Wildly Delicious

It's 11:28 p.m. on a Monday. Gentlemen, today is history.  Today, I killed my first elk. A medium sized fellow, a 4x5, but nonetheless my first big game animal I have ever killed. We shared a moment, me and him, this evening. I hiked in a short jaunt from the road. I had very little hope that I would see anything, the last day of my season is Wednesday and I had long since adopted a mindset that was less one of "hunting" and perhaps closer to recreational hiking with a gun and a tag. The first flakes of snow I have seen this year were glittering in the deepening umbra of a North Idaho evening. I came around a corner and there were two bull elk, just looking at me. I was only about 30 yards away and dropped to one knee, in what could be described as a defensive postion. Neither one moved. They looked at me as if wondering whether or not I was worth their time. I made eye contact with the larger one and held it for a second before slowly squeezing the trigger. He dropped with one shot and didn't move. I approached him, and dropped to one knee. This time, less defensive and probably more likened to that of a position of prayer, and slowly watched him take his last few breaths. It was a feeling unlike any I have experienced before. When people die there is a recognition in their eyes, and while tragic, they are aware of their mortality from a very young age. In watching this fellow's eyes slowly cloud, I realized I was watching, for the first time in my life, something experiencing a wholly unknowable feeling. This elk was not aware that his lung was punctured and his heart was clipped, his lungs slowly filling with blood. He was only aware that the cold around him was perhaps lessening, that his pain was passing, and that the darkness around his vision was slowly gaining presence until that was all that he had ever known.

But what does this have to do with a food blog you ask? When I went hunting last week I brought with me, in addition to my rifle, a 410 single action pistol. Pretty much the perfect grouse weapon, and what did I shoot with this gun in the midst of a downpour? Surprisingly enough, a grouse! Here it is, shortly after it was brought back to its final resting grounds.

I accidently started plucking it before I got a picture, so this somewhat motley fowl is so by my hand, and was in much better shape before I got to it.














So, you have a grouse. Congrats, its like a small, slightly chewier chicken. What do you do with it after that? Well you most likely consult your homies Irma and Marion and Rombauer that shit!

This is a timeless book, and besides providing information on how to make a rockin' grouse, there are also such charming recipes as:



Delicious, and frequently served!

Oh what the hell, I'll try anything once.











Long story acceptable length, the grouse recipe is cooked in quite literally bacon and butter. I took a few liberties, and put some brown sugar in the bottom of the pan with bacon and butter, stuffed my grouse with onion, garlic, brown sugar, and butter,  then cooked it at 300 degrees basting frequently.

Before: (I don't know if this is a darker side of me, but something about this picture strikes me as comic, like he is about to get up and dance. Anyone else? Or am I just a bit off my nut?)

After:

I served this with some homemade baked bread and some, I hate to say this, packaged Idahoan Potatoes, which really are my weakness. It turned out extremely well. Not a whole lot of food, about 3 bites apiece for two people, but it was really delicious. Wildly so. To paraphrase the man, the legend, Anthony Bourdain, if you were an animal and had to be killed, you might as well be cooked into something delicious. Going back to the beginning of this semester with the argument of whether or not you should know how to roast a chicken in college, I think yes, absolutely you should. I also believe you should be closer in tune with where your food comes from. What do you gentlemen think? Should one have a responsibility to at least once, watch what you will eat die, as was historically the case? Or is it better to continue on in our cellophane Styrofoam meat under gigantic lights ways?

Mikey's

Mikey's Gyros has all the charm of a hipster's basement, but you've probably never heard of it. The tables are coated in what I liked to believe was a lacquer finish, but realistically could have been the compressed grease of thousands of satisfied customers. The music is loud, the beer is cold, and the lamb mash-up is hot. Mikey's may lack things such as; uniforms, organized seating, and a valet service, but the lack of flair is by no means a handicap on the restaurant itself. It makes up for these things by a simplistic and delicious menu, rotating taps of micro brews (which, might I add, are only 3 dollars before 5 o'clock) and a colorful array of individuals serving your food while wearing cowboy hats and/or bright pink mini-shorts.

So what to order? All the foods seemed share common elements. Crisp greens, hot and greasy meat, warm pita bread, and house made sauces. So why not order some delicious hybrid of all things Mikey's? The Deluxe Gyro with Feta. For 4.75 (before tax) this really can't be beat. I chose to wash it down with a crisp Midnight Wheat Pint.

The beer was excellently poured, the amber line reaching the absolute top of the rim and the foam precariously perched on top like a sleigh on Mount Crumpit, and as some of my classmates might agree with me, certain other local restaurants would do well to take a page out Mr. Mikey's book.







But what about the food?


Oh, that's right. It was delicious. A light dusting of feta adorned my leafy greens resembling Chevy Chase's dressing room mirror. The tzatziki sauce was a perfect cooling agent to the hot of the rotating cylinder meat. No complaints, and there was little to be desired. The thing that I appreciate about the Mikey's Gyro, is that it doesn't change. In the 8 years I have been there as a patron, the "d w/feta" has never changed.











So, the atmosphere, that must be this place's failure right?

Wrong! As the two hip young gentlemen pictured will attest, the dress code is lax, and the employees are friendly. Local art adorns the walls, and one has the feeling that a great many good beers have been spilled on the vaguely brown carpet. Mikey's is a patron of the local arts in Moscow, providing a relaxed atmosphere for students (of the graduate variety) to read nonfiction, fiction, and if anybody stays around long enough or is too drunk to leave, poetry.




So how does this all rate in the grand scheme? Fearlesscritic.com seems to break the classification into three parts. Food, Feel, and Price. Applying this to Mikey's, I stand by the following judgment: Food 8.0, Feel, 8.5, and Price was eight dollars and four cents (including the beer), so even though fearless critics are too cowardly to rate this, I would give price a 10.0 Flawless. What you get for what you pay is quite a bit for not that much. This restaurant is as much as part of Moscow as the endlessly futile Friday evening peace rallies on Main Street or the unsurprising continual failure of the Football team. If this restaurant were a person it would be Jennifer Aniston. It has been around for most of my life, and has never really changed appearances.