City View

Today I made time for steps. Yes, MADE TIME FOR...I hate that phrase. It reminds me of Julia Roberts in "Eat, Pray, Love". I have never actually seen that movie nor have I read the book. All I picture, in fact, is Julia Roberts with that damn spoon in her damn mouth...

"...Today, I am going to make time for my yoplait and make time for myself...I am going to eat this, pray about it, and love it. me time..." I mean, what is she really doing but looking horribly orally fixated. Now, I like to eat, I don't pray, and love is like all other 4 letter words... When you "make time for yourself" you're being an idiot. Savor that activia, Jamie Lee. ALL time is yours, Dummy. Whose else is it?

So ANYWAY...I went to this ghetto-ass neighborhood today to walk steps. I tried going there a while ago but practically got chased away with torches because I don't eat squirrels nor do I have sex with members of my family. (maybe they just smelled the "gay" on me; I don't know.) I just felt uneasy and unwelcome. Only in Pittsburgh will you find back woods hill people living mere yards away from some of the most technologically advanced and cultured people in the world. It's very dynamic to say the least.

Spring Hill/City View. It's technically one neighborhood, folks. Why? Because after literally half of these respective neighborhoods' voting populations decided to hightail it out to Cranberry during the housing boom/bubble in the 1980s, they had to beg/plead to keep their delegation. The only way to do that was to join forces. A merger if you will.

Now I can say from experience that these two completely different, distinct neighborhoods have only a border to share in common. City View by name alone calls to mind a nice part of town with, duh, a good view of the city... and...well...yep. The view is pretty great. IRONICALLY this is also the shittier of the two. While there 5 or 6 really nice houses in City View they are completely isolated from the rest of the neighborhood by topography. There are 5 or 6 beautiful examples of Victorian splendiferousness with yards and gardens and security cameras and all that shit. Then, there are some 50 or so boarded up row houses and a ton of trash lying around, crumbling retaining walls, burnt out buildings, groundhogs, overgrown underbrush, rust, and general decay. It's just silly.

Then Spring Hill appears around the corner. They don't have the view because dumb Troy Hill is in the way, but wow, it's stable, populated, well kept, and full of interesting twists and turns, nice homes, it's airy and clean...I don't get it really. Welcome to Pittsburgh...

I know it's been a long time since I've posted. I'm sorry to all 4 of you that follow my blog. I try to keep the topic focused on step climbing and I just haven't been doing much of it lately. A shame, I know. I have been so wrapped up with work. I pour a lot of thought and creative energy into both the Crested Duck and Cannon Coffee that i have little to spare for things like exercise. That and my allergies morphed into a gigantic sinus/ ear infection over the last month. I feel like Liza Minelli's character from Arrested development with the loss of equilibrium and all. I'd dare not attempt a step trek and tempt fate to have me topple to my doom all because of a silly inner ear problem.

Pittsburgh's non-existent winter and its super wet spring has caused the vegetation to simply burst with wild new growth. At times, I have felt it necessary to bring a machete just to walk to my house. It's absolutely beautiful, though. The poison ivy is treacherous and everywhere it seems too. I got a tiny bit on my arm already and this is me not even trying to get out and hike steps. I wish I had a nice camera.

You can never have too much tongue...

Yesterday I ate some of the most adventurous food ever in my life. Kevin is pretty brilliant in the kitchen. He took ingredients ordinarily found on Fear factor and turned them into palatable delicacies; Tongue, liver, raw heart, kidneys, blood. The thought of it all I'll admit made me cringe. But then seeing all of the preparations and beautiful plating and smelling just what was cooking had my mouth watering.

I got to help make sausage. Sausage making is a very hands on like, well, most cooking techniques. I could never have imagined just how it is done. I supposed it was something done with a machine and required an assembly line. I pictured great whole hunks of mystery meat going into a giant hopper only to come out extruded into perfect uniform hot dogs. Like most Americans, I didn't know where my beloved food came from. I ate it and enjoyed it and if you told me what exactly was in it and how it was made, i probably would have spit it out. Then again, there is such a vast disconnect with the process that I'd most likely choose not to believe you and continue eating it. I'd brush off the hearsay poppycock urban legends and go on with my day. I've heard many a mother upon learning that hot dogs are encased in pig intestines vow they'd never feed that crap to their kids again then ultimately once junior refuses to eat anything else, bend to his picky palate. It is the thought of what you're eating that turns you off not the food itself. But there is a saying "if it tastes good, eat it."

We made duck blood sausage. Now if that doesn't make you cringe...

Kevin flavored it with sweet spices like cinnamon, clove, fennel, tarragon, white pepper, and in combination the flavors enhanced the duck-ness. The real meat of the sausage was duck breast. The blood was added not necessarily to bind, but to keep things moist. We then smoked the little buggers which in essence cooked them while adding that je nes sais quoi. If I could eat duck blood sausage every day, I would.