September 2007 Archives

It's done (mostly). I've rolled the website over to the new design and everything seems to be working okay so far. I'm still in the process of updating some of the secondary pages and it will probably be a while before I update the look of the genealogy database. Oh, and if you use that little search box over there on the right, the results might look weird. And...

But, hey: Comments! Trackbacks! Nifty new header pictures (reload to see more)! Cool!

Update: Still working on a problem with comments...

Expect some changes around here in the next few days. This site—well, the weblog part—runs on Movable Type from Six Apart. A few weeks ago, I upgraded to version 4, which is a huge leap forward from the old version. Unfortunately, the design and structure of the site made it difficult for me to take advantage of many of the new features in MT4. Rather than spending a lot of time re-jiggering the existing design, I decided to start fresh.

I still have a few quirks to work out, but it's getting close. Maybe tomorrow...

I'm never gonna get used to the 31st century. Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? Admiral Crunch?
- Philip J. Fry, Futurama

Wow. Two local guys have invented something that really needed to be invented. Oh, sure, hovercars would be nice—or maybe a cure for cancer—but who can argue with the brilliance that is Bacon Salt! Like virtually everything in the Sky Mall catalog, it solves a problem I never knew I had. In this case, it's how to make everything taste like bacon. It says it right there on their website: "It's our dream to make everything taste like bacon." And a noble dream it is. (via Slog)

While on the subject of bacon, I have to mention one other thing. Vosges now has a chocolate bar with bacon in it. Unlike the salt, we've tried Mo's Bacon Bar and I can state unequivocally that it's the best bacon-containing confection I've ever tasted.

The day we came back from New England was a tough one on my back. Lugging our bags, carrying Charlie, and sitting in uncomfortable plane seats all took their toll. Getting up at 6 am (3 am Seattle time) didn't help matters much, either. So it came as no surprise that I woke up the next morning with a sore lower back. Nothing debilitating, mind you. A little Advil and a few days of taking it easy and I'd be fine.

Or so I thought. Life with a two-year-old makes taking it easy a challenge. So after a couple days of improvement, my back took a turn for the worse. Monday evening, my back pain started to radiate down into my right leg. It felt a little like my leg was on fire... or that I really needed to stretch every muscle in my leg. I'd set the alarm for 4:30 am to check the barbecue that had cooked all night. Even in my bleary-eyed half-asleep state, I noticed right away that my back pain was gone. As I swung my legs out of bed and stood up, there was absolutely no pain. Amazing! Unfortunately, there was no sensation at all in my right leg. Completely numb. I managed to hobble my way out to check on the barbecue and back to bed and hoped that whatever was going on would resolve itself as I slept. It didn't.

When I got up a few hours later, my leg was still numb. Not quite completely numb, as I'd thought, but pretty close. My big toe and the inside side of my leg felt pretty normal, but everything else was numb. I could feel pressure okay, but not light touch. I could walk without much trouble (though with a little limp), but unless I paid close attention to how I held my foot, it would gradually flop out to the side. I first realized this when I tripped on the dragging left edge of my shoe which had become the front edge by my rotated foot. And so it is today. It's pretty weird. I have full control of my foot, so if I pay attention, I can hold it straight and walk more-or-less normally, but I can't just walk and have my leg do the right thing on its own. I've found that if I hold it just right, I can get into a groove and barely even limp. Yipee.

As alarming as it is to go to sleep with back pain and wake up with a numb leg, I wasn't too concerned about it at first. I figured that whatever had been causing the back pain shifted a little and a couple weeks of taking it easy would probably resolve things, just as it probably would with the pain. Later in the day, I was driving and my foot slipped off the brake pedal. I thought it was squarely in the middle of the pedal, but it was apparently just on the edge. That freaked me out enough that I called to make an appointment with my doctor right away. I couldn't get in to see him until the 20th, but managed to get in to see someone else in the same clinic (it's at the UW) the same day. The appointment was full of the same fun neuro-screening stuff I'd been through leading up to my laminectomy ten years ago (has it really been that long? Maybe it's only been nine years.). "Can you feel this? How about this? Does this feel hot or cold? Am I pressing harder on the right or left? Walk across the room... now on your toes... now on your heels... etc." The only thing I thought was strange was that I absolutely could not walk on my right heel. I could hold my toes up, but as soon as I put weight on my heel, my whole foot would just flop down. Anyway, in the end, the doctor recommended taking it easy for a few weeks to see if it resolves itself. Oh, and some Naproxen to reduce inflammation.

I feel old.

I've been meaning to write something about my new obsession for a couple months now, but I haven't had a chance. I've taken up smoking. No, no. Not that kind of smoking. Not that kind either. No, I mean the low, slow, intoxicating smoke of real barbecue. Last Thanksgiving, I read an interesting weblog post about a great combination of technology and food. A Smoked Turkey With An IP Address tells the story of cooking a Thanksgiving Turkey low and slow on a Big Green Egg with the help of an ethernet-connected temperature controller. Cool (and Yum!). I started looking into the Big Green Egg and other ceramic grills and remembered that an aquaintance of ours is an investor in Primo Grills. Unlike the BGE, Primo's grills are American made. They're also bigger than the biggest Egg. Unfortunately, there was no Primo dealer in Washington State, so nothing came of my grand barbecue plans.

This spring, Kathy asked what ever had become of my crazy grill idea. She didn't say so, but I suspect she was nurturing my new obsession just so that she'd have a reliable source of good barbecue in Seattle. I checked again, and it turns out there's now a Primo Dealer in North Bend, about a half hour from Seattle. We drove up there to take a look and I was sold. Mark Adamski at Cascadia Spas & Stoves was great to work with and we had our new Primo Oval delivered a few days later (the thing weighs almost 200 pounds!).

I love it. Unlike our old gas grill, it can reliably maintain both low barbecue temperatures and high searing temperatures. It has thick ceramic walls that help it hold in the heat, as well as making it very frugal with fuel. Speaking of which, it burns only lump charcoal (briquettes contain too much ash). When the grill first arrived, I cooked steaks the first night, salmon the next, and hamburgers the third, all on the same load of charcoal. Unlike a typical charcoal grill, you don't need to light the full load of fuel and wait for it to burn down. You just light a few spots and adjust the top and bottom air vents to maintain the temperature you want. When you're done, just close the vents to quench the fire.

In addition to a variety of typical grilled stuff, I've made a couple "true barbecue" meals. I've made pork ribs a couple times already and they're easily the best ribs I've had in Seattle. This week, I finally got up the gumption to try pulled pork. It's not difficult, by any means, but the cooking time (up to a day!) seemed pretty daunting. Thankfully, my Stoker arrived while we were in New England.

The Stoker controls the temperature of the grill and monitors the temperature of the meat. It can alarm when the meat gets up to temperature or when the fire gets too hot or too cool. It also has an ethernet port and can be controlled through a web interface. Overnight cooking seems much more doable with a Stoker. When we were at the farmers market on Saturday, I bought two boneless butt (shoulder) roasts from Skagit River Ranch. Boneless isn't ideal, but it's all they had. Sunday morning, I patted them down with rub and started a fire in the Primo. By the time the meat was on the grill, it was about noon. I threw on a few hunks of apple and alder wood and kept a close eye on things until the temperature stabilized. It was quite a sight.

I knew the meat wouldn't be ready in time for dinner and suspected it would go all night (I was aiming for lunch on Monday). I just hoped it wouldn't be done when I was sleeping. Later on Sunday, the rains started and it rained right through the night. My improvised rain shields seemed to do the job...

I set the alarm for 4:30 am and went out to check the grill. The grill temperature was still right at the set point of 215°F and the pork butt had about 15° to go. Big hunks of meat like pork butt and beef brisket typically go through a long temperature plateau as the fat and collagen melt, then rise quickly to the final temperature. (Update: If I'm reading my McGee right, it's the collagen breaking down into gelatin.) I figured I could probably go back to bed for a while. At about 8:30, I checked again and the meat was close. By 9:00, it was ready. I hadn't opened the grill since about 7 pm the night before and didn't know quite what to expect. Would it have that beautiful dark and caramelized crust that it should?

Wow. Perfect! As I took the meat off the grill and scurried inside with it, I could tell it was just about ready to fall apart. I also noticed that there was quite a bit of unburned charcoal left in the grill after 21 hours. I wrapped the pork butts in foil, then in towels and put them in an insulated cooler to keep them hot until lunchtime. I made up a "Lexington Style" sauce and waited. The meat was still too hot to handle when I started pulling it just before lunch. The smell was intoxicating. Of course, I had to try some as I worked. It was well worth the wait. I mixed in some of the sauce and served it up.

Delicious! Best pulled pork in Seattle... but not perfect. Next time, I'll add some more wood to give it a stronger smoke flavor. I'll also raise the grill temperature a bit to cut down the cooking time (16 hours sounds pretty reasonable). And I'll start it just before bedtime, so I can sleep through the boring part when nothing seems to happen. Now, I have to try a brisket. Oh, and do a trial run of the smoked turkey I hope to serve at Thanksgiving. And...