This should have been a simple task. I only want 4-5 packets, each, of yellow mustard and ketchup. We are going to be having a camping experience in the next few days and Capt. SO and I want to eat our coveted turkey bratwurst.......which is about as culinarily (my word) naughty as we get. Since we rarely eat beef or bacon or ribs or cheese, we just want the fun of cooking bratwurst over an open-flame camp fire. To have that thrill, the brats need to be turkey.
For those of you who have never savored turkey bratwurst, it is actually not a terrible substitute for the real thing. (I'm certain that the National Association of Turkey Producers would decry my statement that turkey brats are not a terrible substitute for the "real" thing.) So while I offer my humble apology to the National Association of Turkey Producers, I stand by my statement.
However, I digress. Capt. SO and I have discovered that if you put enough condiments on substitute foods, you can make just about anything palatable. (Note that just about is in bold on purpose.) With the proper, over-zealous application of mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, pickle relish, and fresh onion, even turkey bratwurst can be truly delicious.
But - yes, there is a but - since we are going camping and are endeavoring to be minimalists about what gear we take, we are trying to keep our food pantry items to the bare essentials only and the need for refrigerated items to zero. We have decided that we can live with just yellow mustard only, if necessary, but Capt. SO would REALLY like some ketchup on his turkey brat. We spent some time today brainstorming about how to take ketchup without refrigerating it.
Here's the problem. Capt. SO has his masters degree in food engineering and while I would eat unrefrigerated ketchup, he will not. We came up with a plan to go through the Mickey D's drive-through and order one hamburger, requesting six packets of ketchup and six packets of mustard to go with the one hamburger. We realize that this request might be questioned so we thought we'd further explain that I have trouble swallowing and that I need to liquefy the dried-out meat that Mickey D's uses. Then we thought that this might not go over well so we've sort of shelved that brilliant idea....at the moment.
For now, our only recourse seems to be a visit to a giant, ware-house-type cooperative place where you can buy condiment packets by the cartload.....boxes containing five hundred ketchup packets. You know what I'm talkin' about.
Kind of cancels out our desire to keep things to a minimum, doesn't it?
Ancora imparo
