Friday, January 09, 2009

Darren's Tripe Stew

In accordance with a practical ritual, my 2009 calendar is now hanging behind my bedroom door. Linda knicked it for me. Each month has a different optical illusion, which gets more frustrating as the year passes by. December will find me either craving more visual trickery, or right well ready to put up the free Calendar I get in the town's weekly newspaper. It's mostly advertisements and allusions to mysterious childhood sporting events that would have everyone nervous were I to attend. It also lets me know when the hockey rink closes early at the Recreation Center. For some reason I hate it, but this optical illusion thing is a bad trip away from being rolled up and smoked.

With Vigor!

My bank also gave me a lovely, leather bound appointment book. Methinks they are mocking me. So it is with a great deal of subtly that I have, over the past two weeks, indicated that I'm totally batshit, emotionally fragile (thanks to Man in Black for saying what he did, as well as my brother, Linda, Jean White, Asa, Apocalypse Cow, Melanie and the anonymous heckler) and of so little social consequence that appointment books and calendars seem like sarcasm. The random sarcasm of an indifferent universe that is both tragic and funny as hell. Sometimes at the same time, like that shoe throwing affair with Bush. Damn, that was funny. My hat's off to Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist responsible.

It wasn't funny, however, that they tried to rearrange al-Zaidi's arms and legs for him. By all accounts, he was perfectly happy that his elbows and knees bent like yours and mine. But that's a depressing fact of life. One minute you're flinging a shoe, the next they are taking you to and from your 3 by 5 cell to the bathroom with a spatula. And that's inches, folks, not feet.

I refuse to let John McCain win the war over the use of the word "folks." The campaign is long over, but that fucking word belongs to Porky Pig. Seriously, what an asshole. And the way Palin tied herself to that rocket was SO Wile E. Coyote.

An anonymous heckler is leaving messages on my comment section. She has referred to my writing as "depressing tripe," which I can't really argue with, except that it's only sporadically depressing. It is always, however, a tasty dish.

Here's my favorite recipe for tripe:
2lbs tripe (ox or cow stomach)
2 tablespoons shortening
2 eggs -- separated
2 tablespoons onions -- chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt

1. Place tripe in a large saucepan and cover it with water.
Simmer at low heat until tripe is tender.
2. Drain tripe and reserve liquid. Remove and discard
fatty portions of tripe and cut tripe into 1-inch pieces.
Set aside.
3.
Saute, onion in shortening in a medium-sized saucepan
at medium heat. Set aside and start to get nervous.
4. Beat egg whites until stiff in a small mixing bowl.
Add egg yolks and continue to beat until mixture is lemon
colored, like your aunt Sylvia. Add flour and salt and
mix well.
5. Fold cooked tripe into egg mixture. Add tripe mixture
to saucepan containing
sauted onions. Cook at medium heat
until eggs are set.
6. Add reserved
liquid from tripe and garlic salt to egg
mixture and simmer at low heat for 5-10 minutes.

At that point, you're on your own.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to see you back! Got my fix. :) AL

Anonymous said...

Thank you for something a bit more lucid. That recipe looks yummy.

Anonymous said...

mmm sounds like an erotic massage for my large intestine. say, i got some tripe left over from new years.... will that recipie work with 10 lbs. instead? whats is up, brosev?