Posts made by TeflonDon

I used to say that Eric Cantona was the one person ever alive who could wear his collar popped up.

If the collar is made of denim I’ll add Giles to the list. Cantona can use any fabric, though.

Shawshank Redemption - great film, great read as well.

Music: Leonard Cohen. Alexandra Leaving must be the best song ever written.

Book: Lord of the Rings

Film: Pulp Fiction. And Braindead. And Goodfellas. And absolutely not Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, how could you!)

Sport: Cycling. Used to be Football (soccer), but the Qatar World Cup ruined it for me and I’ve been unable to recover.

Food: Difficult - there is so much to choose from. I’ll settle for Moules Frites. Edit: Actually, Moules Frites doesn’t define me. Pasta does - pasta with mushrooms in one form or another must be my signature dish.

Drink: Wine. Mosel Riesling with a little residual sweetness, Aged Nebbiolo or Premier Cru Chablis.

Alcohol: Defining - then it must be smoky/peaty Single Malt.

Clothing: IH 726 OLV. And wool. I love wearing wool.

Footwear: I love having bare feet. When It comes to shoes and boots I prefer Goodyear (or similar) welded leather - with a weakness for Chelsea boots. Basically the best quality I can afford.

Relationship: my wife.

We have a very nice walnut one (side grain, made to measure by a danish designer/woodworker https://rune-jakobsen.com/da-dk/collections/rune-jakobsen-skaerebraetter?srsltid=AfmBOoqzqKl7Ve3vXOfT3CNcK5K5Zvu-chKivZCGk_JumSvWSOSZTyf- they’re expensive, but I’m very happy with his work - I have one of his knife racks as well). We keep it at the countertop, and use it for fruit, bread and vegetables. Basically all the use during the day, and 90 percent of dinner prep.

Walnut is quite dense, and not as hard on knives edges as for instance bamboo.

I have another big synthetic board that I use for raw fish, and plastic ones for chicken or rav meat. And some wooden ones I use for cutting and serving cooked food. But the big walnut one is the star of the show.

My moules frites station for tonight. The weather wasn’t great so we ate inside, but it’s always nice to use the fryer outdoors.

Tanks a lot - I really appreciate it!

I think I’d prefer wearing it like that - which again might mean that I should be looking at shoulder bags instead.

At the very least I think I’ll need to try before buying.

Once again, thanks for taking the picture.

@Oaktavia

I’ve never felt that way with my clothes - I’m in the goose camp, and just really enjoy well made clothing. I’m also really happy with clothes that can be repaired, and I’m really glad that I’ve gotten rid of the notion that “presentable” clothes were also clothes showing very little sign of wear. Which was pretty much the way of the eighties and early nineties, when I grew up.

But I can relate to your stress - I have a decent wine collection. And though I’ve pretty much stopped adding to it (apart from one yearly addition of Falkenstein), there was a point when my search for the right bottles at the right price, combined with my focus on cooking food that would pair well with what I had in the cellar, became a straight jacket, rather than a joy.

I still enjoy wine, but I’m telling myself that whenever I take a nice mature bottle out of the cellar I’m enjoying the fruit of my labor - instead of fretting about how to replace it.

Thanks a lot - especially since I hadn’t realized how old your post were

@Cole Looks great! I especially like seeing you wearing it on your back (I personally wouldn’t wear it on the front, so good to see it looking good on the back).

One question though: can it be worn lower? I realize that these bags are generally worn high, but I think I’d prefer it riding lower.

Smoking cheese is great - I’ve done that a lot.

I think my absolute favorite is havarti - a full fat, very mild danish cheese. If taken straight from the oven is very soft on the inside, and the fat really retains the smoke flavor.

Cheddar is another favorite, though it can go a bit dry.

And another benefit of smoking cheese is that it “kills” them, and stop them from maturing further. So if you have a Brie or similar that’s is on the verge of getting too intense it can be “stabilized“ by smoking.

Oh, nothing went wrong with the cauliflower, it came out just fine. I was following a recipe from Genevieve Taylor, and it was pretty great.

My complaint about the process being labor intensive is basically about me not using the right tools for the job:

I have a dedicated smoke oven:

An oven like that uses sawdust rather than wood chips, so that’s what I have a hand.

But whereas wood chips can just be thrown on the coals in the Weber that doesn’t work with the sawdust. Now I believe Weber sells something called a “smoke box” that could be used, but I don’t have one of those either.

So I used an old Weber device for cold smoking in a kettle grill:

It’s the spiral thing in the middle. It worked, but at first didn’t burn quickly enough (it is supposed to burn slow) so I had to fiddle with putting coal on it to increase the smoke output.

So basically - it works, but if you’re cooking something in a kettle grill and want smoke flavor, consider using wood chips

Smoking vegetables - in general my experience is limited, and the challenge is go get smoke flavor in them while avoiding drying them out. With the cauliflower blanching it (or steaming) for a few minutes and then putting olive oil on it before smoking it worked terrifically. Other good vegetable candidates for smoking is aubergines (for baba ganoush) and my favorite, potatoes, which hold the smoke taste very well.

Aubergines I would cook in a kettle grill, while I would put cooked potatoes in the smoke oven (hot or cold).

@Rustygate37: Yes, it’s an old school Weber. It’s a 47cm gold or something, we got it as a wedding present in 2008.

It sees too little use. I have a dedicated smoke oven, that can cold and hot smoke, and a 12 year old Weber 3200, that is a really good grill. Between those the charcoal one doesn’t get much use, but it excels when I want both smoke and heat. As with the cauliflower.

@EdH: I don’t know if it could work for you, but back in 18 there was a heat wave in Denmark. My wife bought a small air condition unit - really simple, about the size of a big suitcase. You need to put a wide hose from it out of the window, and it’s far from silent, but it can get one room down to tolerable temperatures. It’s been a blessing these last days (though we haven’t been hit as hard as the Germans and the French, but our houses are like yours, built to retain heat).

Cauliflower being grilled/smoked. Ended up tasting good, but I think I can make the process less labor intensive.

I did my first “mouse-mat-with-sand-paper convex grinding”(tm) yesterday. It worked just fine - my heavy German kitchen knife became a lot sharper. I’m not sure if I’ll notice the difference, but in theory it makes sense to have a convex edge in that knife as it’s used for heavy duty chopping.

I’m still undecided as to what I’ll do with the others. I’m leaning towards the Horl, but I’m not ready to make a decision yet.

So I managed to restrain myself. The Moki is great, but I don’t spend enough time camping or hiking to justify getting it. My trusty Fällkniven will have to do:

So instead of buying a knife I’ll end up regretting not using enough I’ll be looking for a slicer/sujihiki to supplement these:

I've said for years that I leave the sharpening of my knives to professionals. And while that has worked fine (I do use a honing rod for maintenance), I've also gradually stopped using my German knives, and transitioned to harder Japanese knives, that hold their edges very well. However even they need sharpening every once in a while (especially after my wife has started using them, for years she preferred the germans).

But apparently sharpening has become a hipster lifestyle vocation, and the prices have skyrocketed. Without the craftsmanship improving, If you ask me. My preferred sharpener now charges €20 for sharpening a Japanese knife (it's priced higher than sharpening German knives), which means that having all the knives on the rack sharpened would cost the same as a Horl 3. And I doubt the result would be much better.

So I'm looking into a setup for home. I'll taking the sandpaper/mouse mat route for my convex edges (my folder and one of my German kitchen knives, the one I use for heavy chopping), but for the others I'm on the fence - but edging towards a Horl 3 as it seems very intuitive to use, and can be used in the kitchen without setting up something like a Lansky.

Whetstones is another alternative, but I'm not sure I have the patience to learn it properly before using the stones on my best knives.

I’ve always loved pocket knives. I got a Swiss army knife as a child and had it for many years.

Then 15 years ago I upgraded to a Fällkniven U1 - lovely knife (I have the blue bone version that they put in the outlet…), and at that time it was legal to carry it everywhere in Denmark, so it lived in my pocket - until the knife laws changed.

Now I mainly use it around the house, which is a damn shame, as a knife like that really excels at tasks where a specialized tool - that I often have at hand when I’m at home - would be better, but isn’t available.

Due to the legal constraints I have only bought kitchen knives since I got the U1. But recently I’ve found myself comming back to this fixed blade (producers picture):

An outdoors knife made by Moki, who make Fallknivens folders. VG7 steel, 8,5 cm blade, linen mircata handle - and a beautiful shape. I don’t do nearly enough hiking to justify it, but I am going on a shelter trip with my youngest this weekend…

Some heavy gardening done (laying stones for a place to have fire, cutting down trees) - so now it’s a race: Will I finish that beer before the rain starts?