balmagowry

Captain Bill's and Gil Clark's are still there, right by the Fire Island Ferry; went to a party at the former a couple of years back and it wasn't bad at all. Not sure about Flynn's but I think so. Place at end of Higbie Lane was a pizza/deli sort of joint when I moved here; it's gone now. Burned down a couple of years back. In Babylon - well, that's what today's picture-taking was all about, but for a quick & dirty rundown, there's the Clam & Oyster Bar opposite Southard's Corner (and I think Dave Southard is still alive and doing business!), owned by the same people who own Pier 44 down nead the end of Fire Island Ave. Down in that area there are a couple of other places - Mario's High-Hook is still around, as is the Clam Shack and that other place whose name I don't remember (I'm going down there tomorrow to refresh my memory). On the point overlooking the mouth of the creek is a monstrous place called John Anthony's, site of many a prom and wedding festivity and countless weekend brunches (if I only had a buck for every time someone has come down Fire Island Ave, made the zig but missed the zag, and ended up in front of my house asking, "which way to John Anthony's?" - I'd be a rich woman by now). I think Pier 44 is pretty much the best of the bunch, though the Clam Shack ain't half bad. Pier 44 was definitely the best of the batch a few years ago, when it used to run an after-hours lobster special - if you came in after 10 you could get two lobsters (a good pound plus each) for 10 bucks! Slightly more upscale is Ali Ocean, on Deer Park Ave. More on this when I get pictures up.... Oh - and there are also a couple of pretty good fishy places on Montauk Ave in Lindenhurst.

So sorry about your kitchen hell - dare I ask? She was a very wise woman. Yes, or the savored sort, or both. Leftovers are half the fun of cooking!

Well, today was one of those "may you live in interesting times" days.... Oh, but first I have to confess about last night, don't I. Yeah, I guess so. Remember how I said sometimes I'm not very good about lunch? getting distracted and all that? Yes, well.... Last night I was so busy with Bloggerei that... well, the next time I looked up it was too late to call up for the threatened Chinese takeout. So - well, I scrounged a bit. I had finished all the cold artichokes (all six of them! with another batch of the same sauce, yum) for lunch. There was still leftover broc rabe, so I inhaled that. There was a pear. Inhaled. There was a bit of bread and cheese. All in all, I didn't do too badly, but it wasn't as who should say a meal, you understand. The Boy will be shocked (but also triumphant) when he reads this; he's always telling me I never eat anything. He's mistaken, of course, oy is he, but he will certainly view this as proof. :sigh: So. I was very good about lunch today, thanks to The Boy's ample provision of leftovers. And his leftovers also fueled tonight's KSFR. Two minor miscalculations on that front; I thought I had some raw shrimp in the freezer, and I thought I had some cooked rice waiting around to be fried. The former was simply a false assumption, but it was not a dreadful hardship to make do with cooked, which I did have. The latter was not so much false as out of date: cooked rice there was, but it was some time since it had stopped waiting to be fried and had gone ahead and "cooked" itself, so to speak. So I had to make some up fresh. Big deal, that should be the worst. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the frying of rice was a difficult matter - not. I will post pictures and brief narrative in due course. Psyched by today's discussion on the Desserts from Canned Fruit thread, I had also planned to make an old favorite, peach and blueberry Grunt; that plan, however, had to be sacrificed in the aftermath of this afternoon's microwave crisis. Not that I couldn't have done it; but it was late and I was tired and there's still some residual smell of the fumes in the kitchen and all sorts of charky black stuff on the floor - I clean it up and I clean it off my feet, but somehow I always manage to miss a bit. So - we finally decided it would be the better part of valor to skip the dessert plan for tonight. Want dessert? hey, just have another bowl of fried rice! We did go out and get pictures - a bit later than I'd intended, so the sun was at a slightly impractical angle, but I will have something to show for the effort and will show it. Hi, Susan! Welcome to a week in the life of a loon. Oh - did get the violets put away in vodka. Hope I didn't weaken their essence any by leaving them in water overnight, but I walk my dog where they grow, and I'm not the only one, so I thought I'd better do something in the name of cleanliness. I wonder if godliness can be far behind....

That sneaky Boy. He never even showed me the other side of the mug.

OK, here's the plan, so far. The Boy did bring home some roast pork - I had a hopeful feeling he would - so tonight it's going to be Kitchen Sink Fried Rice. (He also brought home lunch - I'll show you that when we get there.) Need to pick up a few things at stores, which works out well because now is the perfect time to sally forth and get pictures of some of the local food joints, as promised. So off I go, list and camera in hand. More later....

Wieldy - yes, I like that. It is indeed both wieldy and intimate, cozy even, as demonstrated in this picture of its wielding: (sorry, the picture really isn't all that wieldy: one of the lessons I've learned this week is how difficult it is for a very right-handed person to photograph herself with a digital camera while doing anything requiring even moderate skill!) Hear hear! This microwave began its life as a wedding present to my ex-husband - on his previous marriage. I love it because it's simple - a dial for settings from low to high, a dial for setting the time, and that's it; no fancy electronics to get screwed up. And I love it because I've gotten four years' use out of it since he decamped. (I think it's happier with me. ) Long may it wave!

Don't I know it! I have another the same size (will take/post picture later), but it's crude by comparison, though of course I'm grateful to have it. And :sigh: now I have two of each of them - one here, one in Gilgo. Fuzzy picture, I'm afraid, but at least you can sort of get a sense of scale - here are both knives: As I said, the second one is quite crude - but it's distinctly better than nothing.

Yeah, but if you're not cooking anything.... So here's what happened. I'm sitting in the living room with The Boy, and suddenly I get a whiff of something. Then a stronger whiff. For half a moment I think fuel oil. But the truck hasn't been here and there's no invoice at the front door. The smell gets stronger. "That's not fuel oil. That's something burning!" Sure enough, there's smoke in the kitchen and the smell there is really noxious. It isn't until later that my fogged brain retroactively identifies the familiar smell, not just as burning, but as burning rubber. The Boy's brain is fogged too, but not for the same reason - because he's not fully awake after his all-night drive. This is why it takes him a few seconds to make the connection: he was heating last night's coffee in the microwave, and.... well, let me put it this way - last time I saw this mug it didn't have a pedestal base... nor was it covered in black charcoal. Oy vey! The damage on-site: Most sinister of all, the coffee in the cup wasn't even remotely warmed. I'm not sure exactly which thing had which effect on what, nor do I really want to know. I think I wouldn't ever have put that kind of mug in the microwave - maybe The Boy wouldn't either if he'd been paying attention. OTOH, maybe sane people wouldn't keep a paper towel in the microwave - in brilliant hindsight I can see where that could be risky - but hey, I've done it for 10 years and never had a problem - and if you don't... well, the bottom of the microwave can get so yucky, especially if you're not as good about cleaning up after yourself as Anna N. Anyway, the paper towel definitely caught fire and burned to a wisp, the mug melted, the coffee stayed cold, and... watchman, what of the night? What of my poor microwave, only 24 years old? For a wonder... peace, and all's well. Took a while, and much cross-ventilation, before one could stand to enter the kitchen. (And please do not tell me what I probably inhaled in the interim; I really suspect I don't want to know.) Then The Boy bravely attacked the mess, cleaned it out thoroughly, ran it a couple of times with a cup of water, and then tried it for real... and... it still works! The Boy then wisely brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee. Thus endeth the crisis.

POSSIBLE KITCHEN CRISIS! Uh-oh. How often does a conversation begun with ":sniff:... :sniff:... uh... what's... that... SMELL????" end happily?

Don't I know it! I have another the same size (will take/post picture later), but it's crude by comparison, though of course I'm grateful to have it. And :sigh: now I have two of each of them - one here, one in Gilgo.

Cruelty? Feh. They die instantly. As for throwing them in alive - OK, call me a bloodthirsty sadist, but I enjoy it. Crabs are not nice animals. Give 'em a chance, they'll nip off your toe as soon as look at you (not to mention that they're cannibals and happily devour their own kind). Self-defense? Yeah, I guess so, but I swear there's a mean glint to them as they chase after you. And yes, when they run it isn't always away! So I get a wicked charge out of giving them their comeuppance. I don't generally pick them up by hand, because though it is perfectly safe to do so from the back with one crab, that doesn't protect you from the other two dozen at battle stations in the bucket. So I use a long grabner (tongs to you non-Grossman folk). I try to do 'em one at a time, but sometimes they're clutching into each other too firmly for that, and you get a whole chain of three or four going from bucket to pot at once. As for losing their claws - they do that easily enough while they're alive. Occupational hazard of jousting with each other in the bucket.

Right here on eG is where you may have read it - I posted that recently on (of all places) one of the foie gras threads. I always keep a few cans in the freezer for just this purpose. Not just peaches, but almost any fruit, in fact I often combine two, like grapefruit with mandarin orange. Caveat: it only works with fruits canned in heavy syrup! Also, if you have enough time you'll get even better results if you puree, refreeze, and puree again. Re other things mentioned up-thread - yes, not only clafoutis or cobbler, but also the whole other array of fruit/batter/dough comfort foods, like Slump, or Grunt, or even Crumble or Brown Betty. I find these work even better with frozen fruits - that is, the ones flash-frozen and packed in plastic bags. Since they don't have syrup you have to sweeten and season them yourself, of course, but that makes it all the more like working with the fresh article! not to mention that the liquid is more intensely fruit-flavored because it all comes directly from the fruit itself. My favorite combination: peaches and blueberries. Sugar, a little lemon, some cinnamon, maybe a little mace.... Mmmmmm... I may just have to make this tonight! EDIT to add: perfect accompaniment to the above sorbets: shortbread. Quick, easy, always have the ingredients on hand. Way yummy together. BTW, having tricks like this up your sleeve it no big deal when you live within easy reach of a market - but when you live 20 minutes away from the nearest store it gets to be kind of important!! Hmmm - note to self: discuss this on blog. EDIT AGAIN to say: I wouldn't put "sorbet" in quotes (even though I just did ). Think about it: when you make a proper sorbet, what do you use? fruit and simple syrup. What is canned fruit? Why, fruit and syrup. Sometimes you cook the fruit; sometimes the canned fruit is also cooked. Far as I'm concerned, it walks like sorbet, it quacks like sorbet... it's sorbet.

Far as I know there's nothing peculiarly French about this. It happens to me all the time right here on Long Island - the magnetic stripe gets a little worn and/or dirty from long use and much extraction/insertion in wallet. Countless times (especially with my poor long-suffering Discover card) I've seen a savvy clerk or store manager either A) gently clean off the stripe with a pencil eraser, or B) fold a plastic bag over it to run it through the machine. As you say - works every time.

What a funny feeling to see the questions posed this way. How the wheel comes full circle: everything old really is nouvelle again. What you guys said in the above powerfully echoes the writing of Careme and his contemporaries nearly 200 years ago. Riding the crest of the Enlightenment, what they found both romantic and exciting was the newly-discovered relationship between chemistry and cuisine. Even the title of Brillat-Savarin's La Physiologie du gout - not to mention much of its content - reflects this fascination with the science of food. From our modern perspective they probably got a lot of it wrong - as wrong as your "lore" from the 60s - but they were headed in the right direction. (That, of course, is another constant progression; every generation triumphantly correcting the mistakes of the previous one, only to be corrected itself by the next.) Chemistry was cool, it was hot, it was edgy, it was now - then. If you didn't explain the scientific principles behind even your most traditional recipes, you simply weren't au courant. Sound familiar? can you say McGee, Corriher, This, Brown? Careme begins the first chapter of L'Art de la cuisine Francaise au XIXeme siecle with a disquisition on the chemical properties and composition of soup which would do any eminent scientist proud. And you can tell how proud he is of being able to do so. It's actually rather sweet. And this ... ... could have come almost verbatim from that chapter! Of course, speaking of everything old being new again - some of those new lore-debunkings aren't quite as new as they may appear. Indeed they can - and Apicius got there first, only a couple of millennia ago....

Good morning. Ain't I the early bird! I've thought about it, but it's been done.and done pretty well. Newsday, for instance, has put out rather a nice book on the subject. Not to say it can't or shouldn't be done again, but my back burner is piled so high with other projects waiting for me to get my act together that I wouldn't be able to do it any time soon. Also, it's kind of a sad subject at the moment. Blue Point, for instance, is just up the road from me, an easy sail too - and it's closed. (In fact, there's some kind of controversy about selling the property.) The baymen are struggling to survive. We've had good crab harvests, and the clams seem to be hanging in there, but everything else is vanishing. Not just because of overfishing, but also because of brown tide - which I'm sure is going to turn out to be a result of chemical runoff from something. Probably the Guyland's obsession with its stupid Lawns. Sigh. Ah, the sounds of spring - landscapers' leafblowers and lawnmowers in the morning. (Say it three times fast.) Eek. Sorry, hadn't intended to get into big environmental rant. Thank you! Thanks! I have quite a few, but it'd be reassuring to know there's a source of supply out there. Some day, Lucy.... Meanwhile, you're entirely welcome. And you would have been - there was enough for you and Loic. Hope you like Russian food - that's what's coming up for Sunday night. Sister!!!! And oh dear, look how clean yours is. That's right, I remember your fridge was too. Later today I'll try to remember to take the camera down to the bunker where I keep the spare ones. I've replaced the bowl on mine once; in the early years I put the original one in the dishwasher, and over time it didn't seem to like that much.... Curve? In which plane? Mine are completely flat - in fact, I don't like the bent ones. OTOH, if you mean the slight curve of the edge, thank you for pointing it out - I hadn't really ever noticed it. I still have the pieces of the one I broke - I keep thinking there must be some way to splint it. Or at least use it as a template for making my own, if I ever get desperate.... Ooof - back to my coffee. Figuring out plan for the day. The Boy got back at 4:00 AM, and there hasn't yet been an opportunity to determine his availability to be dragooned into helping me with the next stage. And of course there's still the backlog - or as he calls it, the backblog - to work on. Also - as frequently occurs, he has brought home leftovers from food he made over the weekend. I shall have to investigate. Tonight might be a night for Kitchen Sink Fried Rice. It's sunny, but chilly. I will check the tide tables, but I'm starting to think the hope of a clamming attempt is a little unrealistic. Perhaps, if the fates allow, I can make a return appearance some time in the summer, when life is all clams and tomatoes and mussels and crabs and blackberries.... Meanwhile, there's plenty of material! A confession: one reason I was planning to time travel to the Testing Kitchen of another century is that I was afraid I wouldn't have much to show for my real-time food life - that's how erratic it's been lately. Little did I realize...! Well, hell, I've never foodblogged before. Anyway, we shall see - it turns out there is so much real-time activity to document (and yes, I'm well aware that that is partly because I'm totally overdoing it, but hey, that's the kind of guy I'm, and I could invoke Pascal again, but I think I've done that to death :deep breath: ) that I may have to save those excursions for some other occasion. It's not like I need an excuse. WRM, I have a lecture/signing gig coming up in a few weeks - in Baltimore. Illustrated talk about L&SD, under the aegis of the Constellation Museum. (Shall post on local forum when I can catch my breath.) With slides of all the weird stuff: Floating Archipelago, raised pies, puddings, rats, breadfruit, etc. Coffee. Need... coffee.... Later.

You're kidding. Really? Where???? Really the same, completely flat, with the angled edge? I haven't seen a new one like that in at least 10 years. Lots of things that came close, but no actual cigar.

I blush to say I don't know - I don't have cable and have never seen the show. I doubt it, though. The MiniChop hasn't been made in - oh, almost 20 years, I think. It was only on the market for a short time (I think there was something not entirely kosher about the UL listing), and was speedily eclipsed by brand-name versions. Well, I've tried a lot of those, and never yet found one that could hold a candle to the MC for speed, power and simplicity.

Oh, but there are still Good Humor trucks too, aren't there? At least, there were a couple of years ago, when my mother was last at NYHospital; I stopped at one then and had a Toasted Almond (after a brief struggle between that and my second favorite, Chocolate Eclair). You're perfectly right about its childhood-evoking powers, too. Actually, there are ice cream trucks out here, too - don't know why I've never investigated that, bet they have 'em too. IAC, I never thought the Toasted Almond bar was gone... but OTOH I had no idea I could get 'em by the 1/2-dozen at my local grocery store either! Anyway, the big hoo-ha was prompted by my memory of someone having lamented its loss on the Discontinued thread - didn't then remember who, though. But if Ludja develops a formula for Toasted Almond ice cream, what a silver lining for the cloud over Northern California!

Mmmmm... home-made Toasted Almond... if you're successful you will share the recipe, won't you? hmmmm?

The best! I have several of them. A couple of years ago I had only two, and one day I actually broke one of them in half somehow. Horror! I started watching for them at garage sales. (I don't keep kosher, so I figured it was OK as long as I washed them well. ) I still watch for them at garage sales. You can never have too many. Thank you so much. In that case, you already know that I'm all about, not only the butter, but also the lard, suet, eggs and cream. In fact, to borrow a line from a dear friend... my soul doth magnify the lard. ( :groan: ) And it in turn doth magnify me.... Sounds wonderful. I have to admit that the preparation shown above is just about the only one I ever use, unless I'm doing somethign highly specific that calls for a different treatment. As I said, I'm sometimes tempted to try something different, but ultimately... well, I'm kind of like Uncle Matthew in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love: "My dear Lady Kroesig, I have only read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good, I've never wanted to read another."

I'm so sorry. I hope at least it'll give you happy dreams....

And... the meal. Not much left of those artichokes.... And now the moment you've all been waiting for - dessert. Who says you can't get these any more? Yes, you can! The flavor is just as I remember it. Texture isn't exactly the same as it was from the Good Humor truck - but hey, these came right out of my own freezer! The Boy has never had Toasted Almond before, and it's a revelation to him. We each... ... have to have a second one, just for the sheer joy of it. And so to bed. Good night!

While all this is going on, of course the artichokes are already cooking. Someone recently posted some interesting stuff about cooking artichokes; different approaches, something about doing them in the microwave. Oh, and Russ Parsons had a nice piece on the subject lately, didn't he? - his stuff sometimes appears in Newsday, since it's now a sibling of the LA Times. All very well, and one of these days no doubt I'll explore these possibilities in depth. But for now - I'm doing what I know because it's simple and reliable and I don't have to think about it. Actually, I guess I'm kind of a purist where artichokes are concerned. Or maybe - no, not a purist, because that smacks of principle; no, I think I'm just stubborn. With maybe a touch of the Luddite about me. I love them cold and I love them hot; I love them with melted butter or vinaigrette or mayonnaise; anything other than that kind of strikes me as a waste of time, I'm afraid. I mean, I appreciate a beautiful preparation as much as the next guy, and I realize that I ought to be grateful if someone does the gruntwork for me ahead of time... but the fact is, where artichokes are concerned I'm a peasant at heart and I like them best in their simplest form; I enjoy deconstructing them as I eat them - if I don't get to do that I feel despoiled of part of the fun - of most the tactile pleasure of the treat. YMMV, of course. But there it is. (I feel the same way - though for subtly different reasons - about a whole flounder or Dover Sole. Once I ordered a Dover Sole at the Four Seasons - and yes, I know that technically what they serve is not a true echt Dover Sole, but for my money it ain't a bad approximation - and was horrified when it arrived already filleted. This wasn't the first time I'd ordered it there, and they'd never made that assumption before; I don't know what possessed them. I was very sweet and polite about it... but I sent it back. If I'd wanted filet of sole I'd have ordered filet of sole. Elegantly producing a Perfect Skeleton is half the fun.) These artichokes have been sitting around for... well, longer than I originally intended - they were on some tremendous sale, and I can't remember now what it was that could have distracted me from my eagerness to eat them right away... but somehow they fell into the Black Hole that is my fridge, and I'm just lucky I stumbled across them again before it was too late. As it is, they need a little more, ahem, trimming than I like; to my great chagrin most of the tails (which I love) have to be sacrificed. :sigh: Serve me right. Oh well. Tink ob yer marcies. I'm still way ahead of the game. Rinse 'em, stick 'em in a pot, throw in some salt, water to cover, bring to the boil and cook for about 18 minutes. Done. During those 18 minutes I, of course, am anything but idle. There's the mushrooms to watch, the sauce to make, and (at the last possible second) the steak to cook. My default vinaigrette - In order of appearance, though not of use: Tellicherry pepper; EVOO; Colman's Dry Mustard (as a rule I like it better for this purpose than Dijon - that tiny extra bite!); salt; and mine own gorgeous powerful home-made red wine vinegar. It all gets shookened up together in a little jar to emulsify - and conweniently the same jar serves to store the extra during the next few days. For my sins... well, anyway, here and now I confess: I'm going to mix this with some mayonnaise, and no, I did not make it myself! I've been reading this board long enough to know that I'm not the only sinner present - in fact, I belong to the faction that considers it perfectly OK to use Hellman's under certain exigent circumstances. (Besides, remember I live with a guy from Wisconsin. If we ran out of Hellman's I really think the sky might fall. At any rate, I'm not about to chance it.) I love doing this because you can vary it so much just by playing with the proportions. A slightly mayonnaise-y vinaigrette... a slightly vinaigrette-y mayonnaise... half and half... add some buttermilk maybe... add some - wait a minute, I'm not adding some anything tonight, I'm just making a half-&-half-ish mixture. Here, Grandma, here's how you suck eggs: the trick to stirring liquid smoothly into commercial mayo is to stir the mayo thoroughly first. Then put in the liquid, and just stir till it's blended. Nary a lump.

I'd like to take a moment to introduce a couple of my favorite tools. I've discussed them before on several threads: - Cooking in Other People's Kitchens - Creatures of Habit - Asian Knife - Useless/Useful Food Gifts First, the tiny paring knife that The Boy has dubbed "Dr. Paring's Prototype." Why on earth does no one make a knife like this any more? Hello? Ekco? You made this one - why quit while you were ahead? The tiny short blade, so easy to control, the grip facing away so you can cut toward your thumb. Somewhere in one of the abovementioned threads I have told the tale of this knife and its brother, and the misadventures each of them has encountered. Each of them finally came home to roost; each of them (one here, t'other in Gilgo) is protected and cherished more jealously and zealously than gold or diamonds. They are unique (hmmm - no they're not, there are two of 'em - but you know what I mean) and irreplaceable. Second, but not by much, the almost equally rare MiniChop. While I was searching for the thread where I first mentioned it, I noticed a couple of other references: apparently I'm not the only lucky eGull to own one of these (though I may be the only one to own several). Sure, this is not quite indispensable. My knife skills could probably benefit from the eGCI course on that subject, but they're decent enough when they need to be, and I could certainly do small chopping by hand. But why bother, when this is so much faster? Allow me to demonstrate. I'm throwing together an impromptu melange (a phrase that might easily apply to most of my cooking, now I think of it) to go with the steak. To begin with, a shallot. Peeled and quickly cut into chunks, into the MC it goes. I push down twice on the top, et voila. Took about two seconds. Close enough for government work. I love my MiniChop! One reason I'm doing this is I have some mushrooms that need to be used up. Those get wiped clean, then cut up by hand into mejumish chunks. The shallots join them in the waiting room, while I heat up some fat to saute them in. I didn't trim the meat too meticulously, but there are a few chunks of fat; I figure they'll add flavor to this nice little mess if I render 'em down. Wanting the best of both worlds, of course I still use butter as well. (Please don't tell anyone... I ate these. Oh ye gods and little fishes, how good they were!) Cook these guys till they give up their liquid (oh, and please note - the wooden spatula in the next few pictures is another indispensable and beloved tool discussed on the abovementioned threads), pour in some red wine, reduce a bit, and finish with a little more butter.

Faithful blogger reporting for duty at last. Hokay, believe it or not, it's almost Saturday night. To semi-recap - some time after I get back from my foraging adventures, there is lunch. The Boy makes short work of his leftovers from the Diner Dinner... and forgets to alert me to the photo-op until after the fact. Meanwhile I wolf down one of those Portuguese breads, finish the grapes, and am content. If you've been keeping track, you may recall that around 7ish I interrupt my blogging in mid-spate for a run to the store. Having decided not to go to Gilgo that evening, we make a sudden about-face to the fallback position. While The Boy runs out to get the fitting needed to adapt our old propane tank to our new gas grill, I return briefly to the scene of one of the crimes: Anglice, I make a quick foray to the Fruitery to grab some of that skirt steak that looked so enticing on my earlier visit. And stumble onto the perfect dessert.... My favorite way to cook a not-very-thick piece of meat (say, up to 1-1/2 inches) on a gas grill is to put it on frozen. Keeps the center from cooking too fast. My time-travel skills, however, aren't quite up to the task of making that happen tonight: I'll have to take my chances. Unwrapping the meat, I discover that it was packed by someone prescient, someone who knew, somehow, that it was going to be eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Sprat. Not as to fat and lean so much as thick and thin; The Boy, I regret to say, likes his meat well-done. :shudder: It is one of his few faults (another being that he refuses to eat "any cheese I can smell through the wrapping" - :sigh: ). One thicker than the other. Put 'em on at the same time, take 'em off at the same time, and they should exhibit the desired difference in doneness. I'm not sure what proportion of the blame for this lies with the camera and what with the photographer; at any rate, we don't have lights rigged on the porch yet, and photographing the cooking of the meat in progress is a chancy proposition at best, the results not as accurate as heart could wish. (The Boy mutters his frustration throughout: he owns an infrared camera but there isn't time to find it lest the meat overcook. He finally locates it the next afternoon. Next time.) Sure enough, the synchronization is a success. The grill being new, and I new to it, mine is a little done-er than I like... but still not bad for a mad scramble and a first attempt. Coming up next: the artichokes and the sauces.