guajolote

Thanks for participating David. I remember seeing your daughters with you on Taste. Do you have any good stories about cooking with them? Any recipes that they especially liked to make? Do they love food now the way that you do? My four year old daughter likes to help me make bread, pizza, and sorbet/ice cream. She can also measure, rinse, fill up and start the rice maker on her own.

did you see this? Mexican groceries rock!

I'm going to make #4 tonight. Thanks for the great idea.

Hey Dave, Isn't Meyer Meyer a detective in the Ed McBain 87th Precinct books, not the Ross MacDonald ones?

I always throw the squeezed lemon halves into the lemonade and let it sit a couple of hours. The sugar in the lemonade seems to extract a lot of the flavor from the lemon rinds. I always add lime juice and lime halves to my lemonade too, because I love limes and they're cheaper.

If you wrap something in foil (beets) and put it in the oven aren't you really steaming them?

Don't skimp on ventilation. It's really hard to convince people of the importance of good ventilation, but quality of ventilation may be the biggest difference between professional and amateur kitchens. You should, if you can afford it, get a serious hood and have it professionally installed -- and if you can get an HVAC person to look at your space and judge your needs in advance, even better. If you're going to be making pizza there, good ventilation is a must.

Doesn't blue agave take a long time to reach maturity (20 years)? This is what is causing the problem in Mexico. You can't just go plant a bunch more agave and have more next year. The South Africans must have been planning this a while. Edit: it takes 8-10 years for agave to mature.

Dinner at Arun's Saturday night w/ my lovely wife. It was our first time out together alone in 8 months. Overall, I really liked the dinner. I especially like the location of the restaurant. For those of you not familiar w/ Chicago, Arun's is in Albany Park, a northwest side neighborhood full of immigrants. Driving south on Kedzie we passed many Thai, Korean, Arab, Persian, and Mexican restaurants and groceries. I made a couple of mental notes about places I need to shop. We started w/ a bottle of NV Brut Rosé,' Grand Cru ', H. Billiot Fils. I don't have a copy of the menu, the waiter said he'll email it to me. If I get it I'll post it later. They ask you when you order how spicy you like it. I ordered hot and my wife ordered medium. Appetizers: Salmon/Crab cake w/ scallop on top. Avacado sauce Walleye pike on chinese brocolli w/ Rhubabarb sauce Green papaya salad w/ Chiles Sticky rice pyramid wrapped in banana leaf stuffed with pork and shrimp Thai crepe w tofu, shrimp, and vegetable filling. One more I can't remember With the main courses we had a bottle of 2000 Perrin Gigondas. Not an ideal match, but ordered it to please my wife. Great wine, I'm going to try to track some down. The serve all of the main courses family style, "Like you would get in Thailand" our waiter said. I didn't get many details on these dishes because they all came at once. Lobster and prawn with sour/hot sauce Sea Bass Duckbreat Curry Braised beef Mussaman Curry (I think this was beef cheek) These were served with sticky rice Dessert: A sliced up mango Lychee sorbet w/ jellies. The dishes were some of the most beautiful I've every seen, especially the carved vegetable garnishes. There was not one thing I didn't like. My favorites were the incendiary walleye and the duck curry. My wife liked the rice pyramid and the crepe. Service was very good, but kind of rushed. We were out the door in less than 2.5 hours. Relecting on the way home, I thought that the meal was overpriced. I would also have liked to have a special wine flight that matched certain dishes with specific wines. I'm glad we went because this restaurant is a Chicago institution, but I probably wouldn't go back.

I agree with Fat Guy that some more conservative diners might throw a fit. Personally it would make no difference to me, though. We went to Arun's this weekend and he doesn't serve bread. I didn't even notice it until you brought this up. By the way, your bread is fantastic.

Sparkling Lambrusco. Please don't laugh at me, it's actually quite good. I believe someone posted about this a couple of weeks ago.

The rub I used this time is (approximately): 4 parts paprika 3 parts black pepper 2 parts ancho chile powder 2 parts dry mustard 1 part ground cloves 2 parts ground Mexican oregano I didn't put salt or sugar in the rub because it was in the brine. Edit: Yes, I'm goping to pull the pork for sandwiches (w/ coleslaw on top).

You'll be happy with the brine (I'm a disciple of Klink). Rub it if you want, but it is not neccesary. I brined my butt yesterday/today and it is now rubbed waiting for tomorrow. I hope you "got" the part about drinking beer/wine/bourbon etc. while smoking. It is the most important part.

4th of July menu for family and friends (old and new) Pickled Mushrooms Pickled Beets Pickled Asparagus Guacamole w/ Chips Smoked Pork Butt Smoked Swedish Potato Sausage Chicago Baked Beans Potato Salad Coleslaw Melon Soup Chocolate Truffles Drinks: Sparkling Lambrusco Rose wine tasting Beer Pear Cider Cognac Calvados Homemade Lemon/Lime ade and maybe a couple of other things

Nightscotsman will be mixing drinks, so I don't expect anyone to get too ornery. I'll shoot for about 90 minutes. Yes, the meat always comes first.

Use a thermometer or go by feeling. It should be responsive. Make sure to bring the temp up slowly or the fat will render out too quickly. Start out at around 150 F for the first hour then turn the heat up to 225 for the last half hour or so to make sure it's cooked. Of course, that's for all meat sausages, not sure how the taters would affect it. Sounds like a fun experiment! I'm doing a pork butt too tomorrow. I was just wondering when to throw it on so that both will be done at approximately the same time. Yhe potato sausage is really good. It's seasoned with caraway and mace I think. I've grilled it before, but never smoked it. Does 2 hours at 200 seem about right?

How about smoking sausage? I have some Swedish Potao sausage I was going to smoke tomorrow. It's a raw sausage and about 1 1/2 inches thick (the same casing size as a knackworst). I was thinking about 1.5 - 2 hours?

Panko it meatballs and meatloaf rocks. I ran out of panko a month ago. Time to get more panko.

I was all fired up to go until I read this from here: We were going to try to get to Milwaukee this summer to visit friends, so I'll see if this weekend works. Someone bring bail money, they may arrest me for my search and destroy the ketchup mission. I do love the fact that they put butter on the brat, though.

Heretic

Orson Welles:

Braised Chicken w/ morel and red wine sauce white rice overcooked carrots pink wine

I think it's chuck, like a pot roast. I'd braise it more here

Alcohol content is usually a pretty good indicator. A 8% wine will be sweeter, while a 12% drier.