But how do we determine what the accurate picture is?

[sovay]

I meant to brag about successfully ordering takeout Indian goat, but then I came home and smashed my face into a glass door. Accidentally: I had my hands full of groceries and couldn't catch myself. I don't think I can have broken my nose or there'd have been blood everywhere, but the amount of pain and swelling is rather extraordinary to me. I look like Alec Guinness' Fagin.

At least once I could see around the icepack I was able to perceive my contributor's copies of Archaeopteryx: The Newman Journal of Ideas, including my poems "The Color of the Ghost" (Wittgenstein) and "A Find at Þingvellir" (Mjölnir). The first of these was written for my godchild, the second for my brother. The cover is the famous fossil. I approve.

I ate my goat jalfrezi anyway. It felt like a small victory. I really hope it doesn't snow until later tomorrow.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Mmm, goat jalfrezi. I have myself been currying goat recently, as it's readily available at the Hispanic grocer down the road. I am however still kicking myself over passing up the chance to eat goat brains at a restaurant last year (I didn't want to trouble Karen with the contents of my plate; she has observed since that she would not have been troubled, though she might not have wanted to share). Another restaurant down on El Camino offers - according to its website, at least - lamb's brains as a house special. I might need to go and check that out.

[sovay]

I have myself been currying goat recently, as it's readily available at the Hispanic grocer down the road.

That's wonderful. I have never cooked goat myself, but I would enjoy the opportunity. It's one of my favorite meats.

lamb's brains as a house special. I might need to go and check that out.

I've never had anything's brains: I think it's the one form of offal I feel weird about. (Not for any instinctive reason like zombies; mostly because I like my brain in its present form, not stuck with prions. I internalized early on that nervous tissue was not a safe thing to eat and I don't see that changing by now.) What's your experience with brain as a food?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I grew up on offal: brains and hearts and tongues and livers and kidneys and sweetbreads were a constant in my childhood. I always did like brains. And then they vanished, and I never saw them either in butchers or in restaurants until a publisher took me to a London gastropub for lunch, and there they were: just as yummy as I remembered. Then the whole BSE thing happened and they vanished again; I'm still not sure if calves' or sheep's brains are allowed in the UK food chain. But pigs' are, and I have eaten them with pleasure. (The flavour of brain is mild, but the texture is unique: something like soft cod's roe, but not really...)

[sovay]

I grew up on offal: brains and hearts and tongues and livers and kidneys and sweetbreads were a constant in my childhood.

Come to Boston and I will take you to DooWee & Rice. They have the best chicken hearts I've ever eaten. And ridiculously good served over fries.

(The flavour of brain is mild, but the texture is unique: something like soft cod's roe, but not really...)

That's very neat. I hadn't thought much about the texture. Curdy?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Curdy: absolutely. Bravo.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

(shewhomust says that every time I say "It's all about the texture," she takes that as a warning; but it is so often true, especially down the offal end of things. We should rank texture higher, I think, as a part of the experience of eating.)