prices?

Biden tried to shut down new drilling permits but that got blocked.

The other narrative is that shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline construction did it but that didn't do it either.

[subego]

Usual suburban Speedway was $3.54⁹. Mobil in the city next to the Costco was $4.19⁹.