scubadoo97

After doing quite a few searches here at EG I found many post to be several years old. My wife and I will be doing an 8 day trip which will start out in Monterey for 2 days then the Nappa Valley (staying in Calistoga)for 2 days and then finishing up in SF for 4 days. Certainly this is a foodie area and lots of excellent choices. What are some of your favorite places? My wife loves sushi and we both love seafood. I figure we will hit some Mexican at some of the many markets. As a dedicated home cook we don't eat out a lot since home meals more often than not trump restaurant meals but this will be a week of eating out. Our food choices are varied except my wife doesn't eat pig. As well as those recommended where would you stay clear of?

I've purchased the bamboo Melita filters. Still have an opened box. I have been wetting my filters before use to remove some paper taste but the bamboo ones seem to have a stronger paper taste. I really prefer pressed coffee but my wife only like drip

I tried to maintain the steep angle that is currently on the blade using the Sharpie technique to make sure I was at the edge and not reprofiling. As you can see it is a single beveled edge.

Like BadRabbit. I employ a similar technique for spares on my smoker. The standard 3-2-1 is a little too long in my opinion. I lean more toward the times BadRabbit listed.

I had read some comments that the Bradley doesn't get hot enough to smoke poultry properly, but I have also seen pics and heard stories of it being successful. Does the skin get crispy? I don't own a Bradley but can only assume that the reason the Bradley and most electric smokers don't do a good job on poultry is that they don't get hot enough to crisp the skin. Outside of that they do a fine job of the basic low and slow smoking of poultry and fish for that matter. For fish the problem is often the opposite. trying to keep it low enough and still get smoke. The passive smoke generators like the A Maze N smoker or similar can get around that problem.

I think the primary thing you can control is the amount of moisture lost to evaporation. Cooking in liquid or braising and cooking covered or foiled will both help to curb evaporation. Certainly interested in other opinions here.

Absolutely

The A Maze N smoke generator is an excellent addition and one that I've been thinking about but you can also rig up a cold smoke generator like this one which is inserted into the hole where the chip loader goes. You can use this to pump smoke into your smoker when cooking at lower temperatures. You can also add a computer fan to the exhaust to help dry out jerky by keeping a lot of air circulating. Just be careful if you are burning chips as the increased air circulation can cause chips to ignite. I use chips most often but the Masterbuilt does very well with chunks that have been split down to size to fit the chip tray. A couple of good sized chunks will burn better with less white smoke than a handful of chips.

I also have a Materbuit 30 inch electric smoker. It really has been an excellent buy. I went this way over a Cookshack because I wanted to see how much I would use it before putting down the cash for a Cookshack. So far the Materbuilt has met my expectations. They do have some issues with poor wiring but the new models are suppose to have addressed the problem. I circumvented and did some rewiring when my unit was new to reduce the chance of a problem. The only issue I've had is when I tried to smoke on a day when it was in the 40s. The digital control panel gave an error message until it warmed up I couldn't get it to turn on.

I wouldn't classify Weight Watchers as a fad diet. It is nothing more than a low calorie diet that uses points instead of calories to monitor what you take in. You can eat anything you want as long as you don't exceed your point or calorie allowance. By eating lots of fruits and vegetables you lowered your calorie intake and by exercising you burned more calories so it was a given that you would drop weight.

I cold smoke salmon in the summer in Florida so the ambient temperature in my smoker can be around 90+ degrees. I use a home made cold smoke generator similar to this on only tricked out a little more. http://www.smoker-cooking.com/build-a-cold-smoker.html I had problems with the surface of my fish getting lightly cooked even with a big tray of ice in my smoker. What has worked for me is using a couple of foam frozen ice packs that I slip in a zip top bag and then put the fish directly on top of the ice packs. I've done smokes for 2+ hours without any noticeable firming of the flesh.

Yes I have. It worked very well.

Isn't Knorr a type of powdered spice mix? But I know what you mean. Knorr is a typical item found in most kitchens in Mexico. We do tacos of all types from very traditional Mexican to the gringo ground beef tacos most of us grew up on. I don't use any prepackaged ingredients except the tortillas. Basic comfort food.

My use of leaves is mostly for stuffing. Grape, mulberry, cabbage, Brussel sprout (not the small ones but the big leaves on the stalk), Kale, collards and lettuce are all game. I have used banana for wrapping but not for eating.

I was in Home Depot and saw a pack of plastic scrapers in 3 sizes that are used for fiberglass application. I use these along with my stainless kitchen scraper for food pick up off the cutting board.

they are very rustic and the handles are really cheap crap but they work well. I have a couple of santoku/kirisuke like knives in blue steel that were under $40 each and stay very sharp and resist chipping. I got them as beater knives but use them quite a lot for regular prep work.

Timely thread. My wife and I are looking at taking a trip to SF/Napa next month. First time for me

I guess we don't close it completely to lock unless it's going to be run.

We don't run the dishwasher every day but we load as we go. No desire to have a sink full of dirty dishes waiting to be loaded

The local farmers markets around me are not manned by local farmers. More often it'd people that go to the wholesale market in Tampa and pick up produce to sell at farmers markets. Not really different from what we see in the grocery store but at higher prices.

I'm big on zest and use citrus zest quite often when finishing a plate. Use it in dressings as well. so much flavor in such a small package. What ever citrus is on hand. Orange tangerine, lemon, limes, alone or in combination. What ever is available.

No kidding. It shrinks down to nothing and it's not uncommon for my wife and I to eat a whole head. Not bad for you if you don't over do the oil.

heidih, I like to add leftover roasted cauliflower or other roasted vegetables into a fritatta. The sweetness of the vegetables with the eggs is excellent.

There are a lot of variables besides the wood. It will be interesting to see how this turns out and what can be learned from this venture. It would be great to do a blind tasting of these products at barrel proof.

My wife and I started WW a few months ago. I refused to go on a diet that restricted any food groups (that includes alcohol) or follows a set menu plan from a book. The whole enjoyment of cooking for me is being creative and cooking on the fly or off the cuff with whatever is at hand. So far I've lost about 20 lbs. I like WW because it is basically a lower calorie diet that uses points instead of calories. In essence it makes you accountable for what passes your lips. After the first month of counting points it has been pretty easy to cook most meals and not count points. I will still try to figure out the points in a dinner that I made on occasion. The weight loss has started to ebb but is still coming off very slowly which I'm okay with. Going to the bourbon sampler in KY this week and having a good time with friends. I expect some weight gain but should be able to reverse.