House of Jorob

Grilling II: The First Weekend

I didn't think the chicken would catch fire.

Grilling I: Bringin Home the Char-Broil

I bought my grille at Lowes.

It's a Char-Broil.

Two burner thing, didn't cost me a hundred bucks.

I figure if I still suck at this after a year, I'm not out that much money.

The adventure started when I tried to take the thing home.

Lowes offered to put the thing together for me.

If I wanted to wait three days.

I didn't.

It just so happened that my model was also out on the flat, chained up with a bunch of other grilles on display.

I opted to take one of them with me.

Until I opened my trunk.

I drive a Saturn sedan.

Oops.

Unbolt the grille from the cart.

Put the grille on the back seat.

Oops.

Detach the wheels from the cart.

Unbolt the base legs from the upper legs.

Oops.

I hadn't counted on the wings.

The side trays were permanently attached.

Unbolt the brackets supporting the wi--

Duh.

I'm buying an assembled grille because I don't want to put one together.

Right now my car looks like a parts-pile.

The sales guy knew where I was going before I started pulling the pieces of the pre-assembled grille out of my car.

"The box is a lot smaller," he said. "I'll have one brought out for you."

The box fit on the back seat, with room for Little Boy.

For a couple of hours, my front porch looked like a construction zone.

But the grille went together really easy.

The fasteners--and there were a bunch of them-- were all together on one card, with clear identification on the back of each blister.

And the identification on the card matched the naming in the assembly instructions.

I tested the thing today, attaching Little Boy and then firing up the grille after a leak test.

Blue flame all around the burners.

Elation.

Bring on the hot dogs.

What, I'm going to risk steak at this stage of my grilling career?

That Glow on the Horizon? That's my Dinner!

Put that fire extinguisher away.

I haven't started yet.

But I will.

I have to.

Grilling For Dummies showed up back around the December holidays.

I unwrapped it thinking it was something else.

Like a toy.

Or a game.

I didn't own a grille at the time.

There's a reason for that.

I suck at cooking over an open fire.

There's no burner knobs on a hibachi.

My idea of temperature control is not raising and lowering the food so its closer to the coals.

I burn marshmallows, for god's sake.

Put them on a stick.

Put the stick over the fire.

Torch.

Now I own a grille.

But I'm not playing around with charcoal.

No sir.

Got me a gas tank looks like Little Boy.

Only smaller.

And white.

With a valve.

I start burning things next weekend.

Donuts. Tea. Solve the Energy Crunch.

I'm not a big fan of powdered-sugar doughnuts.

You get that white stuff all over everything.

I prefer a glazed doughnut.

Or a chocolate doughnut.

But when I have to power my house, well....

There's nothing like a dozen powdered-sugar doughnuts.

It's all about the Titanium Oxide.

And the tea?

It's purple.

And very tasty.

Grad students are wonderful creatures.

Video is here.

Bankrupt Contaminated-Peanut Butter Outfit Stops Talking to Customers

Peanut Corporation of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in US bankruptcy court in Virginia on February 13.

Nothing more is shipping from the company's Texas plant as of February 12. Georgia's been down for a while, now.

The filing screws up January recall instructions issued by PCA, wherein PCA said they were contacting customers who received recalled stuff.

Now they can't do that--their assets are controlled by a bankruptcy trustee.

Doors locked.

Phones down.

Internet pipes closed.

So the only way to figure out if your plant has bought or already manufactured product using contaminated product is via the FDA's Peanut Product Recalls website page.

Which is, thankfully, updated daily. See the neat little widget I've tacked on to this post--it'll update daily. Click on SHARE and you should see the code you need to plant this thing on your own sites.

This disaster is ingredient-based.

So, as we've read, watched, or heard in all the December and January news stories, it's potentially everywhere.

We're halfway through February, and the wave of recalls has not stopped.

Just about every one of the alerts here since January involve PCA ingredient contamination.

It's scary.

Trader Joe's, Wegman's, Kroger, General Mills....the list goes on.

It's gotten into the pet food supply chain.

Dog biscuits.

If you handle contaminated pet food and forget to wash your hands, you're at risk.

Before your pet gets sick.

And it is currently out of the media spotlight.

So I figure I'd do my part to return the light, so to speak.

Visit the FDA site here.

Don't waste your time with the Peanut Corporation site. They shipped ingredients, remember?

Unless you're wondering about that 1,700 pound case lot of peanut paste you bought off the back of a truck last month....

The product list is here. Or use the quicklist, below.

FDA Product Recall List

Charlie Brown's Steakhouse

I usually express one of two opinions about restaurant food.

Mmmmm. Food good.

or

You mean I have to eat this?

So I rarely write about restaurants.

I really, really like Charlie Brown's.

The one on Baltimore Pike, in Springfield.

And not just for the food.

Which falls on the Food good side of the equation.

The service is outstanding.

Each time Jill and I eat there, we are attended to, not smothered.

Nor ignored.

The waitstaff know how to flip tables, too.

Not that flipping tables matters to whether or not I enjoy a meal.

It's just fun to watch.

We timed them one night, over a break in the dinner conversation.

The table near us had a party of four.

Full meal, bottles of wine. dessert.

They left.

Bang.

Table bussed, reset, and chairs straightened.

One minute, fourteen seconds.

Oh sure, I could write a bunch of superlatives about the high quality of the food.

Or the plate-filling portions.

Like I said, Food good.

But a waitstaff that knows what they're doing?

Hard to find, even in the expensive places.

Tomato Logic

Brandywine tomatoes need at least eight hours of full sun during their growing season, according to all the accomplished gardeners I know.

I have seven. 

Oops.

I could have sworn that I had more than eight back there, behind the house. In fact, I knew I had at least that many.

And I confirmed it when I pulled out my sunlight-chart.

Every three days I noted sunlight-lines and shadow. For a full growing season, just to be sure.

And there it was.

Clearly calculated.

Between eight and a half and nine hours, forty minutes.

Hah!

Um.

In 1996.

Funny how trees leaf out over the years.

The difference coming up short makes?

A ton of green tomatoes that stay green until the damn vines get tired and snap while snaking across the top of the cage.

Except for the beauties that are ripening NOW.

All three of them.

I have a fresh jar of mayo waiting in the fridge.

Those Darn Endcaps

I do a lot of shopping at BJ's.

Good prices on bulk purchases, not too much gas burned to get to the store, the occasional amazing bargain.

Been shopping there for over six years.

So imagine my surprise when, for the first time ever, I ran into a bar-code that didn't scan like the price said it would.

July 25.

Fruit-20 and DeerPark.

Cases were stacked on the endcaps for both, with big signs.

But the prices in the aisles, where these normally are found (and still were in addition to the endcap stacks) were fifty cents higher per case on the Kraft Foods product, and a dime more on the Deer Park.

I made a note of it on the way to the register, just in case.

Good thing I did.

The cashier had trouble understanding that she needed to call over a manager to void the items, but she eventually got it. The manager seemed to know what I was talking about--she grumbled a bit about that being the second round of endcaps that didn't match the aisles that day. She says she'll take care of it, and I go on my way having paid the right price--the lower one.

That was it until it happened again this past weekend.

Same damn thing.

End caps priced half a buck cheaper than the aisle, and the register ringing the higher price.

This time I didn't want to wait while they ran back to check my honesty.

I had photos.

Good thing I'm used to people looking at me funny.

Seeing as how this weekend's manager was just as "surprised" as the last one was about the differences in the posted prices and the register, I thought I'd send BJ's customer service the link to this blog post.

Hey, I can use the traffic.

July 25's receipt (above)

August 8's receipt (above)

Cole Slaw

Earlier this month, my daughter Jess shot me a text asking for my mother's cole slaw recipe.

Mom's not too terribly forthcoming when she chooses to be (the topics that invite this reluctance seem to be random). Recipes being one of them, I stopped asking for this one after the third reminder in a week.

And got to thinking--growing up, the kids had been crazy for this stuff--every holiday, if we were heading to their house, one or the other kid would get on the phone and ask Mom to make it for the meal. Didn't matter if the meal wasn't one that featured cole slaw.

And I know Jess had me ask for that recipe before....as in, when we all lived together. And back then, when Mom was actually making the slaw (these days her arthritis stimies a lot of long-term activities, like chopping) I remembered I had actually sat in the kitchen while she made it, and wrote it down.

All I had to do was find a 15-year old piece of notebook paper.

Somewhere in the house.

I spend three days looking for the thing in my spare time.

On the fourth day, I mention my challenge to my wife.
She thought for a second, then said, "I think I have that sheet with my recipes."

Fifteen minutes later I have my Slaw sheet.

After sharing it with Jess, I thought I'd share it here, too.

Like with any other pass-down recipe, Mom never committed to exact measurements, but this was what was extracted from Mom over time. Neither did Grandmom, with whom this originated, near as I can tell.

Best way is to make some batches and see what works out best. She was very clear about the two drops of vinegar, though. Basically, the way I was shown was you pour the vinegar into the bottle's cap, and then drip from the cap into the mixing bowl. This keeps things under control. Unless you have an eyedropper handy.

1 head of cabbage, shredded
1/4 tsp salt (you may want to scale that back a bit for the first time)
2 drops vinegar
minced spanish onion (I have no notation here, but this is a mild onion
so I'm thinking you could work with pinches from a teaspoon)
pepper (pinch, adjust to taste over time)
mayo (3 or 4 tblsp to start, adjust to creaminess preference)
1 tbsp milk

That's it.