Snipes and Southern Eats

[Demosthenes]

Hey Floridians,

What exactly is one supposed to do during a tornado watch besides look out the window in hopes of seeing a tornado?

Stay away from the damn windows.

I recall all too vividly having a telephone conversation with someone who was foolishly watching a tornado from an office building. It was interrupted when a large sheet of plywood pinwheeled into the window only a few feet from him. He escaped with a lot of nasty-looking cuts.

Ummmm, the question was supposed to be funny, Judge. I'm from California; I only stand near picture windows during earthquakes.

[Judge Roy Bean]

... I'm from California; I only stand near picture windows during earthquakes.

Point taken.

But keep in mind, earthquakes don't seem to target "manufactured housing."

[webhick]

I only stand near picture windows during earthquakes.

Only because you want to see the Amorphous Zucchini Gods stamp their beastly feet against the planet's inner core causing the the two liquid layers above it to do their best impersonation of a warring wave machines which caused the crust to do the cha-cha and the tango - at the same time, which is making all your books fall off their shelves. But you will be sorely disappointed, as you can't see the inner core from your picture window. Try the back door. And look up. They don't like people watching.

[Demosthenes]

What the heck? I think I've been pretty open minded about the Sourthern comfort food thing, but last night just went too far.

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

[Prof]

What the heck? I think I've been pretty open minded about the Sourthern comfort food thing, but last night just went too far.

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

Never heard of this before, but I moved to Texas a long time ago. But, in case you had not noticed, there is a reason Fark has a category labeled "Florida."

[LPC]

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

Boy, that was a screw-up. It was supposed to be cocaine, and it was supposed to be on the chips, not the fish.

[Prof]

I think Dan's right. Besides, the fish plate, in the South, would be Freedom Fries, fried flounder or catfish (coast or interior), cole slaw, and hush puppies.

Did you order this at Epcot/Disney? Maybe pixie dust?

[Demosthenes]

For all my personal knowledge of drugs, it could very well have been cocaine.

The fish (once I pushed all the sweet yuckie powder sugary cocaine covered crust off) was grouper.

[grixit]

Maybe that's the Florida version of a monte cristo.

[iplawyer]

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

Never - ever - ever heard of powdered sugar on fish. This must have been some mistake. Sounds completely and totally disgusting.

[Judge Roy Bean]

What the heck? I think I've been pretty open minded about the Sourthern comfort food thing, but last night just went too far.

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

I suspect some rookie thought they were hush puppy deserts. 'Round here we'd a had him dragged fifty yards through weeds.

[wvfoos]

Just so we are clear, on the topic of sausage gravy....

If you can find FRESH (ie, not bought in a store, or restaurant), whole hog sausage, it is amazingly lean. In fact, if you fry it up in a pan, you have to watch it doesn't burn, and maybe even add some water to the pan because there's hardly any grease in the meat. There won't be a bunch of "drippings" from it.

If you buy a pound of sausage from the store, and fry it in the pan, 1/2 of it will end up grease and you'll be lucky to end up with 1/2 a pound of cooked sausage.

Fresh, whole hog sausage, will only be about 10% or less, grease, if that.

And the taste, will just about make you eschew any sausage bought from a store.

Of course, finding it, is the real trick. You have to almost know someone who butchers a hog.

[Imalawman]

What the heck? I think I've been pretty open minded about the Sourthern comfort food thing, but last night just went too far.

I ordered fish and chips at a local seafood restaurant and it came with powdered sugar on the fish? Huh?

I have heard of this and its seems as though I've seen it, but it would be very unusual. Find yourself a good calabash and have blast.

As for weather, I'm sure evil squirrel will agree that its been miserable here in the north midwest. Over the weekend it approached -12 with -28 windchill with about a foot of snow on the ground. Of course salt doesn't work in these temperature so sand is strewn about the snow covered roads. ugh... So enjoy rain, I would love to have some rain about now.

[iplawyer]

Just so we are clear, on the topic of sausage gravy....

If you can find FRESH (ie, not bought in a store, or restaurant), whole hog sausage, it is amazingly lean. In fact, if you fry it up in a pan, you have to watch it doesn't burn, and maybe even add some water to the pan because there's hardly any grease in the meat. There won't be a bunch of "drippings" from it.

If you buy a pound of sausage from the store, and fry it in the pan, 1/2 of it will end up grease and you'll be lucky to end up with 1/2 a pound of cooked sausage.

Fresh, whole hog sausage, will only be about 10% or less, grease, if that.

And the taste, will just about make you eschew any sausage bought from a store.

Of course, finding it, is the real trick. You have to almost know someone who butchers a hog.

Speak for yourself. Whole hog sausage is made by the person making it according to their taste. It can have lots of fat in it or little. It is a personal choice and everyone I know of has their own recipe that they keep closely guarded. My family makes it with fat in it - but not as much as the store bought variety. It definitely has enough to make sausage gravy. I've never in my life cooked sausage patties with water - although intestined cased links require it sometimes because the casing retains the fat in the sausage.

In any case - I don't know anyone who did not use a fair amount of the otherwise unusable hog fat in their sausage. I guess if you are rich (which does not equate with butchering you own hog) you could just throw the fat away. I've just never personally witnessed such an event.

[wvfoos]

In any case - I don't know anyone who did not use a fair amount of the otherwise unusable hog fat in their sausage.

I've never had whole hog sausage any other way, from several different people.

I guess we'll have to disagree.

[Prof]

Another Florida dining experience:

Won't pull your car up at Mickey D's drive-thru

Fark.com: see http://www.local6.com/news/15098343/detail.html

Remember, there's a reason FARK has a special category for Florida.

As for pork sausage, I grew up working for my Dad in a "cold storage" in Tabor City, NC-- these were built all over farm country after WWII; rent freezer lockers to farmers in the front; slaughter in the back; cut, wrap, make sausage, cure hams, etc., in the middle.
(We lived on and operated a tobacco farm just over the state line in SC.)

Dad mixed the best sausage -- bulk and link -- I have ever had. He used his own spice mix, made up of commercially available bulk products, frequently adding more red pepper for many of his customers, who were white and black farmers.

Sausage was generally made from left-over trimmings -- after the chops, bacon, ham, and shoulders were cut out and trimmed. Some folks might add the shoulders to the sausage, but not many. (We trimmed out the left over lean meat, including the neck and head meat, for the sausage grinder. Southerners never added organ meat to sausage and -- except for beef and pork liver-- never ate organ meat in any form.)

Fat did not go into the sausage -- pork fat was trimmed off and rendered into lard. Some farmers asked that some fat be added, but again, only rarely. Link sausage could be smoked (we had a smoke house for smoking salt/sugar cured hams, shoulders, and bacon). The smoke came from sawdust from a "handle" plant which made tool handles from hickory.

By the way, there is a place like this in Dunn, NC, that will ship hams, sausage, etc. Pretty good stuff.

[Nikki]

This just in from Washington, DC:

31 degrees with freezing rain and wall-to-wall protestors.
(Roe v. Wade)

[Evil Squirrel Overlord]

Huckabee refuses to release his popcorn squirrel recipie...

http://www.scarysquirrel.org/recipes/huckabee/

[Disilloosianed]

Ugh....is it Roe time again?

[Doktor Avalanche]

Found this today, appropriate keyboard alerts are in place:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=au9ZP0xrpuI&feature=related

Mr. Snipes explains how you, too, can avoid paying your taxes.