deer and lamb meet grill

The heat has put a damper on my creative baking, and basically brought the bread oven to a halt. Somehow cranking ye ol' hot box up to 450 or 500 degrees when it's over 30 degrees outside seems foolish. What is a man to do? BBQ I suppose, but even that can feel hot when it's still hovering around 30 degrees in the evening. I digress. Hankering for some BBQ'd tubes of meat, a coin toss was had to decide between Spolumbo's offerings or Valbella's. Vabella won out, and after a quick stop in at Sunterra we had Venison Smokies and Moroccan Lamb.

The venison smokies are similar to your typical sausage. It has a wonderful smokie flavor, not overly spiced and no gameyness. It tasted equally as good coming from the microwave as it did off the grill. The lamb is a different beast all together (no pun intended) and I was the only homesteader to enjoy it. While part of the problem may be a general dislike for lamb by my fellow eaters, I actually found the spice mixed used steals away some of the true lamb flavor.

Biting into the lamb, you instantly notice the lack of snap you get from the venison (or most smokies for that matter), and pick up on the softer texture. Where a typical sausage has a dense interior, the lamb reminded me of blood sausage. I think it's almost unfair to judge the two on the same scale. The venison is so close to your typical sausage/smokie that the softer, lack of snap, lamb version almost sits limp in this comparison. I think if you were to eat the lamb by itself, with out a direct comparison, the difference wouldn't be as obvious. Regardless, both products are worth a shot, so if you want to splurge a bit, try them both like we did..just remember that these two smokies are from different leagues.