Zeemanb

Birthday present from my wife showed up yesterday...... Sous Vide Supreme! Golf is officially cancelled this weekend......

Absolutely, perhaps it will be my "Spanish Ad Hoc at Home"!

Poor kid......lol!

My wife is originally from Richmond, Va., and when we got married in Savannah 2 years ago we roadtripped through the Carolinas. As many may already know, in Richmond there are a million different statues.....Confederate General, Confederate General, Confederate General, ARTHUR ASHE (beating kids with his tennis racket), Confederate General, Confederate General, Confederate General, MR. BOJANGLES..... With that being a running joke, our stop at Bojangles somewhere on the road to Savannah was quite an event. And I do remember liking the biscuits quite a bit....and I think really good fries? Drank Cheerwine whenever I saw it available...here in the midwest we rely on Vess soda products for that crazy-sweet fruity flavor.

Ditto. Same preparation, and that was a great night with the turkey fryer...back before the American Royal BBQ was annoyingly corporate. I think 2 was my limit as well....but that was 2 fifths of Knob Creek....so I probably knocked out about 20 of those deep fried ABT's! They really are magical, but I wouldn't recommend the battered and fried version...those are only for late nights at competitions.

Boy would she ever hate my CSA farmers who use their tomatoes to create the best ketchup ever... .

My biggest thanks is my completely genuine and heartfelt repeat business, and always letting the server know how much I like the food- including any specifics (like the dinosaur kale side dish on Saturday that had been sauteed in rendered porchetta fat.....wa wa weee wa...). Funny, a lady Saturday night unintentially made me think of this thread.... One thing I do to thank the kitchen is to NOT be the customer who is so happy with their food (and their fourth martini) that they run back into the kitchen and start hugging on the chef and yacking away at the peak of Saturday night's business....TWICE. I'm the fellow who stays out of the way on Saturday night and gives you big praise on your Facebook page when I get home!

Oh my dear sweet lord. DVR’d the first episode, and as my wife and I were watching it last night the consensus was that Rocco must be going for the “badgering, taunting, second-guessing A-hole” image. However, his inability to bring any semblance of a personality into that role makes it completely ineffective, so he’s just petty and uncomfortably annoying. What they’ve done is taken a specific Top Chef style challenge and built a whole show around it, which I could TOTALLY enjoy, but instead of different chefs and food media personalities providing feedback and mixing things up during the initial judging, you’ve got: Rocco. And he mean-spiritedly rips on the food of all three chefs before narrowing it down to two...but fortunately they pick some pretty unlikable contestants. But the BEST thing (and by best I mean most “oohhhh noooo, he’s not...oh God” inspiring) is when he rips off the Bachelor/Bachelorette rose ceremony and pours two glasses of champagne at the very end...then hands one to the winning chef.

Made me think of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein- "Abby Normal?" Pugs are great to have around when you're cooking...they guarantee that you'll never make a mess on the floor because any food you drop never has a chance to touch the floor.

At big family gatherings someone will be appointed to lead the prayer...a very big tradition. Never me though, the whole "he just up and quit the ministry" thing makes it too awkard for them to ask... In my everyday life it isn't something I generally do, but there are many times during a meal I'll stop and let myself just be thankful...if it happens in its own time, great. I'm not into the forced ritual aspect of it. And while we don't pray before a meal when we eat out, at some point during a nice dinner my wife and I will both just say "we're really lucky to have what we do and to be able to do this" and bask in that for a bit. I feel bad if I ever get to a point where I have to REMEMBER to be thankful. As cheesy as it sounds, gratitude is what keeps me grounded.

With pork butt, I always apply a good layer of rub right before I put it on the smoker. This is just my preference, but when I'm dealing with such a thick, fatty piece of meat I like the dry rub to stay "dry" as possible so that when I'm pulling the pork and distributing bark throughout I get a more pronounced spice flavor. With the relatively low surface area considering the thickness, I personally don't see the benefit of the rub "marinade" you get when leaving it to sit overnight. With brisket it depends on how lazy I'm feeling, but I may rub it ahead of time and I don't use as much. In my experience, ribs are good for the overnight rubdown because of the high surface area and thinness...you will get more flavor in there. HOWEVER, ribs are also the biggest candidates for over-seasoning...you want a "veil" of rub vs. the coating you give your pork butt. I've seen so many crimes committed.....but this is not the rib topic.... lol.

Paradise Locker Meats in Trimble, Missouri, is my "local butcher"...about 20 minutes from my house. I know they ship a lot of stuff, the selection is always changing (ignore what's listed on the website), and as far as customer service they are great to deal with. They usually have Akaushi cuts in stock, Wagyu, Piedmontese, and a Vintage breed that is about half the price of Wagyu with comparable quality. If you call them and happen to talk to Nick or his mom, mention you got their info from "Jerry the guy who made you track down a case of brisket points". As a point of reference, if they have their top-tier Akaushi ribeyes or filets in stock, I think they are in the $40/lb range, and have been running a $19.99/lb sale on the Wagyu. http://www.paradisemeats.com/

It would take a lot of noise to ruin my experience, but I totally agree with an above poster's mention of live music. I love it in bars and musical venues, but I hate it in restaurants. I avoid it at all costs...I don't think I could stand an open mic night if the food was free. As far as acoustics, I recently had a really "different" experience while dining at Marcel's in Washington DC. It's a pretty quiet, high-end restaurant, but depending on where you're sitting on one far side of the dining room there is the most impressive echo that makes conversations in one area on the other side of the room sound like they are right inside your ear. Most of the area is taken up by a water/flatware station, I'm assuming the echo effect is well-known...so you don't get in on any scandalous conversations. While I'm sure this is a rare scenario, it would be a doozy if you were on a date or had a fear of schizophrenia.

Great work! As someone who had to have his insides tailored to fit way less food at any given time, I know the struggle all too well. Even WITH weight loss surgery it takes a lot of work...getting off your butt more often in order to keep losing or maintain. Anwyay, you reminded me of the day I got on the scale and had dropped from "morbidly obese" to simply "obese". That was a full-tilt celebration day. But man, the CDC is completely off the wall...so obese I shall remain. I'm only an inch taller than you, so even if 185 would be considered "normal", my family would stage some kind of intervention if I attempted that.

Awesome looking discada! Definitely put a damper on my turkey sandwich lunch. The addition of the Coke and resulting caramelization was interesting...nice move vs. using beer.

Where in Northern AZ? That's my 'native place' as they say in B'Lore. Up in Houck, on the Navajo reservation just over the border from Gallup....in a former life working with an old pastor and his wife. The daily excitement was driving ten minutes to Ft. Courage to get our mail...going to Window Rock once per month was like Disney World! Boy was I pissed the first time they took me to the petrified forest and we didn't drive through actual groves of stone trees.... Just remembered- in addition to the awesome semi-relleno's we'd use as a vehicle to eat more fry bread, one of my favorite things was strips of lamb fat wrapped in some lamb intestine so that it would hold together while it char-roasted over the fire. Sounds kind of out-there, but wow the crispy fatty goodness....

Cool, great insight into the meaning...the griddle cooktop they use at our market is great, but what you're describing hits at the very heart of why I love to eat. Brings back memories of open-fire lard-cooked Navajo fry bread wrapped around cheese stuffed fresh roasted chiles in northern Arizona...while that was fantastic, I think I'd be a discada man!

I am really curious to hear about and see some discada....it is a recently discovered fascination of mine. Our newly-found favorite Mexican Market, Bonito Michoacan in downtown Kansas City, Kansas is the first place I've seen it. Their version is basically the trimmings (discards/discada?) from marinated beef and pork, bacon, hot dogs and ham. It goes from scary looking back at the meat counter where you can buy it by the pound...to "if loving this is wrong I don't want to be right" when it's coming out hot in a street taco, gordita or torta at the front counter. Curious to hear if this is in any way similar to what you'll be preparing...and if so, the different variations, etc.

Thank you! These are 'tots' - short for 'tater tots'. For a bunch of so-called 'gourmets' , you'll find they are mysteriously popular here at eG! Yeeeesss, I also have no idea what tater tots are, a quick google only confuses me further, are they hashbrowns? Croquettes? Baked potato mash? Color me confused! Oh to be able to wipe any knowledge or memories of tater tots from my mind, so that I could eat them for the first time...again. And then work my way through the natural evolution of dipping sauces until I end up back at a mix of Sriracha and mayo as the ultimate tater tot spouse...

Our farmer's market in Parkville, Mo. (10 mins NW of downtown KC) opened a little over a month ago and this is our first year in a CSA. Our favorite farmers, Crum's Heirlooms, began one this year so it's the greatest...weekly pickup is less than 5 minutes from our house. So far we have eaten pretty well- asparagus, kale, kohlrabi, different green mixes, Swiss chard, broccoli, tatsoi, spring onions, radishes...and other stuff I'm just not remembering. They also partner with other farms to provide some amazingly good strawberries, as well as my favorite super-coarse ground grits. Sounds like the pickup this week will include broccoli, turnips, spring onions and garlic scapes. I'll add some Napa cabbage and spicy mixed greens to that....they are SPICY! Our rockstar favorite "how did I ever live without this until now?" item this year has been these radish pods. All the best things about a snap pea and the earthy-burn goodness of a fresh radish rolled into one miracle food.... We ate these on Saturday night in a salad of the spicy greens and fresh cubed kohlrabi with a very light vinaigrette- topped with our favorite local Farm to Market Grains Galore bread (grilled in what remained of the fat and char from the accompanying vintage breed ribeye steak) and a farm fresh sunny side up egg. Market season is like one huge extended holiday for us.......and it has just begun!!!

Oh yeah, the eggs on toast is right in my zone of ultimate goodness....we've been eating it over a farm fresh salad mix where the yolk becomes the dressing, but you've just sparked my imagination. What will the joys of summer produce bring to eggs on toast? Looking forward to more!

This is the only Rib-specific information I could find from the 2011 KCBS Rules- "PORK RIBS: Ribs shall include the bone. Country style ribs are prohibited." "Ribs shall be turned in bone‐in. Judges may not cut, slice, or shake apart to separate pieces. If there is not enough meat for each judge to sample, the shorted judge(s) will score a one (1) on all criteria, and the judges having samples will change the Appearance score to one(1)." Sounds like if the meat falls off the bone that they would be disqualified because they don't "include the bone", but shaking them to see if the meat falls off wouldn't make sense at all because then you get into how hard do you shake it...does it ALL fall off....etc., etc. Either you pick up a rib and the meat stays on, or it doesn't....thus the importance of completely separate pieces for each judge. After that, if all the meat falls off onto your shirt as you try to take the first bite....it does not bode well for the competitor, but the ribs were presented bone-in. Edited to add: Forgot to mention how I hate cooking for judges...total crapshoot, but it seems that we always did better when we presented them with food we'd never eat ourselves or serve to our guests. Specifically, the addition of some super sweet sauce...

The "Ghetto Sous Vide" continues to impress in my household. When I tell people about "cooking steak in my sink", they think I'm insane. BUT when they bite into the just-seared buttery Wagyu flatiron or whatever else I'm using...they are believers. It took a little tinkering with the thermostat on my hot water heater, but I can generally keep the water right in that 123-125 degree range. Getting a SVS in the near future, but I'll still go back and kick it old school from time to time....

I am single-handedly responsible for the fact that they no longer put a plastic pour bottle full of pine nuts next to the croutons and bacon bits at the Price Chopper salad bar. The salad bar is $4.99/lb.....pine nuts on their own are very expensive BUT they don't weigh very much. I guess I could have been more subtle with those plastic clamshells full of pine nuts.....

I think Fat Guy has killed 2 birds with one stone here....use those extra bags to hold all of that extra ice from your ice maker. Balancing petty thievery with resourcefulness wipes the slate clean in my eyes.