Bradley house unplugged; scrapple goes chipotle

The Lewes house of convicted child rapist Earl Bradley stands along Savannah Road a few blocks away from where I live. Early morning walks take me by the house, across the street from the main Lewes fire station. The bizarre circumstances of its owner unfailingly draw my eyes, like a moth to a flame.

For months now, a fairly new black VW bug convertible has sat - unmoved - in the driveway of the house. Its tags expired in November 2011. Occasionally a gusty wind blows open the hinged lid of one of the three plastic trash and recycling cans lined up between the car and the aluminum-sided house. Other than that, they also haven’t moved for months.

In the peak of the small gable in the front of the house, a faded and threadbare curtain hangs.  It doesn’t take much breeze to draw the tatter out of the house through the paneless window.  On mornings like Wednesday morning, when steady northeast air coaxed the curtain out into the cold, I imagine there may be a person there looking out - or, at least, one of those many remote cameras that the former pediatrician had mounted in the upstairs windows of his former office on Route 1.

This morning I wondered whether the heat was on in the house, whether it was all rising to the attic and being sucked out of the open window.  The yellow flashing sign across the street at the fire hall announced the temperature as in the mid-30s. Did electric baseboard heaters in the house, struggling to keep up with an attempt to heat the outdoors, have the meter spinning like a top? And if so, who would be paying for that? Certainly not Earl Bradley, in prison and serving multiple life sentences for his maniacal behavior.

Lewes Board of Public Works General Manager Darrin Gordon set my mind at ease.  “The utilities to that house were shut off in May of 2011,” said Gordon.  “We’ve had them off since then and we’re not going to lose anything.”

Cape Gazette’s Ryan Mavity reported a few weeks back that the house is scheduled to go to sheriff’s sale in July.

Rapa Scrapple goes chipotle

The key to cooking perfect scrapple is to preheat a frying pan on medium, lay in pieces of scrapple sliced three-eighths of an inch thick, and then let it brown slowly for eight to 10 minutes before turning it to brown on the other side.  Like fine crab cakes, the less you handle scrapple and turn it, the better. I like mine with a pair of eggs over easy, rye toast and a glass of chilled viognier.

My nephew, Eric Hadaway, has over the years developed himself into a scrapple aficionado. He is a fan of Bridgeville’s Rapa Scrapple, named for the founding brothers, Ralph and Paul Adams.  He sent out an email this week saying that Rapa has just come out with chipotle scrapple.  A mutual friend - Chris D’Anna of the Mars grocery store chain in Baltimore - confirmed the chipotle scrapple debut. He said Rapa is replacing its Hot and Spicy, jalapeño-flavored product with the new chipotle flavor.  This news is so hot that it isn’t even up yet on the Rapa website.

Rapa, on its site, claims to produce and sell more scrapple than any other manufacturer in the U.S. This unique regional food - which includes pork snouts and pork hearts among other special ingredients - is pretty much the reason why they say that when it comes to a pig, the only part that doesn’t get used is its oink.