Almost Half-Way

This is the time of year when we've been in the thick of it, catering-wise for a good solid 6 weeks. We start to get edgy. Morale breaks down. Pizza is ordered. A lot of pizza is ordered. I have a back log of posts and recipes that would be lovely to share, that would take me 30 minutes to an hour tops, but I just don't have it! Yet. I see a window coming next week.

So I'm simply going to share a few photos of gigs we've catered. I notoriously don't take pictures. I even bought a new fancy phone that takes wonderful pictures, but catering shots really look best before the guests go through the line, and that is a caterer's crunch time. I don't have time to lollygag around, snapping food shots.

Here are just a few moments I had to quickly capture the moment:



Our booth at the South Sound BBQ Festival.



Pig cookies with bacon-maple frosting.

Pulled Pork, Smoked & Grilled Chicken and Elaine!

Slaw. Gotta have slaw.

Amidst it all we catered my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Shockingly we didn't serve barbecue. Here are some lovely crostini with herbed goat cheese and roasted peppers.

NPR Seattle Interview 9:30am this morning!

Please tune in to KUOW 94.09 from 9:30am to 10am today! Host Steve Scher will be talking to me and others about grillin' like a pro for the 4th of July. We'll be answering questions from callers and talking all things barbecue, of course. KUOW is the local NPR station and I'm excited to be a part of the show.

Right after the interview I have to run back to the shop, bang out a big ol' payroll, and gear up for a little 800 person catering tomorrow that leaves at 6am. This of course is followed by the 4th of July, which means lots of big pick up orders. Thankfully we have family in town who are being our village and watching the kids for most of the next three days.

I can't help thinking of this interview as a break, because I will be forced to stop, give total focus for about an hour, and do lots of deep breathing to keep calm. Is that weird?

Hope you can listen, and if I don't get back to the blog, Happy Fourth of July!

Salmon on the Grill

The salmon are running! Now is the perfect time to throw luscious wild salmon on the grill. What are the two most important things about grilling fish? Oil the fish, and grill it flesh side first! Now get out there and buy one of the early runners - Sockeye or Chinook (red or silver) and grill up some of the best food on the planet.

Her first batch of pig candy

This is my daughter's first batch of pig candy (yes, even a 3 yr old can make it). Since I really have nothing to offer in the way of innovation to this recipe (brown sugar, spice, bacon, maple sugar halfway through if you are so inclined), I offer cute.

Totally cute.

Five Questions

I just sent out five questions to five ladies I get the honor of spending Thursday with talking about grilling and barbecue. Many of them are on the PTA at my son's school and bid on my "Ladies Barbecue Lesson & Dinner" auction item to raise funds for all those "extra" educational opportunities like art, music, and science lab.    They volunteer far more time than I do, but this was a way I could contribute. It's also a way I could give back and drink wine at the same time. So win/win.

I love teaching people about grilling and barbecue, especially beginners. Because I'm not sure of the skill level of these five ladies, I sent out these questions to get a sense of what to cover in the lesson.

So here they are. Admittedly #5 isn't a true question. What would your answers be?

1) Tell me a little about your grilling experience. Don't worry if your answer is "never". Are you comfortable on the grill, tentative but willing, think that it will blow up at any moment, or a seasoned (almost) pro?

2) What do you have in your backyard: gas, charcoal, both, or neither?

3) What do you most want to learn? 

4) Are you more interested in grilling or smoking slow and low, or a little of both?

5) And finally, red or white?

"4 R" Easy Baby Back Ribs (CAW! CAW!)

Baby back ribs are a favorite of mine because they get the highest compliment rating for the least amount of work. For you acronym junkies, that's a high CAW rating (Compliment to Amount of Work). Yes, I just made that up, but maybe someday recipes the world over will include a little graph noting its CAW rating.

Here's the formula:
Rip 'em
Rub 'em
Rack 'em
Regulate 'em

Simple. You only have to remember four R's. Seriously every time I make baby back ribs at a party, people go nuts and all I can think of is how easy it was compared to anything else on the barbecue scale. Sure, smoked chicken thighs are something a 4-year old, were she allowed to play with fire, could do, but nobody cares about chicken thighs. And subsequently, they don't get a high CAW rating.

I'll explain the R's....

1) Rip 'em: Rip off the membrane. This is important for ribs, but especially baby back ribs. The membrane is chewy, and some say can inhibit the smoke penetration. It's mostly men that talk about smoke penetration, though, you know? But I digress...To remove the membrane is really easy. It's on the bone side of the ribs. Take a spoon or knife and get a little piece of it separated. With a paper towel, pull it off.

2) Rub 'em: Use the rub of your choice. As you can see, I've used my cocoa bliss rub on these ribs. A shameless plug for my book. Yes the recipe is in there.

3) Rack 'em: For multiple racks, stack them sideways in a rib rack. I like to place them in every other slot so there is maximum...um, smoke penetration.

4) Regulate 'em: Admittedly a bit of a mouthful, but the most important of the four steps. Keep a constant 250 degrees for about 2-2.5 hours. How do you do this? Make a slow and low fire, indirect, and keep the damn lid closed! If you are cooking on gas, and no judgement there, maintaining a constant temperature will be pretty simple. 250 is a little higher than I recommend for most barbecue, but baby backs don't need as low temperatures as a brisket or spares. They don't have as much tough connective tissue. I find that 250 is the sweet spot temperature for them. And as you know, if you've been paying attention, my baby backs always get a high CAW rating.

Now a few things that didn't fit into my neat little formula were wood chips or chunks and a finishing sauce at the end. To explain. Wood chips: Yes, do that. Create some smoke. If you are cooking on charcoal you won't need as much as with gas. Finishing sauce: Brush on your favorite sauce in the last 30 minutes of cooking.

How do you know when they are done? I like the bend test the best. Racks should bend easily without falling apart.

That's it! Now it is sharing time. What dishes do you make that give you a high CAW rating?

You Can Pickle That...Oh Portlandia, how I love thee.

I'm about to start chopping a case of pickles, because we are down to our last little bit of the huge batch I made last month. To procrastinate for a moment, I leave you with this bit from Portlandia. I love this show. I live inside this show. Seattle may not be Portland, but we are definitely kin.

You lose some, you lose some, you gain plenty.

So you've seen the setting of Serenbe in my last post, where I joined a group of food bloggers and Char-Broil execs to talk about the science of infrared grills, and to have fun cooking on them. After our more formal meeting, they teamed us up for a "Chopped-esc" grilling competition. Did my teammate Kurt and I win? No. Did I win two years ago at the Char-Broil Barbecue Smackdown at Memphis in May? No.

And I'm OK with that. Cooking under pressure with unknown ingredients is not my strength. That's Eric. He's like a piece of coal. The more pressure you put on him, the more tasty barbecue diamonds he churns out. Figuring out how much to cook for 50 or 2000 people, how to make the event a success, and how much it's all going to cost, this is where I shine. Still, everyone likes to win, right?

I consoled myself that the judges at least loved our Grilled Fennel Salad with Bacon & Bleu Cheese. It was really good. But afterward, when I went to have a taste of our grilled chicken roll, and saw that it was a little on the rare side, I wondered if they weren't just being nice.

I intend to repeat the same salad at home, under pressure-free conditions, and let my biggest critics, my family, give it a shot. They'll shoot straight with me. They won't sugar coat it one little bit. Sometimes I wish they might give me just a little sugar, but alas that is simply not how we roll at the Reinhardt residence.

Still, it wasn't about winning, it was about building relationships. Hangin' with fellow BBQ peeps was a blast. It was especially great to see my gal Danielle of Diva Q. We've been friends for years, virtually. I interviewed her in the book, and we tweet/facebook/e-mail, but this was our very first face to face meeting.

My other "roomie" was Catherine Mayhew, of The South In My Mouth. She simply rocks.

The boys were awesome too - Christo, David, Curt and Scott, as were our friends at Char-Broil.

So even though I lost...again, I came out ahead.

A Place Called Serenbe

I've spent the past two days grilling and talking with the folks from Char-Broil  about their infrared grills, and of course playing on them and making copious amounts of food. The group of cooks, writers, and grillin' fools I met felt like old friends after our first meal together.

Where we are, though, is a setting like no other. Pretty much anywhere you look is something you'd see in a magazine. It was hard not to take a picture of every wildflower or sign. I'll get to the cooking and the awesome people I met next, but it's important to give readers a sense of place at the beginning of a story. I'll let the photos do the talking....

Perfect Pork Chops

Pork chops growing up were always served with some sort of sauce. Apple sauce, gravy, anything to add some moisture into the dried hockey pucks on the plate.

But times have changed. You should be able to eat your chop without any dressing...if cooked properly. Here are a few tips for grilling a simple chop that can stand alone:

1) Rub a little olive oil into the chop and lightly season with sea salt and fresh pepper.

2) Preheat the grill fully. For gas, turn burners on high and close the lid for about 15 minutes. For a little smoke flavor, through some wood chips on the grill grates. When you return, turn one burner down to medium high, and turn one burner off for an indirect cooking space. You'll only need this if your chops are thick. These chops were cooked on the used the Char-Broil Quantum Infrared Grill.

3) Grill chops, depending on thickness, 5-7 minutes per side.

4) Pull chops off with some pink inside, about 130-140 degrees by the thermometer. The temperature will rise to the fairly new USDA recommendation of 145 degrees while they rest. The old recommendation was 160, which meant dry shoe leather.

5) Really do let them rest 5 minutes before cutting into them. Let those juices roll back into the meat, not on your plate, before you eat.

6. Serve without sauce and be proud of your perfect pork chops!

Spring Grilling Tips

It's time to move to your outdoor kitchen and grill 'til fall, y'all! I wrote a post for Char-Broil about my Favorite Five Outta Eleven Grilling Tips for the season! Yes, grilling and barbecue season is year-round, but when you live in Seattle, there is nothing like a spring day after a long winter of rain. Here is a teaser:

My Favorite Five Outta Eleven Grilling Tips

#1 GET YER STUFF TOGETHER! Have everything ready at your fingertips. Realizing at the moment your food is done that you don’t have a clean plate can ruin a meal. Being prepared will set you up for success.

Read the whole post here and enjoy the season!

Pickles!

I've been experimenting with pickles for the restaurant. We serve them on the small plates and with sandwiches. This new batch is very garlicky and spicy. I think in a good way. It's too early to tell. I've made a large batch of refrigerator pickles - hopefully a one month supply - and will can some of the batch tomorrow.

Canning is pretty new to me. I'm brining the cucumbers first overnight in pickling salt and ice (which will melt slowly and become the brine). This is a step I've never done before but word on the pickling street is that it keeps them crisper.

Anyone found this to be true? Any amazing pickle tips you want to share?

Pickling feels a lot like soapmaking to me. It's a similar rhythm. One I'm drawn to. It's basically the opposite rhythm of the firestorm of the line, which is my husband's realm. Hmmm. He's a fire sign. I'm a water sign.

So, if any of you are pickle people, please give me a holler!

A Dodge Dart, Tapestry Dress, and an Excel Spreadsheet

Every once in a while, I get antsy for the time when someone really couldn't reach me. You remember those days, don't you? Back when you could fit all your worldly possessions in a Dodge Dart. Sure, if that Dodge Dart happened to break down, which it did often on account of the gas gauge being broken, you had no way of getting a hold of anyone, and had to walk until you found an "emergency phone" that wasn't broken along a lonely stretch of highway. But at least you had your futon rolled up in the back seat, right? And the camp stove. And a really awesome tapestry that could be a wall hanging, a blanket, and a dress.

I may not miss the tapestry-bedspread-dress combo, because frankly I could never figure out how to tie that thing so that it wouldn't flap open inappropriately, but I do sometimes miss the freedom of not being wired.

So much so that I often put those dreams on paper. Well, actually in an Excel spreadsheet. I have spreadsheets of how we can sell it all and move to some remote location dating back to when I think they invented the Excel spreadsheet.

The problem is, once the dream of being completely independent of society gets put into the many columns and format-able cells of a spreadsheet, it almost begs one to insert numbers. Numbers like how one can make a living in the wilderness to make up for any lack of foraging, or the cost of a yurt with a deck and the additional snow load package. Then come the ideas like Eric could grow mushrooms in tire pots and sell them at farmer's markets and I could make and sell soap while writing a novel. (If you think that I simply made that up to be funny, I can show you the mushroom growing/soap selling spreadsheet of '97).

Once I go down that path, however, then I habitually start musing about what we'd call our little venture, which turns into branding, packaging, marketing strategies, websites and blogs, and finally, the employee Health Plan, CleanGrow. OK CleanGrow isn't on the spreadsheet, but you get the idea. It becomes what I already have, which sometimes means very plugged in, reachable, responsible, and unable to take a true day off.

So this month, I did write a number of spreadsheets, but they weren't about moving to the wilderness or spending a year studying turtles with the kids. They aren't quite old enough for that one anyway. I'm thinking middle school for the turtle venture. Anyway, the spreadsheets were about expanding the business in a way that fits with our growing family. I may poke fun of my ideas in a year, but it was good to reflect and hopefully make some decisions that make sense in the future.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to do some research. My spreadsheets almost always require research. R&D like they say up at Corporate. Eric just calls it my seasonal crazy, but as soon as I get my hands on a foot operated shrink wrapper I'm going to put some of those ideas in the sunshine, spread out on a sheet. A real sheet. Whether it's plain white or a tapestry design doesn't matter in this metaphor. I meant it as in I'm moving from the hypothetical to the actual. Sheesh. Get off my back for the poor execution of a literary device. And whatever, you haven't facebooked me in like forever.

Oh, and for those of you that googled about Dodge Darts, and found this post, my Dart in college was a 1970, slant six. Color of road dust so you never had to wash it. You like barbecue?

A Valentine like only a chef can give

I know what you think this post is going to be. You think this is going to be about the amazing dinner my husband the chef made for me.

Wrong.

Restaurant people don't do Valentine's Day. Or most holidays. We work them. Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, New, Year's Day, the Superbowl, weekends, weddings, summers...

It makes us a little jaded about holidays, which sometimes makes me sad because I like holidays. I love celebrations. I live for playing elf, cupid, bunny, and all the other secret creatures that bring songs, presents, tricks and treats.

Otherwise every day may as well be Tuesday. Mundane ol', school night, leftovers for dinner Tuesday.

So today, even thought he wasn't feeling it, and just wanted to go to TaeKwonDo, like he does every Tuesday, honey made me a flower. Made of hearts cut out of the chefware catalog.

Which he made into a card.

And I came in pissy with the groceries, thinking that he didn't do a thing, and didn't even see it at first because I plopped the bags right on top of the card.

Thank you, baby. You know just how to turn the B into a Be Mine.

Superbowl Party Recipe: Smoked "Reverse Popper" Wings

The big game is almost here! For those of you hosting a party, here is an easy and delicious twist on wings. It's simple; stuff wings with a mix of sausage and diced jalepenos, dust with rub and grill. What you get is a nice smoked wing with a little spicy surprise inside.

Recipe
Jumbo wings, 1 and 2 joint. As many as you want to make.

Diced jalepenos, canned. 1 small can goes a long way.

Sausage - your choice. I chose a sweet Italian. Factor 1 spoonful per wing.

Rub
1 part brown sugar
1 part mix of paprika, cumin, kosher salt, black pepper, and chili powder
(or use your favorite with added brown sugar. I liked the sweet contrasted with the heat).

Cut wings open slightly to make a little pocket for the mixture. Thoroughly mix the jalepenos with the sausage. Stuff a heaping spooful in each wing and "reclose". Dust with rub.

Make a hot grill with half indirect space. Grill first directly to sear and mark for 5 minutes on each side, then move to indirect heat with your lid down until done, approximately 20-30 minutes. It's important you use the big jumbo wings so they don't get overdone before the sausage is cooked.

Serve with hot sauce, barbecue sauce, or sweet-hot Thai chili sauce.

May your team win!

Superbowl Sunday: Can You Top a Meat Stadium?

I'm just about ready to post my little recipe of stuffed wings for Superbowl Sunday. I think they are great, but then this came across my virtual desk. Some guy named Mikey over at Char-broil is making a MEAT STADIUM. That's right, a panorama, a model, a not-so-small-miniature of a football stadium, made entirely out of meat.

I can't imagine, frankly, where one finds space in one's brain to think and execute a meat stadium, but we all have different abilities, don't we?

To see it, complete with football-esc diagrams, click here.

National BBQ Association Conference coming up

Hey fellow West coasters, the NBBQA conference and trade show is in San Diego, CA this year. It's coming right up - February 22-25. I'm tempted to go, but don't know if I can get away. Restaurants and young 'uns tend to tie one down a bit. Still, looks like they will have some excellent sessions, like getting your sauces and rubs to the market, and how to keep profitable during this recession. Good no matter where one is in the process, plus plenty of fun.

Anyone going? Anyone been in the past? I think my desire to go is in part for some sunshine, but also for some face to face barbecue community time. You all know, if you've paid attention, that I am wishy washy about the social media business. I take breaks, to my "brands" detriment perhaps, but life's too short to worry too much about that. I'll choose real time contact over on-line contact just about any time. 

So...any chance any of y'all I gab with on facebook and twitter going?

Hello Snow!

The wood pile is ready for making fires after sledding. That is a perk to owning a barbecue restaurant - an everlasting supply of wood. Sure, using up our nicely seasoned cherry wood for firewood isn't economical, but this might be our only true snow day all winter. And frankly, the mobile smoker isn't getting much action right now so we might as well use some of those sticks sitting in the shed.

For those of you laughing at our paltry Seattle 2-3 inches, and the fact that schools got out yesterday because of a "threat of snow", check out the snowman we made the previous day at the park. We call him Wood Chip Man. If you look closely you might be able to discern the face made out of wood chips, as opposed to the wood chips that were picked up in the rolling.

By the way, Smokin' Pete's BBQ is open today. Come in to warm up with some barbecue.

See ya, 2011

Awesome axe kick snagged from this website

I don't think I've ever heard someone say, "Oh, if only this year could last forever," have you? No matter how wonderful your year may have been, it's always time, isn't it, for a new year to begin. 2011 has not been a favorite year for many of us. I heard a commentator say the other night that the theme of 2011 is "When will it ever end?"

Instead of champagne this year, I'm planning on sending off 2011 with an axe kick. Then I may imbibe in some bubbly.

I'll make sure to eat my collard greens and black eyed peas too for a good dose of health and prosperity for 2012.

Happy New Year everyone!

"Fish Friday" Cedar Wrapped Ling Cod

Here's my post on the Char-Broil Live site about cooking Ling Cod in The Big Easy. What I loved about making this dish? It was super fast and delicious. It's also simple. During the slog of holiday dinners, parties, and platters of cheese, it's nice to have a simpler dinner here and there. This dish is heavy on the flavor but light everywhere else.

Read the whole post here (please) and if so inspired, throw me a comment here or on the Char-broil site. I do so love to hear from y'all.