Tongue-containing foods

Yesterday I smoked a turkey with my friend Dan; we started the turkey at 8:30 a.m., and were finished by 4:30 (there was some worry that we wouldn’t have it cooked in time for dinner, since every single recipe for smoked turkey that I found had a different cooking time, from 4 to 10 hours). During the smoking marathon, we headed over to the Alpine Sausage Kitchen to pick up lunch. Dan bought some A.S.K.-made salami, while I stuck with the standard bratwurst. But as usual, I wanted to try something new, so I picked up a couple of slices of tongue-blood sausage (just to be daring). If you get by the appearance (pictured below), it isn’t too bad, although I’m not sure I’d buy it on a regular basis.



After trying a bit of this sausage, a guest at dinner related his recent experience with a tongue burrito, which he recommended I taste. So today I headed over to “Taqueria Mexico” to order a “burrito lengua”. Again, it was OK, but I was a little disturbed by how the tongue was not peeled and still had all of its papillae. Your food shouldn’t be able to French you while you eat it. I’ve been telling friends for some time now that when tongue is cooked, the skin is always removed; my credibility will be going down a few notches now. Here’s a picture of the half-eaten burrito (I didn’t finish it), showing a piece of the tongue with skin (I apologize for the blurriness):

Weekend shopping

This weekend I spent quite a bit of time shopping; not for clothes but for guitar parts and sausages (amongst other things). I started off by heading over to the Honda dealer to look at the new Honda Fit (a possible replacement for Mr. Honda if he were to catch on fire or be riddled with bullets). This car, besides being very practical, has received good reviews and is supposed to be fun to drive (I probably wouldn’t think of getting a subcompact, but his one seems pretty decent). Anyway, I was tagged by a sales agent there who sat me down and started filling out some sort of form wile trying to sell me car. After it became clear to him that I wasn’t there to buy a car that day (I thought I made it pretty clear from the start), he folded up his paper, threw it away, and took me out to see one of these cars. Apparently they are in high demand; they won’t even take orders for them. Anyway, I’m the kind of guy who annoys car salesmen by doing my research and telling them I’d have no problem flying to another state to save $10, just to stick it to a car salesman.

Then it was off to the Alpine Sausage Kitchen to pick up some German-style sausage. A customer there corrected my German pronunciation when I was giving my order; this is embarrassing considering I took a total of 4 years of German and have visited that country three times.

I also hit a local bakery, The Golden Crown. Although this place is pretty famous (I’ve seen it featured on The Food Network), I’ve never been there, even though it’s five minutes from my apartment. Another embarrassment. Anyway, The Golden Crown is famous for Green Chile Bread; I bought a loaf but was very surprised to find out that it cost $8. It was tasty, but I’m not going to buy $8 bread every week. The place was cool, with an ancient bread oven (it had to be at least 50 years old), but the fact that they sell pizza (which I was not aware of until my visit) broke the charm a bit. Kind of like going to France and visiting a traditional cheesemaker but finding out they also sell frozen yogurt.

For guitar parts, I went over to Grandma’s Music and Sound. A decent place, but unfortunately over on the west side (for those of you not from the area, that’s the west side of the Rio Grande; it’s where most of the new development in Albuquerque is happening; ). I wanted to pick up some new pickups for my Telecaster. Apparently I went to the right place because there is a guy there who owns 27 Telecaster guitars and was able to steer me in the right direction.

I will be doing some customization of my Telecaster; in a few weeks I should have it done and will post a picture of it here. It'll be the only guitar in existence that combines country twang (as the Telecaster is famous for) with Bollywood glitter.

Oddities of the world

If you’re looking for something crazy, go no farther. The argument about pet self esteem is a bit wacky…..I never knew that they could be sensitive about their packages. And if you’re strapped for some Christmas gift ideas, check out the merchandise section. The pendent necklace is especially classy.

The garlic verdict

So the candied garlic was eaten. Surprisingly, every bit of it. Wally tried it first, and declared that it didn’t really taste too bad. He had another piece, and then others at the table had to give it a shot, including myself. It was edible, but I have to say that I probably won’t make it again (later my stomach rebelled). And the last piece? Eaten by Wally and his iron stomach.

Some new activity

This weekend Wally and Paula are in Albuquerque. Friday I had dinner with them; somehow the idea of candied garlic came up. When something ridiculous like that is mentioned, it’s hard for me to bypass giving it a try. So tonight I whipped up a batch. Wally will be giving it a taste tomorrow during breakfast.

I also made a new bet today. The bet is over the differentiation of dog vs. human snacks; I will select six different snacks (3 human, 3 dog); my opponent must correctly identify which snack goes with each species based on appearance and smell (although I wouldn’t complain if taste became involved also). The wager is lunch.

Another activity: making lime sorbet today. I had forgotten to put the ice cream maker insert into the freezer last night, so I tried mixing crushed dry ice into the sorbet liquid. The verdict: it worked OK, rapidly freezing the sorbet (although I had to finish it off in the freezer). A key factor seems to be the amount of dry ice, as well as the fineness of the crush (you don’t need too much, and it should be as powdered as possible; I ended up having to lift out some large chunks of solid CO2 from the sorbet). The evaporating gas seems to fluff up the sorbet nicely. But don’t forget that dry ice is extremely cold, and if the sorbet is completely frozen by the dry ice, you need to let it warm up a bit so you don’t burn yourself.