“I want you to get the bulk of your protein for the day in the morning,” my doctor said.
“I’m allergic to eggs,” I reminded him.
“Do you like breakfast meats?”
“Not really. They usually go with eggs, so I haven’t really eaten them. Ever.”
“Hmmm. Yeah, it’ll be hard. You could try a protein shake.”
So there were two of the three most unappetizing breakfast suggestions I could think of. The third was supplied by my mom later that day when I asked if she had any suggestions. “Just plate up leftover dinner in the evening and then heat that in the morning.”
I love leftover dinner. For dinner.
I’ve heard people rhapsodize over bacon and sausage. I’ve eaten bacon, and even like it in things like BLTs, but otherwise it holds zero appeal for me. Something must be broken in the “are you a human? therefore you like bacon” center of my brain. But I’ve occasionally had sausage-y slices on crackers at receptions and not minded, so I went hunting through the meat section of the co-op to see what sausage looks like before it’s been sliced and placed next to cheese and crackers.
As it turns out, there are choices. It’s not like asking “where’s the celery.” It’s more like asking “where’s the philosophy” and then having no vocabulary to help you refine your question or understand when the wrapper is labeled “Utilitarian” or “Hegelian.”
So I stood there for a while trying to intuit which of the choices in front of me might taste good a) in the morning, when I’m used to cereal or toast, and b) to someone who doesn’t even like bacon. Finally a thick pork sausage seemed like the thing to try, so I brought it home.
The next morning I typed “how to cook sausage” into Google to see what to do next.
As it turns out, you can fry it, bake it, or boil it and then fry it. Looking at the thickness of the sausage and the warning telling me to be sure to cook it until there is no pink meat left in the center, I decided to play it safe and boil it first. I know how to boil things. I’m far shakier on any other kind of meat preparation that doesn’t involve a Formane grill or a slow cooker. So I released it from its plastic casing and dunked it into a pot of boiling water. And waited.
Half an hour later I poked it with a meat thermometer and decided to boil it some more.
15 minutes later I poked it again and decided it was close enough to cooked to start the frying process. This process didn’t go all that well. The meat didn’t really seem to brown up very well, or when it did it then stuck to the pan and came off in little chunks. And I’m pretty sure the frying was just for color anyway, so I added some water to the pan and basically fry-boiled it some more.
Then I cut it in half an examined it for evidence of pinkness. It’s so hard to tell, sometimes. That bit might have been a shade more flesh-toned than the rest. And maybe that bit over there was still thinking about communism.
Not wanting to take any chances, I put it back in the pan, turned the flame back on, and just left the kitchen for a while. Who cares if it sticks. I intended to fry every last shred of a soul out of that meat.
As it turns out, sausage mostly tastes spicy. I’m not a huge fan, but I’ll give it a couple more tries before checking out the protein shake options.
