Category Archives: Egging

Eggtoberfest Reflections

Having gotten back to The Mountain, I’ve had some time to think about my first Eggtoberfest. I’m pretty well convinced that this will not be my last. 🙂

I got down to Tucker, and found the shuttle bus to the mother ship: the Big Green Egg headquarters! And I walked and ate, and walked and ate, and walked and ate…. well, you get the picture. It was like vultures circling, with the huge throng circling the eggs and waiting for the flamed-licked spoils.

From the 250 lit eggs, I ate meatloaf, all kinds of bratwurst, chicken wings, pineapple, baked apples, s’mores, watermelon, pulled pork, chicken chunks, pumpkin bread, shrimp wrapped in bacon and basted with berry chipotle sauce, stuffed jalepenos stuffed with a seafood mixture and wrapped in bacon and probably other stuff I can’t remember. I missed out on the duck, as well as the Spam (prepared and handled like fatties), and de-boned stuffed chicken, but I don’t know where I would’ve put anything else. By the time the drawings were held at 2pm, I was absolutely stuffed.

I don’t know if I learned a whole bunch of new things, but I sure got some great ideas. There were so many things coming off those eggs that I’d never thought of! Next time (next year?), I’ll try to learn more, and try not to be so boggle-eyed about all the stuff I saw. Truthfully, there’s no way for me to recount here just how much I saw, and how much fun I had.

Given all this, I’m pretty well convinced there will be a next time!

Eggsistential Eggsistence

Our old gas grill died a horrible death earlier this year. Despite being stainless steel here and there, many of the surfaces weren’t, and their time to die had come. Using a friend’s theory of predictive grill lifespans (we’ll call him Grill Master J), the life span of a grill is one year for every Franklin thrown at the seller. In this case, that was about right — just about five years.

Now, Grill Master J is a huge proponent for the Big Green Egg (BGE), which is essentially a kiln in which to cook your food. Becky (known as Grill Mistress B from here on) has been listening to the BGE conversation with great interest as Grill Master J has been learning his craft on his BGE.

Well, today, the clouds parted, the heavens opened, and a BGE landed on our deck. OK, so we went to Smoke-N-Fire, and picked it up, but you get the idea.

After watching the DVD that came with it, we decided to forego the quick meal (hamburgers) and dive right into a pair of T-bones, rubbed with something Grill Mistress B found in a book. After getting the charcoal lit, getting the temperature right (650°F), we seared the sacrificial cow on two minutes a side, and then let it cook down to about 450°F for about four minutes, pulling off the most scrumptious steaks we’ve had in a very long time.

I got my hands dirty with the charcoal. I burned my hand on the meat thermometer (because I’m an idiot sometimes… for some reason, it didn’t strike me that a thermometer in a 450°F+ kiln might actually be hot!). So, we’re converts from gas to lump charcoal. We’re newbie eggheads. We’re sitting with smiles on our faces.

In my best Snoopy voice, I can only say….

CURSE YOU GRILL MASTER J !!!! 🙂