semi-major announcement (of a sort)... wait for it, it's hidden

[johnpalmer]

Does anyone know anything about smokers? You know, those barbecue like things that smoke meats and fish?

I've developed a love of salmon jerky and candied salmon, (and beef jerky, of course, but *damn*... salmon candy? Catholics should avoid it on Lenten Fridays to avoid feeling overwhelmed with guilt over the pleasure) and I was thinking of buying one. The biggest thing that makes me nervous is the charcoal ones.

I like the notion of using charcoal, because it has a nice, rustic-y, outdoors-y feel to it. It reminds me a bit of Pa Ingalls and his old hollow tree from the Little House books, lo those many years ago.

I also like the notion of not burning stuff, and not having the fire go out, and being able to plug the damn thing in and forget about it, except for adding the wood chips and making sure the water bowl stays full if it's supposed to. I have ADHD, remember, so these things are important.

They have some at the local Fred Meyer, and probably at the McLendon's hardware store.

I think I'm going to buy one *soon*... as a celebration of my newfound freedom, which might be fleeting. Good DBAs can get hired quickly these days.

See, Tuesday night, I'd been working until 1 a.m.. Wednesday night, I worked late (mind, I came in late, too), and was about to go out jogging for the first time in weeks... and the phone rings.

"Is this John Palmer?"
"who's calling?"
"This is BGI(crackle) ing about a ha(deadair)ority alert."
"I'll take care of it."
"Do you want to know what it is?"
"No. I'll take care of it."
"Do you (crackle) to (deadair) the queue?"
"I don't *care* what you do. I'll take care of it!"

I'm just curious: has anyone noticed something about tech folks these days? If you're on call, they consider that your job. Not something to say "Hey, John, thanks for handling that alert last night," about, and get a "No prob, it's part of the job, you know?" in response.

So, heaven help you if you're cranky, and tired, and frustrated.

Friday, my boss calls me into a meeting to discuss this matter. No, I won't promise I'll never be cranky with another tier 1 person calling over a bad phone line, at night, when I have other plans. It's not gonna happen.

Later, I point out in an e-mail that the common sense solution to this (to ask me to contact the person in question, and apologize for my tone) was completely ignored.

Late Friday afternoon, while I'm working on some database stuff (and, surprisingly, having a bit of fun figuring out how to get things to work nicely) my boss sends out an e-mail. Someone mistakenly sends it out to the discussion group... I am no longer working for Microsoft, via an Indian outsourcing company, via a contracting firm (VOLT!) who shall remain (VOLT!) nameless, because if I ever (VOLT!) expressed how much I despise (VOLT!) them, I might get myself (VOLT! IT WAS VOLT! TURN BACK NOW, YOU FOOL! IF VOLT WILL HIRE YOU, SOMEONE ELSE WILL! IT WAS VOLT! VOLT! VOLT!) in trouble.

Cool!

I clean off my computer, and Monday, I'll go in to pick up my stuff, and file for unemployment.

Anyway... if you want to sympathize, great, that's fine, but first, remember: do you know anything about how to smoke meats and fish? Any advice?

Comments

This may be too long for a single comment...

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

Here from kightp's ping...

I'm, ah, not really sure what you want to know? I see you've got some evangelists already feeding you their tracts about charcoal/water smokers/woods/etc, so maybe I can give you some "holy war neutral" info about equipment...

There's two different kinds of smoking: smoke-curing, and smoke-cooking. Smoke-curing involves using cold smoke to preserve and dry raw meats. Smoke cooking is barbecue, and involves cooking foods slowly over low temperatures (typically between 180-250 F) with hot smoke. Most candied salmon recipes (http://www.fishsniffer.com/recipes/salmon12.html) I've seen are smoke-cooked. (Nova Lox is a great example of a smoke-cured salmon.)

You ONLY smoke with hardwood. Ever. Typical hardwoods are oak, hickory, pecan, apple, cherry, and alder. Mesquite burns too hot for serious smoking, but it's awesome for grilling. Most pitmasters have a favorite wood--my preference is for pecan. Some meats pair best with certain woods; duck and cherry, for example, or salmon and alder, but if all you've got access to is hickory, hickory-smoked duck or salmon are great too.

The very best barbecue of all comes from wood-fired pits. If you can afford a good, solidly-built wood-fired pit, that's the way to go. They are terribly expensive, though, and if you don't have someone producing them locally they are prohibitively expensive to ship. They also require a steady source of hardwoods; a wood-fired pit can burn through a LOT of hardwood if you're doing even occasional smoking. They also require the most skill to use, but man, do they ever produce good barbecue. If I had the money, I'd have a wood-fired pit. When I compete with my cousin, we use his wood-fired pit.

If a wood-fired pit is out of the question, then you still have lots of choices at a wide range of prices. The way I tend to break down smokers is by how they produce their heat: electricity, charcoal, or propane.

Electric smokers have the benefit of being very easy to use. Traeger (http://www.traegerindustries.com/) makes great electric smokers; basically they have an electric element that heats up, and a patented mechanism dumps in controlled quantieties of compressed hardwood sawdust pellets onto it, producing smoke. They have a water pan that you can fill or not, as you prefer (there's a holy war right there). My boss and our sysadmin both have Traegers, and they love them. Traegers are very much "fire and forget" and have safeties for automatic shutoff if they overheat, and such. The pellets for them are cheap and readily available just about everywhere (and you can order them online if they're not). Traegers are, however, rather pricey.