Reinforcements needed

The table is set!

Meatballs

RSVP regrets and This I Believe from Brent

Unfortunately, we got regrets from Brent and Ai this year. New baby, or some lame excuse like that. ;-) But he had a lovely message to pass on:

==========

Dave -

... a "this I believe" via satellite starting with:

I believe I missed some awesome smoked trout

I believe Kev has the free time to teach Tarun how to play guitar and Tarun has the time to learn.

I believe Po was correct that expired acetaminophen works just fine, I use it all the time.

I believe baby formula should be considered hazardous to your health, just read the label...

Photos of years past

So I dug through my hard drive and found all the photos (aka evidence) of years past. The intent is to have a slideshow going on the screen downstairs during the lunch. But as a teaser, here are some of my favourite (sometimes embarrassing ones). Don't feel bummed if none of your exploits have made it to this short list - your humiliation will come later.

Ahh, starting them young

Get your drunk on sweetheart!

I'm a big mean monster. Wait til I'm the MC and you don't have a performance!

Caught!

Wow, Daniel, you gotta lose a few pounds.

I think she liked it.

Wow that cabin needed some lighting, eh?

The preggers chicks. I don't think that was the year of the naked digger.

She's just looking for her binkie. But Luke is hitting the booze.

Po's balls of meat.

Who is that man? What's in his hand? And, um, Sara, why is your face in his crotch?

Makes my liver weak just looking at this photo.

Rockin' rockin' fish

Oooh, that was good. Really really good. Beyond what I was expecting.

So the secret is the temperature. Really low, like never above 200F, and then a long long smoke, like for about 2+ hours.

The trout I think I'm going to make into some sort of creamy spread I can put on toast points that you can have with your champagne.

The mackerel will be a course of it's own, on bread with maybe scrambled egg and chopped chives?

But it all depends on what Sun Fat has on the day before Jule Frokost!

... dave

Smoking the fish - a test drive

I've always loved smoked fish, but never really like the loss of control by going over to the Russian deli, or getting the frozen smoked eel from Nordic House. So I headed over to Sun Fat on Mission, picked up some trout and some mackerel and decided to give it a go.

I found a "Smoker" device online for for my weber - it just segregates the coals over to one side and has access ports for pouring in more wood chips. It also has a water receptacle so that you can keep it moist in there and also it helps as a gauge

for the temperature.

Then I prepped the fish (damn bones!)

Put the fish in!

The ideal temp:

It should be done in a couple hours. Maybe less. I'll post again once we've had a chance to taste it! It'll be good with the champagne we're starting tonight with!

... dave