You pico, I pico, we all pico

 Big crowd today for MEAT IN THE HEAT.  It was 30+ degrees C but thanks to the awning, it felt like 29.

MEAT IN THE HEAT

In my opinion, the hit contribution was Fernando's pico de gallo.  It was better than any I have ever had in a restaurant.  I could eat that everyday.  I did not get a picture of the pico de gallo.

It's stressful posting about this stuff because I don't remember what everyone brought and I don't want to minimize the contributions of people who brought random sausages.  So let's just accept that there are always a bunch of sausages at Meat Thursday.  I won't describe them but that doesn't mean they aren't important.  

The other standout offering was Isaac's braised pork.  He was describing the process but I was only half listening.  It was hot - so I had to conserve my ear energy.    From what I recall, it was a like a spare-rib braise (sugary soy sauce).  Anyhow, it was good.  But the slicing style has room for improvement.  We had to find scissors to portion up the large slices.  

Someone brought chips made of chocolate.  Harry told me they were chocolate, which was helpful because I thought they were pepperoni slices due to my colour blindness.

You can peruse these pictures Gary took for a better feel.  

Big crowd.

The pico de gallo in in the nearly empty bowl.

Chocolate "chips" survived the heat pretty well!

These pineapples will burn John's mouth nicely.

A Grill Mystery, more canned fish, spicy fruit

 I've neglected the meat blog.  Feels like a poor use of my time, so I always feel guilty about it. 

This is an update covering three weeks of meat.  I'm not really making the distinction between weeks because they all blend together.

We had a grill mystery one week.  Went back to the old smaller propane unit for some reason.  I assume because we wanted to use up some old propane bottles we had kicking around - but it may have just been because hauling the new grill out of the compressor shed is a pain.  

Grilled fruit is becoming increasingly popular.  I snapped this picture of some freshly grilled pineapple.  You can see the old propane grill in the background.  

One of the advantages of propane over natural gas is that it burns hotter.  So it's easier to get these grill marks.  Maybe.  Who cares really?

Great weather - EPIC meat day.

What an amazing MeatThursday.  Huge turnout.  Great weather, lots of meats and interesting non-meats.

In my opinion, the most impressive contribution was Isaac's fancy eggs.  Check out the presentation.  They were marinated in something and had some nice looking garnish.    What are they called?  Who knows!  Sometimes you just have to accept that you'll never learn the truth about things.  Someone called them hotel eggs.  I have experience with hotel eggs.  They normally start as a powder and the front desk guy mixes them up at 4am.  These were not hotel eggs.  At least not Travelodge hotel eggs.

Smuggled Fish Cheese

Someone who will remain unnamed brought some Japanese fish cheese and explained that he brought home a whole suitcase of foods that he didn't declare at customs on his return trip from his recent asian tour.    Might have been this stuff.  Anyhow, it wasn't bad.  

The FedEx guy showed up - as usual -  during meat.  We may have to post a sign barring deliveries on Thursdays at noon.  

I confess I lost track of who brought what - I blame FedEx.  There were popsicles, peaches, a plastic wrapped coconut, more smoked oysters, MANY MANY sausages, delicious steak and pork, PLUS some T&T BBQ pork, various chips and dips, some pastries.    Like your grandmother would say, a real smörgåsbord.

Here's some more pictures.

Nice to see more people from the spectrometer team this week.

This week I asked AI for a drawing of Japanese Fish Cheese.  I assure you it wasn't this fancy.

A Return to Meat - our 2024 season begins

With COVID sort of out of the way, we restarted our weekly MeatThursday sessions today.   The weather was warm and we had a good turnout.

A good variety of options were supplied including wasabi seaweed snacks that I refused to try because I don't like the taste of seaweed.    But that wasn't the only contribution from the sea.  I brought canned sardines packed in tomato sauce - served on crackers.  I keep the canned fish in my desk drawers as emergency food.    Canned fish lasts forever, so we can ignore the 2021 best before date.  I'm sure it's fine.  

Also from the canned fish category, Andrew Wilkie brought smoked oysters.  These were served without a substrate - just sitting in their packing juice on a plate.  I ate one and enjoyed it just as much as my sardines.  Not very much.   Are oysters fish?  No, but the term "fish" has been loosely defined throughout history.  

There was salmon - a hunk of it.  I think CW brought that.  Seemed well received among those who like salmon.  

My distaste for fishy foods is far from universal, as all the sardines, oysters, salmon, and seaweed (I think) were consumed. 

The one "solid meat" contribution was from Tom, who grilled up some nice pork chops and then took his sweet old time slicing it up for serving.  I may have expressed some frustration with the delay, but I really needed to get the sardine taste out of my mouth.

The breakfast sausages went quickly.  I got none.  

Jakub faithfully offered up his usual eggroll/springroll things.  You really can't go wrong with those.  

Sam brought some sort of hot dip with pita crackers.  I think I heard it was artichoke dip.  Also in the dip category, Matt and Blake brought Tostitos and salsa (and queso dip).  CW says the queso is amazing on the shriveled up Cheetos.  There was another dip but I don't recall much about it.  It was nice - served with some spicy potato chips.  

I quite enjoyed the quiche.  Not sure who brought that but I had two pieces.  Isaac was back to his usual form with some scones.  Could be blueberry scones.  That's what it looked like to my colourblind eyes.

Kingsmore cut up a McChicken - it evaporated pretty quick.  I didn't even get a crumb.  McDisappointed.

I spotted a pecan pie.  I'm sure it was good but I opted not to have any.    Same for some cookies.  

For vegetables - there were pickled beets and some tomatoes.  

That concludes my recollection of our MeatThursday for May 16, 2024.  Apologies for the contributions and contributors that I failed to mention.

Since we're now in the AI era, I asked for it to imagine what the spread looked like based on this post.   

Steve's pink balls steal the show

Fun fact:  If you say you don't like something CW has made, he'll declare "THERE'S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE" and then he'll rant for a while about your poor upbringing.   His blue cheese on steak was repulsive - to me at least - so I guess my parents were horrible.

Meanwhile Mathieu (the new guy) impressed us once again with his baked egg-omelette thing loaded with bacon.  It was really good.

The other new guy - Greg - arrived late, with a salad which he did not share.

Steve decided to mix a white and a red sauce for his balls - turned them pink.  They were good, but sort of off-putting.

Someone (Jesus?) brought a layered dip and some corn chips - that was popular.

Some nice (cheeseless) beef options, including some left over roast beef from Tom.

JH's grilled naan and halloum was well received as always.

Someone brought apple pie.  Pie is a very difficult thing at Meat Thursday... no plates or forks are available.  The pie looked good, but I didn't have any.

Vaz brought his mom's pork thing with a white sauce of some kind.  People seemed to like it.  I meant to try it but I got full.  Mostly I was eating cubes of cheddar that I assume Dan brought.

That's all.

Oh, yeah - Meat Thursday has a website. Also, we're all getting bum cancer.

Sorry about the brief three year delay with updates here.  We're getting back on the horse - and we will be keeping you up to date.

Last week the WHO made a big splash by putting meat in the same category as asbestos and tobacco among carcinogens. The report was the result of a systematic review. This is a process where the authors compile data from several studies to see a "big picture". Generally this process works to eliminate the weird results and highlight common results across studies.

The media jumped all over this - and didn't really bother to read the details. Lots of grossly irresponsible reporting - which is sadly becoming the norm these days as content is more valued for its "clicks and views" than its quality.

The WHO was careful to point out that while processed meat and asbestos share a cancer risk classification, it does NOT mean that they are all equally dangerous. These categories are about the strength of the evidence linking a risk factor to cancer - they don't relate to risk severity.

I encourage you to read the WHO's answers to frequently asked questions about their recent findings. They've actually done a nice job at communications here - it's a shame so many people in the mainstream media didn't take advantage of the information they made available.

Quiet mid-July Meating - with cake!

We're really busy and I haven't been updating the MeatThursday site much (sorry).

I promised to get this picture posted.  Our newest guy, Rob brought in this Heineken cupcake mosaic that he made all by himself.  He swears nobody helped him. 

Pretty slick!