Thanksgiving started for me at around 8:30 in the morning while I got the smoker ready for the big bird cook.  I actually used The Minion Method for the Charcoal burn.  Using this method kept the temp at a constant of 250 degrees for the whole 5 hour cook.  The turkey had been marinating in a red wine marinade sine Monday.  It came out of the marinade a nice dark purple color.  After the smoker had leveled out to a steady temp the Turkey was put on the grate at 9:00am.  I then moved back inside to start work on the Rye Bread Stuffing.  This turned out to be a great stuffing.  After getting that in the oven, it was time to start on another new recipe for Smoked Sausage Jambalaya another recipe that was a hit for dinner.  While working on all of these new recipes I had a pot of Cranberry BBQ Sauce cooking up, which was talked about a lot last year and was requested to be made again.  Other then making gravy and un canning the canned jelled cranberry sauce onto a plate I was really done cooking by 1:30.  My cousin Tim and family showed up around 1:45 and then it was a constant flow of family arriving till about 2:15.  I took the turkey off the smoker at about 2:15 and let it rest till about 2:45 and handed it over to my dad to carve while I got the rest of the food on to the table.   We finally sat down by 3:00 and the food was passed till about 4:30 as well as the great conversation.  The turkey was perfect and moist and had a great smoke ring around it.  The last person left around 8:00 and I was finally able to sit down and relax and to start thinking about Christmas dinner.

Friday was a day of working at some side jobs and going into work for a bit……but dinner was a treat, we did another pizza off at my Aunt Bea’s house, but with a twist…we did white pies only.  We got pies from Top Road Tavern & Pizza, Fedelos Family Pizzeria, Abruzzi Pizza & Cafe, Kings Pizzarama, Palermo’s III(Ewing), Limoncello’s Pizza.  The winner for the second year in a row for the Bilancio Pizza Off was Palermo’s, it now holds the title in both the Tomato Pie division and now the White Pie Division.  It was a fun night just hanging out talking to everyone. Dean brought some beer he had just bottled that day.  It had a great taste but it will be better after it sits for a few weeks in the bottles.  It was an early night because I ate so much pizza that it just made me tired.

Saturday morning started with me heading to my Aunt Bea’s to hang out with my Uncle Fran for a bit, so since I go there early enough I got a home cooked breakfast which was nice.  We all headed our separate ways for a bit to meet back at the house for dinner.  Which consisted of leftovers brought over from my house from Thanksgiving as well ham from Bath Packing.  Dinner was great and of course the conversation was good to.

It was great seeing my uncle Fran and family since it’s rare that we see them much since they are up in Michigan..tried to talk them into coming back for Christmas but since the snow will be flying by then I doubt we will see them till the La Vigna Picnic in July.

Well time to go and see about Christmas dinner now….

To see all the photos from the weekend head over to here.

We found Elevation Burger at Harbor East, 1006 Aliceanna Street, Baltimore, MD.  They are a chain but there food was out of this world.  What caught my attention right off was that they clamed that the fries were cooked in 100% Olive Oil.  I had just had a discussion that afternoon with Jesse Trucks about how he couldn’t eat at the other burger place because they cook there fries in Peanut Oil, so I knew I was coming back again before I left with Jesse. They also claim that there ingredients are fresh, sustainable, and local when practical,  Nothing on there menu contains trans-fat, and that each restaurant grinds its beef on premises to ensure freshness and quality. 

The menu was small but it was hit.  They featured 3 meat burgers and 3 veggie burgers and one called the “Half The Guilt Burger” 1 beef patty and 1 veggie patty.  They also had a salad and a grilled cheese sandwich on the menu.  The burger that caught my attention was “The Elevation Burger”, double meet, and double cheese (real cheddar).  all there meet is 100% USDA-CERTIFIED organic, grass-fed, free-range beef.   You get to pick the toppings you want so I picked lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and raw onions. I also got a side of fries with my burger. 

My name was called and I was handed a 9×3 cake pan with my fries in what I call the little fries boat and the burger wrapped in wax paper and in a little wax bag.  I took the burger out of it’s little bag and took that first bite and knew we had made the right decision for dinner.  The meat was juicy and flavorful and the toppings were crisp and fresh and added to the flavor of the burger. 

The fries were typical shoe string fries and they were crispy and light and flavorful.  I had never had fries that were cooked in olive oil and I have had tons of fries in my life.  When cooking fries in olive oil it gives the fries a golden brown color, and the taste is unbelievable, I will be changing the way I make fries from now on…they were out of this world. 

So Elevation Burger was the right choice for a low cost, taste satisfying, good time meal for a group of conference goers on a budget.  For the burger, fries and a Stewarts Root beer + tax the total cost came out to $12.00 for lunch. 

Now if they would just open a location here in Lawrence Township.

The making of my Dad’s Montauk burger

One summer my parents and I went with 6 other couples to spend a week in Montauk. Well on the night that watching the kids fell to my parents my dad had decided to make burgers for all of us. So he went out and bought an hibachi grill and the makings for the burgers. He also stopped and got a bottle of jug wine some Carlo Rossi paisano to be exact . After getting back to the house he got the fire started and a glass of wine in his hand. Then he started getting the burgers made and had another glass or 2 of wine. When the fire was ready he headed out with the burgers and put them on the grill and proceeded to have a few more glasses of wine. So when he finally came with the burgers and served them up one side was as hard as a Charcoal Briquet and the other side was raw…thus we now make sure when dad is going to make burgers for us he isn’t going to make Montauk burgers.

Last year he was working the grill at his nephews wedding and wandered away to talk to family….while he was away the vegetables he was grilling ignited in to a nice blaze of glory. Luckily I was near by and put out the fire….I ended up doing the rest of the grill cooking that night.

Now don’t get me wrong when my dad is focused on the grilling at hand he does a great job it’s when he has had a few to many glasses of wine or there is a distraction such as his brother or other family members that he doesn’t see all the time that things go wrong.

So the day started at 5am with a quick download of a Gov’t Mule show to listen to while I got the smoker fire up and the turkey on. I got the bird in the smoker by 6:44 and it’s a cooking.

I have gotten the turkey giblets in the pot with some onions and celery and carrots and bay leafs so the stock simmering an making the house smell great. I have started the Cranberry BBQ Sauce I am using as a dipping sauces. I will be doing starting the stuffing in a few hours as well as the gravy when the turkey is done.

I want to say that I am thankful for my family and friends, even if I don’t get to see my friends all that much.

So have a great Thanksgiving with your family and friends….

UPDATE: Turkey came off at 9:44am it took 3 hours to cook on the UDS

I don’t mean holiday meals those we still do, just at different locations in Mercer County. I’m talking about the Sunday morning breakfasts and the meals in the yard during the summer with Rose and Louis, Fran and Angelica, Clora and Dean, Henry and Tim, Bea and Ray, John and Bea and Terry and Willie and me and sometimes other family members and friends. Those are the meals I am talking about, and the birthday celebrations with a huge carrot cake and funny hats.

It seems when Rose and Lou died, things began to change. Family gatherings were fewer and something seemed to be missing when we did get together. It’s understandable that things change. A few of us moved away and we all have families and lives of our own. Sure, today we visit once in a while or meet at wakes or weddings and on holidays. It just seems we are always in a hurry to get through dinner and get back to our lives.

In the old days the adults used to sit around the table and talk back and forth while the kids would go outside or into the other room to play. Now when we get together we are in a hurry to eat and get going. We meet at diners and restaurants too much these days where we are always having to go, so we can’t sit and talk and the food is not as good as if we cooked it ourselves. With the amount of money we spend for our meals we could have better and more food if we were to cook it ourselves.
I get a glimmer of these family dinners I am discussing at La Vigna meetings, when Fran and Corine’s families and Aunt Bea and Aunt Lorriane descend on the beaches of the Jersey Coast or on the days leading up to and after the picnic in the yard at 90 Eggerts Crossing. These glimmers always just make the loss of these dinners felt much more in my mind.

It was these family dinners that gave me the sense of what the family is and taught me to respect and cherish the family as a whole as a child. I feel that my child and my cousins’ children have been cheated out of a wonderful piece of heritage and learning of family.

I am starting to use it for planing nights out with my wife to find new places to eat and try. I am also using it to plan where I want to eat on our next vacation to the Keys.

So when you go out and eat, how about taking the time to then write a review for the restaurant. If the restaurant isn’t listed click on the “add restaurant” link on the upper right menu and fill out the form as best you can and then leave a review and the editor for the area will ok it and post it.

So please check out ChefMoz.org and help us out getting more restaurans and more reviews and help spread the word about ChefMoz dining guide.

On Saturday Carolyn and I worked on organizing the kitchen a bit. We also decided to convert the junk closet in the laundry room to the pantry and get all the canned and dry goods out of the kitchen cabinets and moved to the new pantry. I still have to clean out the big pot cabinet and get it reorganized so I can find things in my kitchen when I am cooking.

I have also added a recipe section on the site so you can see my recent cooking projects. You can find it here.

The big gift this year went to my wife Carolyn. I gave her a romantic getaway vacation to the Florida Keys for both of us. We still have to pick where we are going to stay but I have booked the air fair and car rental. We will be going sometime in May. I know I am looking forward to just sitting by the ocean or pool relaxing for a week with a few day trips to Key West and other sites in the Keys.

The family started showing up promptly at 4:30 and dinner was served around 5:30. All the food was great and we all had a great time enjoying each others company. Things started breaking up around 8:30 – 9:00.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and is looking forward to the new year.