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Hail to the Brat

I will admit it, my heritage took over yesterday.  My name and at least half the blood coursing through me can be held responsible causing a craving for good sausages.  Let me name some of my favorites:  leberwurst, knackwurst, bockwurst, frankfurter, blood sausage and of course my all time fave, bratwurst, aka the brat.  You may choose to argue whether leberwurst (liverwurst) or blood sausage are good, but once one tastes them, these bits of ground or shredded meats can be wunderbar.  (It also helps to know what is actually in these sausages, the names are a bit off-putting and downright deceiving, they contain things like roast pork, rice and other good things, but I digress.)

Yesterday I was grocery shopping and low and behold the store carried Johnsonville Bratwursts.  Read the story at the website to get the entire history of how brats became so popular about 40 plus years ago.  I haven't eaten this magnificent brand of bratwurst in over 15 years, for a couple of reasons.  First, they are hard to find in Canada and the Western U.S. and second, there are a whole bunch of leaner meats one should eat if one is of a particular age.  But yesterday I purchased 5 of them and grilled two for dinner.  Actually I ate one for dinner and the other one was grilled but will be used for something else TBD.  Here's the one leftover brat in all its delicious sausageness:

A Johnsonville Brat grilled over charcoal, the only way it should be done.

The one I ate was so good and I didn't even put the boiled beer and onion treatment to either of them. (You'll just have to check out the Johnsonville website to get that "recipe", should you not already know it.)   The accompaniment to this brat had to be potato salad, homemade, without a question.  I was literally in hog heaven last night savoring that brat and a very good potato salad if I do say so myself.  And how does one wash all this porky goodness down, with a Schell's Schmaltz's Alt, a beer too refined (can you use refined and beer in the same sentence) to be boiled with onions and a couple of brats BTW.

I know, one really shouldn't be so over the top by this type of meat, but hey what can I say; it is in my blood and once or twice, OK five times every 15 years, perhaps it isn't too excessive.  It was a total meaty/beer overload that kept me from writing about this last night and I'm still smiling about the event today.

And just because we are on a food kick here and this is a knitting blog, how about a video about knitting with Ramen noodles.  Yes, you read that right and no don't ask me how I found it.  I have a fair amount of time to search the Internet now that I'm retired.  Enough said.  This particular video link can be found here.  Someone should tell her to stop playing with her food.  She should just enjoy it; like I did that brat, potato salad and beer!






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