It was the best of times, it was the ‘wurst’ of times. Actually, it was the furthest thing from the worst day, but it was filled with wurst. My mom has recently taken up sausage-making as a hobby. Every week, she’s got a new recipe for some type of sausage that I can’t pronounce. And since we love cooking as well, she invited us over to try our hands at the process.

All I had in my head was a clip from Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman take over Jerry’s apartment to make sausages. And in truth, the sausage-making didn’t disappoint. My mom assigned each of us a different task and we set to work assembling the ingredients to make our own breakfast sausage. We chopped meat, measured spices, then our first task was grinding. That was the easy part. With our mixture ground and assembled, we were ready to fill the casings.

This was the part that I figured would turn into a kitchen-wide mess, but it went surprisingly smoothly. The casings look and feel fragile but are actually quite strong. We made it through five pounds of meat without any blowouts! And the results were amazing. Tasty sausage spiced and salted just right. Perfect, freshly cooked, and even better the next day with some eggs from our own backyard hens. Now we have a whole list of sausages that we want to try our hand at. So, thanks, Mom, for the Wurst day and for a new hobby!

That’s what I’ve been doing with my time! How about you? Thanksgiving has now left us, and we are on the countdown to Christmas. There are plenty of shopping days left if you need a gift for a gardener and also plenty of decorating days left if you need to spruce up your yard before holiday guests arrive. We’re here for either. And we promise we’ll make it your best day in the garden, not your “wurst.”