Meatfare Sunday in Orthodoxie

Now that I see the picture, I know what spice/condiment you were talking about.

As I mentioned at lunch, Hot Sauce Harry's is based locally:

www.hotsauceharrys.com

Hot Sauce Harry's, Inc.
10606 Shady Trail, Suite 20
Dallas, TX 75220
phone: (214) 902-8552
fax: (214) 956-9885

in a little warehouse strip just south of Walnut Hill Rd. and east of I-35E.

My daughter brought me a bottle of their Dead Heat several years ago, and I still have a lot left:

www.hotsauceharrys.com/abi002/showdetl.cfm?&DID=504&Product_ID=305&CATID=4

It's probably the hottest "good-tasting" capsaicin resin sauce I've tasted. Most cap resin sauces (e.g., Dave's Insanity) have too much of a bitter taste. Dead Heat at 125,000 Scoville Units will give you as much of an endorphin rush as you can probably stand without killing you (e.g., Blair's 16 Million Reserve Pepper Extract at 16 million Scoville Units - pure cap crystals, a true Weapon of Mass Destruction).

Invite us to a Lenten tofu party at your house, and I'll bring the hot sauce! :^)

An Orthodox parish in McCOMB?? Boy, Mississippi has sure gotten cosmopolitan since my day.

The good folks in McComb have been a tremendous support to our little Orthodox mission in Baton Rouge - God grant them many years!

Can't say I'm up to a Meatfare Sunday with beaver, though...

Some things that happen in Mississippi should stay in Mississippi.

Tonight we're feasting on steak and Abita's Mardi Gras Bock, which has almost disappeared from the grocery stores, since they only produce it in January and February.

Blessed Carnival!

Just a side note on the tofu: If you haven't yet got a copy of The Flexitarian Table, you will certainly want it in time for Lent. It has the best tofu recipes I have ever tasted, and as an added bonus, you can use the meat recipes come Pascha. Good struggle!

I always thought Rodentia was a phylum...but my education is in the humanities, so I could be wrong. Phylum or order, I can't fathom eating a rodent of any sort -- but then again I didn't go to college with Mike Huckabee.

OK, this is where I really turn troll on Rod, finally (?) - his locally-lamented (by some) switch in faith-based beverages, to Byzantine brew from RCC Cola, is as nothing compared to his flop-flipping when it comes to flattering his food, i.e., condimenting will get him everywhere - call the *volte-face* below in his flavor faves "cross-dressing": I have in my hand [attempts McCarthyite flourish, only to resemble for all the world more Charlie than Joe, owing to a splinter] the following documents, whose turncoat import, for those attempting to follow suit at the grocer's, have both induced whiprash [or "lipwash" - Ed.] in those going from 60 to reverse in slavish Rodly adoption - not to mention cries from ol' Working Boy of the Bayou himself of "how come you're copying me?" before an aerial half-twist back to his seat, a la Cheri Oteri's cheerleader Arianna's j'accusatory set-pieces [blots forehead with towel]; to [half]wit:

"The Corner," National Review, August 28, 2002: "WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PRODUCT? [Rod Dreher] ...I have been meditating on a homily I must deliver about the manifold glories of sriracha sauce, a cheap but can't-do-without hot sauce available in Asian markets....
nationalreview.com/thecorner/2002_08_25_corner-archive.asp#85391019

"The Corner," National Review, November 30, 2002: THE MONSTER I'VE CREATED [Rod Dreher] ...I'll take our new intern...shopping down Lex at Kalustyan's for sriracha sauce, the condiment of the gods. There's no antidote quite like it for an overdose of bland Thanksgiving food. When I blast my chow with it, my wife says I'm an arsonist. The hotta the betta, say I...
nationalreview.com/thecorner/02_11_30_corner-archive.asp#001317

What a difference five-and-a-half years - and a new religion that, like Black Velvet (if you please), brought him to his knees - make, as here he is, above and today, as snapped just this afternoon by paleocon papparazzi spying him at table with the latest Huy Fong sister he appears to have taken up with, once Sistah Sriracha, her tongue of fire dulled by comparison, lost her claim as "My Old Flame" to Sistah Sambal:

"...if I had enough sambal oelek (the Condiment of the Gods), I could eat anything. In fact, that's how I plan to get through all that tofu in my Lenten future."
blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/03/meatfare-sunday-in-orthodoxie.html

As I say, both chilis *are* from the same Huy Fong family of Vietnamese victual vivifiers, so let's hope the cat-fight between them ensuing dissipates over capsaicin-cooling mouthfuls of milk and bread, in the interests of sororital solidarity...and does this penchant for the peppery make of Rod a "Capsaicin Crunch"? Who's a "nautical" [Working] Boy, then?

And remember kids, whenever you're trying a new food for the first time, always practice safe spice and use a condiment - otherwise you're absorbing the flavor of every other food that one's ever been cooked with...or, as former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is known to sing with the spoof-troupe The Capitol Steps, in the refrain to a Beach Boys parody titled "Little Doc Koop":

"You don't know what it's got."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2000/1/prweb11706.htm

Finally, to make a long story, what the heck, longer still, here's the close of a tribute to the "Best Vietnamese Restaurant", one Quán Kiên Giang, in Rod's city of adoption, from a 2007 issue of the Dallas Observer, which will ring true for anyone charmed world without end by the divers forms taken in Asian eateries by that ever-evolving tongue known as Engrish, whose indigines will never fade under modernity's juggernaut as long as only one takeout menu lies in silent wait before a bare fridge:

"Their motto: 'In order to respond affection and enthusiastic support from you, we have been using up ability, 5-year experience to serve you with satisfied and delicious meals.' Because ultimately, a meal that isn't satisfied isn't worth the plate it is written on."
bestof.dallasobserver.com/bestof/award.php?award=747778

"Just to update all of y'all. The beaver was delicious." - David "One" Mississippi

"That's what *he* said." - Larry the Cable Guy
"That's what *she* said." - Ellen de Generes
"That's what *we* said." - Melissa Etheridge, Julie Cypher
"The Etheridge-Cypher baby has his father's mustache. So does the boy." - David Crosby
[A Byrd in the pan is worth two in the bush. - Ed.]

Scott, just a second!

The BDHS (the Best D*** Hot Sauce) I've tasted is no longer made. It was called "Baptism of Fire" and it was made by a local gal named Pamm Anderson - two "m"s in "Pamm." Her company was called Texas 2 Step.

I gave my last bottle/jar to Vladyka a couple years ago, since he loves hot sauce.

In response to an inquiry of where to purchase it, Pamm told me (via email) that she had modified/improved the sauce, but I never ordered any of her new recipe before she disappeared. The people at Hot Sauce Harry's fondly remember it, and they told me that what they think happened is that someone convinced Pamm to really try to market her sauce, so she produced a huge order, but her distribution system or distributor didn't work out, so she was stuck with jars and jars and jars of it, which she sold at a loss, and never took up the business again.

But if you ever run across a jar of "Baptism of Fire Hot Sauce" by Pamm/Texas 2 Step sitting on a shelf and gathering dust, be sure to buy it. It will give your tongue and taste buds a wild and wonderful experience.

Whoops - make that "General Dentistry" in my closing line, above: I'm the latest among those laptop-addicted afflicted with WCS (Wandering Cursor Syndrome) - not to mention whose failure to proofread before hitting "Post" in lightning haste finds him a self-inflected victim of what Benny Hill, playing Dr. Ruth Westheimen (!), called "Premature Jocularity", i.e., laughing before you've delivered your punch line...

I was a sriricha devotee, and now still love it, but its sister hot sauce, sambal oelek, is now my fave rave (as they say in Tiger Beat).

A BEAVER???
I think I would have a coniption if my future husband ever tried that. I would alternate between jumping up and down and screaming, and running over to the oven to LOOK at the creature, which would then cause more screaming and jumping.... Wow. Definitely a good story, regardless of how it turns out. Hope the kitchen smell improves, for that poor guy's sake. ;)

Joey:

Just like capybara in South America is officially considered "fish" by the Catholic Church ...