Jeff you should put some salt and pepper on the testicles amd some ranch sauce

Squirrel yes skunk no. lol

squirrel is actually quite good. i tried it for the frst time last year in west virginia. after it was skinned it was boiled. the meat was then removed from the carcass, shredded and mixed about 50/50 with mashed potatoes then breaded and deep fried.

I don't want to eat or wear anything I see lying dead on the side of the road. Roadkill is roadkill, it's not food or a luxury item. I don't want to eat squirrel or wear raccoon.

As for the testicles, what animal was the original owner? When I was in Nashville, our host ordered an appetizer named rooster fries, which were actually deep fried turkey testicles.

A nice, plump squirrel can be quite good. I've had it breaded and fried.

As a child, Gordon Liddy captured, killed, skinned and cooked a squirrel. When he was asked what it tasted like, he replied, "Kind of like rat."

i have an amazing piece of tuna marinading in my homemade teriyaki that has a date in the cast iron later tonight. i gotta say it again, wegmens sure does a great job with thier seafood department! its very reassuring when you have to wait in line as it means that the product moves. for a side i was thinking of a nice light rice pilaf flavored with ginger and tons of scallions. oh yeah, i will be cooking that tuna extremely rare, the only way it should be cooked

Sounds good, FF. I just put in a little roast with potatoes & carrots for a late dinner. Mrs. Mark has class tonight and I want to surprise her.

Sounds good, FF. Wegman's is too long a drive for me, but we are supposed to be getting one next year. I've only been to one in VA when I visited my nephew, and I did love it.

it can be kinda pricey, but it's worth it imo. when it comes to food most of the time i would rather spend extra money and cook at home rather then go out to a sub-par establishment and be let down. this is not to say that i don't enjoy going out, but i would rather go out to one nice place rather than 2 ok places. this also saves money that i can use for the bar tab being a young guy and all

i'm gonna be cooking the tuna soon and i will let you guys know how it came out. i know that it's kinda late but i usually eat a late lunch and i find that when i eat dinner later i tend to snack less.

I have to tell you, drinking out has gotten hideously expensive. Since when is a glass of mediocre wine more money than a mixed drink? Ridiculous. $8 for a meh cab? I can spend a couple of dollars more and get a whole bottle for home! LOL I went out with my daughter and some of her friends and couldn't believe the tab at the end of the night!

very true! thats why ya gotta have a "few" drinks before you even go out! take that extra money and throw it towards a cab or make it worth the while for the designated driver. thats what my friends will do. just remember, never let your fun potentially interfere with somebody else's life!

I'm very proud of my daughter and her friends. They will always either choose a DD or plan on sleeping over (usually in my living room lol) so nobody has to think about it.

the tuna was very good! i took the leftover marinade and reduced it over low heat and it turned out to be a great sauce! the rice needed a little more salt but it had a great flavor anyway!

Always better to undersalt than oversalt.

Our government tells folks over here not to drink before they go out cos this is what leads to binge drinking and carnage in the hospitals on weekend nights. Ridiculous, there's nothing wrong with having 8 cans of Stella in the house before going out for 10 pints is there??

Takes me right back to my younger days...








So, what's for tonight's dinner?

Signor V.

For a friend's birthday, I took her out to the area's best Italian restaurant: Il Giardinello (I've mentioned it here before, especially after Joe Pesci was spotted there a year or two ago by another friend).

My go-to dish is Linguini Marechiara (Combination of Shrimp, Calamari and Scungilli [and a few clams and mussels] with a touch of Marinara Sauce over Linguini; $24.95)

Hmm, this time the "touch of Marinara" was just that, yet this time with a HUGE SCOOP of chunky tomatoes on top that I had to pick off. Not a fan of tomato chunks in my sauce. But the dish is awesome anyway. Huge, and packed full of seafood! I added some crushed red pepper flakes to kick it up a notch.

Started off with the Oysters Amalfi (Oysters broiled with crabmeat stuffing; $12). Very good. But you serve 5 for 2 people?? Not 6 or 4? Happens all the time! lol

House Salad, and the Escarole in Brodo ($4.50) soup was good, too.

Took most of the entree home for tomorrow. My date had the Chilean Sea Bass special ($32) which was outstanding and huge!

Thankfully tomorrow's a cheap day: Leftovers, then $1 beers at the ballpark.

For a friend's birthday, I took her out to the area's best Italian restaurant: Il Giardinello (I've mentioned it here before, especially after Joe Pesci was spotted there a year or two ago by another friend).

My go-to dish is Linguini Marechiara (Combination of Shrimp, Calamari and Scungilli [and a few clams and mussels] with a touch of Marinara Sauce over Linguini; $24.95)

Hmm, this time the "touch of Marinara" was just that, yet this time with a HUGE SCOOP of chunky tomatoes on top that I had to pick off. Not a fan of tomato chunks in my sauce. But the dish is awesome anyway. Huge, and packed full of seafood! I added some crushed red pepper flakes to kick it up a notch.

Started off with the Oysters Amalfi (Oysters broiled with crabmeat stuffing; $12). Very good. But you serve 5 for 2 people?? Not 6 or 4? Happens all the time! lol

House Salad, and the Escarole in Brodo ($4.50) soup was good, too.

Took most of the entree home for tomorrow. My date had the Chilean Sea Bass Tico special (egg battered, sautéed with white wine, garlic, butter and lemon, served over a bed of spinach and topped with fried leeks; $32) which was outstanding and huge!

Thankfully tomorrow's a cheap day: Leftovers, then $1 beers at the ballpark.

I went to lunch with a colleague. He loves sushi, so we went to the all you can eat sushi place I mentioned here previously. There's no buffet, you order off of menu sheets. The food is then prepared to order. Everything is fresh and very high quality. He was quite impressed. And insisted on picking up the check! Lovely!

This is the third time in about two months that I've eaten there, and the food always gets a thumb's up from me. I had tobiko, pork katsu, spicy calamari, crab tempura, beef teriyaki, a Manhattan Roll and a Philadelphia Roll. I was dying to get the fried banana to finish off the meal, but even I was too full.

i had a chicken cheesesteak from a local place. it was pretty good, although the chicken was a little dried out as it likely spent a little too much time on the flattop. i picked up a 6pk of titan ipa as well as a single bottle of dogfishhead 90 minute ipa so i had plenty to wash it down with.

Decisions, decisions...

Burning the midnight oil again (no good for cooking, let me tell you...), and I'm pondering what to do with a handful of nice-sized shrimp I've just thawed.

It seems to be coming down to this:

1. Pasta with garlic and oil and a little fortified chicken broth, topped with shrimp braised in the liquids with red pepper flakes, seasonings, parsley and a bit of lemon juice added. Quite delicious, I might add.

Or...

2. Chipotle shrimp over rice. Just saw an episode this evening of Mexico - One Plate At A Time with Rick Bayless and the recipe is quite easy to adapt with I have in my cupboards. I have a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce at the ready, if need be.

(BTW, has anyone noticed that Rick Bayless sounds exactly like someone doing an impression of Jack Nicholson??)

In any event, whichever I choose, it's a sure bet that I will be avoiding close contact with any and all humankind for the next 24 hours...

As the Chinese say, "Man who has choice, has troubles!"

Signor V.

We went to a local seafood place to celebrate my mom's birthday. We had the family sized fried clam strips and fried calmari to start. There were nine of us and we couldn't even come close to finishing (and we have some monster-sized appetites). My daughter and I shared the lobster feast - 2 steamed lobsters with mussels and clams and coleslaw. We finished the lobsters and the clams, but couldn't make a dent in the mussels. My husband and brother (ironically) shared the Lover's Platter, which was two dozen jumbo shrimp cocktail, six lobster tails and two sides. Everyone at the table ordered similar items, we shared three buckets of Coronas, as well as some sodas. With tip and all, the bill was $329. I'm still not sure how we got away that cheaply.

I gotta say you eat well !^^^^^

And, alas, I look it.

hand breaded fried shrimp tonight. just simple flour , egg, and breadcrumb. they were very good, the only problem is that i didn't have a thermometer so it took a bit of trial and error to get the oil to the right temperature.

After I posted my chicken cutlet recipe for Geoff's tailgating, I decided to make them tonight. America's Choice Sesame Ginger Marinade, plus OJ, lemon juice, white wine and a dash of onion powder. Then we grilled them.

I almost forgot, for an appetizer, I bought a couple of thin crust Boboli and made pizzas. Pizzaboy had recommended grilling them, so we tried it. They were delicious!

Of course they were great - he IS pizzaboy!

i've done grilled pizza a few times with fresh dough. very tricky as you need the grill to be screaming hot. it can be done on gas but nothing competes with the taste of charcoal imo, that smokey flavor is great! for this method of prep the dough has to be worked extremely thin, and brushed with oil. now it's kinda similar to grilling delicate fish in that once you throw it on the grill you have to let it do its thing, because if you start messing with it too soon its all over, the dough wil let you know when its ready to be flipped as it should pull away cleanly. add whatever topping you like and heat them through and time to eat!

I made Sicilian Babe's vodka sauce tonight. I just used rigatoni instead of penne. It was very very good. I don't really eat pasta, but my husband and kids loved it, and moreso b/c I made it. lol. Thank you!!

Next up, Five Felonies Peppercorn sauce recipe.

good job, carmela. i've been meaning to try her vodka sauce recipe as well as its perfect for me because i hate any kind of tomato sauce with any chunks of tomato in it, just one of those weird food things we all have. as for the peppercorn sauce, you wil do great! i've made it a few times recently and the only slight tweaks that i would make to the recipe i posted before would be 3/4 cup of cream instead of 2/3 and i had to reduce the sauce for a little longer than 5 minutes, maybe 7. PM me whenever you want if you have any questions.