Ohhhhh Shady, I'm definitely coming to eat at your house...grilled Tuna....fish...surimi and sushimi....yum. Mayo I think is just shortened for Mayonaise....you know, Arthur, the American tendency to shorten everything...including our present King. The only thing which worries me about making my own mayonaise is the raw egg thing again....but hey, I like Miracle Whip on pumpernickle. And yes, I like fried spam, but could never stomach fried bologna. I'm also an iconoclast because I saw these new "stemless" wine glasses and thought it was a sacrilege...the point to the stems on a wine glass is so you don't warm the wine with your fingers whilst holding the glass. I too like thin wine glasses, tea cups and coffee cups...but I have a strange problem...I get the urge to bite them. Fortunately, I have controled myself, but I get this urge.....

>>Jakkom, as I was eating "picnic food" today, I was wondering what home food was like for you as a kid>> Our home food wasn't like any other JA household we knew of. My mother was always interested in food, and actually made everything EXCEPT Japanese food, lol. She learned Scandinavian dishes from living next to/working for Swedish families in Washington and Minnesota, then learned Mississippi soul food cooking from African-American neighbors in Chicago, along with German food (we were the only JA family who ate artisanal bockwurst and real deli sauerkraut with buttered rye bread alongside) and Jewish food (ditto for the lox and gefilte fish). My mother was more likely to create a week's worth of dinners that consisted of: corned beef and cabbage; Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes; American-style beef stew (with potatoes, but served over rice); spaghetti or lasagne; pork chops (if there was money) or Spam (if there wasn't); burgers or steaks. Chickens pre-Perdue were more expensive than beef or pork so roast chicken was a treat. I've recounted elsewhere, I think, about her experiment to find the best way to roast a chicken: over 20 chickens were roasted over six or eight months. Boy, did I love that cooking experiment [smile]. We learned to like offal because it was cheap or even free: liver, oxtails, sweetbreads, giblets. And I still remember the smelly Limburger cheese in the refrig! Mom never deep-fried; she could but didn't like to do so. Besides, we lived within a few minutes drive of the original Harold's Chicken in Chicago. NOBODY we knew of any nationality or race bothered frying chicken if they lived near Harold's! At the time it was his only storefront. You always called in your order because they would not start cooking anything until ordered. If you are from the South Side of Chicago, you understand that everybody worships at The Shrine of Harold's Chicken. We occasionally went out for tempura at Japanese restaurants - not a home dish, in my entire extended family only one aunt has ever regularly made it at home. Sushi (and chicken teriyaki on the BBQ grills) was always a part of the potluck dishes at every JA community event, however. It's standard stuff to this day, I think. I was stunned when I came to the Bay Area in 1969 and my friends told me they loved going out to sushi restaurants. My response was, "Seriously? You PAY for pressed rice?!" When I was growing up sushi just wasn't a big deal. Sashimi - yes. Always very very expensive. Later in life, Mom married a Chinese and really got interested in the cuisine. Plus, there was a Cantonese cook at the restaurant they worked at who was, to this day, probably one of the finest chefs we ever had the pleasure to know. It was home cooking taken to a high-end professional level. The employee/family banquets (the owner was a big spender as most of his employees were relatives, including Mom's DH) were as good or better than anything I've paid $$$/pp as an adult in the Bay Area. Mom's interest in food never flagged. She later took lessons from Cecilia Chiang of the Mandarin restaurant/SF as well as Mexican cuisine's first great cook, Diana Kennedy. Ran her own cookware store and gave cooking lessons for a while. We loved talking about food together, needless to say. In most major cuisines there are three types of cooking: home cooking, restaurant cooking, and banquet/royal cooking. The "quick and dirty" fallback in most Asian households is a bowl of rice, an egg with a runny yolk, and soy sauce. My DH in Hong Kong and me in Chicago both remember that one!

Our country club had a whole pig roast every 4th of July for a lot of years. They had an oil barrel cooker with a rack and sort of a "thing" so the pig could be turned over. My son worked at The Club summers when he was in college.....and tells of arriving very early to help set up the pig roast, definitely feeling the effects of the night before....and being given the task of sawing the trotters off the pig.... That was a cookie tossing event!

I was talking about hot smoked salmon. I leave cold smoked fish up to the experts. I do cold smoke my homemade mozzarella and other purchased cheeses. Back to the original issue looking for a stick smoker, for 12-15 people....I do have a research file that is erratic and gets confusing....and why I put my purchase on hold last Spring. We dislike junk, but some under 500 will do ok for a while. (not really), you get what you pay for. Some are in the incredible bang-for-the buck category. Most of the cheap big box store varieties come in a big heavy box that needs assembly. Not welded, thin steel, not using high heat paint that peels pretty much immediately. 2-5 years before failure. Why mine is still working? old stock and before the China game. (rust is holding it together no doubt.) 😂 This is what I look for. Just watch the first three minutes. Costco a couple years ago. Best offset grill for the money. Brazos is 1/4inch steel, made in Mexico. Tejas and Lonestar are USA made, (changes all the time so don't hold me to that) Big box stores have cheaper side fire box smokers. Comes in a big heavy box that needs to be assembled. China crap but for a gateway to this type of grill'/smoke it is fine-ish. Depends on your personal political stance on recycled disposables. At 800-to a thousand, ?, so many great options. Welded seams, Massive thick grates...