To say that our Lao Radar is on high is an understatement. Being part of a refugee diaspora, we owe it to ourselves to find our people and hear their stories. It's Labor Day and we'd like to tell you about the sausage party we're having, courtesy of Wisconsin-based Lao food company SapSap Sticks.

It arrived on our doorstep and we are wildly excited yet curiously confused by it. Yes the sight of seeing " Spicy Kaffir Lime" got our taste buds goin, but what exactly is a Saap Stick? A sausage, like sai gok/sai ouia? Is it fully-cooked and ready to eat, like seen heang/seen savanh? Was it a meat snack, like a Slim Jim? Does it tastes better grilled, like a hot dog (don't deny that some of you have eaten cold hot dogs as kids)? So many questions. We sent an email to founder Alex Hanesakda, but our hunger got the best of us.

Aside from the aforemementioned kaffir lime leaves, the ingredients list: beef, pork, salt, spices, ghost pepper, garlic, onion, chive, - and then some chemical-sounding stuff: dextrose, sodium nitrite, collagen casing and lactic acid starter culture. The logo is a mom with a child behind her, holding the kok and sahk, the quintessential Lao kitchen cooking equipment.

So although we were told beforehand that SapSap Sticks weren't traditional in the sense of Lao foods, we weren't sure how to serve it and what to eat it with. Had the Sticks been smaller (they are like hot dog sized) and/or individually wrapped we might have been more inclined to eat them right out the package, so we took a vote and decided to grill them. Then we realized none of us wanted to turn the grill on just for sausages so we decided to pan-fry them instead.

In the package there's a little bit of oil congealed in between the sticks. Alex warned that they needed to be refrigerated immediately after shipping them to us, so that was another clue that made us think they should be cooked. Seeing this, we put them right in a dry pan, on medium-high heat. And that's when the magic started happening.

As they started to brown and crisp up on the skin, we were gonna go flip them over and then they just kinda did it on their own. We couldn't tell if this was by design, that the way they were made the shape allows them to turn when it gets hot enough. We were too eager to wait for them to keep turning on their own so we just flipped them for the rest of the cooking. Look how beautiful they turned out!

At this time Alex had FINALLY emailed us back and told us - they're supposed to be eaten RIGHT OUT THE PACKAGE, like Slim Jims! We had already been salivating over the crispy skins (seriously look at them things) so we just decided to keep things simple and eat them as is, with nothing else. Taste-wise, they are deliciously reminiscent of a spicy chorizo - they have a little kick but that depends on your spice level (mom said they were too spicy, so did the kid). We couldn't detect the kaffir lime in them, but then again we also just scorched the heck out of them in the pan, so maybe all the smokey flavor was getting in the way. They leave a little red oil from the cooking process so if you want to use to flavor other foods (like cooking bacon and rendering the fat to saute something else) this will work but you'll have to add more oil. If you just want to eat them on their own, we suggest dipping in some jaew mak laen (tomato dipping sauce) with some sticky rice and also with something cold and pickled like som pak. Or you could just eat them by themselves like we did and make a fun photoshoot out of it.

Thanks again Alex for the SapSap Sticks, you may have to send another package so we can eat these "the right way" or maybe we'll have to take a visit to Wisconsin for a personal demonstration! Happy Labor Day!

Sausage Party, Courtesy of SapSap Sticks!