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Food Thread: Pork Ribs Smoked In A Wide Spot On The Road, And What's Up With Beef?

That is JackStraw's new smoker! I'm surprised it fits in Rhode Island!

His first cook will be pork ribs, which is an excellent choice, because they are quite forgiving, and pretty inexpensive. I wonder what his second cook will be?

That is a pellet grill, which have become quite popular, and are certainly easy! I know that the traditionalists swear that if you aren't cutting your own hardwood, slaughtering and butchering your own animals, and sailing to the South Seas to harvest the pepper, then you are inauthentic and should slink away.

But sometimes convenience is a powerful thing. I would rather be inauthentic and eat good smoked meat than be overwhelmed by the insanity of some so-called experts, and never make it at home.

On the other hand, I have made smoked chicken, and while it was good, the skin was...eh...and the breast was a bit dry every time. So maybe I should embrace authenticity and start harvesting my own salt and pepper and making my own chili powder and grow my own garlic and onions and mustard seed and chopping my own wood and....

Yeah...maybe not.

I have a Weber R2D2 smoker, and while it works well, temperature regulation is a bit of an art, and for long cooks it is a pain in the ass. So a pellet smoker sounds positively decadent.

For those of you who don't obsess over this sort of stuff; most pellet smokers have electrically-driven feeds that drop pelletized fuel into the fire, and the rate is adjusted with a thermostat. So dialing in your preferred temperature is straightforward.

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As a committed beef eater I am very concerned by this trend. Obviously the underlying inflation is driving some of this, but there is also precariousness of the cattle industry, which is notoriously fickle. Is it a trend? Or is it a natural instability in a volatile market?

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Damn... I love quail! The best I have ever had were from Texas... big and meaty and flavorful.

But these are now in the running for peak quailishness.

Admittedly, it was a beautiful restaurant on a gorgeous evening, and that absolutely colored my opinion of the food. But they really were delicious. I think they sauteed them gently in a pan (to make a pan sauce afterwards), then finished them for just a few seconds on a grill.

Fantastic, and the simple pan sauce was damned fine too. No, I didn't lick the plate, but I did sop it all up with bread!

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I like bourbon. I like brown butter. I sort of like peaches. Well, not really, except for the ones my cousin in Colorado grew. But I will tolerate them when accompanied by the other two. Bourbon Brown Butter Peach Ice Cream sounds great, and my experience with homemade ice cream has been uniformly good.
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Without Comment

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This is the sort of dish that is easy to make for a crowd, tastes good, and is easy on the wallet if you really don't want to spend too much on that asshole second cousin who is coming over because your wife is a much nicer person than you are and thinks that excluding him is rude, even though he is... you know... an asshole!

Mediterranean Orzo Salad

Sometimes red onion can be discordantly sharp when raw; a quick rinse (after slicing) under cold water will fix that. And make this in the summer when the tomatoes are nice and sweet. It will work in February, but those tomatoes will be thick-skinned and a bit tart.

I would also double the recipe. It seems a bit skimpy. And I wouldn't add all of the dressing at once. Half, then toss, taste, and add more until you are satisfied.

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I thought France would have good garlic, but the Frogs seem to have the same problem we have in the U.S. At least they don't import filthy garlic from China. Pork is great here, but no game, so send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shakes their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!