col klink

So does anybody have these pans outside of a commercial kitchen besides FG? I recently took a cooking course and that's all they had (besides pots) on their range. I'm really interested in trying one out but like Suzanne, I know nothing about care and seasoning. FG, do you season and care for these pans like cast iron?

Don't forget that the skin was scored to prevent curling and the fillets were thoroughly dried before being thrown into the carbon steel pan.

Well, spill it! My diet is devoid of all four!

On July 5th I've been invited to a "White Trash Party" wherein everyone will be bringing a dish suitable to the name. I believe there will be a number of toaster ovens. I guess the theme is the more processed food the better, which means less work for me. Unfortunately I'm having a difficult time coming up with ingenious/humorous solutions. I'd like to do something more than just macaroni and cheese. Any suggestions?

Back when I was a wee Klink my father roasted a pig overnight in our driveway. We rented a big drum that fit the beast, though we did have to saw the head off. It was a lot of fun trying to whack it off with first all of our kitchen knives and then with other tools. Luckily a neighbor came by with a hacksaw. The pig roasted for 18 hours and we only used briquettes. When he lit them there was the traditional "let's blow up the neighborhood by using too much lighter fluid and subsequently burning off all of my chest hair and eyebrows" begining. He got up every 3 hours to add coals. The next day the whole neighborhood smelled like bacon! It also looked like the Exxon Valdez crashed and spilled gallons of pork fat on the driveway. I suggest that if you're cooking the pig on your driveway that you raise the cooking vessel above the surface and have a container for the gallons of fat that will render off. Have fun!

This thread has been moved to the Pastry forum.

I'll reply more tomorrow as I just got back from a 7 hour drive from Canada. At first I was going to say you just wasted decent smoking wood trying to figure out how it works, but you're supposed to run it for a while to burn off all of the nasty chemicals they use to preserve the steel during transit. Congrats on your purchase. Being an engineer myself I know where you're coming from but you're overanalyzing the situation. Learning how to run it with a deft hand and knowing when you can let things go is to know the joying of smoking meat so don't go about designing an analog system to control behavior. Then your meat won't have any love. Just keep your exhaust flue completely open and just use the firebox flue to do all of the control, you don't need anything else. You'll find a balance of how much wood to use with each type of wood. So when you're smoking for the first time, relax. Drink a couple of beers, shoot the sh*t and just wait for the goodness. And don't worry, it's incredibly hard to ruin a pork shoulder. It can handle swings of 100 degrees and still be better than any pork you can get commercially. Just start mopping it (every half hour) after an hour and a half to two hours with a sauce of your chosing that contains some type of oil. Let your imagination run wild but not wild enough that you'd add sugar, it'll burn and prematurely turn the pork black and make a crust, stopping any additional flavors from coming in. edit: Batgrrrl and I found the awlful stench in our house when we came home, it wasn't spoiled milk, it was a dead mouse. A puffy deady mouse with lots of stink. I know this because I was the one who put the dead mouse in the garbage bag because Batgrrrl can stand a *live* mouse, but a dead one she can't. For once I don't think it was *my* cat who did this. But we can't prove anything can we, because we weren't here for the last couple of days were we? Just like Tootsie Pops, the world may never know.

What type of pan did you use? Chef Williams was using carbon steel pans that are seasoned like cast iron pans and I'm guessing perform similarly to cast iron without all of the weight. But a well seasoned cast-iron or carbon steel pan is pretty close to being non-stick. Actually, I've never cooked with carbon-steel pans so I may be talking out of my tukhes. If you were using stainless steel I'm afraid I can't help you. How long did you keep the bass on high heat? After a couple of minutes I believe Chef Williams reduced the heat and did the tilty thing with the pan so the fish wasn't swimming in beautiful drippings.

It's very true, lump charcoal burns hotter. For long slow, use the chips and briquettes. You'll find them to be more stable than lump at the lower temps.

What have you tried? I assume you went with smaller amounts of charcoal when you attempted this. Did the temp vacillate wildly or were you unable to maintain the temp? If you're having troubles maintaining 225, here's some advice. Make sure that you have enough air flow, for instance, open all of the vents underneath and then leave the lid cracked open about an inch, directly opposite of where the meat is on the grill. This way you get more air flow (keeping the coals alive) yet you retain the heat (again, keeping the coals alive) with smaller amounts of coals. I use this method when I'm grilling/smoking on a weber and then later when I'm trying to let coals burn to completion so I have less to clean up for the next time. If you're having trouble getting the temp low enough, reduce coals.

The only time I'm going to get a Dick's burger is if I'm part of a drunken posse and it's the will of the posse. The deluxe isn't too bad and Dick's is better than any other fast food burger. Their fries on the other hand are absolute rubbish: steamy, flaccid and under salted. Blegh. A Dick's shake on the other hand is something to behold. With all of the other great things to eat in this town, the last thing on the menu I'm going to try is a burger. If I need a sandwich I go to Paseo (best in town, imho) or Salumi (would be the best if Armandino didn't overbread his sandwiches). edit: nuts, I thought I could get away without using the possesive form of Dick's but Schielke proved me wrong.

WOW! A burger place with a secret sauce! I'm in shock!

Amanda Peete? I love her!

My last pie attempt was basically a disaster. I had spending so much time worrying about the crust that this time I completely neglected the filling. NSM told me that you don't have to thaw frozen fruit because they'll be basically cooked if you just heat them up in the pie, which is perfectly true. So I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately for me (and the pie, an those who tried the pie), though the frozen blackberries I used were perfectly fine in the finished pie, since they hadn't had a chance to thaw and release their juices, the tapioca I was using didn't have a chance to soak up all of the excess liquids that would've been released had I let the fruit thaw. The pie ended up with the tapioca cooked before it had a chance to soak up all of the liquid and the pie was very runny. Thankfully the pie crust came out fine!

That totally bites Stone, I've used my Polder both in my smoker and my oven without any problems at all.

McD's hasn't had a good ad campaign since "quack, quack, waddle, waddle" and that was over 20 years ago.

Just remember to brine it first!

When you butterfly the bird you almost double the surface area thus greatly increasing the amount of smoke the bird can absorb. If your smoked birds aren't getting smokey enough, this is a great idea. Also, if you're smoking on a regular Weber kettle, you can crisp the skin more quickly.

So how did everything come out Stone? Do you have any pictures?

How much are whole cryovac'd briskets down there? Up here the best price we can find is about $1.22/lb. A good deal considering if you can find brisket in your grocery store or meat shop it'll run you about $3 to $4 a pound.

Cypher (Joey "Pants") was killed in the first one when Tank recovered from Cypher shot and shot him back. MORE SPOILER . . . And NSM, yes, the first time I saw reloaded I too thought that was a dream, but it actually wasn't because bad goatee guy tries to assassinate Neo before he goes back but is foiled as "fan boy" abrubtly shows up. The next time we see bbg is at the very end which brings up some odd questions about Agent Smith and whether or not he's actually "disconnected."

My finace Batgrrrl landed a tenure track position out there, but both Batgrrrl and I will definitely keep in touch and we're promising ourselves that we'll come back to Seattle once a year until we move back all permanent like. Oh dear. I spent almost 3 years in Plano before I first moved to Seattle! But those were my middle school years and all I remeber from there is that it's hot, brown and incredibly flat.

I've had very good results with a lard/butter mixture in my pie crusts, just make sure to chill first or it's almost unmanagable.

Grrr. A heavy rain came down just as this episode started and took out my satellite signal.

Welcome back! What a coincidence, after living in Seattle for a long time I moved down to Austin for 3 1/2 years before finally moving back. And now, right as you're moving back to the PacNW, I'm moving to Duluth, MN! Where in Texas were you? I hate to tell you this, but you won't find bbq and steak joints on every corner.