The Stranger

The Stranger’s team coverage of Montana’s 25th Annual Testicle Festival continues. Last week Kelly O brought us revealing video of the Testicle Festival, and this week Stranger food critic Angela Garbes files her own report from the Testicle Festival and shares her frustrating attempts to whip up some balls for dad in her Seattle test kitchen.

I went down to Viet Wah Superfoods on MLK to look for balls for me and my dad; the ones I found were frozen, sold in pairs (each slightly larger than my fist), and cost $2.69 a pound. To be totally honest, they scared me a little. But I was determined. As they defrosted, their tough outer skins (called, horrifically, the “vaginal tunic”) softened to reveal a maze of blue and purple veins. I removed the vaginal tunics.

At this point, I must admit I was officially grossed out. I soaked the balls for two hours in salt water, hoping to draw out blood. As I sliced the testicles, I tried to imagine that I was cutting lobes of foie gras instead, but the orange color and veins running through their centers didn’t help keep this delusion going. I cooked my balls Ruhlman-style, panfried with brown butter, garlic, and napa cabbage. The smell was heavenly, but the meat was incredibly tough and oozed a weird gray substance (I hadn’t soaked them long enough to get rid of all the impurities, apparently). I was mortified; they were terrible. “Well,” said my dad, “it’s not tripe.”

You can read the rest of Garbes’ piece here.

And now we’d like to take you behind the scenes of our Team Testicle Festival coverage. At the last minute Stranger publisher Tim Keck stepped in and pulled the image Stranger editor David Schmader had chosen—after careful consideration—to illustrate Garbes’ story in this week’s paper. Here is the image that Mr. Keck imposed on Stranger editors…

And here is the image that Stranger editor David Schmader first selected to illustrate Garbes’ story:

Keck felt that this image was too disturbing, and not an appropriate photo the opening of this paper’s restaurant section.

Keck is the publisher, of course, and he can make these calls. But what do you say, Slog readers? Did Keck do the right thing?