Friday, February 01, 2008
The Great Fried Okra Fest and Colon Blowout
I am really trying to be good with this whole "watch your diet and exercise" thing, but some days it just doesn't work out. OK, a lot of days, it just doesn't work out. Let's face it: It's a helluva lot easier to not watch your diet and exercise.
Today I was working in the area of South Scottsdale about noon, and had not had a chance to eat yet when I happened upon a Church's Fried Chicken joint. Their chicken is average at best, so I can take it or leave it. That goes for KFC as well. Nobody ever made fried chicken like my Grandma, along with cream gravy made from the drippings and dumped over a couple of fresh biscuits. But what Church's does have is a relative rarity in these parts, and perhaps my all-time favorite food: Fried okra.
My Grandpa used to grow it, slice it, bread it up, and then freeze it back when I was a kid. That way, we always had a steady supply of the stuff, because I ran through it like the proverbial shit through a goose. Living out here in Arizona, I've actually met folks who don't even know what okra is. It's sad, really, that they have led such unfulfilled lives......
Anyway, I swung in and bought a small box of fried okra, and that had to pass for lunch. I even bought an additional "family size" box, and somehow managed to stay out of it. I wanted to keep it to share tonight with TFMCD, who also loves the stuff. It's calling out to me even now, from it's hiding place in the kitchen.
EA-A-A-A-T ME, CRIME DOG.......E-E-E-E-A-T ME!
So far, so good.
But Crime Dog, you ask, why must you keep your fried okra hidden away? Are you not the only person home? Even you, Crime Dog, are not smart enough to figure out how to hide things from yourself, are you?
OK, fair question. You see, it's not myself that is the real danger to the okra stash. It's Scully, famed Parrothead Golden Retriever. Seems she has a real taste for the stuff, along with olfactory senses that are like six billion times stronger than a human's. So I have to keep it where she can't get to it.
My beloved son Mateo failed one day at this task. He left an entire large family size box of Church's fried okra out on the counter top where it was simply too much for Scully to resist. She ingested the entire thing, maybe even the box, since we have yet to find it. Yeah, it's cute and endearing that a dog would pilfer and eat an entire box of fried okra. What is decidedly not cute and endearing is the impact an entire family size box of Church's fried okra has on the gastrointestinal tract of your average golden retriever, who just happens to be stuck inside the house for several hours.
I'm guessing a family size box of Church's fried okra weighs maybe a pound. It produces about twelve pounds of diarrhetic dog shit. Never mind we have 1100 square feet of porcelain tile in this house. Scully, being a very upper-class golden retriever, wouldn't be caught dead dropping a deuce on porcelain tile, nor shall she utilize the same sqaure foot of geography for subsequent steamers. Oh, no, I assure you, for her, it's the living room carpet, and a new spot for each infraction.
I'm just glad we have really good carpet cleaners. A mere $300 and we were back to normal. And no, I didn't punish Scully. It wouldn't have helped. She is what she is. It's up to us to leave stuff out of her reach.
Man, I better go check on that stash....
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Today I was working in the area of South Scottsdale about noon, and had not had a chance to eat yet when I happened upon a Church's Fried Chicken joint. Their chicken is average at best, so I can take it or leave it. That goes for KFC as well. Nobody ever made fried chicken like my Grandma, along with cream gravy made from the drippings and dumped over a couple of fresh biscuits. But what Church's does have is a relative rarity in these parts, and perhaps my all-time favorite food: Fried okra.
My Grandpa used to grow it, slice it, bread it up, and then freeze it back when I was a kid. That way, we always had a steady supply of the stuff, because I ran through it like the proverbial shit through a goose. Living out here in Arizona, I've actually met folks who don't even know what okra is. It's sad, really, that they have led such unfulfilled lives......
Anyway, I swung in and bought a small box of fried okra, and that had to pass for lunch. I even bought an additional "family size" box, and somehow managed to stay out of it. I wanted to keep it to share tonight with TFMCD, who also loves the stuff. It's calling out to me even now, from it's hiding place in the kitchen.
EA-A-A-A-T ME, CRIME DOG.......E-E-E-E-A-T ME!
So far, so good.
But Crime Dog, you ask, why must you keep your fried okra hidden away? Are you not the only person home? Even you, Crime Dog, are not smart enough to figure out how to hide things from yourself, are you?
OK, fair question. You see, it's not myself that is the real danger to the okra stash. It's Scully, famed Parrothead Golden Retriever. Seems she has a real taste for the stuff, along with olfactory senses that are like six billion times stronger than a human's. So I have to keep it where she can't get to it.
My beloved son Mateo failed one day at this task. He left an entire large family size box of Church's fried okra out on the counter top where it was simply too much for Scully to resist. She ingested the entire thing, maybe even the box, since we have yet to find it. Yeah, it's cute and endearing that a dog would pilfer and eat an entire box of fried okra. What is decidedly not cute and endearing is the impact an entire family size box of Church's fried okra has on the gastrointestinal tract of your average golden retriever, who just happens to be stuck inside the house for several hours.
I'm guessing a family size box of Church's fried okra weighs maybe a pound. It produces about twelve pounds of diarrhetic dog shit. Never mind we have 1100 square feet of porcelain tile in this house. Scully, being a very upper-class golden retriever, wouldn't be caught dead dropping a deuce on porcelain tile, nor shall she utilize the same sqaure foot of geography for subsequent steamers. Oh, no, I assure you, for her, it's the living room carpet, and a new spot for each infraction.
I'm just glad we have really good carpet cleaners. A mere $300 and we were back to normal. And no, I didn't punish Scully. It wouldn't have helped. She is what she is. It's up to us to leave stuff out of her reach.
Man, I better go check on that stash....
