I ate a brain, I liked it.

I ate a brain, just to try it. I'm really not sure where I'm going with this. I think I may have a brain-wasting disease. Certainly, at least, it felt so wrong and it felt so right.

Since I didn't want to clean off another goddamn cookie sheet I just threw the bastard away and drove to Unique to buy a new one. All the way over I was trying to rationalize my decision vis a vis the new economy. I was gonna waste at least a gallon of water, a precious resource, scrubbing. Right? I also wanted to see if they had any ladies' scarves I could drape around my neck. Anyway, I got my comeuppance when some teenagers made fun of my moustache. "Would you like a cup of tea, suh?" I don't know what that means.

Back to the real topic at hand, the taqueria caught my eye on the way in. The menu was gigantic, you could read it from the street. You could see it plainly. Having been denied brains previously I wasn't about the get denied them again. I went in, bought my cookie pan without wasting a moment and marched over there. The breeze caught my frou-frou cravat and it waved majestically in the bluster. I ordered one de "lengua," one "cabeza" (and I'm really not sure what that is exactly) and the "cesos." [sick]



I can see why people scramble these in eggs. It has the same consistency of scrambled eggs and is very similar in appearance, too. I'm not sure if I'd really recommend them but wikipedia assures me that they remain popular in the Ohio Valley. So, surely I can find that fried brain sandwich I've heard so much about.

Still, the long and the short of it is:

I ate a cow's brain in a b-rated kitchen on Preston Highway that didn't even spell "sesos" right. That's probably the essence of this blog when I'm not cooking.

The Day I Ate Lunch Twice: Lyndon Redux

On my old blog written before the dawn ol' Web 2.0 I had a post about the day in Pittsburgh when I ate lunch twice. It was a great meal, at the Pickle Barrel, with the added attraction of humiliation at the hands of cute indie rock girl. It was completely my fault, I blame myself.

Anyway, yesterday saw me eating lunch again twice. In Lyndon of all places.

I had agreed the night before at the Nachbar to go to my new favorite tapatia with my pal Andy to try some brain tacos. I had been there twice before. Once for chicarrones and the other time for some menudo. The menudo there is really, really good. I'd only had it once before in Minneapolis where I thought it was somewhat hard to get behind. Maybe because I knew what to expect but menudo was far better the second time. I ate all of it, anyway. So, with that in mind I went back looking for brain tacos.

This place is in a strip mall, in what I had presumed was a cracker-ass part of Lyndon, way east, where my brother and I used to go to church. My Patria doesn't seem much like a restaurant. That's probably part of its charm. The fact that it looks like a loading dock. Well.

We placed our orders. One tripas, one chorizo, one brain. And one of those great, gigantic bottles of mexican Coca-Cola, which really is an idea size. A bit of waiting and yakking the cook fella comes out and tells me there are no brains. Actually, I think this is a good thing. See, if theyre running out of brains it means there aren't brains whiling away the hours in reach-in coolers. Which means fresh brains. So, we didn't get to eat brains. That's okay, though. We can always go back. It also gave us a chance to substitute for the lengua which we had missed the first time.

When they came out they looked almost exactly like this:



Let me tell you: tripas is wonderful. The only reason you wouldn't like it because of pre-conceived notions about what food is and isn't. It's got crispy bits like bacon, chewy bits, moist and meaty bits and a wonderful pork flavor. It neither smells nor tastes like asshole. It is fantastic. The tongue was great, too. Again, it looks no different than shredded beef would. And it has a stronger, meatier flavor. And by these yardsticks the chorizo was almost a disappointment because the others were so good. I really can't recommend these highly enough. And considering our lunch was only $6 each there's no excuse.

Well, high on delcious lunch I bought a bound of chicarrones and a pound of pig's ears. Pig ears are weird. I don't now about 'em, frankly. The pig skin is crisp and greasy, and crunchy as all get-out and not really much like a football at all.

Of course, in driving back we drove past the Jade Palace which we had recently read as having chicken feet on the Dim Sum menu.

"Hey, Andy, you wanna get some chicken feet while we're here?"
"Well, I'm not at all hungry. What the hell..."

And so we walked in. The lady asked us "lunch menu or dinner menu" as it was around three or four, straddling lunch and dinner hours. "Uh, chicken feet?" I asked, which got us a third menu.

It was the dim sum menu and it looked really good. At least, it looked good. Granted, we had just eaten lunch. So, we stuck to the "White Spicy Chicken Feet," the "Honeycomb Beef Tripe" and another form of chicken feet which I forget the name of but came in broth and was red.

The white, spicy chicken feet came out. They were just chicken feet with a splash of chili oil, scallions, and cilantro. Nothing else. They looked like this:



Very challenging even for me who likes the freaky bits. I mean, the relationship between birds and lizards is plain as day!

I pause.

"What's the matter," Andy asks me, "cold feet?"
"Yes, actually. A half dozen."

But, again, this is food, right? Well, chicken feet don't have much going for them but skin, connective tissue, and tendons. I think gnawing is a pretty good word for how I ate them.

I do, however, think it's charming that a fellow in the kitchen put them on a plate, drizzled a bit of chili oil on them, sprinkled them with the cilantro and scallion and thought, "yes, this is finished. Now, I wish to see those crackers gnaw on this for awhile." So, it was amazing. Don't try it.

Next was a ind of stewed honeycomb tripe which smells strong and tastes that way, too. We were lucky that we had been practicing jawing all afternoon because it certainly came in handy.

Finally, the sent us out a plate of these red chicken feet which were like the white one but they had clearly been cooked again and the skin was falling off and quite nice. Not much different than wings, really.

Actually, this only came to $11 so it was pretty economical, really. I mean, we both ate lunch twice for under twenty-five dollars. Not bad. Although, second lunch didn't actually feature very much in the manner of ounces of food consumed there was a lot of eating involved. So, yeah, lunch.

I'll keep you updated about my brain-eating.

A miracle of modern science! Behold!

I bring you....

THE LIVER AND ONIONS PIZZA IN FULL COLOR!!!!




I mean, if that's not making you hungry I don't know what will. A liver and onions pizza and Brazil's (possible Turkey's) hardest partyin' beer? You better get right out of town, mister.

Speaking of that beer I sound it at Shreck's which is the kind of place where bargains are meant to be had. I was looking around, bemoaning the run-of-the-mill beer selection when I look down and see a stack of cases of beer just sort of sitting out on the carpet there. Some of them are even ripped open and missing beers. Well, they're all marked at ten buck each which is a fine price to pay for a case of beer. They may have some left if you wanna score some. I'm probably going back for another.

Well, I asked the guys if they knew anything about 'em and the only thing they knew was that they had just come in and that beer doesn't need an expiration date. They probably said that because the cases were all marked 10/07. I surely don't mind. It takes a long time to get from a brewery in Izmir to Brazil and then fall of a truck somewhere stateside to be liquidated at Shreck's. Hell, I'll bet they're doing me a favor by not explaining to me the process.

Despite what the bottle says the Internet assures me that it's Brazilian. I even stumbled across some offensive advertising to that effect. I'm not sure what to think except that it's cheap and good. Also, it requires a bottle opener which leads to such merry improvisation.

Also, that photo is a liver pizza and a six pack of beer sitting on my bed. You can read into that one all you want. I encourage such behavior.

Okay, that's it. Also, here's a detail:

Cheetos mouth-delivery techniques.

Okay, I know you all love Cheetos. Lord knows, I do. They're probably my favorite snack food even if they aren't a hundred years old. They could be a hundred years old it's just that they hadn't been invented yet because they needed the prerequisite inventions of daytime television and underpants.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I don't know what corn starch was invented and Lord knows cheese powder isn't exactly ancient. At any rate, my second favorite is pork rinds. I do a great magic trick with pork rinds. I have a photo of it which I will show you as soon as I get it from my brother. The have that on my Google Calender on the 12th of Never. That's a very busy day. It's also my commencement in case anyone wished to come.

So, how does one eat Cheetos? Well, granted you'll be on the couch. But I know that you're all aware of the orange fingers your fingers will accumulate after heavy snacking. I think of this as a kind of circuit-breaker for Cheetos consumption. Your fingers can no longer grip, you must stop snacking. Continued snacking is like conventional warfare. You can cram as many Cheetos into the meatgrinder as you want, you're still going to have their blood on your hands. And it will be unsavory. Okay, that's a mixed metaphor. Feel free to lick your fingers. Very popular 'round these parts.

Here is where my ingenuity comes in. I understand Norm Peterson has solved this problem by eating them with a "large spoon." Well, much like Norm Peterson, this is not very elegant. It is, however, far more effective than a fork. A fork only serves to break up Cheetos into pitiable little fragments, broken in mind and body. No, sir, we need a method to dispatch as many Cheetos as possible without staining our hands or minds with exactly how many are going down the hatch. We need the Cheetos-eating equivalent of thermonuclear warfare. Just pull the trigger.

Another method is the Any-Ol'-Schmuck Approach. This is opening the (family-sized) bad and pouring them directly into your mouth. This solves the problem of stained hands but not the problem of elegance. In fact, this is distinctly less elegant than the Peterson Method. Plus, there's also the fundamental problem of how to eat the leftover Cheetos out of the couch cushions.

Therefore, I submit that chopsticks be used! The Cheetos Chopsticks Finesse! Not only does it solve all problems associated with Cheetos eating it adds alliteration to the mix! It's the end of conventional warfare between fingers and Cheetos! It's VD-DAY!! KISS A SAILOR!!!! Ha ha! Now, pour yourself a plateful and go to town. You'll be surprised how quickly you'll improve skills with your chopsticks. In fact, you can tell yourself that you're actually culturing yourself by getting really good at chopsticks! You're sure to impress that sexy Chinese diplomat now! Watch out sushi-bar hostess! Beware Korean pop stars! I'm going to get drunk and use my chopsticks!!! You'd be stoopid not to!

At least, that's what I told myself.

Anyway, this guy knows the score:



Impressing Girls with Chopsticks: 1. World: 0.

I guess I can't make ribs.

I tried. They were tough. The ribs were still tough. Of course, I bought the absolute cheapest cut but I figured that it wouldn't matter much if I cooked it a long time. Maybe it wasn't long enough. Hell, that time I boiled 'em and only finished 'em in the over they were more tender. Yeah, boiled!

Anyway, barbecue is one of those foods everyone likes to argue about. Everybody knows how to make it and their way is right and could you kindly shut the fuck up about your barbecue. We didn't eat a lot of barbecue growing up. And perhaps because of this I have come to ribs rather late in life. I can remember a time when I had not ever eaten ribs, in fact. But i lvoe ribs. WHo doesn't?

So, it's not in my blood. Maybe that's it. At any rate, these were spare ribs, although they looked as though they had been cut by machine and not by man. Twisted and evil. But a steal at ninety-nine cents a pound! So, I rubbed 'em down with a nice rub and let them sit. I made a barbecue sauce and marinated them afterward. I let it marinate for an hour while I had some Chinese takeout. Have you ever read the ingredients for barbecue sauce? They're terrible! It's all corn syrup! In fact, I couldn't find one sauce that cost less than four bucks a bottle that didn't have high fructose corn syrup as the first or second ingredient. For shame. Of course, it's just tomato paste, sweet stuff, vinegar, molasses, etc. Very simple to make your own. Brown sugar is sugar and molasses, right? Vinegar is easy. Tomato paste. maybe a little ketchup and blamm-o! Well, that's what mine was and it was pretty good. I also added bourbon because I roll like that. And beer to the braising dish so it would be nice and moist in there. And after four hours @ 275ish they were still too tough so I gave up and:

Made another Liver and Onion Pizza! But this time it was like a hatefuck (whatever that is) because I was still mad about the ribs not working. Thus, it was so fast and loose that now I'm convinced it's bulletproof. That's right. I put the liver and onions on top of a Digiornio pizza, covered with a bit of cheese. Baked as usual and bam! Delicious. Although, I must admit it's a little...pungent when hot and is actually better closer to room temperature. That's funny.

In other news that has me ecstatic, Christian Moerlein has a master plan to bring old Cincinnati brands back to Cincinnati and brew them in the city once more. I won't ever shut up about how it's a big shame that all these breweries were crushed in the seventies and they all moved around or shut down. Well, the new Christian Moerlein has bought Little Kings with plans to brew it in the Queen City. Also, the have reformulated the Hudy Delight brand back to its original formula and introduced cans. It's like they're reading my mind! So, I'm actually trying to think of a method by which I can purchase this beer for regular drinking so I can encourage this kind of behavior. Also, the can looks much like the one in the top right of this photo does:




They also have plans to bring Hudepohl 14-K, Wiedemann's, and Burger back, too. I really can't understate how awesome I think this is. I mean, Bud Light is the number one beer in America. Anyone of these beers is better and cheaper, too. So, what's the difference? Branding, I suppose. I think all those hipsters drinking pabst has not gone unnoticed. I coudln't drink enough Sterling to save them. Maybe things will be different with these new Moerlein products.

I am disappointed but not surprised to find that the Russians have beaten me to inventing liver pizza.

The Internet is not short of places where one can boggle one's fancy. This has a lot to do with why I throw all my time down the tubes. In googling liver pizza I didn't find much, but I thought this recipe--which most certainly flies between candy clouds of fancy and the inky blackness of nightmare. I might try it later. Maybe for Orthodox Christmas. Insomuch as I understand Russian cuisine it is a thoroughly Russian recipe.

Liver and onions pizza is a winner. But you already knew that.

I slept fitfully last night which means I had lots of wacky, spooky dreams. They say that the best way to solve problems in in dreamland. Well, thanks, brain. We did it. Allow me to set the stage.


I was sitting at K-Mart's new bar having a goblet of some fruity vodka drink I normally would never stomach. It's great. So great we blow the place off and go to a party down the road aways and there's a whole spread of fruits and pate and a charcuterie. I notice the centerpiece is a pizza. I ask our host, a portly fellow with a Van Dyke, "say, what's the deal with the pizza?"

"It's liver and onions," he replied.

That's all I remember but it was more than enough. That's the kind of idea that's going to be either really weird or pretty great. There's no middle ground when you're in the kitchen at parties, which come to think of it is exactly where I found my dream-pizza.

Okay, that's made up. What really happened is I needed a little extra money to waste on animal livers and beer. So I signed up for some kinda study thing where a man in a lab coat whispers sweet nothings in my ear all night whilst I slumber. I mean, I hope they're sweet nothings. Actually, I think he must have been discussing blue light specials, Sex and the City, Italian-American cuisine, manhole covers, and the dating stylings of Emile Hirsch. Since that's how it ended up. Here's a photo for posterity:




Yeah, I've got a funny-looking apartment. Years of practice. So, that explains the dream, I suppose. Well, the first one anyway.


At any rate, I went to work this morning and if that dad-gum place is good for nothing else I can at least make pizzas there. So, I fried a big heaping handful of juilenned onions in a saute pan and added about a half of the livers I had leftover from earlier. Which means I should be great on Vitamin A. Speaking of which, you should never eat the liver of a carnivore because you will die of a VITAMIN A OVERDOSE!!! Just so you know. Once the onions are nice 'n' sweaty like your dear blog author here you should dump in some livers. Flip it around, then chop 'em a little and when they're still a little bit pink dump 'em on your pizza crust, cheese it, then cheese it through the oven. I used a thick American pizza style dough, but I really think it would have been better to use less cheese and a thin crust that will get crispy. So, whatever pizza crust you normally make when you make pizza dough at home or you can go buy one at the Midtown or wherever. But trust me, this pizza is DYN-O-MITE. But not if you don't like livers. And if you don't like livers I really don't think you should read my blog anyway.

Oh yeah, I still don't have a photograph-making device. But here's a photo of me and my main squeeze eating another tray of pizza at a popular dance hall downtown. I really hate how this photo makes me look bald but that's my favorite tie: