This year Cinco de  Mayo falls on a Saturday. Now I wont be going to Mexico to celebrate nor will I be hitting up a Mexican restaurant in Sofia now that <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2010/12/05/sofias-taqueria/" target="_blank">Taqueria has closed</a> but I will be participating in Sofia's Third Annual Nacho Competition. That's right the third annual competition.

Last year we had <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/05/01/nacho-party/" target="_blank">a grand-old time</a>. I expect this year will be no different. The only thing that I hope will be different is that instead of earning an honorable mention for my nachos, I'd like to win first place.

That's why I am stepping my nachos up to a whole new level.

First thing first, I roped in two nacho consultants. My old roommates, dear friends, food lovers and serious meat eaters N. and S. <!--more-->

These guys love meat and cooking so much that one year when I asked to have a birthday turkey-fry in the middle of May they jumped right on board and we invited all of our friends to the fry party. The invitations encouraged everyone to bring something t fry dishes included: french fries, onion rings, pickles, green beans, oreos and twinkies to name a few. We fried food, drank beer and had a fantastic time.

I figured that if these two couldn't help me come up with a winning nacho no one could. Luckily even State-side these two jumped at the opportunity to help me.

Next I told them that this was my year. I was abandoning clever and creative to focus my energies on making a serious nacho. They asked me what I thought made the previous winners stand out. I told them: flavor.

A flurry of emails later I was convinced that we were on to something great. While I wouldn't be making my own chips because I can't get my hands on any corn tortillas here in Bulgaria, I can do a lot of other things. So I am going to make my own meat rub.  I'll slow cook meat for 4 or so hours. I plan on putting together a creamy cheese sauce. And I'll dice up everything I need for homemade salsa.

So today when I got back to Sofia after spending the long weekend Skopje and Ohrid, I went to Billa. I had nachos on my mind.

For the record, I also had to pick up some groceries and toilet paper. I figured that I'd buy chips and avocados now. The chips because it seems that Hit is no longer carrying plain tortilla chips and I figured that I need to stock up and the avocados because I wanted to make sure that they were ripe enough for my nachos on Saturday. Much to my dismay there were no avocados.

I also figured that I could check out the meat. I need some pork ribs to slow cook. I basically never buy meat in Bulgaria because I don't cook meat at home.  This is mostly because in my life before Bulgaria, I was a vegetarian for almost four years. Now I eat meat out in restaurants or in other people's homes.

This said, I haven't spent a lot of time peering into the cooler cases at Billa. There's a lot of meat there. By in large I can tell pork from chicken but I know nothing about cuts of meat. At Billa, I was surprised to find that the pork ribs didn't jump out at me. I figured that I'd know them when I saw them.

Only I didn't see them. Or I didn't see what I expected to see--this happens sometimes in foreign countries. I found what I thought might be pork ribs but then I figured why buy what you think <em>might</em> be right if you can come back the next day and buy the right thing?!

So I came home and looked up ribs on google translate: ребра (rebra). I emailed N. to ask him to send me a <a href="http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/pork_cuts.html" target="_blank">picture of uncooked pork ribs</a> (see the orange box along the side). I never imagined that I'd have to ask a friend for this. Luckily, he's crazy about food and responded right away. To confirm, I tweeted the question and the link out to my loyal readers. The answer came back: ребра. Hum. Maybe I should have looked this up before I went to the store. <em>Oh well</em>. Now I know.

Today begins my five day quest for a winning nacho dish. Wish me luck!