Hi all,
It's been kind of a roundabout journey getting here, but I've decided it's time to enter the age of enlightenment...
Until the spring of 2007 I lived in Suburban New Orleans and there was really no need to know anything about smoking. There was a plethora of available smoked meats available and life was good. Our favorite thing, and primary reason I'm here, was smoked turkeys in the Fall.
We would buy at least 4 of them during the season. I would finish cooking them, we would have a meal off of it and then it went into turkey/sausage gumbo. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I'll post the recipe at some point. The beauty of it is I make a roux with no oil so the gumbo is low fat.
Upon moving up here (Reston, VA actually) we discovered that while this is not good food hell, it's not exactly heaven either. All the restaurants are chains and a really good meal for 2 will set you back $100. I make decent money, but we can't afford to do that very frequently.
I've always been a good cook so I took it upon myself to up my game. It's been fun and some wonderful meals have ensued. Except for the smoked turkeys. This year we looked and looked and couldn't find any. We had just about given up until right before Thanksgiving we were walking around this little non-chain grocery store and low and behold they had two smoked turkeys.
Thank goodness, but oh my they are proud of them. $25 each for two 10 pound turkeys. We used to pay $10 in New Orleans, but I digress.
Thanksgiving roles around, the turkey gets prepared as usual and we sit down to eat and well it wasn't nirvana. These suckers were tough. And kind of rangy tasting. Evidently whoever smoked them found the two oldest birds on the farm and figured no one would know the difference. Yea, right....
I'm a frequent visitor to the forums at Woodnet.net and a smoking thread appeared in the "basement" as they call it and the Smoking Meat Forums was mentioned.
Nirvana.
Anyway, I'm here to learn. Learn about a equipment, processes and procedures. I'm loaded for bear and ready to rumble.
Y'all take care now!
chris
It's been kind of a roundabout journey getting here, but I've decided it's time to enter the age of enlightenment...
Until the spring of 2007 I lived in Suburban New Orleans and there was really no need to know anything about smoking. There was a plethora of available smoked meats available and life was good. Our favorite thing, and primary reason I'm here, was smoked turkeys in the Fall.
We would buy at least 4 of them during the season. I would finish cooking them, we would have a meal off of it and then it went into turkey/sausage gumbo. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I'll post the recipe at some point. The beauty of it is I make a roux with no oil so the gumbo is low fat.
Upon moving up here (Reston, VA actually) we discovered that while this is not good food hell, it's not exactly heaven either. All the restaurants are chains and a really good meal for 2 will set you back $100. I make decent money, but we can't afford to do that very frequently.
I've always been a good cook so I took it upon myself to up my game. It's been fun and some wonderful meals have ensued. Except for the smoked turkeys. This year we looked and looked and couldn't find any. We had just about given up until right before Thanksgiving we were walking around this little non-chain grocery store and low and behold they had two smoked turkeys.
Thank goodness, but oh my they are proud of them. $25 each for two 10 pound turkeys. We used to pay $10 in New Orleans, but I digress.
Thanksgiving roles around, the turkey gets prepared as usual and we sit down to eat and well it wasn't nirvana. These suckers were tough. And kind of rangy tasting. Evidently whoever smoked them found the two oldest birds on the farm and figured no one would know the difference. Yea, right....
I'm a frequent visitor to the forums at Woodnet.net and a smoking thread appeared in the "basement" as they call it and the Smoking Meat Forums was mentioned.
Nirvana.
Anyway, I'm here to learn. Learn about a equipment, processes and procedures. I'm loaded for bear and ready to rumble.
Y'all take care now!
chris