Oh, my. Another Tuesday night, another Fellows presentation, another meal suitable for the Romans. It was soul food from the Asian subcontinent tonight — dal, chutney and a lovely, spicy stew.
“Is this lamb?” I asked, in raptures.
“It’s mutton,” one of the cooks said. “We got it from a halal butcher.”
“No one sells mutton anymore,” I said. “Mutton is sheep. And it’s tough. This is tender. No way.”
“Well, it’s supposedly mutton. It’s what the butcher called it.”
Back and forth, back and forth. Mutton, lamb, what was this mystery meat?
I finally went to the cook who planned the meal. It was goat. And you know what? That was one tasty sucker. I’ve never eaten a goat before. I like goats. They’re cute, the way they butt you and stick their noses in your pockets and baaa at the petting zoo. But you know what? If the goat had to die to feed us, this was a worthy fate for that goaty soul. It was plain delicious.
MOMENTS LATER UPDATE: What a lame-ass entry. What I Had For Dinner. What, the Traffic Patterns of My Evening Commute weren’t interesting enough? Yeah, I know. It’s just what when you share a delicious meal in fine company, it turns you into Jesus, sharing the good news with the rest of the world, you know?
Also, I’m a little stunned. I came home and got online, thinking I’d be looking at a knuckle-biter in the Fort’s mayoral election, and whaddaya know? It’s a freakin’ blowout for the Dems, and I sure didn’t see that one coming. The newspaper websites have nothing up at 9:30 or so, but the TV stations are calling it Richard over Buskirk, 58 to 42 percent with 99 percent of precincts in, and any way you slice that, that’s a stone stomping. Given that Graham Richard is the most charisma-free politician I’ve yet met, and that he’s presided over a city in decline for most of the last year, well, give the man his props, you know?
What’s more, it looks like Alex’s pick John Shoaff is close to getting an at-large spot on the city council, unseating a cemented-in-place Republican. Whoa. More news as it happens, I guess.
alex said on November 4, 2003 at 9:59 pm
Yay! Maybe this is a sign of things to come. Bad times don’t mean incumbent fever but sick o’ the damn GOP!
(Actually, I don’t know whether the Haley Barbour race in Mississippi really means anything, but if there’s such a thing as karma that one oughtta get trounced by rights.)
So who was your guest speaker tonight? Not as good as the food, I take it?
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Dan said on November 4, 2003 at 10:18 pm
The Dems seem to be taking Indiana, Lafayette and West Lafayette have both elected Democratic mayors and councils. Even the incumbent Republican mayor (my Uncle Steve) lost in Crawfordsville.
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Paul said on November 4, 2003 at 11:09 pm
And the incumbent GOP mayor in Evansville is about to lose. It looks like 1994…but in reverse, and with, you know, municipal elections, not Congress.
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Dan McAfee said on November 4, 2003 at 11:10 pm
Richards and Pape got my vote… Buskirk and Fox complained about what little movement the mayor achieved on Southtown and had no plan of their own. All politics are local. I want my Menards!
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Nance said on November 5, 2003 at 3:32 am
I wonder what this means. Richard has been less-than-impressive as mayor, and as for the rest of the state, maybe it has more to do with disgust with the status quo than anything else. Interesting, certainly.
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Bob said on November 5, 2003 at 10:45 am
Graham Richard showed maturity and restraint by not reacting when Buskirk’s campaign took on the character of an adolescent tantrum, and Buskirk should have known that that pandering to the religious right is seldom a winner in Fort Wayne; usually, it’s a big-time loser.
The last week or so, I expected Richard to win. I didn’t expect such a big margin.
Some FWPD and FWFD folks were outspoken supporters of Buskirk and critics of Richard. I wonder how they slept last night.
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Brian Saunders said on November 5, 2003 at 3:10 pm
To shift gears:
Generally, when I’ve seen mutton in Indian restaurants (in the form of “mutton curry” usually), it has referred to goat. Merriam-Webster only mentions mature sheep, but Oxford says lists goat as a seconday definition (used mainly in South Asia and Australia).
They also list a slang usage which I found quite amusing:
“Woman’s flesh sought for the satisfaction of male lust; loose women, prostitutes collectively. Hence also: a woman’s genitals; copulation. Now chiefly in to hawk one’s mutton: (of a woman) to flaunt her sexual attractiveness, to solicit for lovers.”
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alex said on November 5, 2003 at 4:17 pm
In other words, mutton chops are for eatin’! I’d wager it’s a more interesting sensation than those silly studs boys put through their tongues nowadays.
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Nance said on November 5, 2003 at 4:34 pm
Well, just an update for you animal lovers: That goat got his revenge. It wasn’t anything disgusting, but I was awake for about two hours last night, trying to quiet the demons in my GI tract. I could imagine a scene like the one in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,” with the guys running the bulldozers down in my stomach, one yelling on the phone to the brain: “I don’t know what the hell it is! It doesn’t match any of our databases! And it’s covered with some kind of pepper sauce! My boys are going to need hazmat suits before this is over!”
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