A Tasting

I thought a nice idea for a series of posts would be commenting on the occasional bottle of bourbon or Scotch I purchase. While I have several "go-to" favorites, I do like trying new things. Unfortunately, there is a risk of hating something new. And that would be a real shame because trying something new can cost $40. My best example of this happened when my wife and I were in Napa. After taking the tour of the Mondavi vineyards there is a tasting. The tasting starts with bottle that retail in the $12 to $15 range and ends with a bottle with a suggested price tag of $125. I thought the $125 dollar bottle sucked. The only thing that would be worse than buying that bottle of wine and being pissed about wasting $125 would be buying that bottle of wine in a restaurant for $250.

Back to the current tasting. One of my favorite liquor stores in Albany is Empire Wines.They have a nice selection of wines as well as a very nice shelf of bourbon I have been working my way across. On a recent trip, there were several new arrivals including the bottle I bought. The brand name is Hirsch and there were three Hirsch offerings in three different price ranges. Two of the price ranges were out of my league for a fifth of anything until after I win the lottery. The third level was just under $30. Here's a shot of the bottle:

Enough blabbing, let's have a taste......It's just so-so. Lot of caramel in the aroma but the bourbon is pretty harsh. Drinkable, but nothing special. No age on the bottle, but it is clearly young. Placing two bottles priced well over $100 next to a $30 bottle with the same name is a good marketing move. But I don't think I'll be buying this one again.

Summer in February

UPDATE
It looks like a lot of people end up here look for a "55 gallon drum BBQ pit." I use a 55 gallon drum to burn logs to coals before using them in a pit. Here is a link to the nicest 55 gallon drum BBQ pit I have seen.


This post is not exactly timely. But as I have said in the past, I am more of a blog follower than a blog creator. Every year in the middle of February (usually near Valentine's Day), a bunch of family gets together at my in-laws to have a meal full of foods you find at a summer picnic. This year's menu included (but wasn't limited to) ribs, sausage, pierogi, deviled eggs, potato salad, a huge green salad and way too many desserts. It's is always a good time that unfortunately is not sanctioned by any cardiologists.

Here are some pictures of the BBQ pit where I cooked the ribs and homemade Italian sausage. It is nothing more than a bunch of concrete blocks with a old commercial oven grate as a rack. I love cooking with it. The pit has a sister with a view of the Sacandaga Lake. I'll post a picture of that this summer.

A scrap piece of sheet metal is the lid. Wood gets burned down to coals in a 55 gallon drum that has been slightly modified. There is a rebar grid at the lower rib in the barrel. The wood burns on top of the grid and when coals get small enough they fall through to the bottom. Using the little door and a shovel, the coals make their way into the pit as needed. It is pretty much an over-sized charcoal chimney. The door also controls the air flow. With a lot of wood and that little door wide open, the barrel looks like a jet engine. In the winter, I set up a grate in the pit for the coals. If they are not elevated, the heat of the coals melt the frost and the water puts out the embers. Ask me how I know.

I cooked three racks of ribs that sat in a rub over night. There was also about 4 pounds of sausage.

Like the amateur blogger I am, I went and ate instead of taking pictures of the food for a post. I'll try to remember next time. Last picture. Here's a view of the pit from the other side. The cow in the back thought I was nuts.

Sky Full Of Bacon

There is a blog I follow called Sky Full Of Bacon. Great name, isn't it?

Anyhow, the blog is put up by Michael Gebert and he makes food related videos. The latest one just came out and it is about a raccoon dinner in Wisconsin. My favorite video is in two parts and follows some mulefoot pigs from birth to dinner in a Chicago restaurant. It was recently nominated for a James Beard Award.

And if you want to see a pretty special lady at work, watch Pear Shaped World. It's about a one-person pear farm. Amazing. Just thinking about it makes me feel lazy. Here's the link to the most recent video. The other videos are listed in the blog post

A magazine about cooking with kids

That's what my daughters wanted to get me for Christmas. My wife knows how picky I am about all things cooking and didn't want to pick a cookbook I wouldn't like, so she steered the kids towards some books she knew I wanted. One of the books was a pre-order of Michael Ruhlman's "Ratios" that will be released this spring. There will probably be some things I can make with the kids in there.

When we come back from vacation, I'll have to hit the library for cooking with kids ideas. I hope there are a few out there that don't have Rachel Ray on the cover.

Where do you keep your grill in the winter?

I think it's an important question. Is is packed away or is it readily accessible so that you will be enjoying grilled meals all winter long? This is going to come off as pompous, probably because it is, but if you grill using hardwood charcoal, your grill is accessible. You couldn't go the entire winter without a grilled steak. And propane just isn't the same. In the northeast, many grillers will use the snow blower to clear out around the grill before they clear out the mailbox. It's a matter of priorities.


We've gotten some snow over the weekend. I'm going to guess 16 inches since Friday morning. During a break in the snow, I took my 4 year old daughter Allison to the super market. While shopping, she asked if we could have "Allison's Special Chicken" for dinner one night. How could I refuse?

Allison's special chicken is chicken drumsticks and thighs that are covered in a rub and grilled over charcoal. I named the dish/rub for Allison when at age 2, she ate a lot of it. Did it again the next time we had it. And the next time... Then to make her father very proud, she refused to eat some purchased grilled chicken because it wasn't as good.

After seeing Chef Mike Pardus' online demonstration of breaking down a chicken, I decided to do my best to never buy chicken parts. I'm still too checp to buy a $15 farmer's market chicken, so I've settled for BJ's all natural whole chickens. Two chickens for about $13. Here's how the chickens break down:

About 2 pounds of boneless skinless breast that get made into random dinners
8 wing pieces that get saved for a wing dinner
4 drumsticks and 4 thighs that get grilled as Allison's Special Chicken
bones & giblets for stock
chicken liver - the liver I had got turned into chopped liver for Thanksgiving
skin & fat for schmaltz - I used some for Thanksgiving

Tonight, I fired up the grill and made Allison's Special Chicken. She had two drumsticks.

I'm not a great blogger

Well, I skipped posting for all of November and most of December. I guess I'm not a very good blogger. Maybe that will change with time. I think the problem is that I don't think to take pictures of what I'm doing. I just do it. For example, this morning I made some butter. No pictures. It was delicious and easy to make and I recommend trying it. Watching the cream get whipped into butter was pretty cool. I know I will do it again. Maybe there will be pictures. I grilled dinner tonight. Took some pictures. That's the next post.

Hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. Food was good. All the guests were family and there were no fights. A success. I enjoyed preparing the meal.

Curling season started. It is a great game. And even if you don't play well, there is Scotch waiting for you in the warm room.

So, I don't take many pictures and don't write about what I've been doing. Luckily this blog space is free.

Chicken Stock Revisted

Tried making chicken stock again. It came out much better this time. I didn't have enough bones for the amount of water I used. The flavor of this is nicer, plus the end product wasn't ruined with mysterious freezer gel pac goo. I think I got a little over a quart out of the bones from two chickens.

Two, boneless skinless breast were dinner last night.
Thighs and wings went on the grill tonight.
Two, boneless skinless breast went into the freezer for a dinner withing a week.
The wings are adding up, I'll have to have a Buffalo wing dinner soon.
Fat from 4 birds is frozen to get fat for Thanksgiving.
The livers are going to be used in a Thanksgiving pate.

Total usage. My new mantra.