Photos by Robert Sietsema

This is where the barbecue addiction begins.

​Right around 9 o'clock last night, a cheer was raised in the kitchen. The overworked FedEx folk had finally delivered the barbecue.

It was Texas barbecue, and for one of the ten individuals staying in our home for the holidays  -- Lance, he's called -- this is fable food, memory food. It came in a massive cooler from a legendary Texas meat temple called the Salt Lick. We got 30-some-odd pounds of the stuff. Ribs, brisket, enormous links of sausage, along with the necessary accouterments. Salt Lick hot sauce is somehow creamy, tart, and spicy at the same.

I loathe barbecue, but in the years I've known Lance, I've come to love Salt Lick. All of Salt Lick's meat is astounding. The brisket's especially so, achieving a synthesis of fat and muscle More >>

​It's June, which means people all over will be firing up the grill for backyard cookouts. And what goes better at one of those cookouts than that most American of sandwiches, the hamburger?

A grilled burger can be fantastic. The high heat of the flames caramelize the outside of the patty, lending it a lovely charred texture. Meanwhile, the smoke from the fire bastes the burger, creating layers of flavor. It's an experience as central to outdoor cookouts as cold beer and Slip 'N' Slide.

Yet for serious burger aficionados -- the kind who pine for thick, juicy burgers for the ages -- the grill just can't compare to another cooking method: the stove.

The reason cooking on a flat surface makes for a better burger than the grill has to do with a little bit of food science. But you can't just use any old burner or any old pan. Read on to find out how, by using a little ingenuity, you can make a stove-top hamburger that will stomp whatever is put out on the grill.
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​With the foodie movement in full effect these days, craft beer is all the rage. If you are a regular reader of our popular columns Beer of the Week and Booze Hound, you know what we are alluding to. For those new to the scene (Did you just surface from a bomb shelter?), here's some advice: Please don't be caught dead with a Corona in your hand. Don't know where to start? Blue Moon's a good one for beginners.

"Craft beer?" The phrase sounds as douchey as the word foodie. What does it mean? In layman's terms, it's the opposite of mass-produced beer. More in-depth, the producers leave out a lot of the crap that can normally be found in a Bud or Miller Lite, like chemical preservatives and high fructose corn syrup.

At-home brewing kits have been around for at least 20 years, and we know many a makeshift chemist who's dropped a lot of dough for the stuff. But, since brewing is actually a science, you'd be better off just flushing your $$$ down the toilet. Unless you are a real chemist, the final product's going to have problems: no carbonation, too hoppy, too wheaty, etc...

Thankfully, some smart kiwis have figured out a solution to your problem.
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Bacon-Infused Spicy Vodka Bloody Mary

​Mmm, bacon. The salty, smoky meat can make anything better... even our favorite cocktails.

A technique called Fat-Washing can be used to infuse the flavor of any fatty meat (such as bacon) into liquor. It's become popular in restaurants to infuse the fat of bacon especially into liquors such as bourbon and vodka.

Learn how to infuse liquor at home and make a doggone good bloody mary!

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Coca-Cola: all your recipes belong to us!

​One of American culture's biggest mysteries is the Coca-Cola formula. Well it might not be a mystery any more.More >>

Crackly crust, sweet butternut squash, sage, and caramelized onions -- the flavors of fall in pizza form.

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Yesterday, we talked about pizza stones and how you can improve upon those store-bought ones with cheap unglazed quarry tiles purchased at Home Depot. Today, let's put those tiles to the test with a delicious Fall-oriented pizza made with butternut squash instead of tomato sauce. More >>

This is what happens to most expensive, store-bought pizza stones.

​A few years ago, I purchased on of those pizza stone kits at Target or Kmart or something like that. I remember getting it home and being ultra excited to try it out. I ripped open the packaging and stuck the orange stone in the oven. I followed the dough recipe in the box and made some dough, opened a can of tomato sauce, and shredded a package of cheap mozzarella cheese.

After assembling my pie and the wooden pizza peel that came with the kit, I plunked it on the stone and waited. About five minutes later, I heard a slight pop come from the oven. I opened the door and saw the stone had split right down the middle. Shards of clay (or whatever it was made of) had splintered off into the pizza.

That kit probably cost $30, which was precisely $25 too much -- I'd pay $5 for the wooden peel. But the rest of the stuff in the package was garbage, especially the stone. This $25 piece of "specially formulated stone" split after during the first use.

The sad thing is most pizza stones are like this. They can cost upward of $100 for imported Brazilian soapstone and silly composites with useless "features" like handles and curved lips. But the truth is, you can duplicate or improve upon the performance of the best pizza stones without dropping that kind of cash.
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I'm all about breakfast, the most important meal of the day. It's especially fun when you make something seasonal and themed, like these pumpkin and pecan pancakes. They'd fit right in with the fall theme anytime from now until Christmas, but who doesn't think about pumpkins, especially around Halloween? They're made from scratch, but they're really easy. Try them out this weekend.
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Stuffed "rat" meatloaf with green pasta: A Halloween treat!

​A friend of mine really got into the Halloween spirit this year. We went to a party over the weekend, where she served the witch finger tea cookies I posted about on Monday. She and her sister also made a main course to go with that: Stuffed rats with green pasta.

What a cool idea! The rats were basically miniature meatloaves stuffed with pasta and cheese and baked in a rich tomato sauce. She scooped up the rats and served them with pasta that had been dyed green.

I think kids would get a kick out of this dish. It looks and sounds wierd (and spooky!), but it tastes familiar. What kid doesn't like spaghetti and meatballs?
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