I TRIED to Be a Good Sport

Don has been quite successful at culling some of those fuzzy critters, and he's been skinning them, and Dot has been cooking them up.  They told my husband this and he questioned their sanity only briefly before cooking up a plan for them to bring some squirrel meat along to contribute to our Thanksgiving dinner.  The plan was that he was going to take the meat, disguise it into a delicate dish, and then tell me I was eating squirrel as I was tasting it.  

However, the good Lord blessed me, and Dot accidently let it slip that she was bringing along the squirrel meat in a zip lock bag when she called me last Wednesday.  So, I was at least not surprised.  I called my husband's cell phone after hanging up the phone with Dot and told him I would be trying ONE bite of squirrel.  Just one.  No more.  That was it.  And I was only doing it because I was a good sport.  I should actually win an award for being such a good sport about the whole affair.

I love my sister-in-law dearly.  She's ALWAYS brightening up my life with brand new experiences that keep me on my toes.

The squirrel meat arrived in a zip lock bag.  Dot was so kind to take it off the bone so it didn't even exactly look like a squirrel.  

Right before Thanksgiving dinner, she got out a pan, some olive oil and she began frying.  

Do you see that little smirk on her face?  She was having a very good time.  Oh yes.  This is the squirrel coming out of the bag.

This is  Dot attempting to saute the squirrel in the pan with a bit of salt and pepper.  Notice that she's still smirking.

This is the half cooked squirrel.  Right after I took this image I gagged a little.

This is the squirrel waiting to be served as part of our Thanksgiving dinner.  I asked Dot if she wanted to put it in a fancy glass dish, but she declined and it was relegated to a regular old cereal bowl.  The squirrel was a little slimy.  And a little tough, yet not tough at the same time.

My loving husband dished me up a small piece, and I cut that piece in half, because the deal was, ONE bite, and one bite only.  

I started out chewing.  By chew number two I thought I actually might make it, that I would be able to swallow it and drown it out with some tart cranberry sauce.  But on chew number three, right as I started to taste a nasty, wild, unnatural animal taste, my husband started bouncing in his chair pretending to be a squirrel hopping across our lawn, and yelling out that the poor little critter probably had mange or some terrible wild animal disease, and before I could chomp down on the number four chew, I found myself running as fast as I could to the kitchen sink where I spit out the whole bite.  And then I found myself in the family room gagging.  And then I found myself sticking my head out the patio door, with tears in my eyes from the very bad aftertaste.  

Then I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn't!  Yay for me!  In a few minutes I was back at the table, a bit weak in the knees, eating a lot of cranberries.  Thank goodness for the natural, vibrant taste of cranberries.