Homemade Sausage Making

Not sure about Corpus Christi being the windiest city on the Gulf coast. Here in Panama City we get a wind blownin` so hard that a pest from Antarctica, big as a Big Mac, that has no wings, smash windows and are so numerous they will cover the ground. I have not tried them but hear that they taste like Polar Bear with an overtone of penguin.
Yesterday one smashed into a F22 from Tyndall while out on maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. The pilot saved himself by maneuvering into a cloud of these critters and letting them cushion and help float the jet to land. He just opened the canopy, climbed out, and walked on the critters to the ground.

Hey Dick,
I've seen a few critters like that but I never tasted 'em! They must be a lot like our Rocky Mountain "Muskeeters". Shucks, just one of them can carry away a small heifer clutched in his beak! We used to shoot the dang things with our saddle carbines (30-30) but we found that it just made 'em mad! We just had to start chaining down the cattle.

Now Bubba, this ain't no s**t. The wind has blown so hard over this past weekend that the water level in the upper bay was down by four feet.

Wow, we get a lot of that hot air rushing through our territory too (although I think Ross' hot air might be a little bad gas too .
I didn't dare go outside yesterday, so I drilled a hole in the garage wall and stuck a crow bar through it to see if I could feel any resistance to the wind. Oh yeah! When I tried to pull it back inside, I found that the wind had bent the crowbar at a right angle! That hot air moves so quickly around here that very often it will cause the rattlesnakes to bite their own rattles, then when they form a loop, they just roll around the prairie in loops. Why... I've even seen a stiff wind blow a herd of snake loops right up the side of a steep mountain.

Hey guys
I have a strange tale related too weather. Not tall but true! This past weekend we had a small storm pass through here in northern Vermont and the weather man said, expect 6" - 10" of snow tonight. Well by Saturday morning we got the 6" alright, but just 8 miles east of us, they got 30" of snow. Strange but true! It`s all over the news this evening how one small section of Vermont got three times the amount of snow versus the 6" to 10" that was expected.
Wally

UnAssociated Press - Feb 28 2012 - News Release
Quacker Goats Company today announced the biggest breakthrough since the "shooting frozen chickens into jet engines" bird strike tests, a new sausage process known as Cabrito High Altitude Sausage Making. This premium product, a secret process known until now only by its acronym, CHASM, was unveiled today at test headquarters near the University of Northern South Texas at Swinney Switch.

A spokesman for the University`s Department of Redundancy Department noted that the original process was developed during the late 1950`s by comedian Stan Freberg, who at the time was associated with Eating Corporation of America, during the puffed oat cereal craze. One day, a nearsighted gardener threw some yard clippings into a puffed oat gun. The result: Puffed Grass. As Mr. Freberg noted, "Yes, science is always working for YOU at Eating Corporation of America."

Today, successor corporation Quacker Goats Company is set to launch the new CHASM sausage product as soon as production facilities can be bought back, brought back, and brought back on line. Unfortunately, during the current crisis in Syria, most Damascus steel is in use as artillery, endangering Alleppo paprika production in the area. The process features a proprietary interaction between the Damascus barrel, the paprika, and saltpeter in the cure to achieve a unique, smoky, almost gunpowder flavor.

Once it`s over, over there, the technologists of Quacker Goats Company R&D Department will resume their efforts to utilize newly-surplus cannons to propel into and return frozen cabrito from the stratosphere. "The resulting combination of heat and pressure on goat meat, the quick freeze/thaw/freeze/impact cycle, is ideal for sausage production," says company spokesman Monsieur Canard, senior research scientisk.

Industry spokesmen were also speculating on efforts to integrate the production equipment with a long range delivery system. The logistics component, dubbed Inter Continental Ballistic Meat (or ICBM) by industry analysts, is expected to become operational in the near future.

Duck, I think your combination plate is short one taco!
Hope you feel better soon.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

After spending six years in North Dakota I have say that in the winters a strange critter shows up. I guess they are migrating from the North Pole.

Anyhow the critter is a Snow Snake. Our friends up North know what I am talking about. They are worse that the little cat fish that are attracted to urine down in South America. All I have say about them critters is do not bend over!

Nuf said about em'

Wow, On a scale of 1 to 10, that'll give you a "pucker factor" of about 11!

As I've explained to some of you, much of the weather for the eastern half of the US is generated in an area bounded by Interstate 35 on the east and on the north by an east-west line through Austin. In this area, winds from the Pacific come over Mexico, collide with winds from the Atlantic and Caribbean which are coming toward Mexico, and the resulting mess rolls off to the northeast. There, it collides with whatever is coming down from the Pacific Northwest, churns up storms, and flows to the northeast. The result: severe weather for everything east of I-35 (Waco to Minneapolis).

You folks get tornadoes and rain. We get wind and drought, punctuated by the occasional hurricane or cold front. Annual rainfall in this area is 15 inches at best, and on that day, you'd best stay inside. (Most blows on through without hitting the ground, but it still counts. Why?)

Well, anyway, yesterday there's something bubbling up from Mexico (and therefore off the radar), and there's a cold front coming from Colorado, and I've got a house full of in-laws and grand-kids and a smoker full of ribs that I can't get to heat up. I've got the firebox roaring, the grate wide open and the stack vent wide open, I've emptied out the water pan, and I still can't get smoke temperature above about 170 degrees.

So, I go out and rig a clothesline behind the smoker, and mount a big blue tarp. We anchor the corners with big slabs of patio flagstone that must have blown in from Oklahoma during an earlier "blue norther." We get the tarp stabilized, smoke temperature starts climbing, and I survey the setup. Mother-of-grandson, a film school graduate, suggests that it would make an ideal blue-screen setup, and that we can add in the computerized graphics to make it look like... (I wonder how computerized graphic ribs taste.)

Various beer-fueled suggestions are volunteered. The deck of the Titanic ties with a Star Wars battle aftermath scene (the smoke doesn't have to be edited out, that way). A gust comes up and flagstone gets hurled at the crowd, causing someone to suggest the siege of Jericho. Another flap gets loose, blowing accumulated oak tassels (pollen) and live oak leaves from the tarp, directly into the hot tub spa. (The dang tub acts like a magnet.) A few spits of rain pepper the crowd, driving them out of the spa, inside. (I guess they didn't want to get wet. ...wetter. ...whatever.) They take the beer with them. I am left holding the bag. ...make that tarp. It pulls away. I give up, take the ribs inside, and start the oven. While I'm not looking, the polyester tarp contacts the firebox, melts, and stays.

The ribs are undercooked, but the crowd must be fed. Everything else is ready. We crank the oven higher. We nuke enough ribs to start. It's awful. "...nice, light smokey flavor," someone remarks politely, and the crowd agree. Those hardy souls with good dental work chew away. A large platter of leftovers looms. I wonder if twice-smoked ribs, a variation of Chinese twice-cooked pork, might be possible. ...and I start thinking about all you folks with those fancy, electric-fired smokers out there.

Duck, you ol' buzzard! You should write a newspaper column.

Duck
You don`t by any chance wear a ten gallon hat with two shiny side arms on your hip do you? Damn you`re writing / story telling reminds me of another feller on this site. hmmm let me think who that might be!

Wally

uwanna61 wrote:...a ten gallon hat with two shiny side arms on your hip do you?

Nope, although two shiny ten-gallon hip flasks sounds like a good idea.

That sounds like an epic cook but you are lucky the tarp didn't blow away like a fire ball. No telling what it could have burned up with those winds pushing it if you are still in the drought as I think you are.

One nice property of polyester (or not so nice, if it's your skin that we're talking about), is that molten polyester sticks, but does not burst into flame. The worst that can happen when a polyester tarp sticks to a firebox is that you have to chip it off when it cools.

As a corollary, note that it is far better to be wearing cotton than polyester if you are ever enveloped in flames. (Better yet- - Nomex, but it's pretty expensive.) I suppose that it's paranoia developed during all those years in the polymer business, but now that I'm retired from it, I prefer wearing cotton tee shirts and jeans. It's awkward at weddings and funerals, but for running a smoker, it's great and for casual comfort, it's hard to beat.