The Sausage Factory

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I'm supposed to be swinging a club with my Baltimore friends right now. Thunder, lightning and heavy rain spared them a huge embarrassment.

Or vice-versa.

But yesterday we had a bunch of hours of togetherness as we made Italian Sausage at my brother Jim's house.

I'm not talking a minor operation of filling a couple of skins here. We had hundreds of pounds of meat. Miles and miles of casings and Dad's recipe.

If we sold this stuff on the open market there would be a stampede for it. Not kidding, it's that perfect. We started doing it about twenty-five years ago as this generation...Dad probably did it for 50 years...Grandpa another 50.

So we kind of got the recipe down.

About ten years ago, my beautiful wife discovered the secret. Jake was in the hospital and Jeff prepared a meal of homemade Italian Sausage for us. Kathy wouldn't touch the stuff up until that point even though I told her that ours was better than anything else she ever had.

She tried a piece. Then another and another and another and ten years later...I'm splitting half my supply. It was funny, but I recall every second of that conversation.

"Jeff made us dinner," she said. "Italian sausage, and oh...my...freaking...God!"

"Shit," I responded. I knew my days of hogging it were over.

Jim was the leader yesterday although Uncle Jim was working tirelessly beside me. My cousins from Baltimore were watching in a sort of awe, snapping photos as we filled the bags.

The entire operation took five hours on Saturday...another five on Friday...we ate a few pounds as we worked. Scott, an honorary Fuzzy, was smiling as he watched me attack a sandwich with hot peppers.

"How is it?" he asked.

"Sucks," I said.

I'm still trying to pretend that it isn't very good.

It didn't work.

Too many people are in on the secret.

Thanks Jim...for carrying it on.

Comments

Corleone said…
Couple things: Uh...Chuck, hello? ...and secondly, you've used that line on Kathy before....'it's better than anything else you've had before....'
05 September, 2011
Cliff Fazzolari said…
Chuck who? Yeah, yeah...he busted his ass. Great guy. One of my favs....and I never have used a line on Kathy...no need for lines when your this magnificent.

(Sarcasm alert)
05 September, 2011
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