melkor

If they are coming apart in the oil, try adding an egg to whatever recipe you like best.

He'd get his ass kicked in California for that...

Salmon cakes, pear tomatoes, grilled corn. drinking 2002 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc (excellent wine @ $12)

I'd recommend the Weber Smokey Mountain (I'd guess thats the water smoker fifi is refering to also). Effortless temp control and very well made.

pastrami on rye with mustard.

Berrys from the farmers market with some pancakes under them somewhere. And a glass of fresh squeezed OJ.

salmon gravenstien apples silver queen corn oranges strawberries blueberries raspberries some sort of blackberry garlic santa rosa plums lemons yukon gold potatoes

I'd suspect that several board members would be willing to send boxes full of them to anyone willing to pay shipping...

I had a great meal at zuni last week. If you end up there make sure you try their balsamic bloody mary, it's really good.

It works, I do the same thing using a cast iron grill pan when I'm too lazy to fire the grill.

With any luck you'll find that black walnuts are an "inappropriate species" and you'll be rid of the thing..

Call them up the city, explain what a rare and wonderful delicacy the nuts are and offer to share your bounty with them.

Stone, you getting a duck to guard your basil plant? Yeah, and after it fattens up on slugs, it goes right into the smoker. Right next to my basil-fed lamb

It comes from people who have black walnut trees in their yard trying to convince their neighbors to take some of them.

Stone, you getting a duck to guard your basil plant?

I'd skip it, but - if you want to give it a shot: collect the walnuts - preferably after the squirrels have chewed off the hull (otherwise you have to remove it) crack them open using a hammer, don't use a rolling pin - it'll end up with giant dents in it (or so I've heard ) pick the meaty bits out from inside the shells and roast them at 350*F for 5 or 10 minutes eat one, realize that they don't taste very good, leave remaining black walnuts for the squirrels

Sluggo is the best thing I've found for slugs/snail - its as close to organic as you can get and still get rid of the bastards.

I'd cook it in a cast iron pan, first on the stove then in the oven. Fat Guy has a good description of the process on the other lobel's thread. The basic idea is to build a crust on the steak on the stove then toss it in the oven to finish. That being said I don't think you could go wrong with the Ducasse slow cooked method.

So what do you do when you are picking 4 cups of basil at a time and already sick of pesto? We've already frozen enough to last for the next year.

If you're in SF on a saturday morning, stop by the farmers market at the ferry station - the two guys wearing giant cowboy hats selling beef are ranchers up in Lassen. I suspect they can at a bare minimum point you in the direction of a good steak up there.

Sparrow Wine in new jersey has it for a reasonable price and from what I found on their site they will ship to you in DC.

Glad you enjoyed it, where else did you stop while you were in the area?

These pictures are almost enough to make me run off to California and get a slice, abandoning the smoked-meat tables of Montreal and and the pastrami pots of New York. But I do want to clarify one detail, Melkor. Did you buy a raw brisket, suitable for making corned beef or a brisket that had already been corned as you literally wrote? In other words is this from scratch or did you improve upon an already processed product? I started with a cryovac'd corned beef brisket -- it's a processed but un-cooked hunk of cow.

tissue--what is "pollo loco"? sounds like crazy chicken... In california at least its a fast food chain. El Pollo Loco

Just to be scientific about this, I went to cash and carry, bought a 13lb corned beef brisket, rinsed it off, coated it with a black pepper/coriander/garlic rub and smoked it at 210*F for 9 hours. After it was done I had a few slices to see how it came out - it's a definite cross between pastrami and corned beef. I let it cool and put it in the fridge, the next day I steamed it for 3 hours before making a sammich - this definitely tastes like pastrami, no question about it. The homemade pickles complete the meal. The other end of the brisket is significantly more marbled and I expect it will taste better than the very lean part that this sammich was made from.