The Golden Ticket

Dear Lunchers,

I made another executive decision!  Fans of Aukie's will be called Lunchers from now on.  The nickname reminds me of Lurch from the Adamms Family.  I am almost positive that I ate next to Lurch at Katz's on a "blurry" friday night in the early 1990s after catching a Bad Brains show at the old Ritz. 

As I remember, Lurch ate a Pastrami/Corned Beef combo with fries and a chocolate egg cream soda.  We grinned at each other because we both liked the half-sour tomatoes you get for free when you order a sandwich at Katz's.

Papa Was a Rollin' Stone

Here is the deal with the Blog and my Pastrami making operation.  My neighbors hate the cold smoker.  It fills their homes with brisket infused smoke.  Personally, this smell makes me "high", but the freaky lady who lives above me goes ballistic.  She shouts at me when I smoke my meat, and complains to the landlord.  Therefore, I have decided to take the show on the road...

The cold smoker is portable.  I can throw it in my minivan, and find interesting locations throughout Northern California to set up shop.  This will provide hours of good blogging.  My plan is to take "The Brisket Bong" to state parks and other locations throughout Northern California where I can smoke in peace.  Hopefully, someone will offer me an empty space where I can get the peace of mind I need to smoke meat for 24 hours, but until then I will have to drive around Northern California looking for good smoking spots.  Fortunately, there are miles and miles of coastline and wilderness not to far from my home. 

As a test run before I head into the wilderness, I have decided to try the portable smoking operation at Stanfurd's last home game this weekend.  I have a Golden Ticket that will get me into the primo tailgating location outside the stadium for this Saturday's finale against Oregon State. (Big thanks to my cousin Todd for giving up his tickets.  He can take his kids to a basketball game or something.. I need that parking pass!) 

I will be blogging on my laptop from the tailgate which I plan to set up on Friday afternoon.  So check back if you want to find my location so you can drop by to taste my meat.   I will not be giving away too much Pastrami because I want to give it time to rest after smoking it so that the flavors fully develop.  I also want to create the vacuum sealed packages so it can be properly distributed to my "Lunchers" all over the world.  However, I will throw some steaks, ribs, and sausages on the hot side of the "The Brisket Bong" for visitors to enjoy if they stop by my tailgate.

Update on the Turkey Pastrami

The turkey breasts are ready for the rub.  They dried out nicely after the brine.  I just love the aromatic fragrance the meat has after the juniper berry brine.  These are nice thick pieces of white meat turkey, and will make good Pastrami. 

In this container are the pieces of dark meat from the turkeys.  I was careful when I butchered them to get nice pieces of thigh and leg meat.  I removed all tendons and bone to get clean and neat pieces of meat. 
I added lemon zest to the rub for the turkey pastrami.  I thought a little citrus flavor might add a nice touch.  I bought 12 lemons for about $2.25 and I made plenty of dried lemon zest.  5 oz bottles in the spice rack where selling for $7... suckers !!

You know what is gonna happen now!  Rub-a-dub-dub... stroke that meat so that every inch is covered with flavor!

Add a schmatter of garlic and wrap them tightly with plastic.  I am creating cocoons of flavor around the turkey pastrami.

Here are all of the Turkey pastramis.  Breast, thigh and leg meat nicely trimmed and in their little blankets of flavor. 


SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND! 


Don't they look like kilo "bricks" of cocaine?  I feel like Tony Montana after he just got to Miami, and had his first successful coke deal. 

Here is the stocked mini-fridge full of Turkey and Brisket Pastrami.  They will hang out there until gameday, and I get the fires going at the Stanford tailgate. 

ASIDE: The BCS is gonna screw Stanford even though we have the best offensive line in College Football.  The Rose Bowl should be Stanford v. Wisconsin.  Too bad the powers that control College Football care only about money.  It is bullshit that they stripped Reggie Bush of his Heisman, too.

Please remember to CLICK on the Ads so I can pay for shipping meat to the "Lunchers".