For the First Time in a Long Time, Val Was Not Satisfied with Hick’s Sausage

Let the record show that Hick has been quite helpful of late. He has voluntarily washed (in the sink, with detergent and hot water!) the 9 x 12 Pyrex dish that baked the meatloaf. With only an off-hand request from Val, he scrubbed the shower doors with CLR. And Monday night, he grilled some brats.

I bought two kinds of store-made bratwursts at Save A Lot on Saturday. One package was pizza flavored, and the other was BBQ. We are not a fan of their jalapeno brats, but the beer brats and cheese brats have been enjoyed in the past.

Rather than have meatloaf for Monday night supper, I chose the brats. That’s because Hick has Gassy-G, his auction bargain gas grill, and says it’s fast and easy. The Pony had to stay after school for inventor’s club Tuesday, so I figured we’d have the leftover meatloaf while he was having inventor pizza that the sponsor has delivered. Besides, The Pony, not an adventurous eater, really wanted to try the pizza brats. He stopped short, though, of my offer of pizza sauce as a garnish, preferring his usual ketchup and mustard.

Hick fed the animals as soon as he got home, put The Pony to work picking up bricks from the front sidewalk and stacking them to put back later after the sidewalk is shifted out from under the porch steps, and took the six pizza brats to Gassy-G. He said it would take about a half hour. I heard him instructing The Pony on how to pick up bricks and stack them. I made some BBQ slaw (BBQ sauce over bagged slaw mix), and opened a package of buns. My life is so hard.

Right at 30 minutes after starting, Hick brought in a plate of pizza brats. I called The Pony to the kitchen, and slapped the most done-looking one (from the outside char) onto his bun. Off he went to feed in the basement in front of the TV. I put one on a bun for myself.

“Are you sure these are done?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to be sure before I leave the kitchen with it.”

“Pretty sure. A bunch of juice cooked out of them. You can see it on the plate.”

“Take a bite. I want to be sure.”

“There. See?”

“It’s pink inside.”

“They’re all pink. Inside and out.”

“Is it even warm in the middle?” I poked the end of Hick’s sausage with my finger (HEH, HEH!) and found it to be cool. “I don’t think they’re done.”

“Then put it in the microwave.”

“PONY! Is your sausage done?” He came running, his sausage in his hand.

“I was going to ask about that. It doesn’t taste right.”

As I added his to my plate to put in the microwave, Hick put his two on there as well. We nuked them for 45 seconds. More juice ran out.

Let the record show that even after further cooking, those pizza brats were not delicious. Not even passable. Of course I ate mine anyway. Who wants to cook another supper? Not this ol’ Val. The Pony left half of his on his plate. I assume Hick finished his.

“Pony! Holler upstairs and tell Dad that he can give those other two to Juno. No use saving them. I’m not going to eat them.” He did.

“Yeah. It was something about the texture, too. Dad said the same thing.”

Not good. It didn’t even seem like meat. The pink color remained. As much as you might chomp on that sausage, it seemed to only get bigger! Not-heaven knows what was mixed in it. Lots of filler, perhaps.

I can’t blame Hick for the non-tasty meal. He is usually an exemplary griller. I might plan a backup entrée when Hick grills the BBQ brats.

We would have been better off eating Snausages.