Aleks, the sausage roast monarch!
Last Sunday we were invited to the Second Annual Oakland Sausage Party held at our wonderful friends’ Aleks and Christian’s place. This time was especially significant because A had just received his “Green Card” which has suddenly freed them up for more trips to Canada and other exotic locales abroad. (I still wonder if they were joking about Canada?) Aleks and Christian have got a lot of glamorous friends, some of whom are pescetarian and vegetarian, which makes the annual BBQ party even more of a culinary adventure.
Sometimes going to other folk’s homes for dinner, especially when grilling out, can be a challenge for us pescetarians and vegetarians. So often I find that I’m met with incredulity that I won’t eat chicken, for example. “I thought that vegetarians just avoided red meat?” people will tell me. Strange, no? Happily this has never happened at C and A’s. Not only were there a large selection of salads and various appetizer items, there were several kinds of vegi “sausages” and some homemade items that Aleks created. These Macedonian specialties included the famous pinzur, which we have plans of featuring more in the pages of weirdcombos soon, and two kinds of savory pastry, one stuffed with leeks and the other with spinach and cheese. This is what Christian has to say about the various sausages:
homemade savory leek-stuffed pastry
The vegi sausages were all “Field Roast” brand, and we had “Mexican Chipotle” and “Italian” flavors. These are the best vegi sausages we have tried, and unlike many other vegi sausages that are mostly fake meat, these are mostly made of actual vegetables. They are available at the Berkeley Bowl and Whole Foods. The meat ones were all from the Berkeley Bowl, including our favorite Lamb and Rosemary. We also had Apple Chicken for non-pork eaters, since they had lamb casing. The handmade ones are a Balkan/Turkish/Greek specialty called köfte. We make ours with ground lamb and pork, and use a middle-eastern spice mix made by Sadaf. For non-pork eaters, we had all-lamb ones, as well.
chilled beet salad
There was a selection of drinks including an exciting neo-capirinha, a variation of the famous Brazilian cocktail, made with macerated mint leaves, ginger, lime peel, and white sugar, along with cachaça and ginger beer. I tried this one and found it tart and refreshing. There was a sangria made of Tempranillo, Syrah, and Southern Comfort along with Gala apples and Bartlett pears. Mmmm!. People brought various kinds of wine which were exciting to try. I was thrilled to taste a gewurztraminer from Gundlach Bundschu that wasn’t very sweet. I so want to try that vineyard now! Thanks to you, Daniel, for turning us onto that wine maker.
Aside from regaling people about the weirdcombos blog site, I had a lot of really fun talks with several of the other guests. Antonio is training to run the marathon and is still recruiting me to join him. You go, Antonio! Roger, the landlord of C and A’s apartment building, which is really a huge, romantic looking house converted into apartments, had a long and interesting talk with me about science fiction writers from the 1970’s. That’s a period when a lot of Sci-Fi dealt with social and political issues. Very cool. Daniel is planning on a visit to Washington, DC, to see his better half. I know DC a bit, having grown up in its Virginia suburbs. John P. seems to be hiking more and more lately. And he seems to be adjusting better to changes at his workplace.
It was a marvelous party! I hope that the couple throws one again next year before they move back to New York. We’ll miss you guys!
the famous Macedonian pinzur
beautiful grilled corn-on-the-cob
bye, now