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Steve Smith is understandably upset. In less than a week, he is expected to feed 100 Scotsmen, yet federal
 bureaucrats have blocked him from getting sheep lungs, none of his suppliers have come through with kidneys
 and his attempt to find a lamb heart, well, let's not even talk about that.

And, worse, Smith hasn't even found a sheep stomach. 

These are the trials of New York's pre-eminent haggis maker. Yes, there are men with truer Scottish credentials
 or men who look better in a kilt, but for 21 years, Smith -- a native Texan who has cooked at Greenwich
 Village Bistro, Tortilla Flats, El Teddy's and Boxers -- has hosted dinners celebrating the birthday of
 Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, and Scotland's national dish, haggis.

Watching "the great chieftain o' the puddin' race" be carried in on a silver platter, flanked by a sword-bearer
 and a bagpiper -- a ceremony that will be faithfully recreated this Sunday at the Bowery Poetry Club's Burns
 dinner -- is a beautiful sight. Quite unlike watching Smith make haggis.

Unable to slaughter a sheep himself this year -- the only legal way to get lungs -- Smith bought spleen and
 some lamb shoulder (untrimmed of fat, thank you) at the Ottomanelli butcher shop on Bleecker Street.

Back in his kitchen, he sautéed the ground lamb shoulder until it released so much fat that it looked like the
 coast of Spain after that last oil spill, and poached the spleen, giving the kitchen the smell of a men's room
 at the Port Authority.

They say there are two things you should never watch being made: sausages and journalism. Well, add haggis to
 the list. In a mixing bowl, Smith combined some diced spleen (whose texture brings to mind an undercooked
 handball), a cup of the fatty lamb, a cup of the lamby fat, oats, some pepper, allspice, cloves and nutmeg and
 a jigger of Macallan whisky (several jiggers went to the kitchen help).

Lacking a stomach, Smith stuffed a large intestine (which looks like a whale condom) and boiled the
 sausage-like haggis for half an hour. The finished product may not look like much, but, as Burns said, "O,
 what a glorious sight, warm-reekin, rich!" After more whisky, we dug in.

Smith seemed pleased with the result, but he's still a purist. "You should taste it with the lungs," he said.

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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net