WolfChef

For me it's a toss up between (1) seeing people at their best/worst and (2) girls dancing on the bar when they've had to much.

LOUD music. Maybe I'll start a sister topic about what people LIKE about the bar experience.

Tung oil is a great finish. Lots of thin coats buffed between with 000 or 0000 steel wool and wiped with a tack cloth before next coat. Gets hard as a rock, really brings out the beauty in most woods and spills don't seem to matter.

Keeping an eye out for "mean" drunks. You know, the drinker that gets belligerent when they've had one too many.

The Luther Vandross sandwich sounds strangely good, not that I would eat a whole one but a bite just to see how the flavors would meld.

I always bring in two cans of beer. Back in my younger days I drank both, now my wife and I share. It's become a joke amongst our kids.

Thanks for the quick answer. Now it makes sense to me and I agree with your last point about putting prices up.

I'm getting increasingly confused about the whole free-range/indoor/outdoor debate. Wyndham House openly declare that their free-range birds are kept in large sheds but allowed 'access to the open air'. I bought a bird from their premium free-range selection on Friday and it had hock burns not only on the knees but on the breast - invisible behind the large label. ← Maybe this is a stupid question, but what are hock burns? I've heard "hocks" referred to the foot area of a animal...as in pickled pigs hocks and can relate that to the knees of a bird, but the breast? How do they get em and what exactly are they?

I just can't remember what they called the sandwich...it's on the tip of my tongue, but I guess the old brain cells are backfiring today. ← Monte Cristo? ← I think that's it. Whoa wait a minute, that's also one of my favorite cigars.

This reminded me of the seafood chef where I worked many years ago(24) who would take the peeled shells of the shrimp tail and deep fry em in either a very thin tempura batter or seasoned flour and eat em like potato chips during the night. I never tried one, and frankly thought he was out of his gourd. On a different note the day crew at the resturant had a sandwich on the menu that was deep fried. It was a big seller and it always seemed to cause alot of trouble for the day chefs. The batter it was fried in was rather sweet and they served it with powered sugar over it. I used to come in early some days to do prep work for large parties or whatever, and would watch them scrambling to make these. Often they would fall apart in the fryer despite best efforts to hold them together with toothpicks. To me they seemed to be a huge sponge full of deep fryer grease with turkey, ham and cheese in the middle, and since most of this resturants clientel (sp?) were rotund businessmen, did they really need this? No. I just can't remember what they called the sandwich...it's on the tip of my tongue, but I guess the old brain cells are backfiring today.

What? I must have missed this topic...what gives...how can this happen? What's the name of the topic?

The one that ruined my palate was Midleton Irish Whiskey. It was just like the first Montecristo cigar I had, no more cheap ones after one of those. For my palate Midleton is as good as I've ever had, Johnny Walker Blue is a close second. Price is about the same for both. Heard a story once at a liquor store that JWBlue is the stuff the family used to reserve for themselves and friends. Any truth to this?

These sound really good.

The topic about deep fried haggis made me think, "My god, what next deep fried foie gras?" Although I should talk, one of my favorite snacks when I used to chef was deep fried lobster tail sandwich. Pull the meat out of a cold water lobster tail, bread it and deep fry for a minute then slap between two slices of heavily buttered bread. The waitress would always want to know what we chefs were eating, and this way I could hide mine in the bread and say "Just a sandwich." But I have to admit, deep frying haggis would never have occured to me. So I have to wonder what other deep fried treats are out there.

I'm curious as to how they did this. Did they cool it and then slice it and deep fry it, or slice it and bread it, or batter it? Or I suppose you could deep fry it warm by using a ice cream scoop to portion it right into the deep fryer.

SweetMarias is the place. I've got the alpenroaster and have used it for years. You can't beat the selection of beans there, and the shipping is extremely fast.

Great story, Carrot Top. Loved it. My dad likes to tell about the lard sandwiches they(He was the second youngest of 12 siblings) carried 3 miles to school. They were one thin slice of bread with some lard spread on it and salt and pepper to make em tasted good, one per child. This was when times were good, when times where bad they didn't have the lard, just the bread and salt and pepper.

Here's a pic of my wife and his son John, who are watching the mom feed the new piglets. Here is the gilt with her litter. If I have it right a gilt is a female with her first litter, after this she is called a sow. This gilt gave birth on a very cold night(about 20 below) in large open unheated barn with all the other sows around, and managed to keep all of her piglets alive till Pete came home from work and found them. She was early in her delivery, which I guess is not unusual for a first litter, but much earlier than even Pete expected, which is why she wasn't segregated to one of the farrowing enclosures you see in the above heated barn. She was in a large pen with about 15 other sows and Pete said it is extraordinarly for a sow, especially a gilt to keep the others from hurting the piglets. He says they usually step on them in their curiosity. The red mark on her back is how Pete marked her, so he would know which female to segregate after he had scooped up all the piglets. I say that like it is a walk in the park, far from it. It is no small feat for a man to enter a hog pen and remove piglets from a mother. Especially one that has just spent the day defending them and keeping em warm. Pete says a sow like this doesn't come along every day, and she will live a decidely long life on his farm. He hopes she will pass along these great mothering attributes to any offspring she might have.

Too bad you don't live in Minnesota. My friend raises pigs that don't know what a needle looks like, and eat cracked corn, no commercial feed. His wife hands out treats...all the kitchen vegetable scraps to her favorites. The pigs favorite treat is the watermelon rind, they go nuts for it.

I have well over a hundred cookbooks, and the last one I would part with is: Escoffier. A chef I used to work for called it "the bible", I concur. As jackal10 said, it's all in there.

I thought it was used mainly for it's strength/hardness and light weight.

I'd say you dodged a bullet with your name it there Grub. Granted steaming liquids don't aways explode in the blender when you turn it on, but the ones that do really get your attention, and old Murphy(Murphy's law) was just waiting in the wings for you that time. That really could have been a life changing moment.

Have you tried the Vya vermouth yet? I think it's splendid. ← Added Vya vermouth to the shopping list on the chalkboard, will give it a try. I doubt I'll like it. My wife loves any and vermouth, so if I don't it won't go to waste.

malaria must be pretty prevalent in my neck of the woods... ← fresherbs: It must be catching, as my brother gave it to me and my wife seems to be suffering from it now too. Paroxisims of chills and fever???---stops it every time. ← Stopped it last night, works like a charm.

Tanqueray Ten in on the very short list of gins that I can drink all by itself and truely enjoy it. I have yet to find a vermouth I like, so gin for me is either on the rocks, or with a touch of tonic when my malaria is acting up.<grin>