Third Smoke PS: The Charcuterie

I have this really cool High-Powered Italian Meat Thrower. It spins up a stainless steel disc, and uses that to launch pieces of meat at high speed the length of my kitchen. Imagine a baseball pitching machine, but with meat. Anyway, a really neat side effect is that to propel the meat, it first cuts a thin slice of it. So as long as I take the necessary precautions, I can set it up and use it [in a clearly unintended way] as a slicer. It's easily powerful enough to handle things which normal consumer-grade slicers can have trouble with, such as bacon.

So I fired it up and did some slicing today. The bacon and duck breast "ham" I had in the smoker the other day. The bacon was really nice. Fried up crispy and very tasty. The duck breast exceeded expectations, and expectations were high. Intend to make both again.

Third Smoke

Fired up the smoker and tried a few more things today:

• a couple of beef short ribs
• a slab of beef (chuck, maybe)
• a smallish piece of pork belly that I'd cured for a week using the maple bacon cure from Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie
• the 3 ribs I'd trimmed off the pork belly prior to curing it
• 2 duck breasts and 2 goose breasts, cured using the "duck breast ham" cure from Charcuterie

The beef was rubbed with salt, black pepper, cayenned. The ribs got a dusting of the sweet rub I'd made for the inaugural smoking. No rub needed for the bacon or waterfowl.

All turned out well so far. The duck breast was the surprise hit -- had some warm and it was excellent. Supposedly it's better chilled and thinly sliced, so we'll see. The bacon needs to be chilled, then sliced, then fried, so verdict on that yet to come. The beef was really good. Getting closer to tackling a whole brisket.

As heavy as it is, the smoker is easy to move. This is on initial startup as it's getting up to temp. It's smokier at this stage than the photo shows. Big smoke on startup for a couple minutes but then it really settles down. The lower the temp, the more smoke, although even at lowish cooking temps of around 100C or so, it's not that smokey. Smells nice.

duck, duck, goose [goose]

oh yeah, the beef! & a sweet potato I threw in there the last hour after pre-heating for a couple minutes in the microwave

Olympic Party's Over

The Olympics are over. Women's Modern Pentathlon, the last event, finished a while ago, and the Closing Ceremony is coming up. It's been incredible. Exceeding expectations beyond plausibility. The weather's been glorious, the performances have been spectacular, the coverage has been fantastic, the city-wide mood has ranged from cheerful to jubilant, and London put up as distinctive and supportive a show as anyone could have dreamt.

BBC v NBC
What a difference a letter makes. US coverage apparently horrific. BBC, on the other hand, broadcast every sport live in HD. Every event. Live. On the TV and on the internets. I didn't need the streaming internet because I've got a perfectly good TV but I did check it out and it worked just fine. The commentors were uniformly good. Enthusiastic homers without falling into simple-minded jingoism. Charmingly engaged. The experts they had on with them actually added to the enjoyment rather than detracted from it. American commentators who joined, such as the legendary sprinter Michael Johnson, were insightful and engaging. It's like being on the set with the British journalists adds 20 IQ points, whereas on a US sports panel everyone competes to say the dumbest and most obvious thing. This was 21st-century coverage with just the right tone. Brilliant. Live sports covered this way provided both a sense of place and a communal experience. Gold medal for the BBC.



The Weather
My current hypothesis is that LOCOG built a top-secret weather control lab and turned it over to the resurrected corpse of Nikola Tesla and the guy who came up with the idea of landing a mars probe using a rocket-powered sky crane. That is the only possible explanation for two weeks of such nice weather in England in the summer.

The Sports & The Support
Well, I loved it. I'd gone native and fully supported TeamGB. Not that I wasn't in awe of Phelps's retirement, but the UK athletes were just wonderful. Gracious and grateful to a fault, they provided more glory and thrills than anyone had a right to expect. I watched as much as I good. Track cycling is a favorite, along with swimming of course, road cycling, bmx, mountain biking, a bit of judo (incomprehensible), fencing (likewise, even though I fenced sabre for one year in college), plenty of athletics, and many, many more. Part of the delight of the olympics should be seeing lots of sports your normally wouldn't get to see, all being delivered at world-class level. Thanks, BBC, for making that happen.

The performances were often thrilling. GB got so many more golds than anyone expected. Olympic fever? US sportswriter Bill Simmons wrote about the middle weekend in with Jess Ennis won the Heptathlon in champion's style by crushing the field in the final 800m even though she didn't need to in order to win, describing the 80,000 in the stadium as "totally, completely and irrevocably losing their shit." It's like every venue was competing to see which could produce the most deafening roar. Along with Jess, Mo Farah's two golds in the stadium were ear-bleedingly loud. The velodrome, in my vote the most spectacular of the venues, produced crushing walls of noise time after time, despite the relatively small capacity. (And if you're unmoved by Chris Hoy's final lap, ending with a guard of honour from all of British Cycling's track coaches and support team, well, I can't help you.) Not to be outdone, the Excel Centre was "bonkers" for women's boxing. Seemingly the entire cycling road time trial course was lined with several hundred thousand people. There was a big crowd for open-water swimming! And the marathon loop had spectators several deep along almost the entire course.

Many athletes, from all over, graciously sited the crowd support and enthusiasm. The UK athletes in particular were often overwhelmed. It will be hard to watch professional sports after this, played by people who take that level of support for granted.


The City
London was gorgeous. Equestrian cross country through Greenwich Park. Beach Volleyball setup on Horse Guards Parade. And the Olympic park, with wildflower gardens along the canals and river. All just beautiful. The transport worked! The tube had a couple record days. But regulars seemed to spread their day out, so the big rush hour peaks got flattened and spread out. Not everything worked. The cycle hub in Victoria Park was completely unused. I don't think it ever went above maybe 5% capacity. I don't think anyone knew about it. It would have helped to have set it up weeks in advance, not a day, and to have gotten the signage for it right, rather than wrong, and to have advertised it better. Likewise the nearby Victoria Gate was nearly completely unused, even while masses were queuing in and out of the main Stratford Gate. I suspect the other 2 Gates were little used as well. Most visitors probably didn't even know that Stratford was not the only way in or out. But given the lack of catastrophe for the transport network as a whole, this is a minor complaint. A gold medalist took the DLR! Then the US men's basketball team actually took a train, an event so astonishing even the New Yorker covered it.

The live-viewing party in Victoria Park was huge and festive. The free venue had big screens, music stage, activities, and an unabashedly cheerful vibe. I loved the snatches of music floating in the window in between events. I loved hearing a roar for Mo's winning kick in the 5000m even more. Doesn't take much to get an East London crowd to enjoy themselves even with less spectacular excuses.


And Now
The big hangover. Tomorrow: work, rain, and no olympics. I've got a couple weeks to wallow in despair before going back to the Olympic Park for the Paralympics. The echos of these past two weeks will still be knocking around amongst the walkways and wildflowers, washing over the canals and the river valley. Then more stretching of the limits of human achievement. And after that, well, a park, eventually, and that's it for a lifetime.

I've Started Smoking

Got a pellet smoker (GMG DB). Did my first cooking with it today: a chicken and a smallish pork shoulder for pulled pork. Used the same rub for both, my own cayennier variation on meathead's memphis dust. It was a big success, even with explaining to the neighbour that the garden was not burning down.

My sophisticated instrumentation arrangement.

A few hours in. Only 5 or 6 more hours to go.

Lunch: hot smoked chicken pulled off the bone and wrapped in romaine leaves.

pulled pork at the end of the day

New Paint!

It's like I'm a genius. Much improved!

badly needed refreshing of a previously banksyed wall

Please Paint Over This Thing

put it out of its misery

When the Banksy first appeared on the side of a building off Victoria Park Road, it was cute. It looked like this. I liked having it in the neighborhood. But if you're going to paint on someone else's building, you need to accept they can paint back over it whenever they want.


The view that these things should be enshrined and preserved is nonsensical. Painting over them actually improves their legacy. And would also likely increase the number of people who claim to have seen it in person by an order of magnitude or so.

For this particular work of cutesy stencilling, the wall itself aged, as they do. Eventually most of it got painted black, leaving just the painter. Of course, the thing no longer made sense. It worked as a whole with the pre-existing graffiti. Just the artist figure by itself is not particularly compelling. I was fine with painting over the whole thing when it still was a whole thing. Now, preserving just what's left is kind of dumb.

Which is why I was glad to see some scaffolding and some guys with scrapers out there. I hope they scrape and paint the whole thing. The painter's hand has already been scraped off, which is encouraging. Please keep going!

Which Glass: 85mm, 50mm, 35mm

Stepping down from BurgerWeek was hard. Was tempted to extend the week with another visit to Lucky Chip but resisted. Saturday made a big salad with roast chicken, eggs, roquefort, radishes, chives, gem lettuce, spinach, beetroot, romano peppers (fresh and roasted), tomatoes. Sunday salmon in coconut milk with fresh ginger, garlic, lemon, turmeric. By Monday begin drifting a bit burgerish with a beef and chorizo chili. One of the welcome surprises from BurgerWeek was how much I like my new lens.

A while ago I bought a new Nikkor 85mm f1.4. Great lens. Especially good at taking candid-ish portrait shots. Was long enough to be unobtrusive. Super-fast. But it was kind of specialized and a bit difficult to use. Bit long for longer exposures without some jitter (no VR), and open wide the depth of field was tiny. When it worked, it was amazing. But I wasn't often reaching for it.

Fortunately, I was able to sell it for more than I paid for it. It's a mystery to me why it appreciated in value, but I'm not complaining. With the proceeds, I bought a Tokina 11-16mm, which is still great fun, and a 50mm f1.8, and had change left over. The 50mm didn't work out as I thought. It was too short to get quality candid photos as I had with the 85mm, and too long for indoor work. Seemed neither here nor there for me.

So prior to BurgerWeek I sold it and stepped up to the more expensive 35mm f1.8. Well, I love it. It's short enough and fast enough to use indoors with humans (and food), and seems generally sharper than the 50mm as well. It works fine as a walking around lens -- the first serious competition in that category to my 18-200mm VR. Really nice lens from Nikon.

BurgerWeek Day 7: Homemade

We concluded BurgerWeek by cooking at home. The prep is very simple: high quality, grass-fed, dry-aged, freshly minced beef from the butcher (Ginger Pig is my local), with a minimum of handling. I split the meat into portions, shape roughly into spheres, handling as little as possible. I use my largest cast-iron pan over highest heat on the largest burner. Bit of butter in the pan after it's hot, just before the burgers go in.

Shape them in the pan thusly: drop the meatballs into the pan and let them sizzle for a couple seconds. With spatula, squash halfway down, then flip, then squash to final thickness. That is the last time they will be squashed -- gentle handling from there on out. That's it. (This method is inspired by the technique we used when I did a stint as a cook at a diner/burger joint long ago. Those were thinner, shaped with spatulas that were more like scrapers -- sharp wide blades that were very short. The result would be a thinnish pattie that was thickest in the middle but tapered to a thin crispy lattice at the edges. Not everyone's cup of tea but really tasty if you like the diner style, and they stacked well for double cheeseburgers.)

Tonight ours were 200g each. Salt after they go in the pan, then salt again after flipping. Have the broiler fired up. When the patties are just about done, move them onto a baking sheet, cover with cheese, and pop under the broiler until melted.

We went with cheddar, our usual cheese.  No brioche rolls, though, good buns are hard to find. We had to settle for floury baps, which were ok. Buttered and toasted them under the broiler. Also cooked a heap of grilled onions. Assembled burger from bottom to top: toasted bottom bun, bit of ketchup, shredded iceberg lettuce, burger with melted cheese, fried onions, toasted top bun. Straightforward and really tasty. Quality beef is the key. It should not require a huge amount of extra flavor added in or around it, just a couple complimentary ingredients and that's it.

I wasn't about to make chips, so we rounded out the plate with some decent crisps and called it a meal.

So that's it. A relaxing and tasty end to an epic week.

BurgerWeek Day 6: Restaurant Wrap-Up

Today was the 6th and final restaurant visit of BurgerWeek 2012. Tomorrow is DIY day to conclude the week. Just like mon-wed, this would be my only meal of the day. For the restaurant finale, a feast at Hawksmoor Guildhall.

don't drink the one on the left

The dining hall at this venue is large but comfortable. Nicely done. Staff friendly and efficient. I'd been to the original Hawksmoor shortly after it opened, years ago. The starters, service, chips, and dessert were all great, but they get their beef the same place I do, and I think I do at least as good a job cooking them as they do, so not worth the markup for me. But tonight was a special treat so no worries about the price, full speed ahead.

I started with the crab and samphire salad. Samphire's a bright green coastal plant that would look good in an aquarium and added a crisp, salty crunch to the sweet shredded crab meat. Simple and savoury.

It was dark, which means I need a new camera with a full-frame sensor and a new lens.

Then the burgers. Oh my! Hawksmoor wins BurgerWeek. The youngster got his with ogleshield (the only service mistake: the waitress wrongly described this as "cheddar", it was ogleshield, which is basically raclette cheese made in Somerset instead of the Alps), and I got mine with stilton. In terms of raging beefiness, this was right up there with the Bread Street Kitchen shortrib burger. The Hawksmoor version was even more succulent. While the bun was really good and acquitted itself well, this does take skill to eat. My recommendend technique: cut it in half first. The thick patty was cooked flawlessly. A bit messy but no complaints. Spectacular.

The chips were also excellent. We tried both the "triple cooked chips" and the "beef drippings chips". The former are what I would considered standard chips and the latter are the very-thick variety. I prefer the former but execution on both sets was simply flawless. Even the oversized ones were crispy on the outside, fluffy and on the inside.

we serve both kinds of chips, country and western

I couldn't resist ordering creamed spinach, which was tender, sweet, and spiced just right. After all that, somehow the youngster managed a dessert of bitter chocolate mousse with orange compote. Kudos all around. A worthy and fitting end to the restaurant series.


So the final overall rankings, not a dud in the bunch, all recommended 

Hawksmoor
Lucky Chip
MEATmarket
Bread Street Kitchen
Byron
Rivington Grill

Our rankings were nearly identical, except the youngster puts MEATmarket ahead of Lucky Chip.

Interesting variation on cheeses, with Lucky Chip, MEATmarket, and Byron opting for american-style, Rivington surprisingly the lone cheddar, BSK monterey jack (would likely sell well in stores if people knew what to do with it, but is very hard to find here), and Hawksmoor offering ogleshield or stilton.



Accolades
beef zealots award: Hawksmoor, Bread Street Kitchen
best chips: Hawksmoor, runner up Rivington Grill
best overly thick chips: Hawksmoor, Bread Street Kitchen
best bun: Bread Street Kitchen, honourable mention Hawksmoor, Rivington Grill
best special occasion, no holds barred treat: Hawksmoor
most likely to return soon, and often: Lucky Chip, MEATmarket
most likely to return with rest of family: Byron
most comfortable chairs: Hawksmoor
best music: Rivington Grill
best way to prepare lettuce for a burger: shredded

plus a special nod to burgerapp, for providing inspiration and spot-on recommendations


Recap
Lucky Chip: yay! likely to be a regular stop on saturday market day
MEATmarket: great fun, charming place, will look for excuses to end up near covent garden
Rivington Grill: really nice, but not exactly our style of burger, likely to go back but to get something else
Bread Street Kitchen: as good as it should be, will be hard to get anything other than the burger upon return, even though the rest of the menu looked good
Byron: don't have to settle for GBK if a Byron is nearby; great stop for the whole family
Hawksmoor: living up to the highbrow standard

BurgerWeek Day 5

Byron! We visited the Cheapside location of this bustling chain, one of now 21 locations in London.

it is important to stay hydrated during BurgerWeek

I got a limited edition jubilee special -- the Chilli Queen, while the youngster got the Byron, a bacon cheeseburger. The Chilli Queen is a green chile cheeseburger: fresh chopped green chiles under melted american cheese on top of a burger which rests on shredded iceberg lettuce and chipotle mayo. A decade ago the green chile cheeseburger at [now long gone] Santa Fe on Upper Street was the only burger in London I could order without trepidation. It was fantastic. I didn't expect the Byron burger to live up to it so was not disappointed. Yes, I missed the grilled tortilla wrapper and the monterey jack (which goes better with fresh green chiles) of the Sante Fe version, but the Byron special was really enjoyable on its own merits. The beef was good, and cooked nicely to order (not overcooked!). The stack of ingredients worked really well together. Ostensibly it ends its run on June 5th, but I would be happy to see it reappear on the menu at some point.

it is also important to order burgers during BurgerWeek

The chips were hand-cut, skin on. They were fine. Bit stubby and not as good as double-dipped, but good enough. They also offer thin "fries". Service was welcoming and relaxed (in a good way). Drinks included Byron Pale Ale, brewed for them by Camden Town Brewery. Generous milkshakes completed the meal.

chips love doing depth of field demonstrations at f1.8

So overall? This doesn't quite make it to the very top tier but we both really liked it. This is less a special-occasion burger and more a nice reliable place to stop by. It is the same market as GBK but a big cut above. Recommended, and will go back.

BurgerWeek Day 4

Tonight's venue: Gordon Ramsay's Bread Street Kitchen. It's a large and impressive interior. Service was welcoming and attentive. I started with salmon ceviche as I'm a sucker for the mix of citrus and coriander and fresh green chiles. Then onto the "short rib" burgers.

short rib burger @ Bread Street Kitchen

They are not lying. The depth of flavor of these was amazing. Best and fullest beef flavor so far. These burgers were very thick. Fantastic. Topped with monterey jack, some slices of pickle and a sweet homemade ketchup, all sitting on top of a crisp shredded iceberg slaw. The de rigueur brioche bun deserves special mention as it was eggier than average -- soft and sweet but substantial enough to handle a burger of this gravitas. A perfect wrapper.

large and mighty chips

The chips were of the very thick variety, which is not my preference (bad volume to surface area or something), but they were cooked perfectly. Normally chips this size are undercooked but these were dialled in just right. Absolutely worth getting.

Recommended!

BurgerWeek Day 3

What time is it? It's BURGER TIME!!

Tonight we headed to the controversial Rivington Grill. Nice place and a lovely warm sunny evening. I started with a crisp fresh spring salad of peas, cress, spinach, beets, carrot, radish, parsnip, goat cheese, asparagus, red cos (maybe? I lost track). Really, that was just to build anticipation for the burger.

WTF??!? That's not a burger....

Another winner. The Rivington does a mildly spiced/herbed burger with a generous layer of melted cheddar. The youngster added bacon as well. Very good toasted sesame bun. I'll admit that although I enjoy a well thought out herbed burger, my preference is for the beef to speak for itself. But this made for a really great change of pace. Definitely a cut above. Highly recommended for non-purists.

The chips were the best so far. Excellent execution. Friendly and attentive service. And a rich, luxurious, not too sweet chocolate tart with sour cream for dessert.

classy presentation at Rivington Grill

P.S. A Note On Eating
Saturday neither of us ate breakfast. We had a big lunch then a late meal while watching Eurovision. Sunday neither of us ate breakfast. I wasn't hungry. I went for a 5-mile run then, eventually, we got lunch. Sunday night we had a small late dinner. [Small for me: some celery, half a head of lettuce, some roquefort, and a handful of blueberries. Small for a teenage boy: half a head of lettuce, tortilla chips covered with melted cheddar, an entire can of refried beans, and a large package of fresh blueberries.] Today I didn't eat at all until dinner, so about 22 hours since my last meal. If you're not hungry, don't eat. You don't need to eat 3 meals a day. You don't need to eat 2 meals a day. Or even 1 sometimes.