Text 4355, 72 rader
Skriven 2006-08-15 10:08:16 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Picnic Day 1 (Friday)
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I was up Friday morning at 0600; got the chickens fed and the smoker
prepped, set the ribs into the brine for Saturday, and put some pork
tails, neck bones, and pork liver into the crock pot to render for
making Saturday's scrapple.

Michael arrived just about the time the meat was cool enough for me
to pick from the bones.  I was in the middle of that when he walked
in followed by Ellen.  I excused myself for not shaking hands and 
explained that I was in the middle picking pork for scrapple.  She 
looked pretty horror-stricken but smiled anyway and fled from the
crazy goy whose hands dripped pig juices.

Still recovering from his recent surgery, Michael was both hungry
and tired.  We fed him some of the yummy Goya octopus I've reveiewed
earlier as well as some herring in wine sauce, following which he
went off upstairs for a nap.

Other echosians started showing up later in the day.  I had bought 
ten pounds of wings and a bunch of burger patties so I could serve
wings and burgers, but I found that my grill wouldn't light, so I had
to do the wings in batches on the stovetop.  It worked out well,
though, because I could spread the food out over time - everyone
happily munched and chatted and in general caught up with each other
while the food came out.

For the record:

Teriyaki wings - Standard teriyaki sauce bottled by Arnolds.  Not
too bad, but I wouldn't have bought it if I had remembered that I
still had a bunch of Kikkoman teriyaki sauce in the pantry (d'oh!)

Hot Wings 1 - I used a bottle of Goya Salsita hot sauce, this one
based on chile arbol (about 10 oz I guess) with a lump of butter
and a quarter-cup or so of brown sugar, melted and simmered on the
stovetop, to make the sauce for this batch.  It was well-balanced
and mildly spicy, and went over well.

Hot Wings 2 - Same technique, but with a bottle of standard
tabasco-style generic hot sauce by Arnolds.  Too much vinegar,
not enough heat, thanks a lot cheap sauce.  Michael came to the
rescue, adding a fair quantity of Sachs hot sauce and a lot of 
extra brown sugar.  His doctoring changed a standard crapola
sauce into something really good.

After that, cheeseburgers on big soft kaiser rolls, mostly medium
rare thanks to my trust in Arnolds; good, honest beef though the
patties were on the thin side.

As Michael mentioned, I also made a panful of fried plantains, but
lost track of them while I was flipping burgers, and most of them
browned a little too much on one side.  Whoops.

Afterwards, we took shots of Chinese firewater sent to me by my
friend Roger's daughter Stephanie (a little rough-edged but I
like it) and some saki:

Wang Fu - brought by Burt, who said it had been in his cellar 
forever, and after tasting it I believe him.  The stuff reeked
of rotten eggs, spoiled cabbage, and sewage, and tasted like...
who the hell knows what? I imagine the fluids at the bottom of
a galvanized garbage can standing in the sun taste something like 
that saki.  Michael poured it down the sink.

Midnight Moon - Dry and ricey, melon and tropical fruit nose,
pleasant but without much finish or, for that matter, much of
anything else.


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Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, 
minutus carborata descendum pantorum
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