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Two beauties @Kevin H - your KK looks great, as does the food.

Good looking pizzas @ckreef and @Tangles, those salamis are the stuff of dreams!

Lovely looking cook Aussie.

That looks good @Pequod. It also illustrates beautifully the extra space and versatility you get with a 32". Although I will be really happy if you tell me that this was actually done in your 23" and I shouldn't regret not opting for the Big Bad

You and me both! The link you sent looks fabulous but, like you, I like the idea of trying to make something to meet one's own specification. I was introduced to donabes by a local potter friend who once made one for her son. When I asked her to make me a tasting spoon like @MacKenzie's she made me come round and spend an afternoon in her studio trying to make one myself. It was fun but my creations were rather crude. I think I need to remind her that she is the professional and that I respect her for that and then maybe, just maybe, she will make me a good spoon and one day a home grown donabe. I think it will be fun trying even if we don't have the history and knowledge to replicate the Japanese standard.

I am looking forward to seeing the results of your efforts @Syzygies. Do you know anything about the donabe style of pots? There are different styles for different types of cooking and the Japanese appear to have a long tradition of pottery making. Interested to know how this might differ from the Moroccan tradition.

Ah, but I think the same about beer. Different strokes for different folks. Photo below to calm your nerves @tony b. Am I correct in guessing that this stuff is for beer making?

I promised to do a comparison of my KKs loaded up with chickens. Here it is, using relatively small 1.5kg chickens. There is no way I am ever going to cook this many chickens in one go but I hope it is a helpful illustration. 21" Main grate only four chickens. 23" main grate only 5 chickens 21" main and top grates with one fewer chickens on the lower grate to fit them all in brings the total to 6 chickens. I am not sure this would work because there is practically no clearance between the top of the chickens on the main grate and the bottom of the top grate. And finally, the 23" main and top grates with one fewer chickens on the lower grate to fit them all in brings the total to 7 chickens. Might be able to squeeze in an 8th on the main grate. Enough clearance over the top of the chickens to make this feasible.

Ha ha ha ha. No @Paul, I haven't lost a bet. However, I got home last night and realised that my plan to buy chicken wings for Marmite and thighs for jerk chicken has to be put on hold. The freezer is rammed with my new Italian purchases and I am due a whole mutton sheep and two beef rumps in the next month. Help!! So the plan now is to make a Marmite rub for ribs and jerk pork sometime in the next week or so. I will report back honestly on the former. Having remembered how much I loved the Marmite butter I am hopeful that this will be a good experiment. Another thing to try is yeast ice-cream. No, the Italians haven't gone and broken with tradition. We crossed the border into Slovenia and had the yeast ice cream at a nice restaurant. I think it will be cool (excuse the pun) with something sour like gooseberries or rhubarb. I do draw the line at Marmite pizza though. One for @Pequod to pioneer methinks.

That looks great @Hephaestus. Did you do anything special to stop the skin sticking to the bars?

The ribs and your KKs look beautiful @Tucker. Is there a reason you used two different KKs for this cook?

Hey @MacKenzie, you are beating me in the shopping stakes. Sounds like you got your bacon (and heart attack ) for free! Shame about the egg.

That looked finger licking good! Planning to cook brisket for a party in August but will enjoy practising with this and other methods before then. Thanks.

Hey, you seem to be influencing my food choices from afar so you might as well turn up and do it in person! You might have saved me from myself when it came to ordering those horrible wings and ribs last night. So, the deal is that sometime in the next five years I will make it to Perth or you and Dee have to make it to the UK or somewhere in Europe where we can eat and drink to our heart's content.

I didn't hang around the Vegemite long enough to find out whether anyone bought it or where they might be from. Padova is a tourist town but we didn't encounter many non-Italians on our bar crawl last night. Other than the people, it was a pretty international night. My first cocktail was a Mex Mule - tequila based with the ginger taste amped to the max by the addition of some chilli. My last cocktail of the night was made by an Italian bartender called Michael. Once we had exhausted my limited Italian we moved on to German and he made me an even mehr lecker Amaretto Sour. Throughout the evening our drinks were accompanied by delicious Italian treats on bread. And then I made the mistake of ordering wings and ribs at an American bar to end the night. Wings covered in orange plastic cheese in Italy just doesn't work! I will be happy to get back to my KKs tomorrow. On the list to try is the BBQ marmite chicken wings recipe that I found this morning.

I took your advice @Paul. Right now I feel like this . I suspect that, tomorrow I will feel like this . I will enjoy the moment.

@Aussie Ora, subliminal pusher?? I was stood in a shop in Padova kicking my heels while The Husband looked at grog and pasta, waiting to get to the next bar with yummy snacks when I saw this: Really? Vegemite AND Marmite in the heart of Italy? I think I need a drink...

Happy to. You just need to join the EU before we exit so I can send you the good stuff.

I know it is heresy to say this but I still haven't got into Purple Crack. That is my cowardly way of saying I don't like it. Don't drum me out of the club and don't think me weird for promoting marmite butter. Am even thinking that marmite just might bring some umami flavour to a meat rub. Here's your challenge @Chanly1983, if you wish to accept it: make up something that makes us all love Purple Crack AND marmite.

Tee hee. I am looking forward to some tasty jerk chicken when we get home. I agree, no need to make it toooo hot but will look to push the boundaries.

Thanks all. The Mangalitza picture is a bit of a cheat because it comes from 2016. We had cut up lambs and even half a small cow before but a whole day on that pig almost killed us. And it was a squeeze, keeping it all cool in our various fridges while we worked. Since then we have left the butchering to the experts but still always buy a half or whole beast from the farmer. There is a lot of righteousness around nose to tail eating but my main motivation is the tastiness of a lot of the forgotten bits and just how damn cheap it is to buy meat in bulk. In my language we have an expression called "gba won loju gba". In your language/my other language it means "make like a bandit". I often feel that way when a farmer tells me the price of their wonderful products. For instance, the two boxes of pork at the start of my post cost just £155 in total. Here in Italy ALL of the wonderful pig parts below, bought direct from the maker, cost under 150 Euros. Really? I wanted to run out of the shop dancing. Instead I thanked them profusely and will return. I hope Brexit doesn't mean we end up with duties and constraints on my kind of shopping.

My friends know I love pork and regularly buy me piggy cards and ornaments. However, even The Husband thought I had gone a bit over the top when I told him I had bought a half pig in order to get pork shoulder for a Chicago Southside Thin. Here are the two boxes I picked up last Friday. Lots of chops and steaks for a summer BBQ, cheek to try to turn into guanciale and fat to turn into lardo. Bonus! We are now on a driving holiday in Italy and I succumbed to my bulk buying gene when I came upon this hoard. Tee hee. No, I did not buy the lot. Just one and they boned it out neatly so that we will have lovely proscuitto for pizza for months to come. And finally, a gratuitous Mangalitza photo for @tony b. I had wanted to try meat from one of these wooly pigs for a long time and pestered a Welsh farmer for a couple of years to get one sent to me in the post. It took us a whole day to process it and turn it into sausages, fat and joints for cooking. We liked it but not as much as the 55 day hung Middle White pig that we buy from another farmer so the only repeat is the blood sausage that they make with bits of fat and bacon. Pig with extra pig. Yum.

@amusedtodeath, going to have to try some jerk chicken myself. I know it doesn't have to be all that hot but there is some pleasure in the pain!

I am a fully paid up member of the Marmite hating brigade and I refused to even taste Vegemite, in spite of living in Australia for 15 months. Big BUT coming up though... Type in Typing Room and marmite butter into Google and you will find many converts to this weird taste. They include me. The Typing Room serves IPA rye bread with Marmite whipped into butter and it is seriously addictive. I still haven't quite got my head around actually buying some of the stuff and trying to make the butter myself though. Could work well for you @Bruce Pearson - make some beer based bread and whip your Vegemite into some butter and you could be on to something. Good luck!!!

Hi Bruce, the cabbage is not pickled. They had trays of barbecued cabbage on their work counter. I looked it up in their recipe book and it looks like they parboil the halved cabbage briefly, then barbecue it to colour and wilt the leaves and then dress with oil, lemon and salt and pepper. Very tasty!