Well, it's been a interesting week around here.
Started the week on Monday with a letter from the GA Dept of Drivers Services telling me my GA license is being cancelled because "I" never took care of 4 tickets and an accident in NY in 1999. Odd thing in, I was never in the State of NY in 1999, much less Harlem, NY. Yep, I'm now another victim of mistaken identity from the National Driver Registry.
NDR was a good idea, but there are a lot of problems with the implementation. Idea was that states would enter problem drivers (DUI, suspended, no insurance, etc....) into a national database so these drivers could not just get new licenses elsewhere. So in my instance NY DMV made an entry for someone with my name who lived in NY in 1999 and was in an accident with no insurance and never bothered to come back to court. So NY rightfully puts that driver's info into NDR.
Well fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. My GA license expires next month and I have the option of just paying to renew in advance online instead of going to a DDS office and waiting in the long lines (I have already completed the "real ID" process). So I renew well in advance online. As a part of the renewal process GA DDS checks the NDR and somehow made the determination I'm the idiot from NY. Not withstanding that GA has all my history back to the 1960's that shows I have always lived in GA and have a clean record.
So you get your WTF cancellation letter and call your DDS. They say NY suspended my license and to call them. So you call NY and they no, they suspended this other guy and did not notify GA I'm the same guy. And the rat race on the merry-go-round of government idiocy began....
After two days on the phone I finally get past the front line phone bank people at both GA and NY and talk to supervisors who can actually understand and appear to actually be concerned about this issue. ID and a "it's not me" letter are faxed to NY so they can determine that I'm not the person who is suspended in NY and inform GA of this.
So today (4 days later), it appears GA has fixed this, but I still don't have a renewed license as they denied my request earlier based on the NDR....
Ok, enough of the back story....
So, What do you do when the DMV and DDS totally stress you out and screw up your license? You make sausage of course!!!!
Figured I'd make up another batch of AC LEGG #116 snack sticks. I picked up some 80% lean ground beef from the local Sam's Club instead of grinding fresh. Did not use any pork in this batch. I've posted the entire process for this before, and did not photograph the whole thing, just the high points.
The ingredients I'm using for this smoke. I'm breaking it into 2 batches of 5 pounds as I'm not sure I have enough ECA for the whole 10 pounds (Note: ECA is not in this photograph as it's added the next day right before smoking).
Combined all the above with a little more cold water (the cure #1 was mixed with warm originally to help it dissolve, cold tempers it down as I want the meat to stay as cold as possible). Mixed by hand for about 4 or 5 minutes until good and tacky (it will become very tacky when using phosphate binders).
If you don't have any of these 6 liter polycarbonate food storage containers, they are worth buying. They come in sets of 2 at Sam's Club. This one has 10 pounds of mixed meat and with the lid on it fits just perfect on my lower shelf of the fridge for an overnight rest before adding ECA, stuffing and smoking.
Did not take any photos of the stuffing, and smoking as they would basically look like every other snack stick post I've made. I did smoke these in two 5 pound batches on the e-WSM electric smoker mod to about 152-154 internal temp after adding ECA just before starting the smoke.
Sample of finished product....
Most of the trimmed sticks were vacuum packed in sets of 10 sticks after "blooming" in a paper bag for 2 days (resting). I did keep some out for eating but most were vacuum packed to preserve freshness longer. Photo is not really staged well, but I had limited table space. Wife is making the wedding cake for our oldest daughter who is getting married tomorrow. I was happy for the space I could get and quickly exited the area.
A side note is I really like these VacMaster pre-cut vacuum bags that I bought from webstaurantstore.com The price is very reasonable, they are triple ply and I've been using them for about a month. They are my new favorite bag. A bag of 50 of these pre-cut is around $4. I bought the pint bags (which are what I used for these trimmed sticks), quart, and gallon pre-cut bags.
