A steak dinner gave me the chance to grill on my new Pit Barrel Cooker. The grill comes with the cooker. It sits more than a foot above the coals. The grill itself doesn't get very hot---I was able to hold my hand just above the grill for quite some time. Thanks to the low heat level, I needed to grill my steaks for over 30 minutes to get them to medium rare on the thermometer.
The result was very tasty: nice smoky flavor, good crust, tender interior. But the process takes much longer than with a traditional grill. Perhaps adding more coals would have provided more heat but I doubt that would completely solve the problem. In my experience, the Pit Barrel Cooker is a good backup grill but a little slow for everyday use.
Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course)
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