fifi

Ok... Dave the Master has reduced me to crawling up off the floor after a total incapacitation event. That is the funniest thing I have read in weeks. *wiping eyes* *brain engages* Hmmm... I do know about a carbon fiber composite design that can control thermal expansion... I wonder if they still make that siloxane resin... then there is that little company up in the Woodlands that developed sputter depostion of diamond...

I will second the posole (one of various spelllings ). The smokiness is what makes Barbequue Posole so great.

ARRRGGG!!! This kind of thing drives me nuts! Where are the standards here? Isn't a cup, as a measure of volume, standardized to be the same thing? I know that the National Bureau of Standards must have a definition on this. Off to search.

Well... What my momma taught me is that you use the little metal cups to measure dry ingredients (she was a proponent of dipping in the flour, for instance, and leveling it off with the back of a knife), and the Pyrex cups for liquids. The volume is supposed to be the same but you can't measure the dry accurately in a glass cup with lines. (I know... I know... Someone is going to say that weighing is the correct way to do it, so, go ahead, get it over with.)

Some of us of a certain age remember the embargo way back when. When you do the math on inflation and such since then, gasoline is not at record high prices now. I think I read somewhere that it was the equivalent of 4 of today's $ a gallon then. That was an age where I was schlepping kids and such and did all of the household errands. I did plan trips to the grocery carefully and of course noticed the increase in the food prices. Mostly the planning was because you had to be able to actually GET gasoline. In cities like Houston there is no alternative to the car for most of the population. I did a calculation of how much I spent per year on gasoline with my particular driving habits and what the actual dollar increase was. At that point in my life, I did have to watch the budget a lot closer than I do now but it still wasn't an overwhelming problem. I did some similar mental gymnastics the other day when I realized I was going to have to drive 40 miles round trip to get to the closest Fiesta Mart because that was the only place I could reliably get pure ancho powder and pork fat. Depending upon your particular situation, if you do the math and get the true impact, you may find that it won't alter your lifestyle that much. Then you can quit worrying about it and make a decision that it is worth the drive to get the ancho powder and the supplies for making fresh lard and quit worrying about it. At least you can make choices based on the actual dollar impact for you instead of reacting, as we all do, to those alarming 2s on the signs.

The great and thoughtful "they" put those door locks on there because they think the average person is stupid enough to stick their head in there and roast it. Steingarten has a hilarious piece in It Must Have Been Something I Ate, where he is in the search of high enough temperatures to make pizza. He tries to defeat a friend's oven interlock and the pizza turns to ash. His other antics in his quest are worth the price of the book.

Well... You learn something every day. I had no idea that the cleaning cycle got that hot. (Why don't I know that? ) But then, I am not in the habit of reading the manuals that come with appliances, either.

Has anyone ever used the self cleaning cycle on the oven to burn a pot out? How hot does that cycle get, anyway? andiesenji... What is a spyder?

Check out any of the threads originated by Jason Perlow in this forum. They will give you a lot of information and are from his trip there. The pictures alone will blow you away.

I have got a really stupid question. I bought some beautiful Medjoul dates at Kroger the other day. I can't seem to make myself throw out those seeds. Since I am currently a frustrated gardener, I am wondering if those seeds will sprout. I am thinkning of putting them in a pot of sandy soil (as soon as I find some) on the balconey and seeing if they will sprout. Does anyone know if this will work? Are Dates "cured" somehow that might kill the seed? No... I am not envisioning date trees in my future. I just think they might make interesting little house plants for a while. I guess I am regressing to my childhood when I sprouted all kinds of things for the fun of it... avocado seeds, sweet potatoes. You know what I mean.

That sounds like a LOT of fun. Good friends of mine have neighbors from Taiwan that they cook with from time to time. Trading recipes and memories is a great way to learn about the culture. I asked them to try to sell that house next door to a nice Indian family. Thank you for the tip on the sweet chili sauce. I have a recipe that calls for it and haven't been able to find it. You have probably saved my condiment collection from an additional 248 jars of god-knows-what.

As much as I love the sandwich, I have to share with you the salad experience. Sometimes, I really have to do the drive through thing on the way to the office. Luckily, the strip of fast food places includes CFA. Given the need to get some portion of the vegetable kingdom into my diet from time to time, I tried the salads. They are all exceptionally good but the chicken strip version is my favorite. That has to be one of the best fast food salads on the planet. For $4.75 you can't go wrong. I remove the pickles as well but enjoy the lingering flavor. It is a texture thing with me as well. I like the waffle fries better than McDs fries.

I wasn't a big fan of portobellos either. Then my nephew marinated some for a while in something that had some worchestershire in it. He put them in the smoker while roasting some pig he shot. I am now an ardent fan and would seriously consider reserving one of the racks in my WSM for those alone. (Memo to self: find out what he marinated them in.) I cut some in strips and rolled in a tortilla with the usual suspects... crema, avocado and some lime marinated red onion. OMG!

Your experience is exactly why I don't recommend the typical cheap injector approach. And you have to know where to put it. These do NOT work. These do. And you don't just poke and inject. You need to place the flavoring between the muscle groups outside the fascia. This is not necessarily an easy technique. Brining is not the same thing at all as it alters the protein structure. All injecting does is add flavor where a marinade will not go.

OK... there is my GulleyLaugh for the day. Did I hear somewhere that they bought Mrs. Baird's? Or am I making that up?

Well... I think of the wheat tortillas as a "whole 'nother thing" and they are normally found in Northern Mexico anyway. Most of my business ramblings down there has been to the south of Mexico City, gulf coast and Yucatan. We had some guys in Tampico for an extended stay and they rented a house that came with the cook/housekeeper. She was a wonderful cook and got the tortillas from this family that grew their own corn, did the nixtamalization thing, ground the masa and then made the tortillas. They were a revelation. I just think they grow different varieties of dent corn than we do here.

I don't know about Mexico City but I do know that the masa that they use down there typically has a richer taste of corn. Maybe that is just me. A handmade tortilla of the thicker variety is a thing of beauty. Those that we get here remind me of cardboard and rarely have that cornier taste. Scary thought #548: I saw a Bimbo Bread truck in downtown Houston the other day.

Yeah... We do the turkeys at Thanksgiving, too. But there are usually 10 to 12 of those suckers and the weather rarely is below 55F here on the gulf coast. The most I have been able to brine is two in an igloo cooler (for smoking, not frying), set up with the remote thermometer and alarm. Getting up in the middle of the night to switch out the ice packs is a PITA. How do you keep the racoons out of the turkey tank?

I need to do the same thing. I have been keeping my recipes in Word for years just because I am comfortable with it. Now that I have Word 2003 on the new laptop, I am exploring what all you can do with "master documents" and "subdocuments". One of my contractor/consultants really likes it. At this point, that is about as far as I am willing to go because if I have to completely learn even one new piece of software or company based system I am going to go barking mad.

About the only time I have done this routinely is for deep frying turkeys. I usually use my favorite cajun seasoning mix of the day (Emeril's or Prudhomme's) in butter. This gets the turkey seasoned without getting a lot of spices into the oil to muck it up. This can matter if you are frying a bunch of them. BTW, you need to use an oil or butter based seasoning. Pockets of water based seasonings might get you a spectacular turkey-launch! (incoming ) I have done it with big chickens just for the hell of it. In that case, I whizzed up some fresh herbs with drawn butter in the blender. Then I only worked from the inside, positioning the canula in between muscle groups and working from the inside of the bird so I wasn't poking holes in the skin and didn't make ugly traces in the muscles. When you do this you only place a little at each site. It takes some practice to get it right, and you will want to know a bit about how a chicken is assembled, so pay attention next time you cut one up. A couple of times, I did it with a fresh picnic ham, shank portion. You can keep the seasoning in between the muscle groups pretty easily. I did one with an herb mixture like the chickens and it came out pretty darn good. Those were slow roasted, not smoked. I still brine. Injecting doesn't replace brining. Don't waste your time with a cheap plastic syringe. Go for the heavy stainless deal with the canula with holes in the side. I got mine at the restaurant supply for $25-30.

AH! Good thing we have Jim around here! I just realized my mistake. I remember now that I made that mistake and had to go back to the store and swap it out. I think they may have had the wrong part number on the site at the time and I reported it. I am not sure about that. Confusion reigned.

Just out of curiosity... Why are the Brinkman's more difficult to control? Is it the bottom vent design?

I don't see Jim hanging around so I will chime in. I got mine at a sporting goods store here in Houston that has a lot of BBQ and cookout equipment. (Academy, Houston) I would think that any large store that carries Brinkman would have them. And, yes, it is the water pan. Look on the Virtual Bullet web site for a full discussion about replacing the pan.

*cross post* You're it!

I went with the WSM basis what I had read here and the experience of these folks. Having discussed this with other folks, I think the critical point is that the WSM has three bottom vents that can be set to regulate the temperature and since they are equidistant around the bottom, you can adjust for wind direction. That is what I would look for in an alternative brand. The baked on enamel coating of the WSM is really superior. What is inexplicable to me is that it doesn't have a thermometer in the top. That site has suggestions for mounting one or putting one in the top vent, which is what I do.