One of the great things about being out here in Oregon is the food. Our friends don't go for that tofu, green tea and arugula (whatever that is) crap. They enjoy real food, smoked sausage, for instance. Ginny's dad and I headed over to Verboort this morning to pick up some fresh smoked sausage that our friend Gene Evers makes in large batches. When we arrived he was still taking the sausage out of the smoker. This is a photo of the smoker. Simple, cement block building with a barrel on the floor that you make an apple wood fire in and keep it smoldering for three hours or so (Gene won't tell.) My back of the envelope calculation is that he makes about 500 pounds or so per batch. We picked up 50 pounds, but won't be able to eat it all at one sitting so we vacuum packed the stuff in one pound packages for freezing. Fifteen pounds of it are headed back to Houston on Monday.