Wing It Up – Albuquerque, New Mexico
Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern has nothing on my friend Ralph Guariglio. Zimmern who claims to love such “exotic cuisine” as fermented walrus anus probably wouldn’t touch some of the…er, interesting foods Ralph enjoyed during his travels for Intel. That’s especially true when Ralph traveled to Vietnam and The Philippines, all the while chronicling his adventures in “Captain Ralphie’s Travelogue.” Though most of us envied his peregrinations, few of us would have had the gastronomical fortitude to try such “delicacies” as beating cobra heart and live lobster (yes, still alive…and thrashing). Much as Ralph loves adventurous dining, his passion and favorite food group is chicken wings. Ralph can eat chicken wings for breakfast, lunch and dinner with chicken wing snacks in between. Never mind that chicken wings have a disproportionate “effort-to-meat” ratio, he happily gnaws on those tiny avian bones to extricate every meaty morsel, a look of blissful contentment on his face. Ralph is the type of guy who would bob for chicken wings in a deep fryer. When he married his beautiful bride Linda, I thought for sure the wedding cake would be studded with layers of chicken wings and the cake would be “frosted” with Buffalo…