D. Walker - The Snacking Dead

3 Grill the buns on their cut sides until golden, about 1 minute. Serve burgers in the toasted buns topped with the chipotle mayo and lettuce, tomatoes, and/or pickled jalapeños as you like.

If you just call it a burger, no one has to know what you put in it.

I t looked like a damn county fair had crossed this field.The grass was trampled, the mud was churned. The tracks were cluttered and confused. He knew there weren’t enough survivors left around here to make a mess like this.

He could handle a lot of walkers, but the sheer size of this herd made him hesitate. Must have been anywhere from sixty to a hundred. And they were headed the same direction he was.

He slowed up and decided to look for a place to stop for the night. He risked a fire before the sun set. He took the flour he’d saved and made tortillas. A few dozen dead douchbags sure as hell weren’t going to keep him from dinner.

There was no way he could tackle this without help. He still had a woodchuck tucked in his belt. He silently thanked Mrs. Floral Print for the flour and Tabasco.

It was gonna take a lot of hot sauce to face that many biters.

makes 4 burritos

GROUND BEEF

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound ground beef

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon ground cayenne

Coarse kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup beef stock or water

SMASHED BLACK BEANS

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 (15.5-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

2 chipotle peppers packed in adobo, finely chopped

2 tablespoons canned adobo sauce

4 tablespoons water

1 lime, zested and juiced

Coarse kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

BURRITOS

4 large flour tortillas

2 cups thinly sliced iceberg lettuce

1 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1 avocado, thinly sliced

1½ cups crumbled queso fresco

Sour cream, for serving

Salsa, for serving

1 Prepare the beef: In a large skillet over medium-high heat add the oil and heat until shimmering. Add the beef and season with cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Cook until the meat is browned, 5 minutes, then stir in the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the liquid evaporates, 8 to 10 minutes.

2 Prepare the black beans: In a large skillet over medium-high heat add the oil and garlic and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the black beans, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, water, and lime zest and juice. Cook, violently pummeling the beans with the back of a wooden spoon until the liquid evaporates and the beans are crushed but not yet a paste. Season with salt and pepper.

3 Assemble the burritos: On a clean work surface, lay out the tortillas. Working one at a time place ½ cup of the shredded lettuce in the center of each tortilla. Top with ¼ cup of cilantro, a quarter of the beef, a quarter each of the smashed beans, avocado slices, and queso fresco. Fold in the sides of the tortilla and roll it up, enclosing the filling inside. Serve the burritos with sour cream and salsa.

It has not been clinically proven, but anecdotal evidence indicates that regular consumers of hot sauce are less palatable to the living dead.

H e knew there couldn’t be anything still alive on this sad old farm,but he was too hungry not to check. If any chickens had survived this long, they weren’t going to survive much longer.

Daryl cut through the plastic poultry netting around the chicken run and skulked up the ramp to the coop door. He nudged it lightly with the hatchet. All quiet, nothing but a bunch of old feathers and dried-out eggs.

Then from under the roosts he heard a sucking sound. A bluish hand shot out from under the lowest tier and grabbed his ankle. He chopped at it with the hatchet and ran out of the coop, the severed hand still clutching his boot heel.

A biter in Carhartts and rubber boots rolled out of the coop and unsteadily gained its feet again. Daryl had dropped the hatchet and was hopping on one foot to remove the twitching hand from his boot. The biter lunged.

He had expected that, and had just enough time to load and fire a crossbow bolt between its crazed eyes. What he didn’t expect was the other walker that had sneaked through the tear he’d made in the plastic netting.

Daryl grabbed the new biter’s shoulders, spinning it and winding it up in the loose fencing. The more it struggled, the tighter the netting got.

He took a moment to watch the biter struggle like a big angry burrito. Then he grabbed the hatchet and split its face.

No chicken tonight. But he could smell the river nearby, and the poultry netting gave him an idea.

makes 4 wraps

RANCH DRESSING

¼ cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

½ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

⅛ teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

FRIED CHICKEN

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs, halved crosswise

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup buttermilk

Peanut or vegetable oil (for frying)

WRAPS

4 (8-inch) sandwich wraps

8 butter lettuce leaves

8 halved cherry tomatoes

1 Prepare the dressing: In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, mayonnaise, chives, parsley, lemon juice, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

2 Prepare the chicken: Season chicken with 1 teaspoon of the salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cayenne, black pepper, and ½teaspoon of the salt. Pour the buttermilk into another medium bowl. Working with 1 piece at a time, dredge the chicken in the flour mixture and shake off any excess flour. Dip the thighs in the buttermilk, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Dredge again in the flour mixture, shaking off the excess, and transfer to a clean baking sheet.

3 Pour enough oil into a large heavy pot to come 3 inches up the sides and heat over medium heat until a deep-fry thermometer registers 350°F. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and set a wire rack on top. Fry the chicken in batches until golden brown and cooked through, turning the pieces halfway through, about 6 minutes total. Use a spider or slotted spoon to transfer the chicken to the rack.