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Did a pork back rib cook this afternoon, I should be doing this more often, it's so easy and very tasty. A friend brought me a batch of tahini swirls and I'm saving this one for breakfast.

I'm pretty solid in the Jealous Devil charcoal camp now these days. Look for the bags labelled "chunx." Nice medium to large pieces. No colossal ones like in FOGO.

my alfa runs on wood or propane gas, but i don't taste a huge difference between wood, gas, or electric. i'm with the group that says once you cook at such high temps, you don't really taste a big difference.. the effeuno is the better pizza oven in several aspects. it is basically a dream to operate an oven like this indoors. * push button operation (just turn on and wait for it to warmup). and keeps temp all day long with no intervention just like a home oven. * regarding browning and bottom scorch resistance, the Saputo stone (mined clay) is superior to the refractory brick on the alfa, or any other surface i've used (including steels, cordierite, and the kk baking stone). it's just a fat piece of mass to heat up that is very forgiving when browning bottoms. * less fuss to manage heat. no need to measure floor temp once the temps are dialed in. no gas bottles to replace. wood can maintain pizza heat for about 12-15 min, so no need to manage fire with electric. * almost no cleanup. just brush dusting semolina/flour after a cook. * in terms of speed, the effeuno can go hotter in less time (smaller oven to heat up). to get the alfa to pizza temps, it takes longer (bigger over/more thermal mass) and more wood. * excellent view of the food with 3 sheets of glass on the door and a very bright oven light. * parts are user replaceable and quality is restaurant level. however, the effeuno is not an outdoor oven. i probably wouldn't cook a steak or non-bread foods (too messy). pizza size is limited to 12-13". probably more expensive to run electricity, and as far as i know only runs on 220v grids.

Mongolian beef, actually skirt steak cut against the grain in an assortment of veggies with a nice sauce, served over Jasmine rice. The appetizer was coconut shrimp on a bed of lettuce and pineapple served with a sweet chili sauce.

It's just overpriced Royal Oak charcoal.

I finally got around to harvesting my chillis today. Here they are. I am a little worried because I have lots and lots of two super hot varieties - the chocolate bhutal and the white bhut jolokia. Hmmmm. I see fiery times ahead.

You know me and my homemade hot sauces. I have 2 batches of chiles this year - yellow aji and something called "red dragon," which aren't that hot (so I plan to add a couple of Carolina Reepers to that batch to kick it up to where it needs to be.) I do fermented style sauces, ala Tabasco. It's just about the same amount of work as your recipes, just disjointed in time by several weeks. I've attached the instructions that I follow in making mine. This is a basic hot sauce, you can easily add garlic, carrots, herbs, etc. to the mash before fermentation. I also like to add Xanthan gum to mine with the vinegar to thicken up the consistency and to keep it from separating as it settles. I've experimented with several kinds of vinegar and have settled on Rice Vinegar, but experiment with other types - wine, apple cider, balsamic, etc. to see what you like best. This is last year's batches. Can't wait to hear what you all do and how it turns out. I'm probably a couple of weeks away from making my batches this year, as there are still a few peppers left on the plants that I hope to harvest before our 1st hard freeze (likely this coming week.) fermented hot sauce.pdf