Should a new range hood install take 8+ hours?

That doesn't even include the prep time on the wall! Many thanks to my wife for help out at times, and Scott who dove in and got busy. He really did great, and found things I had missed and fixed them on his own!! Another reno junkie in the making?

The space had a fridge in it when we started, and as you can see once removed there was gaping holes in the lath and plaster, and a terrible lack of vapour barrier and insulation. Once taken down to the studs, the 2x4 walls built out to 2x6, new electrical, new gas supply and some plywood finish to stand in for drywall, we get to putting in the range hood.

The new stove is about as professional as you can get at home, and can generate more BTU's than my furnace. A 36" BlueStar with built in grill and two 22k BTU burners. And now a hood to match!

I should mention that this is just planning/staging/proto-typing of our kitchen. We're thinking green, with a white subway tile backsplash, maybe stainless steel countertops, etc, etc, but so far we've just re-done the back door, and this 6 foot space. Maybe we're crazy to do a bit at a time, but this is what works for us. I could really make a good argument for working through decisions and planning this way in stages, rather than trying to plan the whole stinking thing at once. We weren't planning on starting the kitchen yet, still other things in progress. I just found the stove at cost, and knew that I would have to pay almost 3 times the price to order anything of this magnitude at regular prices.

The hood is a Broan 36" shell, with a external 1200 cfm blower. Ok, according to the formula one uses to determin how big your range hood needs to be, 900 cfm would have been enough, and twice as much as the typical kitchen blower. But with that grill, I wanted to *make sure* I didn't smoke up the house with the grill.

It's turned out better than expected! At about 1/3 power, I pull enough air to match 'normal' exhaust and it's very quiet because of the commercial style baffles and the motor outside. At full bore, it's enough suction to easily handle my pork chop test drive, and more I'm sure. Standing outside, it is amazing the down draft coming out of that thing...

So far, so good. The first chops disappeared quickly. I love cooking with all the horse power and look forward to working her hard!

My homage to 'Eat Local Food'

Alan did a whole series on eating local in Hawaii, where he lives. Day 6 was quite tasty, although it cost considerably more and a bit of a trick finding bamboo in Olds or Didsbury Alberta.

The local farmers around here have what amounts to a similar problem, in that we rely on food from everywhere else too. We're further ahead I guess in that Hawaii has such a dependence on goods shipped from the mainland and we don't. But recent border closures due to Mad Cow disease have clearly demonstrated how fragile things can be for us as well here in Alberta.

I was over visiting my lamb farmer friend, and it's getting harder and harder to make a profit raising lamb for market. The cost of barley rising, bales of hay doubling, transportation, cutting costs, it's difficult for everyone.

I for one will proudly support my local farmer! In fact, this little guy is making me hungry now! I can't wait for the fall and some fresh lamb. Mmmmmmmmmmm I'm happy to pay whatever Craig needs to be 'on the list'.

Lamb is magical and restorative

I can't prove any of this, but I think a dinner of lamb and red wine has magical restorative powers. Just as many miss the wonders of curry from Asia, we also fail to discover everything that is great about lamb dishes from the Middle East. So a dinner of marinated and charcoal grilled Alberta rack of lamb on a bed of roasted winter vegetables is a staple around here. The hearty lamb, the woodfire in the 'Man Cave'.... Very restorative.

The lamb comes from Big Sky Lamb which is about 3 miles from my house. Craig comes by and delivers me a custom cut lamb. That's my version of eating local! Maybe this summer I'll ask for one whole!

After a little adventure and appetizer of Chao Tom (thanks Alan!), I made good use of the charcoal that was still burning and put on the lamb racks for dinner. Any kind of lamb is fantastic with this marinade, but the addition of some mint sauce, and the combination on flavors and roasted caramelized goodness with the vegetables is simply stellar.

MARINADE:
a cup of red wine (just use the box stuff eh?)
a good whack of of oregano
juice and pulp of half a lemon
just a dash of salt (don't overdue this)
pepper
1/4 to 1/3 cup of olive oil
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, smashed
Any kind of lamb can work here. whole leg, cubes, chops, whatever.

ROAST WINTER VEGGIES
1 lb of little nugget potatoes, cleaned
some carrots (I like the little ready to eat ones you buy for your kids)
1 rutabaga peeled and cut into cubes
1 fennel (anise) bulb trimmed and cut into chunks
1 large sweet onion cut into larger chunks
3 parsnips peeled and cut into bite size chunks
salt
pepper
1/2 cup of melted butter

I par boil the potatoes and rutabaga, then tossed it all together drizzle with the melted butter and salt and pepper. I like to line a baking sheet with parchment paper (easy clean up) and pour out the veggies into the sheet in as thin a layer as possible. Load them into a very hot oven (do you ever use 500?), and mix them a few times over the next 45 mins to get them all browning. By about the end of 45 mins you should go right to plates.

Smoked Beef Brisket: tips to help those turning 40

Sorry about the lack of some postings. I'm in my 40's now, so I'm a bit slower.

I still have no idea why that bothered me. Right now, I'm chalking it up to the convergence of several big issues: my Dad being give 6 months to live, lots of work pressure and stress, and my house needing lots of reno work.

But, I started feeling better the night I smoked a beef brisket, then had Dean, Chuck and Mike over to sit around, chat and eat beef.



SMOKED BEEF BRISKET:

First thing you need is the 'right' beef brisket. If you buy one from the store it will be all trimmed up. That is not right. You need to get a good quality one from a butcher, and get it in the vacuum pack right from the slaughter house. It should be about 12 pounds and have all the fat attached. DO NOT LET THEM TRIM THIS FOR YOU. They will wreck it. Since it's all sealed up, this can survive in the bottom of your fridge and age for weeks. Make sure it's got at LEAST 5 weeks on it. More won't hurt. Just use it as is: can't imagine what you need to cut off.

Second important thing is a good Cajun spice. I mix my own, so I control the spiceyness and the salt (ie: it's a bit more spicey than you would buy and less salty). I'd share my recipe, but then I'd have to kill you.

Third is get a bag of hickory chips. Soak them in water for a least a few hours.

Fourth is to make a mop. Given the salty spicey of the Cajun spice, this needs to be savoury and sweet. Here's roughly what I used. Heat all this up together, then emulsify it with the oil while mixing.
a bottle of beer
about double that of apple juice
500 mls of stock (I think I used chicken)
a couple tablespoons of the same Cajun spice as above
about 6-8 tablespoons of brown sugar (this needs to be on the sweeter side)
4 tablespoons of wortershire sauce
a dash of apple cider vineager
at least half a pound of butter, whipped in to the hot fluid to emulsify and thicken

Get cooking!

Time wise, you want to look at 20 hours of cooking time. This brisket was only about 9 pounds but I still cooked it for about 22 hours. You want to spend the first 8 smoking it hard (hard as in lots of hickory smoke) at no more than 225 degrees. Then wrap it up in tinfoil, place in the oven for the rest of the time at 170 degrees F. No, I don't think you can 'over do' it.

Take the brisket out and rinse and dry. Then absolutely coat, as thick as possible, the entire thing in Cajun spice. I started this at about 6pm the day before.

Next, start a batch of charcoal, and get your bag of hickory chips that you have left soaking in water. I use an offset, charcoal only, smoker. Fire up a couple batches of charcoal and get things to a good solid 225 F.

Put the meat on.

Now, for the next 8 hours, you need to keep the temperature up, while you add wet chips to make gobs of hickory smoke, and mop down the beef brisket. Of course, you don't want to let the heat out either. So you need a hotter fire, that gets cooled down with wet chips and survives mopping down the meat every hour and a half.

It is essential at this point to enjoy the plume of hickory smoke sailing up to the sky in a column of fragrant joy. Have a beer, think about all those old testament sacrifices, and ponder God enjoying the aroma and the moment. It's dark out, it's still and quiet, you're all alone with your maker, and tomorrow nights dinner. Really folks, that's church for me.

So, at the end of 8 hours, you've maybe repositioned the 'fat' end a few times, you're out of hickory chips, the meat is looking browned, and you're ready for bed. Wrap it up in tinfoil carefully! You don't want to scrap off any flavor. Double wrap it so it's really sealed, and then put it in a big pan so if it leaks you don't trash your stove.

Put it in a stove preheated to 170 degrees F, and leave it.

Pull it out an hour before serving, and let it sit on top of the stove. Cut (if you can) the now tender beef brisket across the grain, and eat with fresh buns and coleslaw.

Sorry there is no picture of the final product. I got so excited that I forgot. I guess I'll have to do another and update this......

Sushi in Banff Alberta

Mmmmmmmm. Sushi. A great sushi lunch adds life and livliness....

See the view from the Sushi Train!!!

Fisherman's Pot

Mmmmmmmmm: lunch down at Fisherman's Warf in Steveston, overlooking the
fishing boats.

Crown Pork Roast

Nothing adds life and liveliness like food! For New Years Eve we had this Crown Pork Roast which had apple bourbon fennel dressing, rosemary roast potatoes and I finished each slice off with a 'Apple Bourbon sauce' that I got out of Fine Cooking magazine:

- I made chicken stock the previous day
- added bourbon
- added apple cider
- added some sugar (the cider was dry)

And reduced and thickened. It was very tasty.