gfweb

15" and snowing. But the plow guy came and the internet still works, so we have that going for us. Lunch was hard cider braised brats with wine braised kraut

wine , rum, nuts you are good

We finally got a generator that powers everything. Amazing effect on how I view storms. We went from 3 one to five day long outages a year to a total of 2 minutes a year. Makes country life better.

Philadelphia prepares in it own way for the blizzard.

In preparation, I laid-in some of the above and a good bit of sausage as well

I looked at a traffic map the other night for DC. Must've been 100 accidents due to a light icy snow....

A little farther North in DE the Acme Market looked fully stocked and wasn't any more crowded than usual.

No salt food tastes er...hollow, to me. The standard tricks of adding acid or glutamates (which usually bring a little sodium) helps it, but it still isn't the same. And I'm not one to pour salt on food. I don't use very much when cooking.

Interesting topic. For me, everything needs at least a little salt..even cookie dough.

Just so. And many companies market smokers that need wet wood to work.

I'm in the camp that finds the smoke from wet wood to be steamy and acrid. Not the "clean" bluish smoke that gives the best taste (to me). FWIW

Five Spice Powder is a blend of cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise, and Szechwan peppercorns. Some recipes also contain ginger, nutmeg, and licorice.

I use red wine and a little 5-spice or cinnamon, along with the carrots and onions in the pot and a little garlic

It bothers me. At the very least its a PITA.

On the one hand it is much less expensive than other pre-cooked services. On the other hand, it ain't cheap. Cannot one do better with traditional cooking?

I put a $10 hotplate in my Weber gas grill...put a small bundle of twigs trimmed from apple trees wrapped tightly in foil on the plate..and smoke away. The temp in the grill is roughly the ambient temp. Each foil packet lasts about 20 minutes. It takes a little fiddling to find the right hotplate setting. On mine it is about 50% max. It is smokey as hell. A turkey breast will get all smoked up in about 40 minutes. Any more than that is too much smoke taste.

Mushroom fritata for one Pork roast with apple/mustard sauce and raost veg Big ass pork chop with spiced smoked yams Strip steak with madiera pan sauce, sauteed romaine, mushrooms and potatoes Adobo pork tenderloin with roast veg Turkey breast stuffed with dates and mexican chorizo and a roasted tomato puree (with cumin), diced yams and yukons

Peas. I was afraid you were going to say that.

Basically, many people suck and feel entitled to freebies....just because. If you disagree, you've never been in business with the public. Am I sad that I feel this way? Yes.

What are those green things in the stuffing?

I just waded through all the promotional superlatives on their website and still have a hard time understanding what the Thermomix actually does. Stirs and heats?

There's a zillion haute joints in SF. John's Grille is just a joint, but I like the place. And its a couple blocks from Moscone Center. http://johnsgrill.com Don't hold their irritating website against them. Otherwise its a right out of the 40s chop house.

For me SV gets you tenderness/doneness at the cost of a long cook time. So for a tender meat that I can cook well using sear-and-roast I tend not to use SV. Because I'm impatient and rarely plan ahead. An exception is if I'm doing a big batch of steaks, esp ones of varying thickness, for a group. The ability to cook all of them to the right temp by SV is a beautiful thing.

If it hadn't been opened, or left thawed for a long time, I can see no risk.

Agree with everything. And render and save all the fat for other uses. Like potatoes.