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Don’t know anything about the oven I’m afraid but Tom Kerridge is great. I’ve got several of his books and everything I’ve ever done from them turns out well - Ottolenghi and Vivien Howard are the only other two that come to mind for almost guaranteed success for me. We got my mum and dad a lunch at the hand and flowers for a present last year and t hey absolutely loved it. Can’t believe I’ve not managed to get there myself.

Just a slightly different way of cooking - grab a ball of ground beef, place it on the griddle and smash it really thin with the flat of a spatula. Try and get as thin as possible, even a few little lacy holes appearing in the patty. It gives a great crust and is probably my favourite type of burger. I much prefer a stack of a couple of those over a single thicker number. In the picture above, the two on the left had just been turned so you can see the crust, the others are just about to flip.

Always a double! I consider a double a single.

Wow! This thing is great fun! So glad I picked one up. smash burgers with onions and mushrooms for our first cook:

I’m sure I’ll make a mess of it soon! I think I got the technique off here years ago, it’s been brilliant on my darto pans so fingers crossed the blackstone likes it as much.

Got the beast setup and seasoned. I did ten coats of flax seed oil as I have with my carbon steel pans. Took my time with it, tiny thin layer each time, barely visible but it’s built up to a lovely smooth surface. Smash burgers here we come! Before: during: and after:

Over this side of the pond they have gone up in price a lot. Last few years I haven’t seen the 36” version for less than £700, they’re usually around £740-750. At the weekend I saw someone post on Reddit that Costco had them at a decent price in store. I was going any way so told my friend I’d pick him one up. Long story short, I came away with two 😁 At £360 I just couldn’t pass the deal up, less than half the price I could normally get one for. Not been able to unpack it yet but looking forward to giving it a go. We had a similar sized plancha at a holiday rental in France last summer and loved it.

We need to see this!

Over here in the UK I’ve been seeking out and buying diamond crystal for years. My regular supplier was out of it when I restocked six months ago so I had to find a new one. Bought a case of nine boxes with the new branding shown above and it’s exactly the same salt as the old boxes, just with an easier to pour “spout”. really hope they don’t start sending me the new and “improved” version.

Interesting point - the ovens get very hot inside when they run this cycle so unless they have really good heat shielding I can see it being an issue. As a maybe useful data point, we had a Miele oven in our last place with pyrolytic clean - used it 2-3 time a year for fifteen years without issue. I wouldn't get one without it now as I'm so messy it's a lifesaver - I'd be very annoyed if I bought an oven that it started breaking.

I’ve had a combustion inc setup for a good while now and would definitely recommend them. My views on ownership to date, bad news first as it is far outweighed by the good: cons I’ve had a probe die on me, two in fact. One was an issue with updating, the other caused by a baked potato forcing the prob out and exposing the more delicate internals at the tip to a 400F oven. the app is still missing a couple of features I’d like - there’s no easy way to start a new cook in it, you have to put the probe back in a charger, wait a bit for it to shut down then force close the app. Also there’s no logbook feature for cooks, I’ve resorted to screenshotting the graphs and saving them in apple notes when I want to do this. Pros Way more good than bad. the product itself is very, very good. Predictions work well in most situations and the safe cook addition is hugely helpful. I can’t overstate how useful having a totally wireless solution is, it means I use the kit at least twice as often as I would do if I had to deal with a spaghetti of cabling every time. the app might not yet be 100% perfect but it has improved rapidly and is constantly getting new features. It’s fast, responsive and looks better than competitors. It can easily switch between a simple basic interface and a super detailed geeky view. Customer support is about the best I’ve experienced. Any issues get dealt with very quickly and they’ve been superb sorting me out when my probe died. I’ve had direct answers from Chris Young here and on their really good Reddit channel. they’ve just released gen 2 kit which adds WiFi connectivity and some other goodies. @Shel_B, if the price is within reach I would definitely buy a CPT - true wireless, great features and backed up by great service. It does what you need and does it way better than things like meater.

Utterly intrigued by the "dirty Santa" name... We call it secret Santa over here, yours sounds much more interesting 😂 In case you're still looking for ideas, how about some really good Jamon iberico and a dry sherry?

Just get one - you’ll love it!

An hour is plenty of time to get them up to heat. I’ve got a Big Joe which is the giant kamado Joe unit, depending on what temp I’m aiming for it’ll take between 30-45 mins to get the dome nice and hot on the outside. Funnily enough, it’ll often take a bit longer to get heat soaked if I’m aiming for a low and slow cook than grilling temps. The reason for this is that you have to be careful about not overshooting your target too much - once it’s hot it takes an age to come back down. So if I’m aiming for 200-275F I’ll light a single really small fire and take my time. If I’m going for 375+ I can happily light two or three places and crack on. but either way, an hour will be no problem.

I did exactly this on my big Joe rotisserie a few weeks ago. It was great, probably the best chicken I’ve done on my kamado. made the mistake of cutting my potatoes into chunks - lost a few of them through the gaps in the basket!