Mrs. Burgerdogboy love getting our pork on for weekend breakfasts, and this can take many forms:  bacon, ham chops, jowls, links, patties, smoked or fresh sausage.  This weekend, we picked up some linguica from Uli’s Sausage of Seattle, being sold in the Portland area at Sheridan Fruit Market.

Linguica (for those of you who didn’t click the link to wikipedia) is  “Portuguese sausage” a smoked pork link seasoned with garlic and paprika.  Outside of the Iberian peninsula, you’ll find it popular in Massachusetts, NJ, Washington and environs, and most of all, in Hawaii.  Especially Hawaii, where you’ll find it even on the McDonald’s breakfast menu.

Uli’s is a fresh sausage, that is, one has to cook it prior to consuming.  I have a habit of parboiling fresh sausage before frying or grilling, a holdover from days in the Upper Midwest and they want locals treat bratwurst sausages (parboiled in beer).

Uli’s is a very fine grind, which I personally prefer (if you’ve ever ordered andouille in France, you’ll know what I mean).  The flavors are strong, but I can’t identify them to you, as the label only lists (in addition to garlic, paprika and red wine), “spices” as an ingredient.

After some discussion on the home front, and multiple tastes, we’re gonna guess that Uli has some finely ground fennel in the links, as well.

It’s a great product.  I’ll try others of his as I run across them.

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You’ve probably had strada – a baked, layered egg dish, for breakfast at some point in your life.   I’ve varied this recipe to produce an entree more on the (unch) side than the (br) side for brunch.

8 slices of rye or pumpernickel bread, crusts removed

1/2 pound thin sliced, lean corned beef

8 slices swiss cheese

1 small can of sauerkraut, drained

6 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 C cream or your choice of milk

Lay bread in bottom of 9×13 casserole dish

Layer meat, cheese on top of bread

Take drained sauerkraut and SQUEEZE between your hands to remove all remaining liquid, and sprinkle on top of meat and cheese.

Combine cream and eggs, mix.

Pour cream and egg mixture on top of casserole contents.

Cover with foil, and let rest in refrigerator at least overnight.

The next day, bake at 350 for 45 minutes, remove boil, broil for 3 minutes.

Remove from oven, let sit for 10 minutes before slicing into squares.

Plate with fruit cup or breakfast potatoes, serve, enjoy.

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I’m generally thought to be a fairly good internet researcher, tho I have not been able to come up with the origin of “SOS” or “Shit on a Shingle” as it was referred to by generations of US armed service employees.  (A more polite version of the abbreviation might be “Stuff on a shingle’ or “Same old stuff.”)

A common description for chipped beef in a cream sauce, served over toast, “SOS” is thought to have been created in the Southern United States prior to 1900 as a way of extending leftovers.  It may be a variant of sausage gravy.  The Stouffer’s package describes it as “tender strips of dried beef in a seasoned creamy sauce.”

Variations on the dish may include using ground beef in lieu of chipped beef.

What is chipped beef?  Hormel used to describe their own version of this as “an air-dried product that is similar to bresaola, but not as tasty.”

The meat is swimming in a white sauce, and served over toast, generally as a breakfast dish.  It used to be a standard in diners, but is difficult to find these days.  Chain restaurants have replaced it with sausage gravy, for the most part.

It is generally very salty, and Stouffer’s version (a boiling bag product) has a half-day’s RDA of sodium in a serving.

In my memory, we were never served this at home when I was growing up, but we did frequently have jars of the Hormel processed meat product in the pantry.  I’m not really sure what for.

Stouffer’s instructions tell you to place the sealed pouch in boiling water for 18 minutes; alternatively, you may elect to pierce the pouch, place it in a bowl, and microwave for 9 minutes.   Open pouch, pour over toast.

I’ve always had a fondness for this dish, probably because (some would say) I’m addicted to salt.

Regardless of my motivation, I picked up a packet of it recently, and enjoyed it last nite.

If you’re inclined to make it at home, from scratch, here’s a recipe that serves 60, from the 1910 edition of “Manual for Army Cooks.”

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Was invited by Portland’s garden consultant extraordinaire, Sara Pool, for brunch at Salty’s on the Columbia River.

We’ve wanted to hit this brunch for a long while, as it features at least three of Mrs. Burgerdogboy’s favorites – crab legs, raw oysters, and bacon!

And I’m all about any place you can eat pounds of bacon and sausage and not be admonished or penalized (in some regards) for doing it.

We arrived for the 11am seating (make reservations via OpenTable), and were seated promptly, tho the restaurant was very crowded.  (Note, it seemed to thin out a bit around 123o).   Our affable server Austin (named after my mother’s home town) took our beverage orders and explained our options.

We were seated upstairs at a window overlooking the marina, the river, and flightpath for PDX.   It was a lovely sunny day.

The buffet is on the main floor, and the choices are too numerous to even start a list.  Suffice to say that anything you could imagine being on an American Sunday brunch buffet was there in full force, very high quality, attention to detail and presentation.  Whether you wanted to focus on a “breakfast” or imbibe in solely seafood, or chomp on chocolates – have at it!

Just the seafood alone is enough to drag me to this place (full menu link below), this is a feast!

Salty's Seafood Weekend Brunch Menu

The Salty’s brunch is a bit spendy ($45 plus drinks), but take a gander at their brunch menu online, and you’ll want save your pennies to hit this place as soon as possible.

I haven’t been very happy with my food pix lately, and today was no exception.  This is just one plate of many that we had.  The foto looks “foggy”, as you can see.  I had a lightbulb when I got home, and cleaned the lens.  A lot of old burgers and pizza covering that piece of glass, apparently.   A new camera is on my wish list for burgering in 2012.

The quality will improve!  (Thanks Spool for a fabulous day!).

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Back in the day, some day, I was working on occasion at an oil refinery in Superior, WI.  Our work was outdoors, and once and awhile, we’d get rained out.  On days requiring “liquid refreshments”, we’d head to a bar called the “Manila”, and thus rain days became known as “the Manila Monsoon.”

Other days we’d head to a little diner called “The Kitchen”, for  ample servings of home cooking at bargain prices.

Kawikamedia and some of the Minnesota burger posse headed to The Kitchen for brunch today, and Kawika’s Hawaiian roots led him to order the Superior version of Loco Moco, which The Kitchen calls “Pupu Kaka”.  (Make of that what you will).

The Wisconsin version was a pile of hash browns, a burger patty, a couple of eggs, and “just for fun” Kawika subsituted sausage gravy in place of the usual brown gravy.

He felt it a tasty bargain at under $7 a plate, says they will return, but next time he’d go with the brown gravy.

A plate of Pupu Kaka

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Food companies: Americans need your help right now. We’ll make it up to you later, we promise. Seems like every time I go into a grocery store, which is 3-4x weekly, everything is up another dollar. Seriously? Yes, we know your costs are up, but aren’t you taking advantage just a wee little bit?

I for one, think so. Can’t you ease back on the profits for a year or two? Can’t you make this promise to us? We’re hurting, if you haven’t heard. $10 of gas is enough to get us to the next gas station. Turkeys that used to be free with minimum purchases at this time of year, are now only offered at “less per pound.” But $25 for the average turkey? Are you kidding me?

I wonder how many Americans are going to “celebrate” Thanksgiving over dollar menus at fast food outlets?

Tomorrow we are going to give thanks for our country, our faith, our families, our friends. You’ll probably be giving thanks for banner profits and dividends.

I’m all for making money. I wish I was. For the most part, I’ve had a very fortunate life. Now our family is struggling just to keep the roof over our heads and the lights on.

It’s not funny. But you know what? Our family has it a lot better than a lot of people, this I know for sure.

$60 – $75 dollars used to feed a family for a week. Now it buys a couple of bags of groceries, a few meals, some staples. God forbid we don’t get sick or need meds, then the grocery money would go to that.

I am calling on food companies, at least one of you, to make a stand. Roll back prices. Be transparent, at least. Tell us you are doing everything you can do to be helpful in this difficult time.

Manufacturers, slash prices. Grocery stores, don’t offer us bogus bullshit BOGOs which work out to the average every day price of the item, anyway.

Give us something to be TRULY thankful for tomorrow, and in the year to come.

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Where do I begin this yarn?  Wandering the aisles of WalMart in Vancouver, WA,  at 1AM last night?  Or a childhood memory of a meat packing plant tour in Austin, MN?

I guess we begin………at the beginning.

SPAM ™ Luncheon Meat was officially launched by the George A. Hormel Company of Austin, Minnesota, in 1937.

As a boy, I knew a bit about Hormel – Austin was my mother’s home town, and in some shape or form, every resident of Austin had their life touched by Hormel.

In the case of my mother’s family, her father, a serial entrepreneur a century before the term was conceived, had to find unique ways for his businesses to survive during the depression.   People that needed his goods or services occasionally paid with shares they had received or purchased in Hormel.  My mother was a  proud and very loyal stockholder and consumer of Hormel until her last days.  SPAM(tm) and other Hormel products were regularly served in our household.

That was my initial exposure to the product.  Our annual trips to visit my grandparents, on at least one occasion, included a tour of the massive Hormel plant;  watching cattle get slaughtered to become delicious products, certainly made an indelible impression on me, but obviously not a negative one.

Fast forward a decade and a half or so, and I was in boarding school that was located within a short distance of Austin, and SPAM ™ was on our Sunday breakfast menu, without fail.  This could have taken place for one of two reasons: 1) SPAM(tm) is very economical, or 2) we happen to have a couple of kids at our school that shared the same last name as the food giant.

SPAM(tm) was created for two reasons:  to utilize pork shoulders, which hadn’t been traditionally used in fresh meat production, and to come up with a way to produce a viable canned meat product.  A few years later, ham was added to the mix, and the recipe remains the same to this day, with the exception is there are now many ‘different’ varieties of SPAM(tm).

The product gained great popularity throughout mainstream America in the post WW2 era, as servicemen were exposed to it during the conflict.  It was, and remains, extremely popular in Hawaii due to its wide distribution during the war.

SPAM(tm) is used in a wide variety of preparations. It’s fully-cooked right out of the can, and can be eaten directly, on its own, in a sandwich and so on.  Lightly fried, it make an economical substitute for any choice of breakfast meat.  You can chop or dice it for salads or soups.

Every once and awhile, the public needs to be ‘re-educated’ as to the benefits of using SPAM(tm).  I remember a funny radio campaign from the 70s, which featured radio ad superstars “Dick and Bert” (creators of radio comedy serials “Chickenman” and “The Tooth Fairy”), in which they explained the merits and ingredients of SPAM(tm).  Funny stuff.

So last night I bought a can.  It was on an end cap in the register aisle at Walmart, for less than $2.50.  Impulse.  Fried up this AM for breakfast.

A good impulse.  To check out the many varieties of SPAM(tm) available today, hit your local supermarket or the online shop.

Looking for good, wholesome family fun?  Check out the SPAM(tm) Fest in Austin, MN, each summer around the 4th of July, and take in a visit to the Spam Museum!

( SPAM(tm)  is a registered trademark of Hormel.  The photo above is from the Hormel website).

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In my opinion (and I have a lot of them) one has to ‘create’ romance in Portland restaurants.  There isn’t a single place that caters solely to upmarket, dressed to the nines, cooing diners in love.  At least not that I have found, and I’ve asked around as well.

Portland is a casual city.  You and your date can be in gowns, jewels, and a tux, and sitting beside you in (even an expensive) at the restaurant will be a guy in a t-shirt, cut-offs, and flip flops.  And a baseball cap.  I spoke to the maitre’d of one of the old timey fancy places, he banned hats for awhile, and his biz dropped off significantly.  Pity.

So a few months ago, I wanted something special – Mrs. Burgerdogboy and I were celebrating our 5th anniversary, and I wanted great food, ambiance, and privacy.  What to do?  What to eat?  Where to go?

Well, for sure, dinner would have to include some of her favorite things.  And we’re fond of small plates, so it could be a mash-up of cuisines, how to arrange that?

I like city lights, think that’s a romantic setting, but I also like dining al fresco.  What a conundrum!

I would have to create my own menu, my own situation, my own atmosphere, and I set out to do that.

One thing was for sure, our night would involve one of the Kimpton Hotels here, we’ve been in them several times, including our wedding week.  Over the top service; yummy beds and furnishings.

I chose the Vintage Plaza.  I was making arrangements a couple months in advance, so I hoped I would have my choice of some of their special rooms.  I tried. I scored.  Ah, the garden spa suite.  A great room, nice bed, and a private hot tub on  a deck overlooking the city!  God, I’m romantic.  Mrs. Burgerdogboy LOVES hot tubs.

Plus the Pazzo Restaurant downstairs and from room service?  We love that place.  We once ordered their entire happy hour menu.  And great pizza!  (In case you didn’t know, BurgerDogBoy loves him some pizza!)

We checked in, and jumped in the hot tub.   After a fashion, we exited the tub for our own happy hour with adult beverages.   While Mrs. BDB was relaxing with a cocktail, I headed out for our anniversary dinner, rounding a couple of blocks nearby, picking up the bone marrow appetizer at Little Bird, and an order of mussels, and grabbed deluxe assortment of sushi down the street.

My arrival was timed to coincide with a few delights from Pazzo, and we had a sumptious meal, and spent most of the balance of the night in the hot tub.  Seems there was a sign that said we should limit our time in the spa, but oops.  We didn’t follow the rules, watched the sunset, the downtown lights come on, and had a wonderful evening.

Oh sure, blingy-type presents were involved, too.

I’m a romantic.  Sometimes you have to create romance, sometimes you can spend some dough, but sometimes it takes just the most simple gestures.

I love my wife with all my heart.  And I will treasure the romance she has shown me until the day I draw my last breath.

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Some examples of final meals include:

• Lawrence Russell Brower: two chicken-fried steaks, a bacon cheeseburger, an omelet, barbecued meat, fried okra,  fajitas, pizza, ice cream, and peanut butter fudge
• Teresa Lewis: fried chicken, sweet peas, Dr. Pepper,  and German chocolate cake
• John Wayne Gacy: deep fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC, French fries, and a pound of strawberries
• James Edwards Smith, who was executed in Texas in June 1990, takes the prize for one of the strangest last meal requests: a lump of dirt.
• Victor Feguer: a single, unpitted olive
• Timothy McVeigh: two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream

So here’s this week’s thought provoker:  since most people are very passionate about their favorite hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza, if you, for any reason, where able to have a last meal consisting of one of these three favorites, what would your choice be, from where, and why?

My own?   Pizza, definitely from my home-town favorite:  Sammy’s, a local chain in the Upper Midwest.  I’d order a sausage and pepperoni pie with green olives.

Hot dogs?  Also day with my hometown favorite,  Original Coney Island.  My last hamburger?  That would pose a dilemma for me, there are so many great ones in the country these days.  If I had to choose one from the burgers I have had in the past year, it would definitely be the Bobcat Bite in Santa Fe!

How about you?  If you had to choose one final hamburger, hot dog, or pizza, let us know what it is, and where from?

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Sunshine Tavern Pepp Pizza

Had a great time at a private fete at Sunshine Tavern in Portland on Saturday afternoon. I’m sure I will return, it’s a menu made just for me!

We were served a wide variety of dishes, and overall my favorite was Sunshine’s take on the national dish of Canada, poutine. Sunshine’s version adds Italian pork sausage to the gravy, and it was absolutely superb. They have mastered the art of keeping hand-cut fries very crisp, even when bathed in gravy, no easy feat!

We had a couple slices of pepperoni pizza, and that was grand, for my likes, as you know, are cracker thin crust, and Sunshine’s fit that description, crispy on the edges, chewier working inward. Loved it.

Finally, we had bits of the fried chicken sandwich, and washed it all down with slushee margaritas (wow!).

Looking foward to heading back for brunch and dinner items, including their burger, pork belly sandwich, chicken and waffles, and their biscuits and gravy, which features the same Italian sausage gravy as the fries!  Sunshine will be one of my new regular hangouts, no question!

Sunshine Tavern Cheese Fries w/ Gravy

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