holy hell, it's like two degrees outside

I found a few interesting things in the Strip today, the first being tripe, which I haven't done since back in school, and the second being Polish blood sausage (kiska). The tripe's on the stove right now. It's got to be blanched hard first and then rinsed, and then it's simmered for several hours until it's reached a nice gelatinous texture. The last time I had it was at work, when a co-worker made menudo, and it was way too tough, so I'm going to see if I can't improve on that effort. I'm making something like menudo but I'm probably going to throw in a few fennel bulbs too. If all else fails, the blood sausage is absolutely sublime. I was searching for French boudin noir and ended up finding something like pork sausage bound with beef blood, made by some rural western PA company.

Hopefully the menudo I make will be like most, and cure this stupid head cold I've got. Being sick is horribly annoying.

(edit: holy shit, I spelled menudo wrong. Whatever I was sick with, however, has been cured by the power of beef stomach and blood sausage.)

This pizza's got artichoke hearts, olives, roasted peppers, smoked mozzerella, goat cheese, and prosciutto on it--the sauce, and whole wheat crust, are from scratch.