Photo Friday: Which Magazine Today?

And Now, Sausage Links

You've probably heard that it's not a good idea to see either laws or sausage being made.

I'm out of luck. Not only do I know how a bill becomes a law by working at the Ohio Statehouse once upon a time, but Paul has shown me firsthand how to make sausage.

I'd rather stick to politics.

I wrote earlier this year that Paul has taken to grinding his own meat with the help of our stand mixer. He recently went a step beyond by buying casings (read: intestines) at Cabela's so he could form his own sausage links.

Let's be clear: I was born in northwest Ohio. I wasn't raised on an animal farm, but close relatives have long had plenty of animals raised specifically for our eating pleasure. I'm not a vegetarian.

But making sausage links is disgusting.

Some of the meat bust through the casings, so Paul made a couple of patties out of that. Pretty good. But those giant links? No thanks.

My head knows that they are basically the same thing. But ... ick. I'll be deleting these photos from my phone as soon as I can.

First, grind the meat.

Slip the casing onto the stand mixer attachment.

Feed the meat back through the grinder and watch it slide into the casing.

Ready to cook. Yuck.

Planning a Trip to New York

We're visiting New York for a week later this summer, and I can't hardly wait.

I have a long list of things I want to see and do and eat -- museums and parks to visit, friends to catch up with, restaurants to try. And in a stroke of luck, we're able to skip the hotels and instead stay in a Bay Ridge apartment, so I can really pretend that I live there again.

It's weird though. The list I've created would have taken months to complete when we lived there -- Paul (and I, for five of our six years there) worked full-time, of course, and we rarely made non-work-related outings outside the neighborhood on weekdays. We'd often go into the city or do something fun on the weekends, but even then it was usually only one or two things. Like strolling around Central Park followed by our favorite sushi restaurant. Or getting a piece of cheesecake from Junior's in Times Square and eating it in Bryant Park. You get the idea.

I think I'm going to explode if I get to do all of my favorite New York things in seven days. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try.

This partly feels like a vacation, but it partly feels like going home. I feel just as excited now as I used to in Brooklyn in the lead up to our visits to Ohio! And after almost a year away, I'm curious if I can step back into the groove as easily as I think I can. Stay tuned.