Thanksgiving. ACT II: To Chow or Not to Chao

I'll save you the drama and disappointment in both "Grandma Goes for a Walk" and "The Jets Lay a Thanksgiving Egg" by saying that both were disappointments but only one was avoidable. And besides, I'd rather get on with the food!

On Saturday we took the Wife and the Father-in-Law out for their traditional Birthday dinner. Instead of the usual Japanese Steakhouse (which has been spotty lately after years of great food), we ventured for something a bit fancier to mark the occasions of their 30th and 60th birthdays, respectively.

So off to Fogo de Chao we went. For those of you who haven't been to a "Brazilian steakhouse", I won't bore you with all the details on how things are done. Rather, read this post from the DC Foodies site for the full rundown of how it works and so on. This way we can get to the real "Meat" of the discussion.

We ate to our hearts content obviously but I found that as part of this new diet (by the way I'm down a total of 11 lbs in 5 weeks....yeah me!) I've adopted the "law of diminishing returns" and noticed that each cut of meat that was brought to my plate lost the bulk of it's flavor after a few bites. So at the end my plate looked like a scrap heap of assorted meat products. This way I got to taste everything (and somethings twice).

Overall the food was good but not great. I thought the salad/antipasto bar had a nice selection with quality products. I think it would have been better (as the Foodies describe) to have some of those items brought to the table mid meal as a palette cleanser.

Speaking of diets and Fat Americans, I took a mid meal break to get a few "changes of pace" from the salad bar and was in line behind a very large woman who appeared to be going for her pre meal plate. Even though it's an all you can eat MEAT restaurant, she proceeded to load her plate with 2 pieces of bread, 4-5 pats of butter, all sorts of cheese, in addition to the rest of the items on the bar. It shocks me that if you pay the kind of money per person to eat at this place that you'd save PLENTY of room for the actual MEAT. And if you can eat all that and a sizable portion of the meat, you may want to cut back on one or the other....or just go and get a little bit of exercise.

Ma...back up the truck...I think you ran over Dinner!

That's right fans of non-horse based meat and meat by-products. The state of New Jersey (My homestate) has bellowed down from the rooftops that Squirrel meat is once again safe to eat. Which would of course imply that that it was eaten before which begs the question, "Was there a shortage of Raccoon?"

Here's the article from today's NY Daily News.

You can't make this stuff up. I can, but I'm special. I'm also wondering how exactly state regulators or federal ones found that this squirrel had lead in it's system. I mean we don't really care that the fish we eat has deadly levels of mercury.

To add to the Halloween fun I've also found this recipe for the deluge of squirrel meat that's going to be in your neighborhood A&P or Walbaums:

Honey and Cider Squirrel

2 young squirrel, dressed & halved (or old squirrel shaved and black tie attired)
1/2 cup honey
2 cups apple cider
2 bay leaves, crushed
1 TBL cornstarch
2 TBL water

Pat squirrel halves dry. Place on rack in broiler pan. Coat with half the honey. Broil 6 inches from heat source for 8 minutes. Turn. Coat with remaining honey. Broil for 8 minutes longer. Place in roasting pan. Pour cider over squirrel. Add bay leaves. Roast @ 350 degrees for 1 hour or until tender. Remove to serving platter; keep warm. Strain pan drippings into saucepan. Dissolve cornstarch in water; stir into pan drippings. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Serve with squirrel. May serve with crisp shoestring potatoes and green salad. Yield: 4 Servings.