"Well, I am the Karamogo..."

We have this joke, well, perhaps its more mine, around our house, about how Ian is supposedly the only one somehow that can have insights about people or culture because, well, he "is the anthropologist." This is often said when we have differing insights about something regarding said people or cultures and is intended to remind me of his expert status.  Right...So to add to his supposed to "stop my comments in their tracks" book of phrases, he can now call himself a Karamogo as well.  Karamogo(which is Kara's full name by the way) is a master of some kind, in this instance, of the sands/divination/marrabaga.  It literally translates to teacher. 

So he's spent the past month being taught the sands and, of course our little over acheiver, mastered them in no time.  Kara had been hinting that Ian's initiation would be coming soon and earlier this week it did.  Think of it like graduating from medical school.  He still has a residency to go...Regardless, this is a big deal and we're all really proud of him.

Anyway, all sorts of things had to happen to finalize his position such as, sand readings, trips to the outskirts of town.  Here are Ian, Kara, and a goat on the final day of initiation

At the end of this day, Ian came home with 3 impressive fetishes, a marked up egg that he still needs to eat hard boiled and whole, a bag of sugar that represents "goodness" that we all have to taste from, and a hindquarter of the above goat.  

I debated what to do with the leg o' goat and thought that I should just take it to our local smoker to cook it up for me, but after a little research online, decided to do it myself.  So, turns out, according to my foodie websites, that goat is making a comeback Stateside.  Its being sold for $10 a pound at farmers markets and is being touted as a low calorie, low fat meat.  I found all sorts of recipes from tasty jerked leg of goat, to Mexican goat stews, to even a Molto Mario recipe that involved mint and lemons that sounded pretty tasty.  

Unfortunately, most of these required a grill with a certain level of control I could not achieve (or didn't have the patience to) or a key ingredient that I couldn't get or properly replace.  So here is what I did with it and I think it turned out pretty tasty.  Marshall did to.  

Roasted BBQ goat leg

1 hindquarter of goat, bone in

2T minced garlic

1/2 c white vinegar

1/2 c bottled BBQ sauce (or homemade, I just used some Jack Daniel's Spicy Original Sauce that we got at the commisary)

Mix garlic, vinegar and BBQ sauce together and marinate goat in this mixture overnight.  Heat oven to 350 and roast lightly covered with foil for 1.5 hours.  Uncover for last 10 minutes of cooking.  I flipped it half way through as well.

It turned out good, albeit a bit overdone(I cooked for 2 hours thinking it needed it...), but really tender and flavorful, almost like something you'd find at a roadside BBQ place.  I highly recommend picking up some goat if you can find some.

As for our Karamogo, he's already dropped the phrase when being picked on for not doing something as if he was above it.  Jokingly, of course...right...?