Hello Folks
I have been reading a lot lately and this forum has the highest concentration of science and wisdom i have run across. That's not to say the others are not helpful and useful tips. I have a pretty good BS detector so I am pretty good about avoiding old husband tales, but why not hang out here so I don't have to? So, here I am and I have joined up with a paid membership.
I figure I have been cooking for about 50 years. My Mom made sure that all her sons and daughters could completely skip the hot dogs and mac and cheese stage of development. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers, plus various semi-siblngs so Mom expected us to help with cooking, especially on vacation.
My Grandfather was a gourmet chef and taught me some good tips as well giving me a lot of recipes.
While I can bake a cake and make cookies, I have never much bothered with much baking, other than biscuits.
I have never been a huge follower of recipes, but I have found the need to do so less and less over time. I do use recipes as a guide, and for new ideas. When it comes to seasoning I have good instincts (I was a farmer for a while and we grew herbs and I got to try many different things, and also made descriptions for customers, so that may have helped).
I will admit I am a very lazy cook. I rarely collect together the exact ingredients I need for a specific meal, I just decide what I am in the mood for, look in the fridge and pantry and go for it. Of course there are certain staples I generally have on hand, including I huge assortment of herbs (mostly) and spices. I also keep some Dizzy Dust rubs on hand. The are a local brand, but above all else I just love their stuff. I will have to make a post about that. I have found certain brands of dried garlic chunks that are nearly as good as fresh when in a hurry!
When I was a kid we used to cook burgers and big chuck steaks on a basic grill or more often a hibachi. We used newspaper and sticks from the yard as kindling, and then briquets on top of those coals. Nothing fancy. It wasn't until a room mate asked me if I wanted a steak (of course I said yes) and then went out in the middle of the winter and fired up his propane grill that I started to wonder about gas. The next time I moved I was in an apartment and I decided I would get a mini-propane grill. I promised myself I would never grill with propane with out wood chips. Fast forward through a number of grill (mostly freebie hand-me-downs) until I got my first propane grill capable of truly searing ( a used Genesis 3). That was quite the epiphany.
But that was all grilling not BBQ. I am a broadcast engineers but went through a rather long period of underemployment after the great recessions. Most of that was working at Ace hardware. I was part of the crew that opened one store, and when the owners expanded I was part of the crew that brought that store to life and became assistant manager. I had considerable training on Weber and BGE. As an engineer type person I immediately saw the relationship between insulation, fire oxygen use and airflow and drying. It was very clear to me why food on a Kamado dries out less. This is the only site I have run across that describes this fact.
Of course being underemployed I could not afford a BGE. After my divorce my wife (who was not underemployed at that time) asked me if I would buy her an egg with my employee discount. I was unable to convince her to get a large, so medium it was. I cooked on it a number of times at her house. I came up with the idea of smoking commercial corned beef to make pastrami, one of my favorite meats.
Anyway, this year she gave/I bought the medium BGE to me and now my BBQ smoking journey has begun for real! So far I am off to a great start.
Sorry this is so long.... everyone I know says I talk too much!
I have been reading a lot lately and this forum has the highest concentration of science and wisdom i have run across. That's not to say the others are not helpful and useful tips. I have a pretty good BS detector so I am pretty good about avoiding old husband tales, but why not hang out here so I don't have to? So, here I am and I have joined up with a paid membership.
I figure I have been cooking for about 50 years. My Mom made sure that all her sons and daughters could completely skip the hot dogs and mac and cheese stage of development. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers, plus various semi-siblngs so Mom expected us to help with cooking, especially on vacation.
My Grandfather was a gourmet chef and taught me some good tips as well giving me a lot of recipes.
While I can bake a cake and make cookies, I have never much bothered with much baking, other than biscuits.
I have never been a huge follower of recipes, but I have found the need to do so less and less over time. I do use recipes as a guide, and for new ideas. When it comes to seasoning I have good instincts (I was a farmer for a while and we grew herbs and I got to try many different things, and also made descriptions for customers, so that may have helped).
I will admit I am a very lazy cook. I rarely collect together the exact ingredients I need for a specific meal, I just decide what I am in the mood for, look in the fridge and pantry and go for it. Of course there are certain staples I generally have on hand, including I huge assortment of herbs (mostly) and spices. I also keep some Dizzy Dust rubs on hand. The are a local brand, but above all else I just love their stuff. I will have to make a post about that. I have found certain brands of dried garlic chunks that are nearly as good as fresh when in a hurry!
When I was a kid we used to cook burgers and big chuck steaks on a basic grill or more often a hibachi. We used newspaper and sticks from the yard as kindling, and then briquets on top of those coals. Nothing fancy. It wasn't until a room mate asked me if I wanted a steak (of course I said yes) and then went out in the middle of the winter and fired up his propane grill that I started to wonder about gas. The next time I moved I was in an apartment and I decided I would get a mini-propane grill. I promised myself I would never grill with propane with out wood chips. Fast forward through a number of grill (mostly freebie hand-me-downs) until I got my first propane grill capable of truly searing ( a used Genesis 3). That was quite the epiphany.
But that was all grilling not BBQ. I am a broadcast engineers but went through a rather long period of underemployment after the great recessions. Most of that was working at Ace hardware. I was part of the crew that opened one store, and when the owners expanded I was part of the crew that brought that store to life and became assistant manager. I had considerable training on Weber and BGE. As an engineer type person I immediately saw the relationship between insulation, fire oxygen use and airflow and drying. It was very clear to me why food on a Kamado dries out less. This is the only site I have run across that describes this fact.
Of course being underemployed I could not afford a BGE. After my divorce my wife (who was not underemployed at that time) asked me if I would buy her an egg with my employee discount. I was unable to convince her to get a large, so medium it was. I cooked on it a number of times at her house. I came up with the idea of smoking commercial corned beef to make pastrami, one of my favorite meats.
Anyway, this year she gave/I bought the medium BGE to me and now my BBQ smoking journey has begun for real! So far I am off to a great start.
Sorry this is so long.... everyone I know says I talk too much!
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