May 27, 2009 by David.

Who knew? There are toilets made that actually flush quickly, quietly, and efficiently. In spite of the fact that Toto is the world’s largest toilet manufacturer, I hadn’t heard of them until a year or two ago when we did a house sitting job. As the home owner showed us around their place, he seemed, well, a little too proud of his Toto toilet in his new bathroom remodel. A toilet is a toilet, I was thinking in my pre-enlightened frame of reference. Once we were there house sitting, I quickly found out why he was so pleased with his toilet. Welcome to the world where ordinary everyday appliances just unobtrusively go about the business of what they were designed to do.

About two months ago a friend replaced both of her toilets with Toto’s and I was reacquainted with just how trouble free Toto’s are. Then, in the last week I’ve installed two Toto toilets for the bathroom remodel I’m doing. I bought the taller ADA compliant toilets with the sanagloss finish (more dense ceramic finish and thus easier to keep clean) and a mere 1.28 gallons per flush (current code requirement is 1.6 GPF) model #CST454CEFG.

After a lifetime of thinking that toilets were just something that were noisy, slow and “troublesome,” discovering something as functional as a toilet that just does its job without muss or fuss is truly pleasant.

If you are tired of unclogging toilets, the amount of water they use, and/or how slowly they flush, just get a Toto! You won’t believe the difference, I promise you.

I found the prices at National Builder Supply to be excellent at about a third off with no shipping or tax (except for Georgia) and now, having processed several orders through them, can highly recommend them.

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May 24, 2009 by David.

Recently a friend gave me a medium size Big Green Egg smoker/BBQ/whatever-ya-wanna-cook cooker for putting a couple doors into his house. Now, I know I’m out of touch sometimes, but I’d never heard of the Big Green Egg before. I did some searching online and quickly discovered the Big Green Egg has quite a cult following. It has a ceramic shell that is suprisingly cool to the touch compared to steel grills, can heat to 800 degrees F, and can act as a convection oven and cook everything from meats to bread to vegetables to chocolate cookies. Because it is enclosed, meats are unusually juicy. If you haven’t checked one out and you like cooking outdoors, give it a gander.

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The cooker I received was a little-used older model (without the screen on the bottom vent and no spring on the hinges), but, other than missing the temperature gauge was in good condition. We cleaned it up and bought a few accessories for it such as a pizza plate.

Being a holiday weekend, we decided to fire it up for the first time and barbecue some ribs. Sharlet picked up a nice rack of beef ribs and we combined several approaches to cooking them, modifying to meet what we had on hand.

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THE RIBS

Here’s our recipes and process we used. It is a five-hour three-round process, with round one being a long slow cook with a dry rub, followed by a round with sweetener and wrapping it up with BBQ sauce round.

1.To initially prepare the ribs Sharlet made a dry rub (see recipe below). Peel off the inner membrane, slather with olive oil, and liberally apply the dry rub. Cut ribs in half and set on the grill (alternative is to use a rib rack, but we haven’t picked one up yet).

2.Soak some chips for that smoky flavor. I used Big Green Egg’s Jack Daniels chips, placing them in a gallon plastic bag, filling with water, and letting them soak while a got the fire started and up to temperature.

3.It is highly recommended to use Big Green Egg’s charcoal, so at for now I’m sticking with what is known to work well. I filled it to the top edge of the bottom piece, put in some lighter sticks, and after it lit, closed the lid to stabilize at desired temperature. Refer to Big Green Egg’s site for more info on fire starting and temperature control techniques.

Expect around 15 minutes to get up to temperature, then add a liberal sprinkling of the wood chips and place accessories for indirect heating inside the egg. There is more than one way of doing this and I used what I had on hand - with an upside down (legs up) plate setter holding up the cooking grill sitting on the plate setter’s legs. This deflects the heat but has air circulation space around it. I just used folded up aluminum foil as a drip pan between the two.

4.Cook the cow (or pig…) for three hours at 275-300 degrees Fahrenheit. I did 300 F since the beef ribs are a little heavier than baby-back ribs.

Warning: You WILL have difficulty not eating your ribs right now. Lookin’ & smellin’ ripe for the chompin’ and chewin’. However, hang on and they’ll get even better.

5.Now comes the second round. Place plenty of brown sugar and hone in aluminum foil, place a rib on top with ribs facing up, place more brown sugar and honey on the ribs, place the other half of the ribs on top of the first half, repeat the brown sugar and honey on top of that. Top off with a half cup of apple juice for both flavor and moisture.

Loosely wrap the foil around the ribs, cover with a second sheet, and put ‘er back on the BBQ.

6. Cook for 90 minutes at 275 F.

7.Round three. Unwrap and put ribs directly back on the grill, slathering with your preferred BBQ sauce.

8. For 20 minutes turn and slather often.

9. ENJOY!

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DRY RUB RECIPE

Our dry rub we took directly from The Big Green Egg Recipe Book, using their Rendezvous Rib Rub on pg 19. We found it to be excellent.

2 TBS      Paprika
2 tsp      Seasoned salt
2 tsp      Black pepper
2 tsp      Garlic powder
2 tsp      Onion powder
1 tsp      Oregano
1 tsp      Dry mustard
1/2 tsp  Chili Powder
1/2 tsp  Cayenne pepper

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BBQ SAUCE RECIPE 

For the BBQ sauce, we used a recipe told to us buy a cook at a wine tasting event in Napa Valley who said he’d won the BBQ Sauce competition in Memphis twice (sorry, I don’t have his name). This is wonderful BBQ sauce and has become a staple in our recipe book.

1 Bottle of Sweet and Sour dip and Grill Sauce from Safeway’s Select brand. This is his “secret ingredient.”
About a 1/4 cup brown cup
About 1/4 cup Molasses
About 1/4 cup Ketchup

You may also want to add a touch of vinegar if you are in the mood. This time we didn’t.

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Credit goes where credit is due. We borrowed heavily from the BBQ process shown by “Uncle Phil” on You Tube.

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