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NulloModo

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  1. NulloModo

    Dinner! 2004

    Well, I wasn't the only one cooking. My parents decided to hold a 1 day late 4th of July get-together with various friends of the family, and seeing as I wanted to try out my dad's smoker, I went over and volunteered to help. Between the three of us everything got churned out.
  2. Hmmm, I usually fly in and out of Philadelphia when I have to fly... and that airport is pretty bleak in all regards. On the rare occasion when I get my flight cheaper from baltimore I seem to recall BWI having a couple chain style places in each terminal, which while not good, is still better than fast food, or even worse, airport-specific overpriced fast food. IIRC LAX has some pretty spiffy places to dine though.
  3. NulloModo

    Dinner! 2004

    Smoked Beef Loin Smoked Pork Butt with N. Carolina style vinegar/pepper sauce Hebrew National Hot Dogs Johnsonville Bratwursts Grilled Portobella Mushroom Caps Grilled 'Veggie Packets' consisting of Zuchinni, Asparagus, and Onion w/Garlic Green and White Asparagus sauteed in olive oil and garlic Southern Style Collard Greens Potato Salad Herbal Bacon Cole Slaw Gravy made from the smoked drippings of the beef loin and some chardonnay Salad of exotic greens in a Tequila/Lime/Mint vinagrette Fresh Strawberries and Blueberries in cream Jello cake with whipped cream and strawberries and blueberries arranged to look like an American Flag Strawberry Shortcake Coffee, Corona, and Fresh Squeezed Lemonade (not all together)
  4. I think the practice is so widespread nowadays that no one can fault a restaurant for doing it. However, you do need to clearly state that you will be doing this, and alerting the head of the party is never a bad idea either. 18 or 20% is definately too much, however. I know many people who still tip at 10% (although they are mostly my parents and grandparents generation), and 15% is the norm for service that meets expectations around here for me and all of my friends. However, it must be said that excellent service is the expectation, you don't go into any dining establishment with the idea that the waitstaff will not be attentive. I do tip far above 15% on the occasions when something extraordinary warrents it, but those situations are quite rare. So, for large parties, a tip of the standard amount of 15% seems to be fair enough, or, if in your area the amount is slightly higher or lower, whatever that amount is. As Holly notes, you also can't expect to enforce this if any customer or group of customer wishes to tip different. You can add whatever you want to the bill, but no customer will have to pay anything that they do not agree to.
  5. I'd be fine with no food on airlines if that did result in a lowering of ticket prices. As bad as it is, if they take it away, and don't lower, or even worse - raise, the prices, I will be very unhappy. I already drive most places that I can, even if I spend twice as much in gas as I would on a plane ticket, and even if it takes twice as long, simply because I can't deal with how the airlines treat their customers. The ridiculous security protocols, being cramped in like sardines, no thank you. However, taking away my damn peanuts and not having the courtesy to charge me less would be a straw breaking the camel's back for me for good.
  6. My grocer has two types of self-checkouts. Some are labled as express only, some are regular lines, with unlimited grocery potential. Thankfully, most people around here are still afraid of them (or too frustrated by them to use them, they have a habit of not thinking you actually placed the item in your bag after you have scanned it, but I have a way around that, more on that later) so they are generally open, and much faster than the high-school drop-out checkout clerks. Now, after having to have a manager come over and override my checkout lane several times in a row because it wouldn't accept what I bagged was actually what I scanned, I just looked over the guy's shoulder and memorized his code to go into the bypass screen. Now if the thing gives me any trouble I just punch that in and I'm good to go. I'm sure the self-checkout supervisor person has seen me do it, but she hasn't said anything yet, and I am a master of the 'look mean and like you know what you are doing and where you are going' walk, so, I don't anticipate being hassled about it.
  7. NulloModo

    Taming red onions

    I thought sprouts meant it had gone bad. All of my onions which are sprouting tend to be soft on the inside, so I figured they were rotten and tossed them... If I'd known they had just gotten stronger I would have used them, I like an onion with a nice hearty bite...
  8. I have flown on Southwest, United, American, Delta, and possibly a couple others as connectors. None of these have been in any way impressive with regards to food, but at least United had decent personal entertainment options, and offered free Heinekens on a trans-Atlantic flight. A good friend of mine has flown all of these as well as Air Italia and British Airways. He was apparently very impressed by British Airways, and would rather hitchhike through Europe that step aboard an Air Italia plane again. I have also heard from friends that Midwest Express is by far the best airline out there right now with regards to how they treat their customers, the accompaniments of the coach section, and the general plane meals.
  9. Which Amish are those? The Stoltzfus Amish people (who seem to have several other shops in the Northern DE area) sell fresh hot dogs and sausages in the New Castle Farmers Market. I have tried their Andoullie, and it is great, but never thought about their weiners. Are these the same ones as in Reading?
  10. Wow, thank you for the info Col. My father owns a standard Weber kettle grill in addition to the smoker (at least I think it is a Weber, it is that basic style). So you would recommend smoking it on that instead? I always hear that I should probe often, but as I probe, aren't I making more and more holes in the meat, which let more and more of the juices leak out? Should I try to make only one hole, and keep the probe inside of the meat as I turn it around and around? I would also assume that I should probe the center of the roast, as that will take the longest to come to temperature? Do you recommend scoring the fat for smoking such a loin?
  11. Gotcha. Sounds like I will just go with a nice simple preparation then, thanks for the info, and for saving me from potentially ruining a good piece of meat.
  12. Hmm, OK, thanks for the advice. So we basically purchased a bunch of steaks all stuck together it sounds like. Not really what we intended, but it should still be some good eating. I know my uncle used to do this wonderful preparation of prime rib, where he would take the prime rib roast, put it into a bullet smoker looking thing, and however long after it would come out with a nice char on the outside, but medium rare and juicy on the inside, but it still had a great smokey flavor. If I could somehow reproduce that on this piece of meat I would be thrilled. Do you think that if while searing it, or perhaps while letting it come up to medium rare after searing, if I tossed some hickory logs into the sidebox that that smokiness would have enough time to infuse into the meat?
  13. It may be, but I think it might be the other side (I wish I had it with me, but I let my father take it back to his place). It was marked 'Beef Loin' and not 'Beef Tenderloin' and is quite a bit thicker than what one would expect a filet to be. It is about as long as a long loaf of french bread, but quite a bit thicker. It is in a cryovac. With regards to the rub, I didn't mean anything boxed and too fancy, but just a standard kosher salt, black pepper, dash of cardamom, mustard, and cayenne type deal, which I have used on sirloin from time to time, and as long as it is kept in small enough amounts, I feel compares favorably to just salt and pepper. Although, there is certainly something to be said for preserving the purity of the beef taste as well... Since this is so well marbled, and apparently not a tough cut as we felt it might have been originally, I suppose it won't need any marinade. I'll have to call him up before he soaks it in Dale's all night...
  14. Hmm, so this beef loin, is like the steaks before they are cut? I guess I can see why smoking would be a bad idea. We looked at the briskets, but they had already trimmed all of the fat from them, so we figured those would be no good to smoke. So since I seem to want to cook this like a steak, any steak rub type deal would be a good way to prepare this?
  15. Oh, so I should not smoke this? Would it be better to grill it then? The cut has lots of great marbleing, and a really nice layer of thick fat on one side, which is what made us think it would be good to smoke (the original goal was to pick up some pork spare ribs to smoke, but this caught our idea). So, if smoking would not produce the best results, what would be the best way to prepare this cut?
  16. Hi, My father purchased a boneless beef loin at costco today, and he wants me to figure out how to use his smoker (a barrel with side box type) to smoke it on Monday. I have read the eGCI on smoking, but it talks about brisket, not an entire beef loin. This will be my first attempt at smoking, what will I need? What should I do with the beef before I smoke it, marinade, something else? Any info from the experienced smokers out there would be much appreciated.
  17. There is a local chinese buffet type place with a sign above the buffet that reads something along the lines of: "Children of 11 and below are not permitted on any of the buffet. Parent of children must accompany children on buffet" Also, a local latin American joint offers the following menu gems: Alcapurria - Ball of bannana of beef Lomo Saltado - Fried beef stew with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and french fries. I haven't ordered it yet, but I am tempted to, just to find out if the french fries actually show up in the stew. I'm also not positive if the stew itself is fried, or if it is simply made with beef which has first been fried. I'm not even going to touch what they might be referencing with their 'bannana of beef' comment.
  18. I love Jager. I have a huge 1.5 liter jug of it sitting in my freezer that I have unfortunately been unable to touch for the past year due to its sugar-content. How I miss it so every time I open up that particular freezer... I also love the inverted deer-head metal shotglasses that I received free when I purchased such a jug of the liquer a while ago. I would love to purchase more of the glasses by themselves, if I had any idea where I could get them. Jager goes quite well with Dr. Pepper, same proportions as a whiskey and coke. It is also an essential ingredient in the Third Reich, a shot that was quite popular at parties that I recall, consisting of: Jagermeister, Goldschlager, Rumpleminz, all in equal amounts.
  19. You are victim to a lot of misconceptions here. First off all, you are right in saying that it would be terrible to go without fruits or veggies for 11 months (or any long period of time) as anyone would suffer from vitamin deficiency due to this. Dr. Atkins, and whoever penned the South Beach diet, realized this, and both diets feature lots of vegetables, nuts, berries, and low to medium glycemic fruits all within that first year. If you eat only bacon, eggs, and steaks of course you will not be healthy, but the same potential for abuse comes in in traditional low-fat diets where someone could try to live on rice cakes, tofu, and iceburg lettuce, still not enough vitamins coming in. With regards to expense: my grocery bills are about the same since Atkins (although not since eGullet ;) ) they are just for different things. Processed and pre-prepared foods are quite expensive, and while meats, fresh vegetables, and fresh dairy products are not cheap, you are not paying a convenience charge on top of them. You also start to adjust your portion sizes as you realize what your body really needs, so you are not eating as much. The comment about being for people who 'can't say no' is just a cheap shot. In any weight-loss plan you are saying no to something. While on a low-carb regiment you actually have to be quite a bit more strict in your saying no as well, as a single high carb item can set you back for the whole week while in a low-fat regime a cheat here and there, while bad for your progress, is not detrimental. Are you saying it is in some way more noble to lose weight by depriving yourself of fats than of carbs? Also, these plans do very much require exercise to be done correctly. Of course it is possible to lose weight without exercising on them, just as it is possible if you just severely cut back your caloric intake, but either way you are going to lose muscle mass and not be in the best of health. If you do exercise, and any weight-loss plan requires, however, you will become the epitome of good health. The body does convert most of what goes into it into a form of sugar (glucose) to fuel the cells. Cutting down on the simple and refined starches and sugars in beneficial however because the has trouble regulating large intakes of easily processed foods. It is the speed of how fast sugar, many fruits, and white flours turn into glucose that hurts us.
  20. I do this all the time. There is no other way to get decent prices on some items other than to load up when there is a special. Of course, I only buy things on special that I would actually use... But when bacon drops to $1 a package for a day, butter starts ringing up as buy 1 get 1 free, or chicken/beef parts drop into those magical sub $1/$2 ranges (respectively) you simply have to bite the bullet, load it all into your cart, and pick up that jar of vaseline to squeeze it all into your freezer ;). I can't say I actually check out others carts too much though, although I might start now. Usually when I am in the grocery store I am too busy ducking and swinging between the overcrowded aisles, trying not to step on misbehaving children and the random junk they throw on the ground as I attempt to fill my meagre little basket with that I need that day.
  21. Newark, DE is a great drinking Town. You can start the evening at the original Iron Hill Brewery, and have a gourmet level dinner along with some awesome craft beers, every bit as good as the more reknown and well distributed DogFishHead brewery. Just a bit down the street is the Stone Balloon, which is dirty, always overcrowded, but has an atmosphere like no other. Enjoy $0.25 drafts of Natty Light (OK, well, you can't enjoy them, but you can become drunk as all get out from them) while you jam out to whatever local band they have on the same stage that has housed Bruce Springstein, Parliament Funkadelic, Reel Big Fish, Train, Metallica, and Snoop Doggy Dogg (not to mention others). Just down the street a bit further is the Deer Park Tavern, which used to feature $1 Yeungling Drafts combined with all you can eat buffalo wings, not sure if they still run that promotion or not. However, the place ie beautiful inside, no matter which level or balcony you end up on, and has some sort of veiled-in-mystery connection with Edgar Allen Poe.
  22. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the constant crazy pizzas... After hearing about Marshmallow Pizza for about the billionth time watching those shows I eventually took a bag of marshmallows to a local pizzaria and had them toss them on top of a pie. Turned out quite tasty...
  23. But oftentimes the bun can be the sin in and off itself. I find a lot of places put the burger on a bun that is simply the wrong size, either so big and crusty that all you taste is bread, and no beef, or small and then to the point where the juiciness of the beef renders it into oily shreds after a few bites.
  24. While simple starches react very similarly in the body to sugars, alcohol and caffeine do not. Caffeine has the potential to cause blood sugar spikes, and does for some people, but for others, it has absolutely no effect. One benefit of Caffeine over sugar is that if it is entering the bloodstream without and real sugar for the insulin to process, your body won't start suddenly building up fat stores, as there is nothing for it to build from. Caffeine does induce sugar cravings in some, however. Alcohol has nothing to do with insulin response and blood sugar. Alcohol does, however, effectively put the body's metabolism on 'hold' for a while until it is processed away. Alcohol itself will not be stored as fat, but things you eat while drinking the alcohol can be. It is also fairly calorie dense per serving.
  25. I have two different types of burgers I can enjoy, one is your basic flip joint style, thin pattie, cooked all the way through, slice of raw onion, bit of iceburg lettuce, american or mild cheddar cheese, yellow mustard, ketchup, tomato, and a couple dill pickle chips, served up on a plain bun (no seeds, no crustyness, just your average wonderbread of buns) that has been squished down a bit. The other, and in more substantial burger is more of the gourmet type I suppose. Thick rare ground sirloin/regular ground beef blend patty. Thick slice of strong Onion (raw) Dijon Mustard Tomato Crispy Bacon (I like bacon solo to be sort of still chewy, but for a burger, crispy is better) Good slather of Mayo (no miracle whip ever, blech) Provolone Cheese Good amount of nice thick dill pickle Also good is a more foodie variant: Thick rare sirloin/regular patty Sauteed Carmelized Onions Bleu cheese crumbles Mayo Portobella mushroom cap
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