Zzzzz

I know, not much posted lately. After having a dog that liked to eat EVERYTHING in my backyard along with a windstorm, and having that mutt shred almost everything in sight, including digital meat thermometers, four bags of wood chips, grilling utensils, etc, etc my grilling area is a nightmare mess. Was going to clean it up this weekend but alas it's SNOWING!

I'm cravin' brisket!

Review - Carson City Diner and Catering

I've been to Carson City Diner and Catering a few times now and would like to post my review.





Location: 2000 N. Carson Street, Carson City, NV 89706

(corner of Winnie and Carson Street)

(775) 841-4449





I ordered the Italian Beef Chicago Style, with Au Jus. $9.75 w/ fries



The Italian Beef was packed with thinly sliced (more like shaved) beef just the way I like it. The seasoning on the beef was perfect! Very tasty. The Au Jus can make or break a French-dip style sandwich and I have to say the Au Jus was just as good as the beef itself. Not too salty, and it didn't taste or look like the canned beef broth some other places like to pass off as Au Jus.




There was no way I could eat it all, so I have some leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Overall, this is an excellent sandwich!





My wife had a Chicken Greek Gyro. $7.75 w/ fries.



The Chicken Gyro was a pita bread packed with onions, lettuce, tomato, chicken and the Gyro sauce. Once again the portion did not dissapoint! While neither my wife nor I are too familiar with Gyros, it was very tasty!





My youngest daughter and her friend decided to split a grilled cheese sandwich. $3.25 w/ fries. As you can tell from the picture, it was thumbs up all the way!





My oldest daughter and her friend had hot dogs. $4.25 w/ fries. They are the harshest critics but from the picture you can tell it was good stuff to them!






Also had an order of fried zucchini sticks with ranch dressing dip. Very tasty as well and not over-cooked (usually any deep fried stuff I get is way over-cooked, just my luck I guess).



Overall I would highly recommend Carson City Diner & Catering. Good sized portions, great food quality, and the staff is very nice. It is nice to have a locally owned, non-franchise diner here in Carson and I hope they stay around for a long time!

Christmas Dinner?

My wife sends me this:

Possible Christmas Dinner Menu:

Prime Rib, ala Tony
Ham, ala Laura
Deviled Eggs/veggie platter
Scalloped potatoes
Rolls
Green beans
Broccoli w/ cheese
(instead of above veggies) Build your own Salad

Now I have never tried cooking Prime Rib, but I'll give it my best shot. And hopefully wont be posting pictures of an $80 piece of burnt coal once known as a rib roast... just now deciding on how I'm going to do it? Rotisserie? Smoker? Grill? Hmm... decisions decisions.

My wife's ham is simply awesome!

Have a great holiday folks!

Bacon Vodka?

Truly Weird Stuff!

Okay... truthfully how many of you ever thought of Bacon Vodka? Yup. Here's how to do it...

Opus makes Bacon Vodka




So... email me if you actually try this.

BBQ History!

A Very Brief History of the Four Types of Barbeque Found
In the USA

By Lake E. High, Jr.

President, South Carolina Barbeque Association

(scbarbeque.com)

There are generally considered to be four types of barbeque in the country and
they, by and large, are broken down by the type of sauce use in basting and
also as a finish sauce, used when the barbeque is being served. Those four,
in order of historical emergence, are Vinegar and Pepper, Mustard, Light Tomato
and Heavy Tomato. And while there is always disagreement on the varieties of
preparation, such as whether one should use a dry rub or a wet rub and various
other culinary arguments, all of the many sauces used in America generally will
fall into one of those four basic groups.

North and South Carolina share three of the four types of barbeque sauce that
Americans normally use. But only South Carolina is the home of all four.

The "original" barbeque sauce, dating back hundreds (yes, hundreds)
of years is Vinegar and Pepper, the first and simplest of the four. It is found
on the coastal plains of both North and South Carolina and to a slight degree
in Virginia and Georgia.



The second (in order of historic evolution) of the four sauces is the one that
is distinct to South Carolina and the one that people most often think of as
South Carolina style - Mustard Sauce. That sauce is the product of the large
German heritage found in South Carolina.

Starting in the 1730s and continuing into the 1750s, the British colony of
South Carolina encouraged, recruited, and even paid the ocean passage for thousands
of German families so they could take up residence in South Carolina. They were
a hard working, sturdy and resourceful people who were given to an intensive
family-farm type of agriculture, as opposed to the plantation system favored
by the English settlers. Those German families were given land grants up the
Santee, Congaree, Broad and Saluda Rivers as they came in successive waves over
a twenty plus year migration. Those rivers all flow into each other and fall
from the South Carolina upcountry to the low country. The simplified map on
the home page of the Carolina Q Cup (carolinaQcup.com) shows the location of
mustard sauce in South Carolina.

The first German settlements were in present day Dorchester County, and then
successive waves of settlers moved on up the rivers to the counties of Orangeburg,
Lexington, Newberry and the northwestern part of Richland County. (The middle
and southern parts of Richland were settled by English settlers.) These German
settlers brought with them, in addition to their European farming style and
the Lutheran Church, the common use of mustard.

South Carolina mustard sauce can be clearly traced to those German settlers
and is still in abundant evidence today, even after 250 years, in the names
of the families who sell mustard based sauces and mustard based barbecue to
the public. The Bessinger family is the most prominent in the mustard based
barbeque business, but other German names are legion in the South Carolina barbeque
business - Shealy, Hite, Sweatman, Sikes, Price, Lever, Meyer, Kiser, and Zeigler
are other examples and there are many more. (There is even a Dooley's barbeque
in Lexington County, which everyone generally thinks of as an Irish name, but
which comes from the German Dula family [pronounced Doole], as in the infamous
Thomas Dula who became "Tom Dooley" in the Kingston Trio's 1960s song,
"Hang down your head Tom Dooley.")

The Scottish families who settled primarily in Williamsburg County in present
day South Carolina low country are the most famous South Carolina preparers
of Vinegar and Pepper barbeque. The most prominent present day Scottish barbeque
family is probably the Brown family, but there is also McKenzie, Scott, McCabe
and many others who have remained, like the German families, true to their heritage.
This simple Vinegar and Pepper sauce is the first, and therefore the oldest,
of the South Carolina basting sauces.

The third type of sauce found in South Carolina, in terms of the evolution
of sauces, is Light Tomato sauce. This sauce is (or was) little more than Vinegar
and Pepper with tomato ketchup added. This occurred after tomato ketchup became
a readily available condiment around the turn of the last century; that is,
around 1900. It was a simple thing to take the tried and true Vinegar and Pepper
and add some ketchup, which brought a little sweetness and other spices to the
mix. That style of sauce is most famous in North Carolina in the Piedmont region
of which Lexington, North Carolina, is the acknowledged barbeque center. It
is also popular in the upper middle part of South Carolina and in the South
Carolina Pee Dee region which is the upper coastal plain area of the state.

The fourth sauce in South Carolina and, for that matter, the rest of the nation,
is Heavy Tomato sauce. This sauce has evolved only recently, that is, in the
last sixty or so years, and it's the last of the four major types. It has spread
rapidly over the majority of the nation due to modern transportation, modern
marketing, and the insatiable sweet tooth of the modern American.

Heavy Tomato sauce is most often seen in the type of sauce popularized by Kraft
Foods and it is found on every store shelf, thanks to the miracle of twentieth
century motorized transportation. It and its newer cousin, Kansas City Masterpiece
and its many imitators, is the type of sauce that most Americans think of as
barbeque sauce.

As more and more Americans heard about barbeque they wanted to have some for
themselves. Since they had no real background in the preparation of real barbeque
they were easily sold the idea that the "barbeque" sauce they had
seen on TV and found at the local supermarket was just the thing they needed
to do the job. And while a heavy tomato sauce is a legitimate type of sauce,
it is almost always used by the average American incorrectly, that is, slathered
over various meats that have been grilled over high heat.

The most unfortunate thing is that those Americans who live far away from the
initial area where barbeque was first introduced by the native Indians to Europeans
colonists (South Carolina) and who, therefore, don't really have any historic
connection to the earliest barbeque, are actually being mislead into thinking
they are eating real barbeque. Regrettably, they are missing out on the true
original and the very best types of genuine barbeque.

Another casualty of American television is the confusion over just what barbeque
is. Hints to its true nature, however, can sometimes be found in the use of
the word "barbeque" in the language. It has become popular to say
that barbeque is a noun and not a verb. Well, barbeque is, most properly, used
as a noun that refers to a specific thing but sometimes it can also be used
as a transitive verb.

Unfortunately, most Americans who live outside of the South in general and
North and South Carolina in particular, use it as a verb or, if they use it
as a noun, use it incorrectly. Midwesterners or Yankees will say to friends,
"I'm going to barbeque some hamburgers tonight." Or they will say,
"Let's put some brats on the barbeque and break out some beer." And
while everyone will be having a great time sitting around in the smoke, the
use of the word in that way is incorrect. That neighbor is going to grill some
hamburgers, not barbeque them. The cooker he is going to cook them on should
be called a grill, not a barbeque.

The second proper use of the word, the transitive verb usage, can sometimes
be seen in such usage as the term "barbequed chicken" or "barbequed
beef." It is common to barbeque various meats with beef and chicken being
probably the most usual but real barbeque can including lamb, turkey, goat and
even possum and other exotic creatures. But those animals are termed "barbequed
(insert the name of the animal)" where the term "barbequed" in
that usage is a transitive verb describing the way the animal was cooked.

The incorrect use of the term barbeque on television, in movies and in magazines
which is, more often than not, written or spoken by people who know nothing
about real barbeque, has led to the misconception, for instance, that beef is
barbeque. It's not. Don't forget, barbeque is more specifically a noun, a specific
thing, and that specific thing is pork, not beef or fish, or beaver, or shrimp
or anything else. It's quite possible to barbeque beef; tens of thousands of
people out west do it all the time. And it's oftentimes delicious. But it's
"barbequed beef" not barbeque. The term barbeque is always properly
reserved for pork.

Indeed, it was the Spanish who first introduced the pig into the Americas and
to the American Indians. The Indians, in turn, introduced the Spanish to the
concept of true slow cooking with smoke. So, in that first fateful coming together,
way back in the 1500s, the Spanish supplied the pig and the Indians showed them
how to cook it. That is when authentic barbeque was first eaten.

The first true colony in the Americas, by the way, was in South Carolina. The
very first Spanish adventurers that one reads about in the history books were
actually Conquistadores, bent on gold and conquest, not on colonizing. The Spanish
colonists, who came only slightly later but still in the early 1500s, came to
South Carolina and they named their colony Santa Elena. It was established in
the area that we now call Port Royal in Beaufort County. That colony lasted
almost 20 years and it boasted a fort with several cannons, a church, a bakery,
blacksmith foundry and shop, a pottery kiln and nearly 500 colonists including
over 100 families. It was in that first American colony that the white man first
learned to prepare and to eat real barbeque. So, people were eating barbeque
in South Carolina even before that name had been applied to the area by the
English.

If one wants to experience all four of America's styles of barbeque there is
only one state in the nation where that can be done - South Carolina. The true
barbeque aficionado can not say that he has completed his barbeque quest without
a visit to South Carolina where the art of barbeque was invented and where it
is still practiced in both its purest tradition and its most diverse styles.

So, y'all come to South Carolina and eat barbeque with the people who know
the most about it and have the longest history of preparing it. There is a great
culinary adventure waiting in store for you in South Carolina.

These two Theodore de Bry engravings below, which were copied from Jacques
le Moyne drawings made in the 1500s, show two views of Native American cooking.
These two drawings, and many others in a similar vane, were often found in the
grammar school and high school history books we used back in the 1940s, 50s
and 60s. Please remember that the Frenchman le Moyne had to redraw most of his
work from memory after the Spanish burned Fort Caroline the French fort in the
mid 1500s. These drawings may not be perfect but they are, nevertheless, the
best depictions we have of early Indian life.

The first drawing below shows Indians cooking with low heat and lots of smoke.
Note that the food to be barbequed is deliberately placed high and away from
the hottest source of the heat.

This drawing was often referred to as an "Indians smoking meat" by
publishers and historians who were unfamiliar with true barbeque. But note that
the source of heat in this first drawing is such that the heat source is clearly
hotter than in a true "smoking" process. Also, in smoking, the meat
being smoked is cut away from the animal. Smoking is such a slow process that
whole animals cannot be smoked all at once or the interior would spoil. In barbeque
the animal is often cooked whole as we do in "whole hog" barbeque
today.

(Also note that Europeans were fascinated by alligators and La Moyne put them
in as many of his drawings as he could, even if he did make them look like large
lizards.)

There is only a very fine line between "smoking meat" and barbeque
and that line is temperature. Smoke houses, which were common on every farm
up until the 1940s, used a fair amount of smoke but only a very low heat. In
a smoke house, smoke is the thing and the temperature inside of the smoke house
is quite low compared to barbeque. Smoking meat takes days and days.

In barbequing temperature plays a larger role. Barbeque requires a temperature
of between 210 to 250 degrees over a period of 10 to 20 hours (or more depending
on the meat being cooked). In barbeque, cooking time is shorter and temperatures
higher than "smoking."

Note that Native Americans as depicted by La Moyne also cooked their food directly
over a high source of heat when needed. Native Americans used high heat when
it was called for but they had also learned the art of true barbeque, which
was lower heat over a longer period of time and the use of smoke as an airborne
marinade. They, of course, also knew how to use even less heat than in barbeque
over longer periods of time when they preserved their meat by the "smoking"
method.

Smoke Ring!

Smoke Ring in Barbeque Meats
How to Get That Coveted Pink Ring With Your Cooking
by Joe Cordray

Slow cooked barbecue meats often exhibit a pink ring around the outside edge of the product. This pink ring may range from 1/8 inch to 1/2 inch thick. In beef the ring is a reddish-pink and in pork, chicken and turkey it is bright pink. This pink ring is often referred to as a "smoke ring" and is considered a prized attribute in many barbecue meats, especially barbecue beef briskets. Barbecue connoiseurs feel the presence of a smoke ring indicates the item was slow smoked for a long period of time. Occasionally consumers have mistakenly felt that the pink color of the smoke ring meant the meat was undercooked. To understand smoke ring formation you must first understand muscle pigment.

Myoglobin is the pigment that gives muscle its color. Beef muscle has more pigment than pork muscle thus beef has a darker color than pork. Chicken thighs have a darker color than chicken breast thus chicken thigh muscle has more muscle pigment (myoglobin) than chicken breast tissue. A greater myoglobin concentration yields a more intense color. When you first cut into a muscle you expose the muscle pigment in its native state, myoglobin. In the case of beef, myoglobin has a purplish-red color. After the myoglobin has been exposed to oxygen for a short time, it becomes oxygenated and oxymyoglobin is formed. Oxymyoglobin is the color we associate with fresh meat. The optimum fresh meat color in beef is bright cherry red and in pork bright grayish pink. If a cut of meat is held under refrigeration for several days, the myoglobin on the surface becomes oxidized. When oxymyoglobin is oxidized it becomes metmyoglobin. Metmyoglobin has a brown color and is associated with a piece of meat that has been cut for several days. When we produce cured products we also alter the state of the pigment myoglobin. Cured products are defined as products to which we add sodium nitrate and/or sodium nitrite during processing. Examples of cured products are ham, bacon, bologna and hotdogs. All of these products have a pink color, which is typical of cured products. When sodium nitrite is combined with meat the pigment myoglobin is converted to nitric oxide myoglobin which is a very dark red color. This state of the pigment myoglobin is not very stable. Upon heating, nitric oxide myoglobin is converted to nitrosylhemochrome, which is the typical pink color of cured meats.

When a smoke ring develops in barbecue meats it is not because smoke has penetrated and colored the muscle, but rather because gases in the smoke interact with the pigment myoglobin. Two phenomenon provide evidence that it is not the smoke itself that causes the smoke ring. First, it is possible to have a smoke ring develop in a product that has not been smoked and second, it is also possible to heavily smoke a product without smoke ring development.

Most barbecuers use either wood chips or logs to generate smoke when cooking. Wood contains large amounts of nitrogen (N). During burning the nitrogen in the logs combines with oxygen (O) in the air to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Nitrogen dioxide is highly water-soluble. The pink ring is created when NO2 is absorbed into the moist meat surface and reacts to form nitrous acid. The nitrous acid then diffuses inward creating a pink ring via the classic meat curing reaction of sodium nitrite. The end result is a "smoke ring" that has the pink color of cured meat. Smoke ring also frequently develops in smokehouses and cookers that are gas-fired because NO2 is a combustion by-product when natural gas or propane is burned.

Let's review the conditions that would help to contribute to the development of a smoke ring. Slow cooking and smoking over several hours. This allows time for the NO2 to be absorbed into and interact with the meat pigment.

Maintain the surface of the meat moist during smoking. NO2 is water-soluble so it absorbs more readily into a piece of meat that has a moist surface than one which has a dry surface. Meats that have been marinated tend to have a moister surface than non-marinated meats. There are also a couple of ways that you can help to maintain a higher humidity level in your cooker; 1. Do not open and close the cooker frequently. Each time you open it you allow moisture inside to escape. 2. Put a pan of water on your grill. Evaporation from the water will help increase humidity inside the cooker.

Generate smoke from the burning of wood chips or wood logs. Since NO2 is a by-product of incomplete combustion, green wood or wetted wood seems to enhance smoke ring development. Burning green wood or wetted wood also helps to increase the humidity level inside the cooker.

A high temperature flame is needed to create NO2 from nitrogen and oxygen. A smoldering fire without a flame does not produce as much NO2. Consequently, a cooker that uses indirect heat generated from the burning of wood typically will develop a pronounced smoke ring. Have fun cooking. A nice smoke ring can sure make a piece of barbecued meat look attractive.

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog. I looovvve to cook, grill, BBQ and smoke. I will post pics and recipes and anything else that I like here. Hope you check back often!

I live in Carson City, NV. I BBQ year-round! Blizzard?? No problem! Hail? No problem!

If you have comments or suggestions please post away!

I added a few previous posts from some forums I belong to. Hope you like 'em!

- Tony M