Really Nice!

Oh baby, let me tell you, this was the best bacon I've ever tasted. In all seriousness, I'm going to be making this for now on. I don't think I'll ever purchase bacon from a store again. My initial flavor test was the classic, bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich. Homemade bread, homemade mayonnaise, homegrown tomato (from a neighbor), homemade bacon. The only thing that wasn't locally grown was the lettuce. It was the best sandwich I've ever had! Naturally, my expectations were high so I had a bottle of wine to meet that expectation: 1976 Lafitte Rothschild. Mmmmmmm..... I'll try and post photos as Col. Klink gave me some tips for it. It may take a couple of days to get it organized. Oh, I also made bacon, spinach, and feta cheese pizza today. Big-time Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hot and muggy is a relative term. :-) What is hot and muggy in Seattle is comfortable in New York, New York. Our best bet is to go with something that parallels the equator. Have you ever noticed that cuisines centered around the equator are more centered around hot (spicy) food than cuisines that are towards the poles? The reason for this is that hot foods encourage persperation, and persperation cools the body's temperature. Look for Mexican, Southern India, Thai, Northern South America, and Northern Africa cuisines and you should find something that fits a hot and muggy scene that reduces the heat temperature that we experience. It's late, let me know if I'm not making sense...

I ran a 15-minute test tonight and it looks like it's going to work. There's lots of smoke getting piped into the WSM. I'm using painters tape to secure the piping between the two units. I originally thought of duct tape, but then realized that duct tape tends to leave a lot of 'sticky stuff' behind. I'm going to change my wood choice and go with 25 percent apple, 25 percent maple, and 50 percent hickory. This seems to be the most popular wood choice for the marketing departments to advertise their bacon product. The pork bellies have been brining since Wednesday morning. The meat in the wet brine is getting dark, as it should due to the mollases. The dry rub brine is pulling a lot of liquid out of the meat thanks to the sugar. [Ahh, it's 9:30 and Anthony B. is in Mexico tonight on Food TV... can't wait for his reaction to eating that reptile... [the reptile has been identified as an iguana as of 9:44 P.M. sorry I forgot...] ... Hey AB! when are you coming to Seattle?!] Back to smoking bacon... Alton B recommeds 4 to 6 hours in his recipes. I have a feeling I'll need more like 10 hours. We shall see. I'll take pictures and will try to post them like the honourable Sir Col. Klink. (please don't forget us!) I'll post the results tomorrow, August 9, and hopefully there will be photos. -lav

Fish, Have you tried Seattle Caviar?

Hi Michael, I've enjoyed your writing for many years and I'm looking forward towards your upcoming books. I have a few questions for you. 1. Do you and Chef Keller have any plans to write more newspaper columns like you did for the L.A. Times? Do you feel it was successful? 2. I've been to The French Laundry four times now and each time I go I am mesmerized by the service as much as I am by the food. I know of a couple of books that focus on delivering quality food service (one is from the CIA, the other is a book by Charlie Trotter). Have Chef Keller and Laura Cunningham ever considered a book focusing in this area? I think the restaurant world can gain some valuable information from these two. Thank you.

Just walked to Uwajimaya in Bellevue for lunch. Pork bellies are $2.89 a pound, two per package; average weight per package is about 2 pounds. I'll pick up about 4 packages and see if this works. I just don't want to burn down the house! Edit for additional content: For my first attempt, I'm going to try Alton Brown's Scrap Iron Chef's Bacon. Basically it's brine for three days, cold smoke for 4-6 hours. This sounds good too: Honey Mustard Cure. This is a dry cure for three days, cold smoke for 4-6 hours. I'll use a mixture of 25 percent Apple, 25 percent Pecan, and 50 percent Maple wood. While I'm at it, I'll smoke some more salt. Last weekend I smoked Sea Star fleur de sel from Brittany France with hickory and mesquite wood and Maldon flaky sea salt from England in apple and cherry wood. Very yummy!

Actually, I'm going to use two smokers. I'll generate smoke in my Traeger and use a clothers dryer hose to move the smoke from there to my WSM. I'm 'guessing' three days should do it if it's properly brined. (Smoke + Salt = No or little bacteria growth) I just had a conversation with Mr. Toast and Marlarky, who is recovering from a 104.9 temperature and pneumonia so send some get well wishes her way, and AJ is selling it for $3.95 a pound. However, they just smoked everything in their inventory and they won't be getting more for at least two weeks. I was hoping it would be cheaper than store-bought bacon. I'll get pics of the process. Oh, and I'm still working on replying to my ultra-cool Traeger smoker, but I'm putting in a lot of hours at work... A quick summary: Get one! Great product and some of the best customer service I've had anywhere. Coming from me this is a huge compliment as people who know me know that it doesn't take much to tick me off in the customer service department.

Can anyone recommend a butcher who can handle an order for a pork belly? I want to try making my own bacon.

yes, sept 1 is labor day, so that won't work for me. I'm sure there's a bbq I'm attending or hosting that day. The 25th or 27th works better for me.

My girlfriend surprised me with a vacation to Hawaii. "Surprise, you're paying!" We're staying at the Ritz Carlton in Lahaina, so I'm sure we'll find some fine dining there. Anyone have experience with 'must visit' places? I've been to Maui three times, but I've always frequented cheeseburgerinparadise and the like. I'd like to try something fancier this time around. Thanks! RN

Oooooohhhhhh, crap! Mr. Toast, did you have to bring that up? I forgot all about it. That day turned out to be a, "We need to re-evaluate our relationship" day. It's a good thing she doesn't peruse this site. ...famous last words...

And we're all invited, right? Insert pinky in corner of mouth. Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggghhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttt. I'm trying to organize a pizza party farewell to Col. Klink and Bat Grrrl but our schedules are clashing. I am now employed and can't hold it during the weekdays. They can't do it during the weekends because, can you believe it, they're getting married! Of all the nerve! Then they have to organize their move to Minnesota which involves the moving van... Hey, we can mitigate this with a road trip. We'll pack their stuff into our cars and move 'em. It can't take more than three days. Who's with me?!?!? Okay, okay... We'll do another pizza party near the end of August in memory of what'shisnamethatmovedtoChicagotogotopastryschool and Klink and Bat Grrrl. The best thing to do is show up at their party on August 2 with everything you have in your send-off repertoire. We'll worry about the damage later. Nightscotsman, how are those pastries turning out, anyway?

Ummm,,, errrr,,,, since you live down the street from me I'll license it to you. DAMN! I missed the Mars eclipse!

They claim not to use binders. The shear pressure of forcing the saw dust through a small opening creates the binding.

What is this? Do you have a Web site reference? Very obviously! For every gallon of water add: 1 cup kosher salt 1/2 cup sweetner (sugar, mollases, maple syrup, corn syrup etc.) 2 tablespoons poultry seasoning (or make your own with thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, black pepper, and nutmeg) 1 cup milk To identify how much water you'll need to make your recipe, place the breast in a pot large enough to cover the breast by four inches of water. Fill the pot with water up to the top of the breast and remove it from the pot. Make your calculations for the other ingredients based on the quantity of water in the pot and add your brining ingredients. Remove the wrapping from the breast, rinse under cold running water and place in the pot. Let it brine overnight. 220°F is good. I would smoke it to about 158°F and let carry-over cooking take it to 165°F. If you smoke it to 165°F, carry-over cooking will take it to 172 - 175°F and it'll be dry. Yes, smoking a breast takes less time than a whole turkey, BUT, take the following into consideration. Outside temperature, wind, rain or sun, high pressure/low pressure... What is the temperature of the meat when you start? What is the temperature of the coals when you put the meat in the smoker? Hopefully you get the idea. All these variables determine the time frame, so there is no straight answer. With practice, you'll learn through your habits and traits and will be able to identify how much time it takes. I have no idea what you're asking.

Mmmm.... mustard. I smoked a whole duck this weekend in the smoker and, as a condiment, I served a sauce of 50/50 pure maple syrup and "Moutarde en Grains de Beaume" (Course Dijon Mustard) from Williams and Sonoma. It is great when served chilled. The flavor of the duck, the sweetness of the syrup, and acidity of the mustard all match nicely and elevated each other. When the condiment warmed up, the balance diminished. Definitely serve this condiment chilled. Edit: fixing the pronoun and removing the dangler...

Chuck, welcome!! PM me with your e-mail address and I'll send you an essay I wrote for culinary school on this very topic. It too was for a wedding in Wenatchee Washington in July 2000. Four days later I was having dinner at The French Laundry, but that's a different essay. My essay includes all the steps, including photos, that you'll need to successfully pull this off. That said, I highly recommend that you try it once before trying it at a wedding. Also, my essay demonstrates how to roast a pig, not a lamb. It should not matter as the methodology is the same, it's the temperature of the lamb that is lower by about ten degrees. Permits, fires, regulations... hey can you run faster than they can catch you? Seriously, consult your local fire department. Offer full disclosure. Let them know the address where this will be occuring should they need to make a quick visit. Ask for advice... the wedding you save may be the one you're cooking for.

A big hint would be what color was it? According to my culinary school notes in my Soups, Stocks, and Sauces class it could be: Sauce Châteaubriand. A small sauce made from the Espagnole mother sauce and consists of: white wine, shallots, lemon juice, cayenne, butter, tarragon Sauce Piquant. A small sauce made from the Espagnole mother sauce and consists of: shallots, white wine, white wine vinegar, cornichons, tarragon, parsley, chervil Sauce Béarnaise: A small sauce made from the Hollandaise mother sauce and consists of: Shallots, tarragon, chervil, peppercorns, white wine vinegar, salt, cayenne Sauce Choron: Another small sauce made from the Hollandaise mother sauce and consists of: Sauce Béarnaise with tomato paste added. However, According to Escoffier, Sauce Choron is Béarnaise sauce minus tarragon and chervil. Add tomato paste instead.

I started to reply to LEdlunde's post about Rusty Pig in Farewell and Goodbye, and thought it would be better to start a new post as my comments are off topic. I'm usually about an hour into my BBQ on Saturdays by 7:30 A.M. Now as for eating BBQ... it knows no time. I just bought a Traeger Smoker/BBQ/Grill today. Specifically, I got the smaller BBQ070 model. It's a wood-pellet auger-fed burner system. For smoking, its cooking temperature is 150°F to 200°F. It goes up to 450°F for grilling. The wood pellets burn up to 8,500 BTU's per lb. They currently have available: Alder Apple Black Walnut Cherry Garlic Hazelnut Hickory Maple Mesquite Oak Onion Pecan I got a chance to see it in action at Mr. Toast's sister's house last weekend. During a demonstration of smoking baby back ribs, Mr. Toast's sister's, husband's, son's, sister's, brother's, father told me I can do cold smoking by buying a plastic exhaust dryer tube at Fred Meyer's and running it from the Traeger smoke stack to the bottom of my existing Smokey Mountain Weber Smoker. Mmm... Can you say homemade cold-smoked bacon? I knew you could! The weekend I get it (it takes about a week to ship it from Oregon to Western Washington; hey, they ship for free so I'm not going to rush them to ship 150 lbs of metal) I'm going to try smoking fresh mozzarella cheese using hickory pellets. Then try it on pizza! This brings a total of four smokers in my BBQ pit. Is it time for an intervention?

True. My girlfriend's cousin works for Carlton Sheets. He's got an infomercial advertising buying real estate with no money down. The national cable channels charge $30,000 for each half hour infomercial between the local hours of midnight and 6AM. Can FoodTV, or any cable channel, take in $30,000 in advertising in this time slot? I don't know. What's a 30-second commercial going to fetch at that time for a 'typical' cable channel?

I like Tim Cascade's. It's is big out here in the PNW. They're a bit thicker and more well done than most other brands. I like all their flavors. When I was in culinary school at AIS Tim's daughter was in my classes. She brought in a hugh box of them one day. Many were 'in development' meaning they weren't ready for public consumption as they were still being test marketed. Their biggest seller in terms of volume is the Cheeseburger flavor. Sounds awful until you hear whom they sell it to. . . . Prisons. And it's a lot cheaper to give a prisoner a 1 oz bag of chips that tastes like a cheeseburger than it is giving them the real thing. Makes sense to me.

Yeah, they're on until 5AM now. I'm usually up around 4 and watching those GGW videos gets tiresome. Honestly, I did check their Web site before posting. I didn't want to put my neck out on the virtual guillotine and get slammed with words kindly asking me to read the Web site every now and again.

I realize they're not 24-7. In the past (at least locally) they were FoodTV from 6:30AM to 3AM PST. When I got home tonight it was back on. It looks like they're matching my area with what they're doing everywhere else in the country.

I know I have many posts here complaining about the Food Network. So be it. It is still the channel I watch more than any other. I turn on FoodTV (Channel 35 on the eastside of Seattle) at 7 A.M. and I have a half-hour infomercial for GM trucks. At 7:30 I'm now watching some guy putting 20 lbs of fat on a table in some CNN-like weightloss infomercial. Pentabosol??? Where's Sara Moulton? All the cable guides make no indication that the programming channels have changed. I suspect Comcast has done something, but with all the changes going on at FoodTV it could also be a shift in programming. It doesn't look like any other channels have shifted. Anyone else experiencing this?

The FOH is where the money is. Waiters who have been there for years, such as Larry and Milton probably pull in > $60,000 a year. While they have to split the gratuity with others, the gratuity is 18 percent. Their tasting menu is currently $135 and that gives them $24 for each person served. It doesn't take much to add $100 per person to the bill in beverages which is another $18 per person served. Serve 10 people a night and that $420 to split with the others. They should be fine. Now, that said, if they have a lot of debt, four months off might be a problem. If I were Keller, I'd bring the stars of my staff with me to ensure a smooth opening. There are two kinds of people working there. Those that want to get FL on their resume, and those that want to work there because they feel it's the best restaurant in the country. Those that work to get it on their resume will soon be gone whether the restaurant closes or stays open.