Nashville - The Iconic Recession Lunch

After the riverboat, I headed to an iconic Honky Tonk.  As one does.

Robert's Western World.

 

The place was jam-packed, standing room only, and barely enough room to stand. 

After a while, manged to get a seat at the bar. The bar tenders never stopped working for an instant, but they were attentive and friendly the entire time which was cool.

Great music,  a fun atmosphere, and it was time to order lunch. 

Probably the cheapest lunch on Broadway:

Yep, I ordered the famous Recession Special.

It arrived reasonably quickly as the cook was also jammed up with people ordering the special, among other dishes.

 

It's the iconic order there. 

But, the fried baloney served with lettuce and tomato was tasty, filling, and the included PBR worked with it,  as did the chips and Moon Pie for dessert. It was the cheapest lunch I've had out just about anywhere.

Stayed for some tunes and then decided to do a bit of a bar crawl.

Next stop was Tootsies Orchid Lounge, back in the day, prior to 1979, the hang out for the Opry performers as the Ryman Auditorium where the Opry had been located, was next door. 

A solid live band was performing:

 

Had a local brew, Hap and Harry's Lager, which was ok, and listened to some tunes. 

Then headed off to do some more wandering around. 

Ok, Who Had

From Walmart, no less.

LiveScience: FDA issues warning over possible radioactive shrimp

 The FDA is warning consumers not to eat certain frozen shrimp products sold at Walmart after other products from the same company tested positive for a radioactive substance  

The bad shrimp was imported by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati aka BMS Foods. 

While at least one shipment contaminated with cesium-137 was caught upon insoection, the FDA is warning people not to eat BMS shrimp they may have bought from Walmart at this time.

Nope, I did not have Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp on my list of concerns for August, but  "Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp" would make a great name for a midget heavy metal band.

Iceland - Ice Cream in Iceland

After Silfra, we headed back to Reykjavik, dropped off our gear at the hotel, and then did some more walking around and then stopped for lunch.

I had a different Icelandic Beer, a Gull Lite ,that apparently is gluten free if I'm translating the glass correctly, which is strange, but it was a light and refreshing beer all the same.

We ate some lovely salmon and accompaniments.

For dessert we all shared a Skyr Kaka.

Skyr as in Icelandic yogurt, Kaka as in Icelandic cake.

Tasted like an amazing cheesecake. Do not pass up an opportunity to try Skyr Kaka.

Then we returned back to the hotel and had a nap, as one does.

We then spent more time walking around Reyjkavik, and saw quite a few signs that mentioned some of the now urbanized areas had been historic farmsteads.

We also visited a park and people and dog watched.

We then walked around the downtown area again and stopped for ice cream at Valdis, an ice cream shop that was humming with activity.

After all, we were following a good suggestion:

Icelandic ice cream has the standard flavors you'd expect, and then some not so suspecting:

Like Rye Bread flavor, or Salted Black Liquorice flavor,  Dark Chocolate and Black Liquorice, and Danish Liquorice:

The Nordic countries really love black liquorice.

Yes, I had a scoop of salted black liquorice on top of a scoop of chocolate and black liquorice.  For science, of course.

If you like black liquorice, both flavors are really great. If you don't like black liquorice, you really would not have liked the ice cream.

The other family members shied away from black liquorice, and went with fun stuff like a birthday cake flavor, and a raspberry cheesecake flavor - both of which were also great.

Ice cream in Iceland, it turns out they make some really great ice cream there.

Iceland Food Tour - That's Smoked Over What, Exactly?

Our next and final stop on the tour was a brewpub and restaurant.

Their signature beer is called the Flying Kock, which is really hard to order and keep a straight face, which seems to be the point.

Yes, the entendres were far more than doubled.

So along with the beer, came some smoked lamb on toasted Icelandic bread to the table to try as our next dish.

This is traditional smoked lamb, smoked in the traditional fashion.  Traditional means smoked over lamb dung.

Yes, dung. Iceland didn't have a lot of good smoking woods available, especially after they heavily deforested the island during settlement. So dung had to do, and it did.

Upside, I can report it had no dung in the flavor, just lamb, but it did have a very, very, heavy and strong smoke flavor to it.  Can't say as I'd recommend switching to dung as a smoking medium. I'll stick to wood, thank you very much. Most ppople on the tour who tried it stated it was not a hit.

That certainly was an experience, the beer was quite tasty though.

That was the end of the food tour, and it was fun, interesting, and educational and I'd highly recommend doing it if you ever visit Iceland.

We then walked back to our hotel to get ready for our next adventure the following day - The day I got to cross off an item on my bucket list.

Iceland - The Food Tour - Hot Dog!

Next stop, Icelandic Hot Dogs!

We went to the world famous Icelandic Hot Dog Stand. Note our awesome tour guide at the window placing our orders.

Even an American President, namely Bill Clinton, has eaten at this hot dog stand. 

The traditional Icelandic hotdog has lamb as part of the filling of the dog.  

Traditional toppings of a "one with everything" include ketchup, raw and carmelized onions (both placed under the dog not on top) two kinds of mustard - one of which is cut with mayo with additional spices as a remoulade.

In short, the result is hot dog nirvana.

I mean, that was truly a great hot dog.

Interestingly enough, President Clinton did not do the full Icelandic when he ordered his - he just had a dog with plain mustard. From that day forth if you want a hot dog only with mustard at the stand, you order a Clinton. You will be missing out on the full experience if you do.

Iceland - The Food Tour - Hákarl!

Next stop on the food tour we stopped at Icelandic Street Food for the ultimate tourist-in-Iceland challenge.

We started off with a light codfish and potato salad and more Icelandic bread.

Very tasty.

Icelandic food is typically very heavy on fish as the volcanic soil tends to not be very fertile, and for years starvation was a very real possibility which led to a constant search for protein.

Enter the Greenland shark.

The Greenland shark is native to the waters around Iceland, it's an interesting shark that is an apex predator in the north. Full of protein it sounds like an excellent food source for protein-hungry Icelanders.

There's a problem though.

The flesh of the Greenland shark is toxic, packed with Trimethylamine N-oxide.

The Icelanders, needing the protein to survive, figured out that the shark carcass can be fermented. Historically this was done with the carcass being buried underground and then after fermenting it can be safely eaten and that protein accessed. 

Now they do a different technique to get the toxins out rather than burying it but the result is much the same, and the poisonous Trimethylamine N-oxide gets turned into trimethylamine.

The result of the fermentation looks like this and is called Hákarl:

And it smells like concentrated ammonia.  Lots of ammonia. As in sniffing an open bottle of ammonia.

The challenge for tourists is to eat it and keep it down.

Hot tip:  Don't inhale as you bring it to your mouth.

Overall impression:

First bite, not bad, kinda firm, relatively chewy and kinda like a fish jerky, rather pleasant.

Second chew:  Well, the ammonia is certainly coming through.

Third chew: My, that's a lot of ammonia.

Fourth chew: Oh, that's a heckuva lot of ammonia.

Everyone kept it down, although one tourist at the table was turning a tad green.

Most of us of legal age then followed it up with a chilled shot of Brennivín, Iceland's native aquavit. 

That helped with the ammonia aftertaste immeasurably. 

Brennivín is mighty tasty stuff and was a welcome chaser to the Hákarl.

 

So we all survived the Hákarl challenge, and I daresay it was tastier and far more pleasant than eating durian. 

Having our mettle suitably tested, the guide took us on to our next stop that offered a far more pleasant and tasty bit of sustenance.

Iceland - The Food Tour

After the nap, we got up and wandered around Reykjavik some more, making our way to a square downtown to meet the tour guide for a walking food tour.

We got there a bit early and got to watch what appeared to be some grooming going on:

Older couple of Muslim guys with a bunch of chav girls.  Very interesitng to observe the goings on, including the girls being given a bottle of vodka, lots of swearing, mainly the f word back and forth and carrying on. Interesting to observe.

Our guide showed up soon after and we joined with 6 other people on the tour.

The guide was both friendly and informative.

We walked by Iceland's parliament building:

 

He gave a quick overview of Iceland's parliamentary history and stated that Iceland's government is one of the least effective around in terms of actually doing things.

He noted, as we walked, that Iceland lacked war memorials to unknown soldiers as it lacks an army Iceland has instead memorialized the unknown bureaucrat:

We then made it to our first stop, IDNO, for a nice start to the tour.

We sampled some Icelandic bread and lamb:

As we sampled the dish, which was great,  we got some more history of Iceland.

Iceland, per the guide, really started prospering during and after World War 2 when the US arrived. He note it has a natural carrying capacity of 40,000-50,000 people, and now with about 400,000 residents is very much dependent on trade and modern technology to grow the food that is needed to sustain people there, including a large number of greenhouses. Iceland also gets 1.7 million tourists visiting per year, and tourism has become its biggest industry, with fishing coming in second.

Then we departed IDNO and headed to a restaurant which offered the greatest food challenge that is posed to a visitor to Iceland.

Beef Wellington - I Can Makes It!

Last night I learned how to make Beef Wellington and accompanying side dishes for a most delightful meal.

A private chef was holding cooking lessons and dinner, and we managed to snag two tickets.

4 couples were present for the instruction, which was held at the chef's house where she has an awesome kitchen. One of the couples included a retired F-15 pilot that probably knows juvat, (though he himself wasn't in the juvats). Fun conversation was had.

A nice bunch of folks.

The only disruption was at the steps leading to the house there was a very large garter snake that made its appearance known from the underbrush near the steps up to the front door.

Tash really doesn't like snakes. So after helping her recover from a heart attack of a snake appearing inches from her feet while she was wearing open toe sandals, we headed in to get cooking.

The meal consisted of a salad course, then the Beef Wellington was served alongside roasted carrots and fondant potato cylinders, and the dessert was Nutella and banana crepes.

We mad everything from scratch aside from the duxelles (mushroom filling for the Beef Wellington) because that takes hours to make all by itself, but we learned how to do it as well.

So everyone peeled a potato and carrots and we got things prepared.

For the Beef Wellington, the filet is first seared in a pan, removed, wrapped with a piece of prosciutto and sealed in saran wrap and placed in the fridge to cool.

After cooling, it is wrapped in puff pastry that is rolled out to size with its inner side covered in duxelles, and all edges closed so no meat is showing.  Then the whole thing is coated in an egg wash to seal the seams and the meat inside.   Into the oven it goes.

The pan is then deglazed with a good wine (never use cooking wine for this), and then reduced by half and it makes one heckuva nice sauce with beef stock added and then reduced again.

While others did the steps for the salad and such, Tash and I made the crepes for the dessert from scratch and it was so good I made that again for breakfast here and we just feasted on crepes for breakfast.  

Super easy and fun to do.

An impressive looking and tasting meal that is actually pretty easy to make.

Accompanied with a nice pinot noir that we brought along (the meal was BYOW), it was a most excellent dinner. It's visually impressive, tasty as all get out, and a rousing success and good time had by all.

I'm going to have to make this again for fancy occasions.

Passover 2023 Ends

After sundown, we celebrated the end of Passover in style -with a big bowl of Cacio e Pepe that I cooked up to celebrate having bread again.  Quite the tasty treat.

Followed up with some cake.

Now I'm rather carb-loaded indeed.

Contemplating compounding the damage by celebrating with a beer.

First Brisket of 2023

Spring is trying hard to be sprung around here.

Yesterday had some crazy winds that cancelled my intended shake-the-rust off flight.  Gusts of up to 35 knots with a minimum direct crosswind factor of 30 knots in a plane rated for 17 knots was not my idea of a good time for pattern work.

So yesterday,  I instead got the brisket prepared with my homemade rub for smoking.

So today, among other things that needed to be done, I got the smoker cleaned up from it's winter of non-use, and got it ready to smoke.

I decided to use pecan wood for the brisket this time, for a change of pace.

After all day of being on the smoker, the brisket was ready for dinner tonight.

 

 Nice and tasty and served up with baked beans, and mac & cheese, it was announced by all to be a tasty success.

Real Good Eats: Are You Skyr'd Yet?

Skyr is an Icelandic version of yogurt.  It's got lots of protein and is creamier and more solid than Balkan-type yogurts and has a smoother texture than the Greek-style stuff too.

Skyr is often flavored and I just came across yogurt nirvana.

It's Icelandic Provisions  Extra Creamy Coffee Cold Brew Skyr

Life-changing. It's coffee and yogurt coming together in perfect tasty harmony. Best flavor of yogurt I've ever tasted.

Seriously, this Cold Brew Skyr is so tasty, they need to rename it to "Winning At Life".  

A great way to start your day or to have a healthy pick-me-up snack that makes you happily charge through the rest of your day.

Sunday Gardening And Smoking Corned Beef Day

Today was an all-outdoors day.

It was weeding the landscape time.  With the rain and sun there had been a  surge of weeds sprouting up and turning practically into weed-trees overnight.

Since we would be outside anyways, might as well smoke something for dinner.

 Since we had a flat of corned beef I was requested to make some smoked corn beef - otherwise known as Pastrami or Montreal Smoked Meat.

First I unpacked the brisket and let it soak in water for two hours changing the water every half hour to make it a tad less salty.

While it was soaking I prepared the smoker.

Hickory wood (found a box of hickory under the Pecan wood box which was great),  locally sourced of course.  I also filled the water bowl with boiling water and started the full chimney of charcoal. 

The brisket was covered in my brisket rub and placed on the grate.

 

 

Then the charcoal was added and the smoker closed up to do its thing.

Once the smoker was moving along, I began chopping weeds in the backyard. Many bags full of weeds were removed and the place looks much better now.

After 9 hours in the smoker, the brisket was ready for dinner.

To say it tasted great was an understatement.  The burnt ends tasted like candy. That's 2 for 2 in the Weber smoker so far.

New Smoker Run #1

Today was the day to give the new Weber smoker a go.

Pulled pork was on the menu as Tash had bought a 6 pounder.

So I first prepped it last night with some rub and put it in the fridge.

 

Then I fired up the smoker for the first time with lump charcoal and locally sourced Pecan wood.

 The Weber being larger than the ol' ECB takes more charcoal to get it up to temperature than the Brinkmann, and the water bowl is also larger, so a little trial and error occurred until it was just right at temp and smoking along merrily. 

 A serious improvement of the Weber over the Brinkmann are the adjustable vents at the top and bottom of the smoker and a functional thermometer gauge.  The vents made adjusting and controlling the temperature a snap.  Serious improvement over the Brinkmann as a result - only disadvantage is the barrel body lacks handles for lifting it off the base which is good to have when you're refueling it with more charcoal, but there is a lip near the top that serves that function nicely.

Nine hours later and after replenishing the water bowl once and the charcoal and wood twice it was done.

I then pulled it and it was awesome and did not require any BBQ sauce, but BBQ sauce was available for taste.

It was pronounced to be my best effort so far and was declared to be amazing.  

Even so, at six pounds, lots of leftovers remain.

The first run of the Weber is a success.

Farewell To ECB

ECB being the El Cheapo Brinkmann smoker.

After years of good service, first arriving here in 2013,  the bottom tray and the base itself has rusted through.  This makes temperature control difficult and raises the issue of hot coals dropping out the bottom.  No bueno.

Sadly, Brinkmann has gone out of business and replacement parts are hard to find.   Quite a few parts for the electric models are floating around Ebay, but none of the bases nor charcoal trays there match my model, and the prices are pretty darn high almost as much for those two parts as for what I paid for the while thing to start with.

In short no way to repair it and time for it to go.  

But fear not, there is another.

So today I received and assembled its successor and its rather an upgrade.

The Weber Smokey Mountain 18 inch smoker.

It's bigger than the ECB so more food will fit, as well as a larger water bowl.  It has multiple adjustable vents for heat control and has a nice firebox arrangement that should make cleanup and maintenance a lot easier.  The door is larger and easy to get more wood and charcoal into the firebox. The smoking grates have nice handles for ease of removal which will be appreciated when using it.

Assembly wasn't terrible, but note the instructions are in the back of the manual with the parts schematic up front, which leads one to think the only instructions are the schematic which was kinda sketchy.

Assembly was pretty quick and easy with only one - actually three cuts from the sharp sheet metal (ouch!) and the pain of getting the thermometer pass-through installed.

Will break it in shortly, and will begin this smoking season with a nice new smoker.

The Little Havana Tour

Our first day in Florida, we hit the pool, relaxed and took it easy after driving in.

The next day we were up and headed into downtown Miami for our Little Havana Food and Walking Tour.

Not just food, the tour also encompassed Little Havana's history and culture.

There was statues of roosters at every corner, very much a symbol of Little Havana.

Thence to our first stop for Cuban Coffee and Empanadas.

Very tasty indeed, especially with a little hot sauce. The coffee was awesome.

On to various stops including a Rum Bar / Art Gallery of Cuban Art:

As we sat there, a fellow came in with a live rooster. This apparently is not an uncommon occurrence on the streets of Little Havana.

Then on to a restaurant with excellent Cuban Sandwiches.

Walking along we saw many murals painted on buildings including this one of the Women in White - honoring the brave Cuban women protesters who regularly assemble on white and protest against the jailing of political prisoners in Cuba:

Then for a stop to sample some fresh made mojitos and for some to try some salsa dancing with the live band at the bar.

On we went to a cigar factory, where hand rolled cigars are made with tobacco seed from Cuba grown in Honduras or elsewhere and then made right in Miami. This fellow has over 20 years experience hand rolling cigars.

Then on to get another beverage as it was a hot day. This one was interesting:

The shop owner ran sugar cane through this machine and the resulting liquid was nice and refreshing but not overly sweet. Quite tasty and it really hit the spot.

We then stopped at the Bay of Pigs memorial.

A memorial to the failed invasion of Cuba to overthrow the Communist government in 1961. In short, the lesson of the Bay of Pigs is: Don't try a halfhearted amphibious invasion without sufficient men and arms, proper air support, and after leaks of the date and time of the invasion have been made to the opposition.

Cuban Americans are still not a fan of Castro and the commies by any means.

Stopping at Azucar, a famous local ice cream shop, I noticed a certain flavor being advertised (look at 3 over right and 5 down):

Yep, in Little Havana, they're really not a fan of commies, and considering how many of them or their families suffered under Castro one can't blame them a bit.

We ended the tour at the ice cream shop and it had been an excellent few hours full of learning about Cuban-American history, culture and food.

I highly recommend the tour if you have a few hours in Miami. Just don't eat anything first, you're going to want the room.