Bit of a paradox, blogging about pork sausage the same week I blogged about potato latkes, but what the heck, I don't keep kosher, and I can't keep quiet about these pigs that need no blanket -- not anymore.
My Jewish guilt is somewhat assuaged by the fact that I first discovered this style of crisp, stogie-like breakfast sausage links while in New York City where every dive, diner and deli serves them as a matter of course. Not so in Dallas, which seems married to the far skinnier link sausage or its flat patty cousin, as if homage to Jimmy Dean is a local culinary imperative.
Years ago, I had a stogie-sausage source at Gilbert's Deli, once a North Dallas institution, but the restaurant shuttered its doors, and if memory serves Deli News still has something similar. But to walk into Eatzi's on Oak Lawn, which serves one of the best and least expensive to-go breakfasts in town, and find their tubby, house-made links just sitting there, huddled together in a large bowl waiting to be eaten at a buck a pop -- well it's worth a few extra hours at the gym just to offset the ensuing caloric surge.
So spare me the dick jokes and run out and taste one of these fat ones. They' re crunchy, they're greasy, they flood the mouth with rich, smokey flavor (careful), and they may just cause you to amend your dietary laws.