No Mexican place I've ever been to did that. I sure hope you're joking.

When you live four blocks from a gourmet butcher shop, you might as well work with the interesting stuff they stock.

I cooked it for a church fundraiser (to feed member volunteers) and everybody liked it except for a handful of members, several of whom ate it anyway, and one woman who has celiac disease and couldn't have had it if she wanted to.

Oh yeah? You've obviously never had my chili. It has Scotch bonnets, chorizo, and alligator cooked in chile oil.

I remember a friend of my father telling me how, when his family came to Wisconsin from Australia, his mother attempted to cook Wisconsin foods. ''Eat your brat, Andrew." Only she pronounced like she was feeding him an unruly child, with a 'short a' sound.

I got a bag of roasted chestnuts (never had them before), forgot about them, and a couple of weeks later tried to eat one that had spoiled. Looked and smelled like a smoked oyster.