1. Irish fast food. In spite of being half Irish, Champs is not a fan of the traditional boiled corned beef and cabbage dinner. He is fond of corned beef, however. So, I did what any American Irish wife would do: I made him an Irish fast food dinner of roasted potato and onion wedges (roast with a little olive oil, kosher salt, sliced garlic and thyme and you got the best potatoes), grilled Reuben sandwiches and Harp beer. Yeup, that was our St. Patrick's Day feast and everyone seemed to think it was appropriate.
2. The promise of yummy slow food. For Christmas this year, I gave Champs a small smoker. He was thrilled at the idea, but the actual unit didn't work that well and wasn't up to his standards. He returned the smoker and added to that money the gift cards he received as another Christmas presents, giving him $100.00 to choose a new smoker.
Problem: the model he wanted was $100.00 - and $55.00 S/H. The wonderful folk at Home Depot, however, pointed out that they could order in a larger smoker from a neighboring store. They described the next model up: 738 square inches (not feet, as Geekwif so accuratly pointed out) of cooking surface for $159.00 - with no S/H. Now, we've been working hard on debt reduction, etc and money is tight. However, I crunched the numbers and we figured that we would rather add $59.00 to the total and have it pay for smoker instead of shipping. We ordered it in and Champs got it on Thursday - a brand new Charbroil Silver Smoker with offset firebox. I told him "Merry Christmas and Happy Father's Day, Honey. This is it for awhile." He doesn't mind. He got it put together right away and let me tell you, this baby is HUGE! It's 4 feet, 4 inches long and can smoke something like 3 or 4 turkeys at once.
Champs' Irish eyes haven't stopped smiling - and we're having smoked pork loin for dinner tomorrow!
Here's a picture of his new baby... I know all you grill aficionados are drooling now, aren't you?
Here's some comments from this post:
Karen said...
Your Irish fast food sounds yummy.
Michael said...
Yea, we're drooling all right. Three or four turkeys! That would last a while. Should I be booking my flight for Thanksgiving??
OldOldLady Of The Hills said...
WOW! That's quite a piece of equipment! I bet your husband is a happy camper, yes? I am not a big fan of "smoker' cooked food, but this looks incredible!
Geekwif said...
Um, yeah, so when are the Geek and I coming over for dinner?
BTW, 738 sq ft is bigger than my first apartment. I'm thinking you meant sq in? My apartment was pretty small, but seriously, you could grill a lot more than 3 turkeys in that amount of space! ;)
Enjoy that new grill. With Champs having a new toy, you might not have to cook all summer! Of course, knowing you, you wouldn't be happy if you couldn't work in the kitchen sometimes.
Shannin said...
That looks awesome! I like to smoke, but haven't since we got the gas grill here to replace the Weber charcoal grill we had in LA. I think about investing in a stove-top one since it's just the two of us...
I like your Irish fast food. I ended up doing ribeye steaks, coleslaw (I hate cooked cabbage) and roasted red potatoes. Close enough...
Suzy said...
I'm droolin' over here!
Hey, how's it goin' down there in southern Illinois? I need to read up on your blog to catch up on things with you and the family. I haven't felt the best, so I haven't been reading blogs lately. I'm sorry!
Make sure you tell your family member about that CellCept that I've been prescribed! It's really starting to help!
Paul said...
We're far from Irish, but I always like this time of year cuz corned beef brisket are always on sale. I got the two best one in the store this year. Already ate one. It was pretty good.
That smoker looks like a side of beef will fit into it. And a side of venison. A large shank of pork. Lots of lamb...
Have fun.
David said...
your story is what is beautiful, your working together and planning, reasoning. waiting.
the smoker is a thing, a fabulous thing. the relationship you are building is a treasure
what a great post.
i have the cheapo smoker
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