What's the last thing you ate or are currently eating?

[Diamondback]

You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family.

Or, blood make you related, loyalty make you family. Like my army brother. He's more family that those 2 jerks that came from the same uterus I did.

It depends on how you look at it.

I'd say the two are far from mutually exclusive... let's just say she's one of the biggest reasons my closest friend is a squirrel that lives in our yard. Lefty ain't the best talker in the world, but she's a GREAT listener, and always has something funny or cute up her fuzzy little "sleeve" to take my mind off the latest annoyance at the office or on this side of the door.

Tonight's dinner: carryout BBQ from the shop in our old neighborhood while I was out there for Neighborhood Watch on Saturday, and a Jack Link's beef strip with a blackberry-lemonade sparkling water.

[Big Frank]

I just ate some triple chocolate cake. Now I think I'll finish a bag of Julio's seasoned tortilla chips I was eating last night. Instead of just salt, they have a litle paprika, black pepper and comino (cumin), too. Those Texans make good chips.

[Diamondback]

Dinner: microwave chicken fried rice, a leftover section of a Jersey Mike's Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich, and a black cherry sparkling water. (This stuff helps keep me off the sugary soda rap, and is heathier. Cheaper too at around 75 cents for a 1-liter...)

[Big Frank]

Chicken boneless dings (breaded breast chunks) with Texas Pete HOTTER hot sauce. It's been a long time since I had Texas Pete hot sauce but I liked it, and this is my first time trying the hotter version. They aren't kidding about it being hotter. Four orifices in my face started running. I poured the rest of the 6 ounce bottle into a 12 ounce Sweet Baby Ray's bottle that had about 5 ounces left. That stuff wasn't hot at all, but the combination of the 2 is good. Now it's medium hot and has lots of pepper flavor to go with the vinegar. I filled the Texas Pete bottle up with it. Sweet Baby Ray may make good BBQ sauce, but not hot sauce. The only thing I like it for is soup, like bean or split pea, and I have to use more than a normal amount.

One more piece of chicken, and later I'll have a piece of lemon meringue pie, after I get the hot sauce off my taste buds. 

[Diamondback]

Chicken boneless dings (breaded breast chunks) with Texas Pete HOTTER hot sauce. It's been a long time since I had Texas Pete hot sauce but I liked it, and this is my first time trying the hotter version. They aren't kidding about it being hotter. Four orifices in my face started running. I poured the rest of the 6 ounce bottle into a 12 ounce Sweet Baby Ray's bottle that had about 5 ounces left. That stuff wasn't hot at all, but the combination of the 2 is good. Now it's medium hot and has lots of pepper flavor to go with the vinegar. I filled the Texas Pete bottle up with it. Sweet Baby Ray may make good BBQ sauce, but not hot sauce. The only thing I like it for is soup, like bean or split pea, and I have to use more than a normal amount.

One more piece of chicken, and later I'll have a piece of lemon meringue pie, after I get the hot sauce off my taste buds.

Maybe I should post my mom's "Hell Pizza" recipe... the sperm-donor ("father" in genes only) liked to beat his chest about "I'm from El Paso and was raised with Tabasco in my baby bottle, you can't make anything too hot for me" and this was her Challenge Accepted.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

I like having taste buds, not burning them off like my older brother, who has to wear a respirator when he grills chicken wings. I just don't understand how anyone can enjoy that much pain when hey eat, or any other time. It's masochistic, -  whip me, hurt me, make me eat hot wings!   Wicked Cutz makes Carolina Killa jerky and came out with a limited edition so hot it came with gloves to handle it, and there was a challenge to go along with it. Like eat it and don't drink anything during or right after. Not only NO, but HELL NO!

I just finished my triple chocolate cake, with a fire-brewed maple root beer. It doesn't taste like maple but it does taste good.

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Now I'll have some Hatch chili mac and cheese, mixed with salsa because it's so thick.

[Big Frank]

An Italian beef sub au jus, with Chicago style giardiniera, and Colby-Jack cheese melted in the bun.

[Diamondback]

Beef, dip and cheese sound good... the plant stuff not so much. Low heat tolerance, and... well, my nutritionist likes to joke that I have the digestive system of a small tyrannosaur, and the table manners to match.

Plants? That's my FOOD's food, man...

[Big Frank]

I like things a little bit spicy. The mild giardiniera adds to the flavor of the sandwich and doesn't burn. Chicago-style is packed in vegetable oil and doesn't taste all vinegary like other giardiniera I ate years ago. I think it's pickled in vinegar, drained, then packed in oil. And it's not enough oil to bother me.

I'm an omnivore, like a coyote or a bear, and will eat just about anything animal or vegetable. I'm eating a meat-free meal right now -- apple fritters.   I might have a sandwich later, and will eat some jerky or something if I don't.

Here's what that Texas Pete Hotter Sauce and Sweet Baby Ray's look like mixed together. The SBR's isn't so bright red anymore, and it tastes good after I shook it all together for a minute. It was way too vinegary and not hot enough before, and if I'm saying it's not hot enough it really wasn't hot, because I don't like things very hot. The mild and hotter sauces together are really good and I ate some more chicken with it for breakfast.

[Big Frank]

BBQ Mesquite beef jerky, with a nice cold White Russian.