Category: General

ok, i know, 3 posts in one day, it never rains but it pours, but this is too good not to share.
Over at BrowniePoints there is this image atop one of the sidebars.

This is GENIUS on so many levels. Love it!

mmmm, baaaacon. This is the last of the magic bacon from Hollins Market in Baltimore, in all of its glisteny glory.

As I mentioned long ago, the foodsluts brought me the best present possible from New Zealand. Wherever you go in NZ, ketchup tends to be on the table along with the salt and pepper, but in the most adorable tomato-shaped plastic bottle imaginable. I coveted them. I looked and looked but I could not find one to bring home with me from my trip. And then littlelee & spleen came home from their trip and presented me with my very own wee plastic tomato squirt bottle. Yay! What better gift could a girl ask for?

Not to everyone’s taste, this spicy meaty mush, but I sure do love it, even if it is primarily composed of, in the immortal words of my grandfather, “snouts and assholes.” Probably because I had it when I was small growing up or visiting family outside Philadelphia, but really, this stuff should have a broader appeal if we can all manage to stomach hot dogs. It’s a squarish loaf of ground pork, cornmeal and variable amounts of sausage-like spices, and it can vary in texture when cold from fairly smushy to the firm block we had this time from Dietrich’s Meats.
It does tend to be a bit tricky to cook, though. You want a nice hard crunchy crust on your slices, but because the inside of the slice gets softer from the heat, it’s a little iffy getting them flipped in the pan without undue mangling. The heat seems to be pretty key to success — you want moderate heat, not too low or it won’t cook fast enough not to stick hard to the pan, and not too high or it’ll burn before it gets cooked properly. Be patient and let that crust form. And don’t use a crappy pan like we did, that seems to have major hot spots despite being made of cast iron. (???) You have to dig hard into the pan with your spatula and get well under the crust to have even a prayer of well-formed scrapple slices hitting your plate. Mom was the only one of us who managed it.
Even if you end up with a jagged pile of crunchy brown & smushy gray crud on your plate, however, it will be delicious: meaty, soft, crunchy, savory. This batch was less highly spiced than some I’ve had, but rather meatier. I suspect the fine folks at Dietrich’s pride themselves on the quality of their meat and the lack of fillers in their scrapple. Fantastic with eggs and ketchup and toast.

In my family, we don’t usually cook much for Christmahanukwanzaka. Instead, we hunt and gather for delectable morsels and then graze all day long on smoked fish, spendy cheese, cured meats, and other cocktail-time treats. This year was no exception, and my brother came through with the goods: fabulous fatty smoked sockeye from Washington State, a trio of the finest salumi on earth, and a stash of Pennsylvania Dutch treasures.
The salumi is the handiwork of Armandino Batali, proprietor and genius host of Salumi in Seattle. He makes his own cured meats, both in traditional Italian styles and in creative new flavors like lamb prosciutto and vanilla salami. This year’s selection was perennial-favorite oregano salami, mole salami with deep dark choco-mexi-spice, and some spicy paprika sticks. My brother used to work down the street and ate lunch there a few times a week, and every year he brings meat presents from Salumi for us back east. (The restaurant makes the best Italian food I’ve ever had anywhere, but it’s only open for lunch. Plan ahead.)
The Pennsylvania Dutch stash was mailordered from Dietrich’s Meats. Left to right in the photo, after the salumi on the far left, there’s sweet & spicy stix, Lebanon bologna (a super-smoky beef treat, oh yeah), spicy pickled bologna, mustard bean pickles (really good, on the very short list of best pickles ever), and pork roll fried to a crunchy goodness.
It’s been a very happy holiday. Slurp.

Last night my friend said something in casual conversation that made my whole day, if not my whole life. In her psychology for athletes class they were doing relaxation techniques, and they asked her to visualize something calming, someplace happy. And immediately she visualized my kitchen table, clutter, mess and all, with food (duh) and happy people around. That is so exactly why I cook and futz with my house and do all the goofy domestic foodslut things that I do: to make a place that people feel happy, contented, safe and loved. My kitchen is someone’s happy place: I think I’m gonna cry just writing it down.

I have been nauseous all day out of fear and frustration and have lost my appetite. That is not a very good sign. Shit. Hey, you fuckers in the White House! Give me back my democracy, you thieving bastards.
I wrote this in anger and didn’t post it. I feel like I want to post it now, 11/11/04, because I have taken comfort in the anger of other bloggers, and though I have moved through the rage to a cold determination to fix this mess as best I can, and the nausea has passed, I still am profoundly upset and frightened at the direction we appear to be going as a nation.

When you have no fucking idea what to do and you’re about to cry every five minutes and the world is crumbling around you, sometimes the only thing you can do is make curried squash soup and pretend that it makes you feel better.

Yet more gorgeous limes from tallasiandude’s mom’s tree in LA.

The Red Sox just won the World Series. I’m shaking I’m so happy. GO SOX!!