It’s the Way of the Rummie, ain’t it? See, the Loser’s Lounge is right across the street from the grocery store, and the Texas game was on, and there were a couple more curmudgeons wetting their whiskers, and then one left but two more showed up, and then there was a argument about California beaches and the Piney Woods and the Ford 427 and whose mama’s cornbread was better, and…

Well, I gotta go cook my onion now.

Two–Four (Billy Beck)

Who could get away with that today? Nobody could even start thinking about something like that without a horde of commissars starts crawling up his ass, nevermind actually getting the thing up and running.

[...]

I wouldn’t know how to start assembling data for the thesis, but I’m convinced that the enormous culture of regulation over the past century has resulted in the positive corrosion of corporate initiative and destruction of the best impulses of American innovation.

That’s why I’m in the business I’m in…computers and networks and storage remained black arts for many, many years and the commissars knew not where to regulate or how. Then the internet snuck up on them and whacked them with a baseball bat. They’re just now coming to, and they’re gonna be gunning for the nerds next.

The really seriously bad news? The young nerds are extremely hip to the poli-sci power game, and they want their snout in the trough, so they’ve voted themselves a place at the table. This is the way it goes - not innovation, but power over others. Hide and watch.

ALT HED: I sure picked a bad year to start a couple of businesses.

I found a FedEx box on my doorstep yesterday. Within said box, I find something I’ve been looking for forever — a real, honest-to-God, Carolina red pepper and vinegar sauce. This is the thin stuff I first had way back in the 80s in some shack back in the woods in the Charlotte area of N. Carolina. Being a really dumb Texan, I initially scoffed at the consistency and texture, but I was converted by the end of the sammich (I still don’t do that cole-slaw thing, though.)

Anyhoo, I moaned some time back about not being able to find it, or reproduce it, here in Texas for my smoked pork butts. Long-time internet poker buddy, Wes the Big Pirate, spots said moaning and proceeds to track down some of the real deal for me. Sends it to me (2 bottles, no less.) I had about a half-pound of left-over smoked pork loin in the fridge, so I slices it up real thin, drizzles the sauce on it in a skllet, simmer it real low for about 30 minutes, and voila! Carolina pork nirvana, the likes of which I never thought I’d see again. Made me cry a little, and made my scalp sweat a lot.

The good news? They’re selling this stuff online. I highly, strongly, righteously recommend you get yourself a bottle or two and keep around for your smoked pork needs. Probably good on yardbird, too. I’ll reserve comment on it’s suitability to beef, as I don’t want to spark a flame war amongst the BBQ volk, but if you think I ain’t gonna try it, you ain’t been reading this long enough.

From the Scott’s Barbeque Sauce website:

The roots of Scott’s Family Barbecue Sauce go back to 1917 when Adam Scott first got into the barbecue business in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The recipe for the sugar free, fat free sauce was developed over a three-year period and remains a secret which is passed down through the Scott family. Adam, a local minister, said the exact ingredients in the sauce were revealed to him in a dream.

See? I told you it was honest-to-God, and I meant it. Hie thee off and get ya some. This is what life’s about, my beautiful babies. Ain’t the interwebs grand?

In other cooking news, I’m off to the DF&W metromess next week for bidness, leaving on Sunday, gone all week, so that means I need to clean out the fridge a little bit. The things I don’t want to have turn into a science project include

• One link of Louisiana boudin sausage
• One and a half links of Elgin hot (it’s not) sausage
• ¼ lb. of thick-sliced bacon
• ¼ lb. of smoked pork loin
• 2 cups of homemade jambalaya (made with some chicken bits scavenged off a WalMart rotisserie boid the kids didn’t finish)

All I need is an onion, and that’s some kind of seriously wackadoo hobo chili, no? Fry up that bacon real crispy, brown some onion in the bacon grease, add some chili powder, simmer all that meat together in it for a couple of hours, warm up the jambalaya in the nukular oven, put some of that in a bowl, add a heaping helping of the chili on top, with some grated sharp cheddar to top it off.

Told you — I’m a cook, not a chef.