It appears Gypsy Smokehouse is out of business. I am not surprised, but it is sad. Their Southern Pride smoker is for sale . . . Michelle Malkin advertises an open thread, yet registration to her site has been closed for years . . . Racial discrimination in pricing of Barbies or inventory control? . . . Excellent videos on how to break down a chuck roll . . . How did my watch become three days out of date? . . . Driving through Buena the other day I saw a few children playing on the front lawn of a house. Three of them were kicking a ball while a fourth was taking a leak by the tree . . . Gert has the pet frog in the classroom, yet I am the one who buys the crickets each week . . . There is something about March. The weather is breaking and two days until the clocks change. This is when I used to see lots of Grateful Dead shows . . . According to YouTube, because I watched JB’s Smoked Chicken and Ribs video, it has recommended I watch Tiger Woods’ presser. What is the connection? . . . RIP Merlin Olsen . . . I watched my first baseball game earlier this week. Bring on the regular season . . . hankering for paella . . . big day tomorrow and I am wondering how I am going to procure food, not only when, but what since it will be a meatless Friday . . . Facebook is where different groups of friends should never meet . . . Hey, any locals want to get together for a friendly BBQ cookoff sometime? It would be a fun excuse for a party . . .
After college, my plans were not firm. I had a job managing the Mad Batter restaurant in my hometown of Cape May. I began commuting between Muhlenberg and home in the late winter of my senior year. I worked all summer. It was very much like any other year. But as the summer wore on, my parents began to ask what I was going to do come September. Work, I thought. It was their intention to have me move out.
As I pondered spending money to live in a town that I had never had to spend a dime on for board I realized that it was time to move on. I had stumbled into a relationship with a girl I knew from college. She was moving to Boston to attend Northeastern for graduate school and suggested I move in with her. It seemed serendipitous at the time.
Union Square
I drove all night late in September, my little car packed full. I recall arriving about 7:00 a.m. at my new abode. Instead of just my girlfriend, there was another girl I knew from college living there. Sigh …
Without a bed, I slept on an air mattress and searched for a job. Coming from a nouveau cuisine restaurant, I thought I’d walk into a high end restaurant. No dice. It wasn’t long before I recognized the reality of needing a job. I signed on as the manager of a Tony Roma’s restaurant in a suburb of the city.
Boston was off to a rough start: my living situation was less than ideal, I received two traffic tickets in my first two weeks, and we were robbed.
The restaurant was a franchise owned by John Battaglino. Minority shares of the restaurant were owned by Bobby Orr and KC Jones. We hosted many fundraisers for the Celtics and the Bruins. But it was difficult working here. The restaurant was not supposed to make money; it was a write-off for Battaglino and used as a liquor store for friends and family.
Oak Square
As the relationship with the girl I had moved to the city for failed, I found myself needing to find a new abode. At the same time, my friend Steve had returned from London and decided to move to Boston. We got an apartment together in Oak Square, about a mile down the road from where I was living.
This was absolutely the worst move of my life. Being so close, I figured I didn’t need to pack too securely. Bah! I recall driving down Cambridge Street with my mattresses on the roof (I had since purchased a bed) my hand holding them up so they wouldn’t fall off.
We had a nice apartment and entertained quite a bit. We rented our furniture and while it was expensive, it was nice stuff. It was while living here I began dating another girl from college. The only issue was that she lived in Bermuda.
I eventually left Roma’s to manage Hunter’s restaurant at 885 Boyleston Street in the heart of Boston. Hunter’s also owned the Pour House down the street. I came on as new management took over the joint. These folks were exiles from the Newbury Street TGI Fridays. This was the signature store at the time. I stayed here about four months before I returned to Roma’s.
Much of what was wrong with Roma’s had supposedly been corrected. I was asked to return and I did. That lasted several months before things changed again. This was the turn that eventually had JLB sell the franchise. Orr and Jones had left, along with all their trophies. I found myself without a job in the summer of ‘89.
Papa Gino’s
Being out of work when you’re young is not quite as bad as when you’re older. I traveled to North Carolina to visit friends, took road trips to see Grateful Dead shows, and had a momentous journey to Montreal for the Amnesty International concert. During this time I worked under the table at a restaurant somewhere (Sudbury?) with Sara. That kept some cash flowing, but things were not great.
We moved in with Sara and Bill in a gorgeous condo in Chlemsford. The lease was up in January 1990. We all found an apartment in Watertown. It was a duplex. Nothing great but fine. It had a puke green rug in the living room. I was very hesitant renting this place. We pulled up the corner of the rug and found a beautiful hardwood floor beneath. We re-did that floor the week before we moved in. I have never worked harder in my life. The landlord was so grateful he treated us to a $100 dinner on the wharf.
I also sucked it up that I needed to work. I joined Papa Gino’s, swallowing my pride as I did so. It didn’t take a genius to see I had gone from a state-of-the-art restaurant to a glorified fast food joint in the span of a few years. I was not happy about it. The Polyester pants I had to wear were the icing on the cake.
Many plans were hatched during this time: move to London, move to Bermuda, get married, enter the CIA, etc. Push eventually came to shove and plans were cemented. I was going to leave Boston, enter the Culinary Institute of America, and then get married.
But a funny thing happened along the way. Sara and Bill got married, my fiancée moved back to Bermuda, and I moved to Burlington. The plans were still on, but looking back, it certainly seemed like the writing was on the wall. Right as I was finishing up in Boston in 1991, I traveled to Bermuda for Cup Match. During that two week stay we broke up. So I headed back to New Jersey broke, broken up, and contemplating being in the restaurant industry for the rest of my life. It is not what I what I had intended …
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
I finally got around to making fajitas tonight. It’s been a long time coming.
It was sometime in the late 1980s that I was first turned onto fajitas. Yes, the sizzle of the platter totally awed me. My then girlfriend and I really raved about them. As a gift for some holiday, she gave me a Lodge fajita platter and a cookbook. It was apparent I needed to grill the meat for authentic fajitas. Back then, that wasn’t an option.
For the last 20 years, every time I dined on fajitas, I was reminded of the sizzle platter I had in the cabinet. Guilt came with each bite, but I never got to it.
Over the years I have done a pretty good job of discarding items that I don’t use. Somehow the sizzle platter never made the cut. I think I knew I could use it some day. That day was today.
On Friday I went to the butcher for a steak. In the mood for something different in addition to my T-Bone, I was fairly certain I was going to pick up a pork loin, which is something I’ve been looking at doing of late. When I got there, I had a hankering for fajitas. I asked for skirt steak, but they were out. Grrr . . . I opted for a 2-lb. flank.
Fajitas are something I marvel at whenever my online buddies post their photographs. I love expanding my culinary book and this was one of the meals that I had on the To-Do list.
This afternoon I placed the flank in a plastic bag with some Italian dressing and then placed in the refrigerator for a couple hours.
First I put on some red onions and yellow and orange Holland peppers that were sprinkled with oil, Kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper. Toward the end of their time, I added a little more lump to guarantee a 500° grill. Also, I put in some mesquite. I am at the end of my bag, so it was far more like chips than chunks, but I didn’t need much. I salted and peppered the flank steak and then placed directly over the coals. I had read somewhere that three minutes per side would result in a good medium-rare. I did so, pulled the steak, tented it, and then placed the sizzle platter on the grill to heat up. I also began heating some refried beans.
After several minutes, I began slicing the steak. I like my steak rarer than most, but this was even too rare for me. It actually answered a question I had as there wasn’t as much char on the outside as I had expected. Back onto the grill it went for a few more minutes.
I also heated some tortillas on the grill, just to warm them up. Next time I may make my own.
Over the years I have wondered how the fajitas in Chili’s and other places came out so sizzling. I searched and didn’t find much. One thing I did find was someone who said drizzling Worcestershire sauce on the platter would spike the sizzle. I had my bottle ready.
Once the flank was ready, I began assembling the sizzle platter. Things were sizzling right along. No help was needed. Ah, I love the sound.
We served this with sour cream, salsa, and Mexican cheese. Awesome! I love the char taste that is in my mouth right now. It is heavenly.
These were surprisingly easy to make. This is what I call a timing meal in that a lot of little things need to come together at the same time. I will be better at that next time. This is too easy to make and too tasty not to have in the rotation. Awesome!
And thank you, Dana. I really appreciate the gift . . . even if I didn’t get to using it for a couple decades.
Late this afternoon I dismantled my grills. Despite accepting that the gunk on the inside is good, I was feeling things were a bit messy. With a pleasant day at hand, why not a little spring cleaning?
It was messy. The number of times I washed up is numerous. In the end, however, I have cleaned things up well. Yes, I left the gunk on the inside of the smoker. Gunk = good. For the kettles, I scraped down some of the residue. All shine nicely on the outside now. Yeah!
I have collected a few new things of late. There is now a grill mat beneath the Performer. The poor grill looked outcast among his brothers without a rug to sit on. Now it’s happy too. I also have brand spanking new covers for each of these grills. Looking sharp!
In a run to Lowes some time ago, I picked up some charcoal holders. Performers come with them, but my used one did not. I broke them out. I use two charcoal grates since I burn lump. Because of that, the holders were higher than they normally would be. But even had I removed the second grate, I still think the charcoal would have been too close. I’ve read others having similar experiences. I have moved the holders to the OTG to use with the rotisserie. I think things will work much better there.
Even so, once the lump was hot, I put on several cooking grates to burn off some stuff. I had picked up a lava rock type thing that cleaned up my hinged grate very well. The others I burned off. Once completed, I began dinner.
I had read of cooking whole onions that are cored. Adding a beef bouillon cube and a tablespoon of butter makes for something that is described as onion soup. I wrapped this in foil and added it to the Performer. A little while later I sliced a sweet potato. I used some vegetable oil and then Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
As they were finishing up, I added some fresh lump. This was part of my issue with dinner tonight. It took a bit longer for the grill to get back up to temp for the T-Bone. I probably rushed it. With the change in height of the coals to begin with, I had coals way too hot for my steak. After four minutes, which is my usual flip time, I had some char on the sirloin side. Grrr . . . I moved the steak to indirect for four more minutes. I then placed it back on the fire for a minute before taking it off to rest.
It was not as pretty as my T-Bones usually are. The charred area was overcooked, but that was only a couple bitefuls. The rest, I am happy to report, was perfect. The sweet potatoes were just wonderful. The onion wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. It was fine, but it was not particularly onion-soupy to me. I think I will return to slices next time, as I usually do.
I opened a bottle of Cabernet to accompany this fine meal. Life is good.
