Not for the faint of stomach

Friday Matty finally got ahold of the plumber and was told that they were waiting to hear from the insurance company that was talking to the tilers because the new plan was to take out the shower and get to the leak from there. Which would mean that we wouldnt have a bathroom for an unspecified length of time at some point in the near future. Which would mean the apartment would not really be livable. Fun. Still haven't heard from our landlords and dont think they know what is going on.

Friday night due to the ugliness of the weather we decided to stay in and order Giannas (pesto chicken cutlet was amazing and goomba steak was very good as well) and play Mario Kart.

Saturday we decided to try out one of my birthday presents. The sausage maker. Yayz! First we stopped at goodburger to try it out since it opened earlier in the month. I was pretty impressed actually. They grind their own meat and trust their butchers and cook to order so you can actually tell them how you want your burger done. We split a cheeseburger and fries. The fries were pretty good, not too salty. And I got a whole pickle which was really really good. I wonder who will make it longer. goodburger with their new york attitude (in a good way, with their pastured chicken, house ground meat, recycling program, online ordering and beer) or Five Guys down the street which has been here longer, has free peanuts and cool free toppings list. So then we went to Reading Terminal and picked up . . . actually, if you arent a meat person, you might want to skip down a little bit.

So anyway. We picked up about 10 feet of natural casings, 2 pork shoulders for a total of about 10 lbs and a little over a pound of fatback. Yeah. Fatback. Then we went home and Matty butchered the shoulders and I ground the meat. We decided to do Italian (without fennel and adding basil) and Tex-Mex chorizo (with significantly less cayenne and tequila :-) )as our first attempts. So after the pork, fatback, onions and garlic were ground we mixed all the meat and seasonings together and let it meld. I will post pics later, I promise!

OK, DONE TALKING ABOUT SAUSAGE FOR THE MOMENT!

After the sausage preparing we heading tot he Italian Market for the 9th St. Italian Market Festival. It is exactly what it sounds like. A huge Italian Festival running down 9th St. from Fitzwater to Federal. Mmmmm! So we got ourselves some Peroni and Meatballs and Gnocchi and Cannoli and walked around for awhile. It was a beautiful day. Then we stopped by Dustyn's and went to grab a drink (or two pitchers) at O'Neal's and got to see the Preakness. Then we headed for dinner at Royal Tavern. We managed to get a table right away and (as Dustyn recommended as always a good idea) ordered one of the specials and Chorizo burger with grouda, roasted red peppers and a mustard sauce. They mixed the beef and chorizo together to make the burger. It was fantastic. We also got an enormous order of nachos and of course, the truffle popcorn. It was a really good day all around.

Sunday morning we got up and decided to do some shopping since the weather was going to be crappy. First we needed to make the sausage though. Again, stop reading if you dont want to hear about it.

So this was (obviously) my first time working with sausage casings and they are surprisingly easy to work with. We vigorously cleaned them and followed all the directions and then on to stuffing. Which took significantly less time than I expected. It all went very well. One thing, in case you were thinking about doing this, which I am sure you are not, getting the sausage into the machine is tough because air pockets form so you really have to stuff it down. Which is why there is a stuffer tool I suppose. But it all went well. We have some of the chorizo left over as bulk which we will try this week. Mmmm! Cant wait to try these this weekend.

OK, DONE TALKING ABOUT SAUSAGE!

After the sausage we got a car (a Mini) and went to IKEA, Lowe's and Target. I wanted cloth napkins. This was an idea from Beth. While it has been vigorously point out to us that no matter what we do, as long as we keep flying, nothing will help reduce our carbon footprint or our reliance on oil, I still feel better doing what we can. So cloth napkins, giving them a try. Also I wanted to pick up a tomato plant since I have no confidence that our seedlings will make it. And a strawberry plant since our strawberries are a disaster. Again, pics are coming. I swear. It started to pour right as we were leaving Ikea. Which of course made Lowe's garden center lots of fun. Once we got home we decided to stay in the rest of the night. We watched The Savages. It was very good. I think it was my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman role actually. He and Laura Linney were both fantastic. Not a happy movie. But really good. We decided to order in, again, since it looked like a hurricane outside (which of course stopped as soon as our food arrived). So Greek lady half salad and half sandwich for dinner and we downloaded WiiWare TV Show King which is essentially just a trivia game. We just wanted to check out WiiWare essentially. Then we played some Smash Bros..

We also talked to our landlord and as we suspected, they were not in the loop. So apparently instead of having professionals come and tear up the bathroom to fix the leak, one of the landlords is going to come and fix it through the ceiling. Which is . . . interesting . . . seeing as how he couldn't tell we even had a leak and is a cabinet and surfboard maker. Oh and this is all going to happen on Memorial Day. So much for a relaxing day off at home. Sigh. We will see.

And yes, I know, I have to post pics. Sausage, Garden, Hole. Promise!

Puzzles!
1) Use the clues to fill in the blanks below with words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings and different spellings.
a) Part ______ Tranquility ______
b) Movement of the sea ______ Put together with a cord or rope ______
c) Sardonic ______ A grain ______

2) The names of eight people are hidden in the sentence below. Can you find them? (The letters are consecutive order.)
California is a noted place to see the sea, no less than movie theaters.

3) What number is one more than one-tenth of one-half of one-half on 1000?