A Mexican Feast With Artisanal Technique

[lsanderson]

Tacos de Carnitas
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: March 24, 2009

I WAS not going down over a tortilla. And I was certainly not going to fail in front of Julia Moskin.

She sits two desks away from me. We are comrades, battling side by side on the front lines of food journalism. We plot stories and share lunch.

And now, in a cruel twist of fate, we were pitted against each other.

The assignment was straightforward: Create a dinner party for six for $50. There were only a few rules in our culinary Thunderdome. Pantry basics like spices, butter and olive oil didn’t count toward the total price. Guests would bring any wine or liquor. More