Sausagefest! 2005

Another December, another Sausagefest in the books. And colons. This year, we held our second Annual SausageFest! It's not the traditional meaning of "Sausagefest," although I must confess that the common meaning is the reason I chose to have an event named "Sausagefest." No, this is a literal sausage party, where guests grind various meats and other accoutrements and stuff them into casings made of hog intestines. People are generally intrigued/absolutely disgusted in equal amount when they hear about it. but really, the sausages we make are probably much healthier than anything you buy in the store. Afterall, we use fresh, natural ingredients. The slogan of this year's Sausagefest was "Sausages Absolutely Guaranteed to Contain No Lips or Assholes!" And I think we came through.

There were a lot more people this year than last year, and a surprising number of people honored the BYOM (Bring Your Own Meat) request. Many delicious sausages were made, ranging from pork and lamb to more adventurous ingredients like duck and octopus. Unlike last year, we used real hog casings, which looked a lot like udon noodles. Indeed, both guests of asian persuasion thought they were noodles at first glance. We like noodles. And this year I fulfilled a small dream by making sausages out of bacon. One of the biggest dilemmas at breakfast is whether to get sausage or bacon. Problem. Solved. I added a little maple syrup, and it was a resounding success. The later part of the evening somehow devolved into tests of strength, with James coming out as the arm wrestling champion. Greeks.
Someone suggested that we should also have a "Cootie Couch" party. I'd never heard the term, but I guess it's the female equivalent to the sausage party. When the question was asked what we would serve, Katey W. immediately said "Tacos." I suggested clams.


The casings, ordered from the good old internet, soak in preparation of being stuffed with meat. Many, many double entendres were spoken and giggled over.


The "meat flower" as coined by (I think) Jen K. (Not to be confused with the Fleur de MeatHer friend Kate prepares to harvest said flower.


The meat grinder, for all its charm, is really just for show. Last year, it was our sole source of meat-grinding power, and it's terribly inefficient. It's a very old, cast iron jobby, and it doesn't so much grind me as just smoosh it and pulverize it into smaller pieces, tearing the flesh as it goes along. And then it just pours out the holes, resulting in the aforementioned meat flower, with a lot of meat remaining inside. So this year we employed a food processor, in order to better mix the ground meat with the various seasonings and other ingredients, which included cranberries, walnuts, wine-soaked bread, and even foie gras. Above is the resulting "meat wave" after processing the meat.




The casings came in one, giant strand, I think over 90 feet long. So it was necessary to tie it off in sections and then stuff the meat. To this end, we employed a mechanism that was meant to be used for putting icing on a cake. It basically is a big plastic syringe. Honestly, watching the meat come out of the plunger and going into the casing... I don't actually know what it looks like, but I can't imagine that it looks much different than if you were watching someone take a poop into a condom.
See what I mean.



Yeah, and then we ate it.



The finished product. These were the first three made- One bacon sausage and two with ground pork, brie, and cranberries. I was actually shocked at how well they came out. They not only didn't look like plastic-encased turds, but they also looked delicious.


Hot meat injection



More pictures courtesy Patricia.


The aforementioned octopus. Though daring, it was the evening's only flat-out failure. It was really pretty bad.



Somehow, Indian leg wrestling occurred.

the loaves and the fishes

Went to a Norwegian brunch recently with Jen K. and hubby Scott at a Norwegian church on 51st street on the Upper East. Jen and Scott are always finding interesting things to do. It's exhausting. I really don't know how they do it. You can see their exploits here. Check out the Big Map. If you live in NYC, chances are they've been to your neighborhood.
Anyway, the brunch interesting. During the meal, the head of the church congretation or whoever came up to and greeted us. Very friendly. After a little ceremony to honor an elderly Norwegian writer, which featured many glowing testimonials from the mostly elderly Norwegian crowd, the head dude came up to us again. "Can I ask you a qvestion?" he asked. Scandinavian accents are weird. I think they're the easiest to cover up. At worst, if a Scandinavian person can speak English, the accent just sounds like a mild stutter. It sounds more like a style of speech than an accent. Anyway, he wanted to ask me the "question of the week" for the Norwegian Times, a local Norwegian paper that keeps the Norwegian community abreast of what's going on that's of local Norwegian interest. So I says "Sure." So he asks ,"Whvat does dee 'Advent' mean to you?" Of course, I have no idea what to say. I didn't want to make a mockery of it since the entire affair was very pleasant. He said "Whvatever it means to you, that's ok." So I said "Um...I don't know... those little calendars full of chocolates?" He was very accepting. Then he took my picture. He took a second one, because I looked terrified and confused in the first one. I guess it'll end up in their paper. I'm thinking he only asked me because I was one of the few non-norwegians there that actually looked non-Norwegian. Jen is tall and blonde and could easily pass for a norwegian. So perhaps I was racially profiled by a norwegian minister. Hard to say. Anyway, the food in general was delicious.



The setup was modest. This is the cold food table. You eat the cold first, then come back for the hot food. The hot food was underwhelming. Basically meat and cabbage.


The cold food was more inspiring. Mostly smoked fishes. Some of the herring looked like chum.


The elderly Norwegian crowd. Very nice people in general. And why shouldn't they be?

Taiwan in a week

In November, the family took a trip back to the (sort of) motherland, Taiwan. My first time back since 1989, when I was 13. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the trip. I wasn't dreading it, but I was not happy with the 18 hour plane ride. It ended up being quite fantastic. Instead of staying in Taipei the whole time, we took a trip to the east coast, to the Taroko area, up in the mountains. According to my dad, who planned the whole trip, he thought it was the only other place worth visiting in all of Taiwan. That may or may not be true, but it was still spectacular. A lot of geography I'd never seen before. Just mountains, valleys, and rivers. Although a lot of time was spent playing Dance Dance Revolution in the rec room.
Anyway, overall it was just a good family vacation. A constant undercurrent of the whole trip was the fact that it was probably the last time the whole family would take a trip together, at least for the foreseeable future. Still, most of us had a good time. Many good meals were eaten, sights were seen, and fun was had. I would've stayed longer if I could've. I was just getting into the swing of speaking chinese. or trying to speak chinese.
I still think I could move there and be a successful pop star or game show host.

Naturally, there are pictures. They're very family-vacation-slideshow-y, but, you know, that's what they are.
Sights seen
Odd signage
Eats eaten

Random odd/amusing/embarrasments of the trip:
-Going through airport security, you have to take your shoes and belt off. I guess some sort of automatic response kicked in while I was taking off the shoes in belt, because when I walked through the metal detector, I was standing there with my hips on my hands, when the security woman looks at me funny. I look down, and of course my fly is wide open. I guess my mind thought it was taking-off-pants-time, and just kept going with the pants taking off. Very embarrassing, but also amusing to all.

-I was amazed at how long I could sit on the plane not doing anything. Not eating or sleeping or reading or watching a movie. I just sat there, perfectly content, for hours. I brought two books to read. I had to finish the last 50 pages of The Unberable Lightness of Being, and I had a very short novella. I barely finished the first book, which, by the way, I think I enjoyed.

-My mom is a fantastic ping-pong player. She complains that she can't hear very well these days, and her eyesight isn't what it used to be, and she was never the quickest on her feet. But man, the old reflexes are still there. I wasn't taking it easy on her, and I was making some ridiculous slams, and she'd just stick the paddle out and return it like nothing. And she'd hit pretty hard, and with accuracy. She had me litterally running around the table. we didn't play for points, and I'm pretty sure I could beat her, but I think it'd be close, and I think she'd beat any other family member. It's just that, you know, I'm awesome. But the mom's ability was quite surprising. Growing up, she would consistently beat us, but I just figured with her aging, it'd be no problem. I also learned that she was the ping-pong champion of her highschool. It shows.

-meals are a lot more pleasant when you don't have to calculate the tip at the end, or worry about who's not paying his or her share. Plus, in most of the restaurants, the wait staff actually took pride in their work and were very friendly and informative about the food. It was very confusing.

-Pushy salespeople are the same everywhere. Actually, they were worse in Taiwan. Walking through a department store was like walking through a zombie movie. You never know when or from where a salesperson will spring out, so you have to keep moving. The moment you come to a complete stop, they'll pounce. Even after they realize you don't have great command of the language, they won't let up. On the plus side, it helps you make up your mind about an item very quickly.

-My most amusing purchase was a bag I bought for Miss Charming Melodee. It was a Converse bag that i guess was supposed to read "For the love of the game." Instead, it read "For Love of the Came." I didn't really hesitate to buy it

-Taiwan- In general, not a very attractive population. They're ok for your standard asian-fetishists, but not a whole lot of lookers. Maybe that's why everyone knew my brothers and I weren't from Taiwan. That's what I like to think, at least. It might have also been the constant clueless look on our faces. Actually, most of the time people thought we were Japanese. I don't want to get into a whole race war thing, but we were not perplexed.