Syzygies

Wow, Dennis, is that all one meal? The signature use for pork cheeks is to make Guanciale, an Italian pancetta alternative of the gods. Beef cheeks are a classic bistro braised dish; Tom Colicchio has a nice recipe in Think Like a Chef. We've had mixed luck, however, with one organic cheek coming out like the shoe Charlie Chaplin ate in Gold Rush. We figured the cow smiled too much. So to KK a pork cheek I'd reverse all my prejudices, and foil with sauce after the smoke ring forms?

How does this associate with burning wood chunks for smoke, etc? The KK is much tighter and better insulated than my previous cooker, with air flow at more of a trickle. I've seen something like what you describe, not as extreme, where using my smoke pot turns the KK into a wood tea "still" with a brown trickle from the damper. I do not see this, just burning charcoal.

Cheating As part of closing the deal for our new KK, Dennis coaxed Laurie over the phone to assure me that yes, cooking on a KK might be easier, but it certainly wasn't cheating.

Those pictures are STUNNING.

I'm looking forward to trying this quicker method; I haven't. In my experience, the meat itself is crucial. The best brisket I've ever made was a phenomenal piece of organic meat; all I did was manage not to ruin it. The second-best was dry aged for over a week. I'd try a shorter aging next time, but it sure was juicy. In comparison to either of these, I've found any brisket bought on price to be rather grim.

We tried both ways, and thought that foiling made for mushier ribs. There's a style of rib-making where one spends as little as possible on the meat, then makes a special sauce that makes the best of the situation. In this case, a foiling step is said to help the sauce penetrate. I will foil after the ribs come off, e.g. to then transport to a party, wrapped in towels in a cooler.

swamped at work Nice! You'll love it. One of the new ones they just announced today? (A water main broke in my office ceiling, and my iMac survived the experience, power on.)

http://cleanstream.com/ Order online for filters that fit

Re: Livvy turned 14 in June Woof! Woof!

WAF Our next-door neighbors happily took our old K7. One set of their parents has a green egg, and they've enjoyed our cooking on same said K7, so they jumped at the offer. For those of you on the fence, it's impossible to describe how quickly the "transfer of affection" takes place. The KK is phenomenally well-designed. Looking back at the K7, I feel the same "make the best of this" optimism mixed with horror that one feels upon first addressing a strange campsite grill. In either situation, a good cook can shine, but why struggle? My cover story has been that the K7 cooked fine, Laurie really wanted to get the new cooker (how's that for Wife Acceptance Factor!?), but as the one-who-cooks-with-fire, I'm thrilled.

Dolly celebrates her 16th birthday with a hike on Mt Diablo. Her secret: pork butt or brisket on her kibble, to keep her engaged.

The "drywall dust" filter is a great idea. As a reformed shop-vac guy, however, I can't see bothering with any route except the old paintbrush into a suitable catch container. It's clever having the draft door at floor level, take advantage of it. And why clean all the way? Ash will return...

Been there, works really well if this is your primary use of the shop vac. I found that it eventually clogs the vac filter. On our old K7 I just scooped with a yogurt container. Doesn't matter if you don't get the last 10%, there will be more ash. To soon to develop a pattern for our new KK.

Yep, it came! Spruce Green, we're very happy. JohnnyBoy was a great pleasure to work with. I wish I could buy a suit that fit this well! The fabric clearly breathes; I wouldn't use it to cover ten boxes of printer paper. For this application, however, breathing is a huge win once the sun comes back out.

Re: Interesting Trophies!! Why do those trophies look really sore from a long swim?

Hey, people say the same thing about the KK. You can get halfway there for less than half the money if you're tone deaf. Same with Macs. As a mathematician I am stunned at my good fortune to be alive in the first century of the computer revolution, and I would need to be institutionalized if I dwelled too long on the degree to which Microsoft has ruined that experience for the masses. They're the frozen ground patties of the meat market; the only difference is that the E. Coli don't arrive till you hook up to the net. Macs are rib eye steaks. Linux is brisket, takes work, or great if ground into burgers.

I'm a Mac person, but I've been buying various youngsters in our extended family Dell netbooks. Awesome value for $300, size is nice too. They make a regular laptop look like a 1970's cell phone. The definition of full monty hi def is 1920 x 1080, a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. For work I always buy Dell monitors that go 1920 x 1200, which is a 16 by 10 aspect ratio. The extra height is nice for documents. This will "letterbox" nicely to 1080 for hi def video. I don't have a TV signal in my NY apartment, and I recently replaced my old tube TV with a $200 Dell 1920 x 1080 monitor, which goes with a $40 up-sampling DVD player, my stereo system, and my Netflix subscription. A vast improvement; anyone who hasn't done so already should get every tube out of their life. A MacBook is 1280 by 800 native resolution; The MacBook Pro resolutions are 1280 by 800 (13"), 1440 by 900 (15"), and 1920 by 1200 (17"). These are 16 by 10 aspect ratios, which all will "letterbox" to a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. However, only the 17" has the full pixels for hi def as it is defined. What complicates this is that Macs as of now don't read Blu-Ray disks, which is the only way to deliver this many pixels to a laptop, so any DVD is up-sampling to any of these screen sizes. They all have the horsepower to do this much better than a $40 up-sampling DVD player. Similarly, anyone considering an Apple TV that has the money to fly KK class just ups the ante and buys a Mac mini instead. Over twice the horsepower, and fewer restrictions.

Re: Polarity question Been there, recently, a friend had an expensive coffee grinder with the timer dial thingy on the fritz, grinder worked fine. Turned out not to be mechanical, there was a friggin' twenty component electrical circuit behind the dial, that had failed. It became a classic case of the bomb squad "which wire to cut" dilemma. 'Cept, being A/C, twice as many ways to get it right. Put a hardware store screw-on switch on the cord, took out and bypassed the circuit, and they're back in business for another decade. Of course, one wire really is ground, safer to have the switch shut off the live wire as soon as possible, rather than always having live current running through the motor where it could find another ground. (Just because A/C keeps changing sides on itself doesn't mean one wire isn't doing all the moving.) So perhaps you should put things back how you found them.

We need a LOL-cooker caption contest for this pic. (Nice digs, by the way.)

Re: Korean Baby Back Ribs Laurie saw this and asked me,

Re: more info I have an answer in her words, which I've posted in the recipe section: Korean Baby Back Ribs

From a digression in another thread: Here is my friend's recipe for Korean baby back ribs: some brown sugar (I never measure it, but maybe 1/2 c more or less) 1c soy sauce 1 T sesame oil (from toasted sesames) about 3 to 5 crushed red chile flakes (the kind you put on pizzas) 5 cloves of garlic your toe sized ginger (ok, I've never seen your toe consciously, but you know what I mean) finely chopped 1/4 c water 5 scallions, thinly sliced 3 LB pork baby back ribs Whisk all the ingredients in a baking pan or a bowl Add the ribs and toss to coat (Here I stab between the ribs with something sharp like a Fondue fork, or a knitting needle but not too much or the meat will look like a rag) Here comes very un-American part--keep it at room temperature for about two hours. I know Americans will think the meat will go bad, but so far none of my guests died of rotten meat at my house, and I don't tell my guests I kept it for two hours outside the fridge) Then refrigerate overnight, turning occasionally--no need to stay up all night--just turn before you sleep and when you wake up) bake at 450 F or bbq