I had two frozen carcasses from last year and was willed another this year.
Time to break out the cooking gear:
Yield?, a shit ton.
As I was putting everything together I realized I would run out of pots large enough.
Sitting there with shit all over the counter, I remember the big electric roaster.
I set it to 200 degrees and started to add all the various pots and pans of items to the cooker.
We ended up with 17 single servings and two larger tupperware as well as one more full pot.
More than half will get frozen.
Now I'm ready to grab the two frozen ham legs and do a split pea with bacon.... YUM!!
FYI:
Neither of those are a new knife set. We still haven't decided yet. I started playing around with these and my whetstone and have gotten some much better performance on the ones I've tried sharpening.
Reader "C" was perusing cybersecurity type news and came upon this information
regarding BRCC:
This is the lead in to the article at FMShooter :
" Let’s start with the big reveal, if you have ever had an account
with Black Rifle Coffee Company, or have ever placed an order with
them, your personal information is at risk. This does NOT include
passwords and payment data (to my knowledge)."
Maybe the FDA should take a look at their playbook from a handful of years ago.....
/ CBS
After more than two years of prodding from consumer advocates and medical experts, the FDA finally agreed Ephedra is dangerous.
"Dietary supplements containing Ephedra present an unreasonable risk
of illness or injury," said FDA Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan.
But instead of leading the way, the FDA finds itself bringing up the rear. As reported in an ongoing CBS News
investigation, several states banned Ephedra first. So did the U.S.
military, pro football, college athletics, minor league baseball, and
the Olympic Committee.
With all the injuries and bad press, Ephedra makers had trouble
getting insurance and most had already stopped selling Ephedra on their
own.
"I've never seen an example in the thirty years I've been
monitoring the FDA where the FDA waited until the product is all but
gone from the shelves before doing anything," Dr. Sid Wolfe of Public
Citizen told CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
An
earlier ban might have saved the life of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler,
who died after taking Ephedra during last spring training.
"Since
my son's death, that's all me and my wife could ever hope for that it
gets taken off the market, so no one else will ever get harmed from it,"
said his father Ernest Bechler.
Political heavyweights like former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis
lobbied hard to keep Ephedra on the shelf -- and it worked. Ephedra
stayed on the market an extra two years after many experts asked for the
ban.
Meantime the number of deaths doubled to 155, with 16,000 adverse events.
Like Army pilot Michael McDonald -- left without functional memory. And Sean Riggins, dead at age 16.
Ephedra
helped spotlight a controversial ten-year old law that exempts dietary
supplements from having to be proven safe or effective. Congress will
likely work to change that in the year ahead.
Reader S.C. sent this snapshot of the VAERS site as of 11/12,
18,853 deaths. That's a few more than the 155 souls that died from Ephedra and the FDA
banned that. Maybe they should look into Vaccines??? Maybe?
From here I will narrow down the choices. For the record, I enjoy cooking more so in the fall and winter. Large pots of soup, with a pile of leftovers.
Balancing cost budget and ease of maintaining an edge will be my criteria on final decisions.
This is not a professional level operation at the bunker :)
Again, thank you all so much. I'm sure many of you that read the other comments got some
good information. That's what this is all about.
Have a Great Thanksgiving!!
"Largemarge" left a very detailed comment on becoming a Zen master knife warrior :)
My history: * I owned a restaurant business for ten years. * I grew-up on a farm, my four grandparents lived next door. * We operate a small organic teaching farm near the outskirts of Eugene, Oregon. * During each period, I processed/process meat from a bled carcass to table-ready. . I also worked cadavers during medical school. A good blade saves time, and is inherently safer than a dulled edge. . At the farm, I teach knives. . My suggestion: * Forget the 'set' mentality. * Doubly forget any set with a wood display block for the kitchen counter. . Go
to a restaurant supply, look for the NSF cert (the National Sanitation
Foundation establishes sanitation standards, no grocery-store level
knife from Bed Bath Beyond has this. Clue?). . Depending on the hand size of the operator, get (1) 8" or 10" chef knife. Get (1) 4" paring knife. Expect to invest about us$45 or so for the 10", about us$12 for the 4". Get (1) ceramic steel. . Optional: Get (1) off-set serrated 'sandwich' knife. . If you own a boat and process a lot of fish, get (2,3,4) 8" boning knives. Why so many? Fish scales are murder on an edge, shark may as well be metal roofing. . Get (1) *Maple* cutting board, about 12" x 20". Or, if you prefer, get a bamboo cutting board. I prefer Maple because it is inherently anti-microbial. Irregardless, you will bleach your board after each use; rinse, air dry on its side. . . Using your steel: To freshen an edge, *lightly* drag the cutting edge FROM the guard at your hand TO the tip of the steel. Time the motion so you run out of steel simultaneously with running out of knife. Do this *once* on each side. The steeling motion is the reverse of a cutting motion. . Do not slice down the steel toward your hand. Limit the freshening to one drag per side. . ***
Do not merrily slice each side a dozen-and-a-half times toward your
hand absent-mindedly chatting and watching televisionprogramming or any
other distraction. *** This is a sacred meditation. As the caretaker of the blade, enter the steel universe, become one with the blade. . . In some cultures (Commercial Kitchens!), blades are sacred. Never touch another man's blade. If offered, thank him... and do not touch his blade. . If you are visiting a kitchen, instead of asking to borrow a knife, ask the resident cook to cut something for you. This courtesy earns respect. After enough respect, maybe you earned the right to ask if you could borrow a knife. But I would wait. It is a cultural thing. . . For professional scrounges: I check the bins at second-hand stores. I can sift my hands through dozens of grocery-store level knives with absolute confidence in never getting cut. People buy disposable junk knives, then dispose of them after they are unable to get a respectable edge. . If you go the second-hand route, look for antique high-carbon blades. These heirlooms will be homely and mottled, and were probably discarded by recipients of the estate after the old folks passed. Grab any you see! A good knife is as valuable as seasoned cast-iron. . Nobody wills Teflon-coated aluminum. . My suggestion: * Invest up-front in quality. * Invest in learning the trade of handling knives. * Invest in mentoring.
This video test of multiple systems was also mentioned in the comments:
The gist of last week's picks went like this: Ingrid Bergman, Joey Heatherton, and Katherine Ross with a few others making a decent showing (i.e. Lucille Ball). As much fun as all this has been, I believe I should start the process of winding down the contest. That doesn't mean that some beauty I might have missed cannot be included. Also, I am going to limit the number of "contestants" for simplicities sake. Some of these are going to be rhetorical, but will be necessary to get to the final round. Remember, vote only for ONE. Choose wisely because once they are eliminated, they are gone for good.
