TheCockSportif

But, but... I thought that he was coming back to the Bills. I read it here. It must be true. HAHA

Totally depends. For me, it's always a balance between food quality, level of service, and price point overall. If that balance is off, whether the restaurant is fancy or not, I get bent out of shape. However, on the subject of fine dining, it's a mixed bag for me. Typically my wife and I will go to a really nice restaurant on our anniversary, and sometimes this is when we're overseas in one place or another. We had a Michelin-star meal in London in 2018, for our 10th, and it was beyond amazing. But then there was Portugal. Work took me to Lisbon a couple of weeks ago. Lots of spouses/partners/etc came along, including my wife. Enjoyed Lisbon and Porto immensely. On the last night we went to this Michelin-starred place in Lisbon with a colleague and her partner, and it was... underwhelming... and expensive. Sure, every dish looked like a smoke show, but none of the food was really (temperature) hot when they served it. The sirloin was particularly bad, lukewarm, and sinewy. (It's a Michelin-starred restaurant, you say?) The service was great, the Portuguese wines were quite good, and they offered to fire another course for me, but it wasn't just the sirloin that bugged me. Of an 8-course meal, only a couple of the courses were great. The rest were just a smoke show -- lots of pizazz, without a comparable level of taste -- and for the price point, the food quality was abhorrent. Even my wife was like, "yeah, for that price it should've been lights out food-wise. And it wasn't." Then they gave us this cookbook that was signed by the chef. My wife and I have been cooking for 20 years now, and we have loads of cookbooks. We literally just culled the herd. This cookbook was precious, and in thumbing through it we'd not make a single recipe out of it. So now it's at Goodwill. No issues with fine dining, and I certainly don't need fine dining to make me happy when I eat out, but definitely have issues with poor execution and pretense.

It's that people watch "it" -- which IIRC was the theme of this thread.

What the heck is up with Bass? Crazy short range performance (xps) but, yeah, let's just drop a 61-yarder in there for good measure. haha, this fella is killing me!

Nah, my wife and I are going out to dinner tonight. We're gonna leave a metal bowl of candy on the front porch. It'll last less than 30, and we don't care. Way too busy with work these days. My swan song around Halloween was when I dressed up like Chewbacca two decades ago. I'm 6'6", and to my surprise the costume was way too big. It was cool that I was able to make guttural noises all night though! Plus all of the (barely dressed) ladies kept petting me. Even light petting was totally excellent. Then I met my wife the next year, and she was starting law school (at night) at the time, so I left HW in the rear view.

I prefer shoddy mattresses and causing intestinal distress when I make Indian food for some. "Being fired out of a cannon: Yes or NO?" seems like a solid poll. Also, make sure that RON MEXICO becomes a part of this thread.

If you do it right (which we do), no toilet is harmed in the the creation of the meal.

Well, you know, @Sweats, my wife and I throw this major party, each year, on the Saturday following New Years. We cook a ton of Indian food (our biggest attendance was 51 people -- JFC we COOKED for 51 people?!), and historically it's also been a booze fest (for many, not really myself anymore). A few years back, our toilet upstairs was grumpy... and old (we live in New England, in a mid-1800s house that we've been renovating). Naturally, I could not retrofit modern plumbing (I believe that everything in the tank is now like 2.25" diameter) to the formerly 2" diameter. We *told* people to *not* use the toilet upstairs. It didn't flush anymore. It couldn't flush anymore. The water was shut off entirely. And what did we find the next day? Crusted urine in the bathtub, and a non-working toilet filled with urine. It smelled like "organic matter" (i.e. death). The cleanup, before I switched the commode to newer tech, was hideous. I ***** hated it. So, what I'm saying is that I feel your pain. My mother was incontinent for years before she died (she would always deny her incontinence, and I get why). Once we migrated from spring mattresses to foamy ones, we saw what took place (on the former mattresses). Ugh.

LOVED that guy, and massively sad to hear this. Thanks for sharing with us all, @SDS!

I think that the product has slipped because many owners don't care about winning. I would argue that half of the league doesn't care about winning. They care about the loot, which is cool if you've got the gig as a NFL owner. Look at how many people show up to these games, even for the most moribund franchises (the Bills, as we all know, were like this a lot during the drought). Or the owners are old, detached, horrible micro managers, don't understand what good hiring looks like, or some combination of the above. The fact that it took, how long, for Dan Snyder to get evicted from the league tells you all that you need to know.

MIND. BLOWN.

Thanks for the reply. You can definitely finish it in the oven; just keep an eye on the internal temperature so that it doesn't go over.

Bert (from Sesame Street) lives to fight another day!

In OTW now: https://www.twobillsdrive.com/community/topic/256895-how-to-smoke-a-turkey-recipe/

Well, people. It's about that time again. TG time. When we make the turkey (or we don't). I posted in the Diggs' thread (or one of them) about how Beasley absolutely crushed it on TG day 2019, and how I had a turkey going in the smoker in the background (it got crispy skin and all by the time that it was done). So here's how I did it. To be clear, this process takes at least a couple of days before the turkey(s) hit the smoker. People will say, "no, box smoker. No, no, offset smoker. No, no, no, pellet grill." All of these options are equally as valid in this recipe. The key to this recipe is how you prepare the turkey(s) in the first place. I'm not going to cover spatchcocking a turkey here (seriously, I'm surprised that they let us use that term given the language filters!). If you don't want to do it then have your butcher do it. Make sure that the skin isn't pulling away from the meat, which is probably why you want to have a butcher do it (unless you have sharp kitchen shears to break the turkey's backbone). This is critically important. You need the turkey skin to (1) insulate the meat during the smoking process, and (2) keep its form whilst crisping up the skin in the smoker, which will also keep the meat tender (whatever smoker you choose). Without further ado, and with the understanding that there are many capable cooks on TBD/OTW... Step 1. Brine the ***** out of it. 24 hours. You can brine in any way that you want. I use equal parts salt and sugar, dried juniper berries, garlic powder, onion powder, and "spice bouquet (typically thyme, sage, etc)", crushed red pepper. (In case you are unfamiliar, brining will bring this incredible undertones of taste to whatever meat.) I bring this mixture to a boil in a pot and let everything dissolve. Then I let it cool. And by cool, I mean like 70 deg F. Then, if it's cold outside, I'll let it cool to like 40 deg F on the back porch. Else, find ample room in your fridge to cool the brine. You don't want to cook the turkey in the brine, hence the low temps. Submerge the spatchcocked turkeys in a 5-gallon plastic bucket (clean and/or sterilize ahead of time) and cover with a lid. If the lid doesn't lock snugly, put a cinder block on top of the lid, or at least something that's very heavy, so that skunks, raccoons, whatever don't get to it. Ultimately, keep the brine at 32-40 deg F for the following duration. Step 2. Brining should be done in 24-36 hours. Let sit in the fridge for 24-36 hours. Take the brined / spatchcocked pieces out of the brining liquid. Pat them dry as hard as you can. Use paper towels or lint-free cloth towels. You want as much of the brine to be removed from the turkey -- before you put it back into the fridge (gasp) uncovered, on baking sheets. Step 3. TG day. Hurray. Beasley gonna eat yo turkey, so work quickly. Take the turkey out of the fridge and pat it dry *again*. Do it thoroughly, with the same means as noted in Step 2. Set on new baking sheets. You can season the skin with salt and pepper. Some will say to put butter between the skin and the meat. For a smoker, and given the duration of the cook, I recommend against it. Let it sit at room temp for 1-2 hours. It won't go bad, I swear. Pat it dry again, gently (see also: pepper, salt on the skin), then use a silicone brush to baste all of the bird parts with olive oil (or your oil of choice). You can use any brush that you want, but silicone won't melt into your bird. Step 4. TG day 2. Set the smoker to 225 deg F and let it come to temp. I like competition pellets these days, but use whatever pellets or wood that you want. Once the smoker hits 225 deg F, put on the spatchcocked turkey(s). Let it go for 1 hour then baste, using silicon brush, once per hour. Work quickly as you don't want the temperature of the smoker to decrease that much. You want the internal temp of the turkey to hit ~160 deg F. This varies based on the size of the pieces, but typically it's 5-6 hours. In 2019, what with Beas crushing it and all on TG day, it took 5.5 hours. Insert a temperature probe to track, but again 5.5 hours is your baseline. Don't forget to baste with olive oil (or your oil of choice) every hour. Granted, I had a couple of lapses in 2019 (Beas and Brown kinda sorta making me rock hard), but still we ended up with a smoked turkey -- with incredible and crispy skin. I guarantee that if you don't baste with olive oil, your skin will be gray and flabby. And that's gross. So, let's say that the turkey is mostly done, say, ~150 deg F, but your skin doesn't look great. Use an olive oil baste then put in a 400 deg F oven for 20-30 minutes. That'll do her. Also, do not tent it with foil. This will ruin the crispy skin. Hope that you are able to make this, and kindly let me know your thoughts.

I believe that this is true. However, Diggs was freaking great for the team for nearly 3 years. No rational person can deny that. Like I wrote earlier, and I paraphrase now: Don't get over your skis. Diggs did. Where are you? I'm happy to post the recipe in OTW. Dead simple. It's time vs prep -- where prep wins. Literally two days of waiting. Then *boom* on the smoker.

I feel the same way about Diggs as I do about Beasley. I remember watching the TG game in 2019 with Beasley crushing it (I was smoking two spatchcocked turkeys in the background at the time, and ended up rendering both w crispy skin). Diggs brought this team to another level later on. In both cases, it was short lived, as it always is. I feel for Diggs. I really do. He had other aspirations, as probably everyone does, so he wanted out. But, as someone who had professional bumps in 2018 (due to my own exaggerated aspirations), I totally get it. I didn't tear an ACL, because I work in tech -- where tearing an ACL is improbable (?). Still, I got pantsed in that single year and 2018 left a gap in my resume that prospective employers always talk about (thank goodness that I found a solid landing spot w current job). I wish Diggs the best. But at some point greed brings the aberration of 2018 into focus for all involved. You get older, and you get "expensive" as far as employers are concerned. At some point, people stop talking to you. My best guess? This where Diggs is at -- at the moment, and likely going forward.

Okay, so we went there. Cool. HAHA Years ago (decades ago, frankly), when the "am I hot or not" website became a phenomenon, I randomly joked with friends that there was probably a market for a scat-related "am I pooped or not" website. They told me that they disagreed, like strongly (I can totally understand why). Then the "rate my poo" website emerged. Rumor has it that the founder/founders did well as a result of their ad proliferation. We all make mistakes.

Very nice. For the first time in like forever, I didn't watch the entire game. Elderly father, cooking dinner at the house, looking good before I picked him up. Then I missed a whole bunch of it. Just going to watch again, but JOSH DARN. Lookin good, Mistah Kottah.

Cakewalk?

With JA17 at the helm I thought that the team would be competitive, but would perhaps miss the postseason. It's always helpful to have "friends" in the AFCE who can't find their own butts. Plus the Cooper signing it legit great; I think that, barring anything unforeseen, that the team will contend once again.

It's like nobody here could've seen this coming. Players getting hurt == not good. Expensive players who have tons of baggage getting hurt / washing out / whatever elsing it == par for the course.

Cathode RAY

SWEEP THE LEG (in a legal way)!

"No, son. I FOUND a shoe."