Bacon and Water Chestnuts vs. Pteradactyl Toes

Speaking of meat, my oldest daughter made appetizers for a little political pow-wow we had at our house last night. She marinated water chestnuts in soy sauce, wrapped them in bacon, skewered them with toothpicks and cooked them for 30 minutes. They were quite tasty. A nice, crunchy, low-cost alternative to bacon and scallops. I like bacon and scallops, but not enough to have more than a couple.

I remember an unusual appetizer from a Christmas dinner party at my boss' house back when I was a young writer. My boss, the hostess, served skinned chicken drumsticks that had been marinated in soy sauce. The hallmark was that she had used a knife to scrape all of the meat into a ball, with the naked bone sticking up as a handle. To me, they looked like blackened dinosaur toes. I tried one, and it didn't taste too bad. But then I made the mistake of going into the kitchen while her hubby was removing batch two. The tray slipped onto the dog-hair coated floor, and he just scooped up the fallen toes, briskly brushed the dog hair off them and then offered them to the crowd of us standing around.

All in all, a classy event at a classy party. The husband, a salesman, later showed off a huge glossy promotional poster of the items he sold: breast pumps.

He used it to blanket the door to their family room.