Monthly Archives: September 2015

Daily Life

Dear Food Network…

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Rant Mode ON

Dear Food Network (Canada)

I was surfing on the net the other day, and ended up stumbling on the Emeril Lagasse channel on YouTube.  I took some time and watched a few videos, one of which was an old episode of Emeril Live.

It really took me back to a day when there was quality programming for foodies on Food Network.  Emeril Live and Good Eats were two flagship shows – Tyler’s Ultimate too, there were so many good and entertaining shows.  I learned so much from those shows, both in technique and foods.  And they entertained while they taught, I enjoyed watching the shows, and took away lessons that I could use in my own kitchen.

However, you have given yourself over to the worst of the (barely) food themed… garbage… and are filling the timeslots with it.  I enjoy the ‘food on the road’ shows, You Got to Eat Here, Triple D and the like well enough, but please, enough already with the game shows, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen (sorry Alton) and please, what possible excuse could there be for Chef in My Ear?!?

As a food lover, and someone looking to learn about food in all it’s regional forms, your losing me as a viewer.  You still have some good programming, The Pioneer Woman, Southern at Heart are two, but they seldom seem to run in primetime, the focus just keeps seeming to shift to what is basically culinary Pablum.

Can we get back to cooking and food please, and get away from gameshow nonsense that people watch while eating crappy order in pizza – Please??

Rant Mode OFF

 

Eating In

Must Haves – Item 2 – Digital Kitchen Scale

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This is my second favorite kitchen gadget.  From measuring dry ingredients such as flour (5 oz per cup) to portioning out burger patties, it is quick and accurate.

When baking, accuracy in flour measurement is really important.  Depending on temperature, humidity and method used with the measuring cup, the actual amount of flour in ‘a cup’ can very significantly enough to affect the outcome.  With a scale, the weight is always the same.  and it is a fair bit faster to just pour flour into a bowl on the scale until you have just enough.

Then you can zero (tare) out the scale, and add your next ingredient by weight and so on.  It really does make life in the kitchen much easier – for real.

I place a bowl on the scale, and then portion out my meat patties into 6 oz patties (8 oz if Kathy isn’t looking) and then every patty is the same size and cooks in the same time as each other.

Buying meats in bulk is a great way to economize, but portioning it out into 1 lb portions then bagging it for the freezer makes it easy to use down the road.

You can even weigh a puppy prior to… no, not cooking him… figuring out how much food he should be getting!

No amimals were harmed in the taking of this photo. All dishes were cleaned prior to being used again. 8-)
No amimals were harmed in the taking of this photo. All dishes were cleaned prior to being used again. 😎

I have a different scale, but this one is very highly rated by a source I trust very much.

Next up – Prep Dishes

Eating In

Must Haves – Item 1 – The Thermopen

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I am in the process of adding a section to the site with links to some of my favorite kitchen gear.  Kitchens are a funny place – stuff accumulates with the same mysterious ways as crop circles pop up on the land (maybe their both aliens messing with us), and much of it is not actually useful.  So much if the gear is useful for little other than taking up space.

Much if it is designed to ‘make life easier’ in the kitchen – As Seen On TV.  Unfortunately, most of the time the bits of kit just don’t work, or worse take twice the time to use and clean up than just doing the ‘old fashioned’ way.  Alton Brown is my hero when it comes to what he calls ‘unitaskers’.  And the only permissible unitasker in his books is the fire extinguisher.  I tend to agree.

That said, there are a few items that every cook should have in their kitchen.  The first is an instant read thermometer.  A top quality instant read thermometer is something you will use pretty much every time you cook.  A cheap imitation will be buried in the back of your drawer faster than you can say “this piece of garbage…”.  My favorite, and the one that is generally considered to be the best, is the Thermopen .  Available by mail order only, it is indispensable in my kitchen.  I use it to measure the temp of water to bloom yeast (105-115 degrees), the temp of baking break (200+), to check meat on the grill or in the smoker, or to gauge poultry in the oven.  Tonight I used mine to make sure the smoked burger patty in the frying pan was fully cooked without having to cut into it and let the juices out.

The Thermopen is quick, accurate and has a very small tip that makes the smallest puncture in your food, which preserves juices and keeps it from looking like it got cooked on a dart board.

You can check it out here at:

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/

I will add some more items that I find indispensable in the days to come.

Next Up – Digital Kitchen Scale

Daily Life, Eating In

A Perfect Sunday

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Some Lilies from our garden – a beautiful reminder of a summer slipping away from us day by day

Yesterday we had a visit from our friends Rick and Laurie, and their awesome kids Kyle and Caitlee.  They have recently moved to our home town from the coast, and it is great to have them here.

At long last,  we finally found some time to get together and have brunch here around our kitchen table.  They have been busy settling into their new home, and that all takes time so between that and our busy schedules, this was our first real chance to get together and have a visit.

Brunch was the usual fare, Pop’s Pancakes, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit and a few toppings were the main course.  A few drinks, both adult and something for the kids topped it off.  But hands down, the best part was the company.  The kids are great, Caitlee ran the feet off of Eve and Harley, a bit of Call of Duty on the PS3 let Kyle show me exactly how bad… no, pathetic I am at video games.  It was really nice visit just hanging for the afternoon with R&L, and catching up on life.

One of the things I love most about food in general and cooking with or for friends,  is the social aspect that goes along with it.  Going out for brunch or dinner is great, but it is on a schedule with people all around and severs bustling to and fro.  Cooking at home is so much more relaxed and social, brunch can go 5-6 hours without a server coming to ask if you are EVER going to leave, and you can just sit back, relax and enjoy.  It doesn’t have to be grandiose, the point is the people at the table, the food is just the excuse to get together.

We had a great relaxed visit, and there is no better way to spend a day in my books.  Taking a few hours from our hectic schedules to just stop and ‘smell the roses’ is something that we all need to do more often.  Time passes, and before we know it we have lost touch with some of those who mean the most.  Take a few min, put on a pot of coffee and call some friends over for a social afternoon.  It is time that will pay you back with memories to keep dear.

Thanks to Rick and Laurie and the kids for a wonderful and memorable afternoon!  We look forward to seeing you guys again soon!

Best Budz!
Best Budz!
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One pooched puppy – dreaming of his next time with his new playmate
Eating Out

The Burning Barrel 2.0

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UPDATE:

On October 14th, Cat and Joe announced they have parted ways with the Burning Barrel.  I don’t know what the reasons were, but we are sad to hear this as we know how excited that they were with the restaurant.  We wish them the best, and time will tell how the BB does without thier passion for the Q and customer service.

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On the long weekend, Kathy and I made our second trip to The Burning Barrel Cookhouse.  As I promised in my first review, we showed up ready to get our meat on…  I should state here that I am a fan of Cat and Joe and what they are doing.  I am not affiliated with them, or receiving any inducements or benefit for any review.  This is just me excited about a really cool couple putting out one of my favorite foods.

After reviewing the menu, we decided to go for the sample platter.   It is a selection of ribs, chicken, pulled pork, brisket and then three sides.

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For $55, it is a pile of food.  The menu says enough for 4, and maybe 4 normal people it might be.  However, we (two) put the vast majority of it away, with just a small snack left over to take home.  None the less, it was great value and a good way to try all of the meats on the menu.

The smoke and flavour runs all the way thru these ribs
The smoke and flavour runs all the way thru these ribs

Everything was very good.  BBQ is one of those things that there are as many ways prepare as there are people preparing it.  It differs from area to area, and pit master to pit master.  Cat and Joe’s take on the ‘Q is solid, and the flavours great.  With the exception of the brisket.  What was it about the brisket you ask…  well… it was probably the BEST brisket I have ever had opportunity to try.   It was truly extraordinary.

I have had brisket done a great number of ways, and largely it is hit or miss.  Sometimes it’s like pulled pork, sometimes it’s fatty, sometimes it’s like a dried out chunk of shoe leather.  None of that is present here.  Joe nails his brisket, the taste and texture are EXACTLY what I am looking for.  It is firm, tender, juicy with just enough of the fat to add awesome flavour without being cloying.   It definitely is my favorite of all of the items tried thus far.

The brisket is currently a weekend only item, and given the difficulty in making it well, I certainly understand why.  However I will definitely be back for a full serving very soon.

Cat and Joe are doing a great job, handling the bumps in the road well, and I look forward to many more great meals at their table.

Check ’em out y’all!!

Scott

 

Daily Life, Eating In

Smoke’in Burgers

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This monster was constructed with one of my Savoury Italian Burger patties
This monster was constructed with one of my Savoury Italian Burger patties

Well, today was a day of hamburger making.  I decided that it was a good day to knock out my recipe for Savory Italian Burgers, and to spark up the smoker and put up a few dozen smoked burger patties in the freezer.

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This is why Food Stylists exist – to make food look as good as it tastes. Smoked burger patties don’t look like much, but they are tasty

Fall has arrived it seems, quite suddenly at that, and being in the interior of BC my smoking season will come to an end before too much longer.  As a result, I have been running a bunch of meat thru the smoker the last little while and putting the product in the freezer so that thru the winter we can still get a smoky taste of summer.

At the end of the day, I have ended up with 4 dozen smoked burger patties, a dozen smoked Italian Sausage and a hell of a messy smoker.   Over the winter, I will do up another couple of batches of the burger, but it will go to towards pan grilled burgers, or using the meat in pasta sauce or other hearty winter eats.

I hope everyone is having a great Labour Day long weekend!

Scott

Daily Life

The future, coming to you from the past

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Now, I grew up in a very small town about 300 miles north of Vancouver BC.  We had local radio, but it was pretty mainstream for the day, and really didn’t do much to ignite much in the way of imagination.  However, late at night, when the conditions were right, the signal would skip all the way to me and I could listen to the CKNW from Vancouver BC.

When it did come in, quite often what would be on late at night was Jack Cullen’s Owl Prowl.  Jack had an extensive record collection, including an amazing collection of Big Band music (which I still love to this day), and so many of the great radio play series like The Shadow, Dragnet, Green Hornet… the list goes on and on.  I fell in love with these stories, they were tales from a different time, and the stories told in a way that formed in your mind the images that we are now spoon fed by tv and movies.  It is a totally different experience that I hope you will take a few minutes to experience.

One of the things I really enjoy about the internet, is the fact that so many of these great old radio shows are now available online.  It doesn’t take much searching to find an app or website that allows you to access these great tales that are now in the public domain, the copyrights having run their course over the years.

In my exploring, I came across a story from a sci-fi series call X-Minus One.  The story is called “A Logic Named Joe“.  The original tale dates back to March 1946, when it was originally written as a story on paper.  In 1955, it was ‘transcribed for radio’ and presented on X-Minus One.

Now, what is amazing and memorizing to me about this story, remembering it was written within a few short months of the end of WWII, is the amazingly accurate portrayal of where technology in the next 70 years would go.  I am not going to spoil the story, but if you follow the links below, you can start on the three YouTube episodes that comprise this story.

I encourage you to pull up to the kitchen table with a cup of joe, dim the lights, turn off the Idiot Box and take a while to listen to what is an entertaining and indeed amazing story especially when viewed from the future it predicted.

Enjoy!