The Left=Handed Cookbook: Brats & Kraut

4 slices thick-sliced bacon, chopped

Bratwurst (2 lbs.)

1 tbl Extra-Virgin olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

32 oz jar sauerkraut

2 tbl sugar

½ cup white wine

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add bacon and push to one side. Arrange bratwurst on other side in concentric circles. Brown bratwurst, about 4 minutes a side, meanwhile stirring chopped bacon to crisp up. Remove bratwurst to holding plate. Add onion to skillet and sauté until soft and browned, around 8 minutes. Add sugar and stir, about 1 minute. Increase heat to high and add wine. Boil, scraping up browned bits, about 3 minutes. Stir in sauerkraut and bring to boil. Arrange bratwurst on top of kraut and cover. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 45 minutes.

Serve with oven fries.

The Rats of Illetai

This is the beginning of my novel:

Humans love a mystery. Rats, on the other hand, love a good chew. Perhaps this story will be both.

The world of Illetai is a small one, assuming that one is not a rat. It might resemble (to non-rat eyes) a set of cages, each attached by long, varying but festively colored tubes of durable plastic. These cages may seem to be not floating majestically through space and ether, but sitting, rather prosaically, upon bureaus, tables, nightstands, shelving units, chest-of-drawers, dressers, chiffoniers, buffets, cabinets, armoires, cupboards, and wardrobes. It would fill several rooms (to a rat), but would be a small world, a tiny portion of a very large universe.

If one were, actually, a rat, Illetai would be all. It would be all that there ever was or ever would be. Illetai would be a lovely maze of separate lands, a warren of possibilities. There might be some strange sights, of course, but what might else be expected from a world of such wideness (all strung together) and unfamiliarity (again, all strung together)?

If one were a rat, so I'm saying, one would never think the world a limited proposition, a prescribed, many-time ambulated circuit of sameness. In short, if one were a rat, one would never imagine Illetai to be a cage.

But, at this present moment, the scene is not so much the world as perceptual knot as the world as shoebox. And, all the world is in that shoebox to one boy, a fifth grader extraordinaire, as he digs a hole, furtively scrapped out behind a clump of tansies, in which to bury that shoebox.

Shameless Introduction

My youngest son wrote this encomium for me one Father's Day:

A Magnificent Man

His eyes are full of kindness

His heart is made of gold

he is full of laughter and cheer

every night we sit around watching hockey.

Cheering for the Avs, moaning when they lose.

Oh the laughs we have watching corny commercials

Oh the wonderful dinners he serves us every night

He hates it when siblings fight

He loves it when they are kind

He stuck with me for 12 years

and probably will for 5 more

He is there when I'm in my time of need

He always has a friendly smile when I arrive home

Whenever I'm in need of help or struggling in school

he is always there

Who is this great man, you ask?

He is my father, a magnificent man.

I blush...