Rawhide Bar!

Did you know that Petco has a rawhide bar? Yes it does! I found this out as I stopped into the one by my parents' house to get some doggie treats and catnip yesterday. It's $3 per pound. They also have a doggie treat bar for $4 per pound. Maybe Petsmart also has it, but I don't know. No such "catnip bar", though they do sell kitty litter by the scoop if you want it (didn't catch the price).

Some of those doggie treats looked edible for people, like their sandwich cookies. I can't say the same for the tuna bonito flakes or dried chunks of whiting. Maybe we can eat them, but they'd be horribly chewy and salty. I'm picturing the face I would make eating such a thing that my cat gobbles up automatically.

Some of the smaller animals are adorable. Take the ferrets. One looked like he, er she, um it, was trying to paw at my face as I glowered into the case at other ferrets biting and nibbling on each other. And while I have always thought birds to be among the stupidest of vertebrates (what a way to generalize about a whole class of animal), the conures that they had in their big enclosure seemed awfully interested in me, both as I passed and as I stopped to look in. I have never seen a bird pay such attention to me (the smalelr, cheaper birds sure as hell took no notice of me). I guess these conures will just have to wonder some more, since I'm not spending $600 to $900 for one of them to come home with me.

They also had some lovely looking guinea pigs. Animal lovers will be horrified by this, but I just could not help myself in thinking about that recent Peruvian guinea pig festival, where the guinea pigs were dressed in silly costumes, entered into races, and cooked in a variety of ways - fried, baked or grilled. I readily admit: I'd try fried guinea pig if I had the chance. Perhaps Petco shouldn't sell me one.

Diet Inka Kola - and something nobody could've figured out

I stopped by Perchi's in Glen Burnie today - picking up some menus and seeing if there were any places I missed the first time around for the Beltway Snacking series (I'm doing some recaps in the near future). And hunger took me over as the memory of delicious Peruvian rotisserie chicken flooded my mind. Before I knew it I dropped $7.75 on a quarter-chicken with rice and beans, and a side of chicken chaufa (Peruvian chicken fried rice). After that, I noticed the refrigerated case next to the counter had canned horchata - never heard of that - and Inka Kola - the "cola dorada" (golden cola). I wouldn't have gotten it had I not seen the gold-on-white can of Diet Inka Kola! At just zero calories, it tastes pretty much the same as Inka Kola regular. That's a bubble gum-like flavor that I'm not such a big fan of. But it's not really obnoxious and I'd get it again.

In other, non-food-related news...

I'm surprised he didn't wait until National Coming Out Day for this, but the boy is relatively new to this whole "I'm gay" thing so it's understandable:

Linked from the Huffington Post website

Why am I showing this? Frankly I'm surprised. No, not at the news, just at the fact that he's finally come out on his own! So congrats to Clay Aiken. This is never easy to do (let me assure you). I imagine it's especially so if you're in the public eye. And people have been pretty cruel in their speculations.

Still, for the rest of us - gay and not - let me be one of many to send up a collective "Yawn...." before just shelving this for good.

Perchi's

I went back toward Glen Burnie today for some pho at Pho Miss Saigon, and got sidetracked when the storefront across the way was now open (it was closed the last time). In it I beheld Perchi's. They sell Peruvian style rotisserie chicken "and more." I had never tried Peruvian-style rotisserie before (or maybe I have and hadn't realized it), so I switched gears and went in. This place must be new - so new that I can find absolutely nothing about them on the web except for this one blurb placed on hometownglenburnie.com. It's at the very bottom of the page. Since there is nothing else about it online, I'll put address and phone number information at the bottom of this post.

Perchi's is crisp and new, but looks more Mexican than Peruvian. No matter. I went up to the counter and the poor woman, who saw I was a gringo (I should've broken out my Spanish again. Oh well.), called over an employee who spoke better English than she did.

Looking over the menu, I saw quarter, half and whole chickens, burritos, tacos and fajitas, plus bottle drinks - Jarritos tamarind and jamaica sodas, as well as Peru's favorite soft drink, Inka Cola. A quarter of a chicken is plenty food for me, so I ordered that. I got two sides, rice and beans - the menu says fries and salad, but obviously that isn't set in stone. This for only $5.20 after tax. I ordered the food to go, and five minutes later my quarter rotisserie chicken with beans and rice was ready.

When I got it home, I had to wonder just what made it Peruvian. I'm still not sure, but I can describe what the chicken was like. The skin was wonderfully crispy, and had a salty, slightly cumin-y flavor. It was, well, damn good! The chicken was moist, and had kind of a mellow flavor almost, a more sedate chicken taste, I can't explain it really. My cat liked the infrequent hunks of fatty skin and little pieces of chicken meat, too. The rice was unremarkable, but it let the chicken stand out. And the black beans were tasty enough, though again were a definite second fiddle to the chicken. This chicken also came with some kind of jalapeño cream sauce that went very nicely with it.

It wasn't a large amount of food, but it was quality chicken, and good for the price. If you want the half chicken instead, it only costs $2 more. A whole bird will cost you $12.95 ($9.95 without sides).

Perchi's Rotisserie Chicken and More... (Peruvian, chicken) - 103-B N. Crain Hwy, Glen Burnie, MD 21061 (also in Lima, Peru); Phone: (410) 787-0052