melkor

The bottomless PF helps a lot in diagnosing distribution/packing problems in your pucks. It does make it harder to get the espresso into a shot glass, but I've had no problems pulling shots into Illy espresso cups.

Starbucks is discontinuing their Chantico.

Fairly regularly I buy 20 pounds of valencia oranges for juice. Nothing like fresh squeezed. I've been using a manual orangex juicer for the past few years, since my previous manual juicer broke. I get my oranges from a local organic farmer - so the concerns raised in the article aren't really applicable. If I'm buying orange juice for some reason, I'll buy Odwalla even though they are owned by Coke - their product tastes better than the grocery store alternatives.

The Martini House is still excellent. I had a very nice lunch yesterday at Pilar in Napa, they are located squarely in the middle of what was a big mess and they are not only open for business but the interior is spotless. Anything that is going to reopen either already has or will very soon. The only sign in downtown Napa that the place was underwater is the stacks of sandbags and a few shops with their doors closed.

I'll chime in here with a vote for the hand-crank pasta roller - I either use a hand crank machine or a rolling pin to make pasta, the electric rollers don't give you as much control over the process. But, I drive a car with a clutch so maybe I'm a luddite.

My chitarra looks a lot like what you have. Sur la table sells it for $21. The way the wires are rigged some of the pegs are wired with an even number of wires to each side others are 2:1, the fewest any of them have is 4 going each way. It's got 5mm spacing on one side, 2.5mm on the other. I think you're right that you get the same quality pasta using a sharp knife as you do a chitarra, though the chitarra has exact spacing so the end result is more uniform. How wide is the wide side of your chitarra?

I think the pasta has a better texture after being cut with the wires than it does using the cutting rollers in my pasta machine. I use a knife for more rustic preparations. The pasta cooks to an even thickness with well defined corners after cutting it with a knife or wires and after running it through the cutters it ends up pinched on the sides and thicker in the center. The problem is most likely that the cutters on my pasta machine are dull, but I had the same results with my old atlas machine also. The other side of my chitarra has narrowly spaced wires that work well for making squared off pasta roughly the width of spaghetti. Mostly though, I use the chitarra because I enjoy the process - if it produced an equal quality product I'd still use it, that the end result is to my taste significantly better is a nice bonus.

Since Chris is bringing this topic back up I might as well post a pic of our dinner last night. 100 grams semolina, 100 grams AP flour, 2 eggs, and a large pinch of salt. Let the dough rest for a bit, rolled out to 7 on the Belpasta Trattorina. Cut the dough on a chitarra. The pasta cooked for all of a minute then tossed with cream and mascarpone. Black truffle shaved on top. We regularly make this dish (sans truffle) after foraging for mushrooms - chanterelles and hedgehogs work particularly well in the sauce.

I've got a cheapo deck box I keep bags of charcoal, the starter chimney, wood chunks, etc in. The WSM just sits out in the rain year round.

Since MsMelkor is reading over my shoulder, I'll answer this for both of us. Mostly chanterelles, porcini, black trumpets, oysters, hedgehogs. Along the coast (Marin, Sonoma, Mendo). I've yet to meet a mushroom forager excited about sharing their favorite spots.

The sweetness in the pastrami isn't by any means offensive, its just sweeter than you'd get at Katz's - reducing or removing the white sugar will certainly take care of it. You think the texture problem with the hot dogs is from using too much fat not too much air? The forcemeat almost doubled in volume after 5 minutes of paddling. The pepper coriander crust is indeed an excellent rub - for pastrami I use some brown and yellow mustard seed in there also.

Driving through Sonoma county today there were vineyards on both sides of highway 101 under significant water. It doesn't look good.

Neither have any cholesterol, obviously.

Ugh.

I should still leave something there, like maybe the bowl emptied of its water, to catch the drips, right? MelissaH ← Yeah, the empty (foil lined) bowl will make for a lot less mess to clean up.

The water pan is mostly there to keep the temp down, if you're having trouble getting the smoker hot you could just leave it empty or remove it entirely.

I ordered both the #1 and #2 cures from the sausage maker in Buffalo NY. They shipped quickly, had reasonable prices, and everything showed up in one piece.

Just as a guess, I'd say they are trying to make some money.

Don't worry about any of the details, you've got all the major things covered. Ya need some fire, some smoke, and some way to control the temperature. Fill the upper bowl with either sand or water, set the lower bowl on the burner and pitch a fistful of wood chips in it to generate smoke, then spend the next 14 hours freezing your ass off adjusting the burner every hour. It doesn't take too many cold and wet smoking sessions before you buy yourself a remote thermometer so you only have to go out if something is wrong or the meat is done.

I had mixed success with the pastrami recipe in the book. The brine after 4 days hadn't fully cured the 5 pound brisket (flat only) that we used for the recipe. That wasn't clear until after steaming the smoked pastrami, although it was only one small section (maybe 1"x.5") - but since the instructions say to cure for 3 days I'm surprised that happened. Anyway, the cure is too sweet for my taste; before steaming the meat tastes seriously sweet - after steaming it's just a little sweet. Next time I'll keep the brown sugar and ditch the white sugar. We only steamed enough of the meat for two sandwiches. This being the thinner end it's drier than I'd like. I started the smoker with the water tray full of ice - the smoker was able to hold 150*F for the first 3 hours of the smoke, after which it gradually rose to 225. The meat hit 150*F in about 10 hours and took on a very nice heavy smoke.

I've tasted through the entire Argyle portfolio, they make some nice wines but nothing I'd consider in the same ballpark as the Egly you mention. The Gruet sparklers from New Mexico while fairly simple are a better example of what the domestic producers should be striving for - a clean well made wine at a reasonable price point. The climate in California, Oregon, and Washington is just too warm for the wines to have the same focus and precision as Champagne offers.

Nothing even close comes from the states. There are plenty of good grower champagnes available for around $25 on sale. Granted at list price they are often more like $35-$45, but while the Scharffenberger brut mentioned in the article is half the price, it also is syrupy sweet and incredibly simple. Delamotte, Billecart-Salmon, Egly, Turgy, Paul Bara, Lassalle, Pierre Peters, Duval-Leroy, Jean Milan, and countless others all can be had for reasonable amounts of money. The domestic offerings only look good when compared to the uninspired mass-produced products from Champagne like White Star and Veuve. The higher end domestic sparklers from Iron Horse, Chandon, Domaine Carneros, Mumm, et al are more expensive and significantly less delicious than the widely available Billecart rose. At the lower end there are no shortage of delicious cremant and prosecco - most priced in the low teens.

Pho, bahn mi, (thai) roti, merguez & harissa, risotto, chicken karahi, duck confit, churros con chocolate.

Over the last two days we made the chicago style hot dogs. here they are resting in the fridge overnight Smoking in the rube goldberg cold smoker that uses 2/3s of a weber smoky mountain, a gas grill, and some dryer duct. A pasta drying rack and some duct tape is surprisingly effective as a place to hang 3 pounds of meat. poaching after they came out of the smoker I used mesquite lump mixed with hickory chunks to smoke them - the flavor was excellent but the dogs had a texture I wasn't fond of. In a bun they are fine but on their own they are too soft. I suspect the 5 minute paddling time incorporated too much air into the forcemeat - next time I think we'll stop after 2 minutes.

Something like this?