The In-N-Out Animal Style. Photo: kaba, Flickr.

It is the stuff of fast-food chain legend: a secret menu known only to those insiders brave enough to order outside the listed menu. Tales of "animal-style fries" and Starbucks' secret "short" size abound, but which of these are real and which will merely earn you a quizzical stare from the cashier?

Ditch the risk of disappointment and become a fast-food insider with Slashfood's list of some top-secret menu items at well-known restaurants near you.

I'm a big fan of the new law requiring some NY restaurants to post calorie counts. However, posting calorie counts is only helpful if they are clear and accurate.

Midtown Lunch points out that Chipotle's implementation of the law is neither.

Chipotle uses calorie ranges so the consumer is left to guess what add-ons make the meal more or less caloric. Midtown Lunch does some math using calorie counts buried in Chipotle's website and determines that, "If you want a burrito on the low range of the calorie scale (420), you will be ordering a flour tortilla, filled with vegetarian black beans. No salsa. No sour cream. No rice. No cheese." That's one boring burrito. Midtown Lunch questions whether you could even call it a burrito.

What do you think? Are these calorie counts better than nothing or are they too confusing to be useful?

Yesterday I read that McDonald's is exiting the so-called home-meal replacement market with its sale of Boston Market to Sun Capital. Heck, I didn't even know they owned it.

To my credit I do know that Boston Market started in Colorado, just like Chipotle, which McDonald's sold its interest in a while back. At one time Mickey D's had its greasy fingers in a lot of pies, including Donatos Pizza and the Aroma coffee chain. It still owns one-third of Pret a Manger, but that, too, may soon go on the block since Pret itself is shopping around for a buyer.

Specifics of the deal, which should close in a few weeks, have not been divulged. A McDonald's spokesman had this to say: "This is consistent with our successful strategy to focus on brand, a strategy that continues to deliver results." Well, duh. I can't even begin to understand why McDonald's bought into a chain that presents itself as an alternative to an old-fashioned turkey dinner.

This is the weekend, y'all.

If you're like me and, I am suspecting, tons of other people out there who have procrastinated for the last few weeks, you're on a mission-critical path to get your taxes done before the April 17 deadline. No time to waste, and no time to...cook!

Thankfully, you can run over to Mexican fast food chain Chipotle, grab a burrito on April 14th or 15th to get you through your 1040, and on April 16, take your receipt for that burrito back to Chipotle for a free burrito!

A free burrito is going to sound good, too, if you owe the IRS like me!

Joe, from Culinary in the Country, included these Honey-Chipotle Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches in a post about summer dishes. I'm not going to argue that barbecue is summer fare and that these would be perfect for, a cookout, but barbecue is also perfect for sporting events - which makes this sandwiches a great option for Super Bowl Sunday. The sandwiches are very easy to make. They start with chicken breasts that are boiled/steamed with a bit of garlic and cumin until tender, although you could very easily go with grilled chicken or a pre-cooked roast chicken - all you really need is a good amount of meat. The meat is then tossed with a simple, smoky chipotle sauce (that sounds like it would be good on pork or ribs, in addition to chicken) and piled onto toasted hamburger buns with a bit of smoked mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese.

I adore chipotle peppers. They may be trendy, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they are very tasty. Chipotle peppers are smoked jalapenos and are usually packed in cans in an adobo sauce. The original process was developed to preserve the peppers, but the smoky flavor and lingering heat of the chipotle long ago caused it to become popular in its own right. That heat makes a nice background to the cool, creamy avocado in this guacamole.

You can choose to make it either creamy or chunky, depending on what you want to serve it with. Chunky guacamoles tend to work best with chips and crackers, as both provide ample surface area for scooping. Creamier dips are a better choice for veggies and pretzels, or other snacks that don't make for a good scoop. For a chunky dip, simply mince everything and stir it together to blend. For an ultra-creamy dip, use the food processor to combine everything.

The other day I decided to crack open this can of tuna, which has been in my cupboard for a couple of months. I love spicy food, so I figured I'd give California Delight Chipotle Tuna a try. I think the reason I held off on eating it for so long is the confusing packaging. California Delight is kosher and is made in Thailand. In case you're wondering it's imported by a Los Angeles company.

About the only resemblance it bears to Thai food is its incendiary heat and psychedelic red color. Even though it's called chipotle tuna, it contains none of the smoked peppers. The finely chopped light meat tuna is however hot as hell thanks to the two whole chiles and tons of seeds. At first I tried to eat it straight out of the can, which was not the best idea. But even when it was mixed with microwave rice it still emitted a steady heat and left me with a pleasant flush.

Chipotle chiles are not a unique chile, but are actually dried, smoked jalapeno chiles. They are dark brown and wrinkly, in sharp contrast to the glossy look of fresh chiles, but have a wonderfully rich flavor. Most of the heat of the jalapeno is retained when the chile is dried, so chipotles are fairly spicy, falling in the middle ranges of the heat scale. They have smoky overtones, but the real flavor of the chiles is complex and earthy. Instead of causing a sharp and immediate heat, the heat grows gradually as you eat it and takes time to fade away.

In truth, most kinds of chilies can be smoke-dried and sometimes they are all called "chipotle" no matter what they started out as, but the vast majority of the chipotle chiles on the market were originally jalapenos.

We already know that Chipotle, the fast food Mexican chain that was in the same fresh and fast league as Baja Fresh and La Salsa, went public a few months ago. Don't know what happened since then, but McDonald's one of Chipotle's largest investors with a 69% stake, has announced its plans to sell five million more shares of its stock and be completely Chipotle-free by the end of the year.

 

McDonald's plans to use the funds to buy backs its own stock.

My hopes for a Grilled ChickenMcNugget quesadilla have been dashed.

I can't say for certain how long this has been in my pantry - surely less than a few other slightly dusty bottles - but I will admit that I have no idea when I bought it. I am incredibly glad that I found it, though. Muir Glen's organic Chipotle Salsa is full of tomatoes, onions, spices and peppers. The chipotle flavor comes from powdered chipotle peppers, which concentrate the flavor without resulting in an unpleasantly large chunk of hot pepper on your tortilla chip. The salsa is just spicy enough, with the lingering heat of chipotle that makes you reach for a large second helping.

Jarred salsas are shelf-stable before being opened and  are a great thing to have on hand when a nacho craving strikes. The salsa can also be used to top anything from chicken to grilled steak and, when combined with a little sour cream or guacamole, can be tossed into some salad greens for a fantastic Mexican-flavored lunch.

Just when I thought there wasn't enough room for yet another Mexican fast food place, Chipotle opened up in my neighborhood right alongside Taco Bell (which is nasty, but the original), Del Taco, El Pollo Loco, Baja Fresh, La Salsa, Rubio's, and Wahoo's.

But Chipotle didn't just blend in with the lot of them. They had a twist. Chipotle went beyond Baja Fresh's menu of no microwave ovens nor can openers, and served a very simple menu, with ingredients in front of you, sort of like a hybrid of In n Out's minimalistic menu and Subway sandwich artistry before your eyes. I went a Chipotle kick for about six months, but got bored a little with a rather narrow menu.

Now, the business, which launched in 1993, has just gone public, and the founder, Steve Ells, has found himself worth $44 million (share prices doubled on IPO day). Ells originally thought the fast-food burrito place would be the "cash cow" to fund his dream of opening a high-end restaurant after studying at the CIA and cooking at Stars in San Francisco. Ha. He could probably buy a restaurant or a half-dozen now.

Who knew a little dried pepper could be worth $44 million?

Food trends aren't sudden and flashy like the styles clothing or iPods; they tend to ebb and flow; few foods gain universal acceptance, few ever die out entirely. The trends of one year will overlap with those from the year before. You'll see many of these on the lists of 2004 and 2006, and probably a few on 1952, 2035. There were some undeniably 2005 phenomena, like cold sake and sous vide. Others are just a bit more hip this year than last.

The food fashions of 2005 run the gamut from the saucy to the silly to the sublime. Our ratings? They're completely subjective. Let us know what you think.