Chapter 10

Ceiling was dissecting s piece of Hunter Salami. Analyzing the ingredients, he thought he was ready to try. Pork, beef, mustard seed and mustard powder, salt ... kosher is best ... no iodine. It didn’t taste right. The Smell was right though.

Humming to himself, he tried again ... Ah ... dill weed ... a bunch, missed that the first time ... a trace of apple cider vinegar, water, corn starch, milk, Still wasn’t it. He cheated ... looked it up on the internet.

“Starter Culture? What in the Hell is that? Ah ... secret ingredient ... I hate it when they do that ... and natural smoke ... What kind of smoke? Wood smoke ... yeah ... sure ... hickory? Mesquite? Apple? Cherry?” He tried them all. Still not right.

“Black mustard seed?” Yes! Nope.

“This is a job for Cassie Flintkote.” He surveyed the throng, No Cassie. He looked in all the obvious places ... then the not so obvious. After that he looked in the closets ... and under the stairs. “Has anyone seen Cassie?”

Eva Caretaker Coordinator said, “I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

Ya know ... people are people. Doesn’t matter how intelligent an Artificial Intelligence is ... they ain’t human. Eva organized a search party. No Cassie. Eva asked the guardians on Cassandra. They searched diligently The entire planet looked. Nope.

Since JW Flintkote and Billy Mc Williams were not to be found on Crossroads, Krys and Tyche went home ... to the boat.

Guess who was the third person they saw?” Nope ... not Daddy ... Nope ... not Surprise ... yup ... Cassie.

Cassie got a hug.

“You know ... they’re searching all Cassandra for you.” And that got grins.

Back on Crossroads, Ceiling was involved in a mystery. WHAT KIND OF WOOD SMOKE!

I’ve tried all the “Flavor Wood. What could it be? Surely none of the deciduous woods ... Pine is awful I’m missing something.”

He started again singing the process to no one and everyone.

“Grind lean pork with the ½” plate, and fat pork with ¼” or ⅜”plate. Grind beef twice through ⅛ inch plate. Add 20-25% of cold water in relation to the weight of the beef, not the pork, into the ground beef and mix well with remaining ingredients (juniper, garlic and pepper).

‘‘Juniper? Where did the juniper come from?”

That necessitated a trip to the Stockist. Juniper berries are essential to Gin.

Of course they had them.

“Mix all pork together until the meat becomes glutinous. Finally mix everything together adding remaining water. Stuff mixture into hog casings and form into 3 inch by one inch thick rectangles. Hang sausages at room temperature for 2-3 hours.

“Sausage is hot smoked in a few distinct stages: at about 122º F (50º C) for 80-90 min. You can keep on increasing the smoking temperature gradually up to 176º F (80º C), b. at 176 - 194º F (80 - 90º C) for 25 min until the internal temperature of 154 - 158º F (68 - 70º C) is reached. The color of the sausage should be reddish brown. Though the above listed cooking temperatures might seem to be high, the sausage will stay at them at few minutes only and the inside should only reach 154 - 158º F.”

And it worked.

Eva and Cassie were seated at table in Cassie’s Reception Room, sampling.

“Mmmm. This is perfect.”

“Thank you.”

“Russian black rye?”

“Yes, ma’am. And Russian mustard.”

“What is this marvelous drink?”

“Ice cold peppered vodka.”