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Kristine invited a few of her friends over and we pre-decided on grilling pizzas. Dough from scratch and toppings mostly from scratch as well.

I learned that the best way to keep the grates and the interior of the grill box clean is to use a pre-cooking burnoff. You turn the burners all the way up and let it burn for 10-15min. The elevated temperatures will turn the drippings from last time into ash, both on the deflectors (flavorizer bars in Weber speak) and the grates. Then you can use your steel brush and brush away the ash. For stubborn stuff, it’s recommended to dip it in water before scrubbing to get some steam clean action.

Back to the pies: I placed the 14″? stone directly on the grates and let the whole thing preheat to an indicated 500°F, basically as high as it would go. The pizzas were made with a basic flour, sugar, and instant yeast recipe that rested for a few hours. We ended up making 12 pizzas total, including 2 dessert ones and 2 to-go orders. They were approximately 8-9″ in diameter. Thin crust. One thing that helped a lot was using cornmeal on the peel to keep the dough from sticking. Another thing is to occassionally brush burnt cabonized leftovers off of the pizza stone. Otherwise you get some unwanted burnt bits on the bottom of the crust. Each pie took about 5 min, depending on how many toppings were on it. They turned out well. Grilling the pizzas outdoors also keeps the A/C bill down during the hot summer months where you don’t want to run an oven at full blast for 2 hours. Pictures to come soon.

For someone who eats because they love food, it’s strange that I didn’t have a food category (or perhaps entry?) until today.

Recently got my first grill, a Weber Genesis with uncoated cast iron grates. I hope this thing will last me the next decade at least. I was at Home Depot looking for work items as I do almost every week and the grill was on display. I walked up to get a closer look as I’ve been contemplating a gas grill for a few weeks now. It’s discounted by $180 so I decide to jump on it. I bring it back and get it assembled that night and then a friend tells me he has a 10% off coupon from Lowes. Home Depot honors competitor coupons, so I gave it a try to get another 10% off. I was pleasant and amicable with the returns manager and she said “You know I’m not supposed to do this but I’ll let it slide this time”, and I told her “thanks!” And walked away with another $55 in my pocket. Nice friend eh? I owe him some grilled ribeye in the future.

So last Sunday, I fired it up for the first time and cooked the following:

• 2 ribeyes, one marinated (a la Houston’s Hawaiian ribeye, thanks to the girlfriend’s marinating skills) and one with salt and pepper.
• 12 80/20 ground chuck hamburger patties
• 4 boudin links, most likely boudin blanc
• 48 ounces of marinated flank steak
• 6 fresh bratuwurst links (Central Market)

A lot for a first grilling. The grill’s ability to heat evenly and the built in thermometer helped immensely. After grilling on several other gas grills through the years where it was difficult to maintain the heat, encountering hot/cool-spot problems, having the burner not stay lit, this was great! Granted, it is the first time it’s been fired up, but from what I’ve read about Weber’s — their longevity and great customer support, I’m expecting it to continue down this path.

I’ve been trying to read up on grilling and Webers and came across a few forums and weblogs. You can see the weblog links in the food reference entry. Following in the style that one of them uses, I’m going to not so discretely copy the numerical format. I hope to improve my food (and general) photography skills as well. There are some really nice photos there.

In a surprise post-PMA announcement, Canon unveiled the newest addition to the Rebel line, the Ti1. Or the 500D for the europeans. I think I like the numerical nomenclature more. Highlights include 15MP, HD video recording, increased frame rate (3.4/s), and hi-rez lcd similar to the 50D and 5DII. ISO sensitivity has also increased to 3200 native, and upwards of 12,800 expanded. Viewfinder size is the same as the predecessor 450D — though still larger than the 400D and 350D. AF is the same. 450D battery and SD memory. Interestingly, the ISO12,800 result looks acceptable.

Separating it from the xxD line is the lack of AF-on button and larger pentaprism based viewfinder. And sRAW.

This leaves me with a lot of choices in the $1,200 and less category. Should I get a used 5D, 50D? Or a new 500D or Panasonic HG-1? The 5D has the largest viewfinder, the largest pixels, and battery compatibility. No live view though. 50D has a nice LCD, live view and a more down to earth 7.1MP sRAW which I think would work well in conjuction with the high ISO sensitivity. 500D has a nice mix of high res and high iso, with an inbetween frame rate (which is less important now that I’m better at timing my shots). Video recording would be a big plus. Or the Panasonic and a 20mm f/1.7 lens (when it actually comes out)? Articulating screen, semi-high rez lcd, EVF (not a big fan of, but haven’t seen this one in person) and also HD recording. But contrast based AF. Decisions decisions.

Perhaps a 5D for the full frame and build and later on a Panasonic for the screen and smaller size? Then replace my current 350D in another couple of years? That’s a large number of cameras. No need for hoarding here…

In other news, there’s a new TTL flash for canon, the 270ex. There’s no display on the back; everything is controlled by the camera. But it does finally have tilt. This might be good for clubs and dingy places when it’s not convinient to bring the off camera speedlites and having to manually set them.

The new Shuffle now incorporates a proprietary chip to prevent unauthorized headphone usage. Looks like Apple keeps knocking itself down on my list. This is in addition to dock port items for the iPhone and iPod touch which also have a proprietary chip that require genuine Apple items to get functionality such as a line out, or TV output. I hope there’s a lot of consumer outrage over this. It’s similar to inkjet printer manufacturers in the early part of the decade putting chips in their refills and invoking the DMCA when it came to third party competitors. Sick sick sick. Just makes me sick.