Gaz

All the netflix stuff is good - Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat was particularly wonderful though, going to the source for traditionally made soy sauce, or tortillas made by hand. This isn't in the spirit of the thread necessarily but I love cutthroat kitchen (and of course, Alton Brown's "Good Eats" is great if you can get hold of it)

It's probably late now but for anyone struggling with a similar dilemma, I think the absolute best supermarket rum you can buy as a gift is Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva. For £37 it's an absolute bargain - amazing drank straight and comes in a lovely package https://www.google.co.uk/shopping/product/5510316719908739325 The standard diplomatico at £26 is great too https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/diplomatico-mantuano-dark-rum/830604-683840-683841

I think Rum can actually be more interesting. For something to sip which is closer to whiskey I really like Diplomatico and Brugal 1888 is also lovely. If you like the peatier styles, then Agricole or Jamaican rums will fit the bill. Smith & Cross is fantastic and Trois Rivieres is a good value agricole. I really love Paranubes rum at the moment, it's an agricole style rum distilled in Mexico from sugar cane juice but it tastes like no other rum - the flavours for me are something like tapenade, black olives, sundried tomato, cracked black pepper. It makes an absolutely phenomenal daiquiri.

I absolutely loved Rage but what I've seen so far gives little indication that this has the same feel. Can anyone who has their hands on it give some views on how it compares?

Beyond burgers are great. If impossible is better, I'm looking forward to trying them.

I paid £270 for mine but it looks like they are closer to £400 now. I thought I'd use mine for both, but I generally do a lot more smoking because I prefer the results.

Oh, I just checked and the one I've got is the 50cm grill one.

There are bigger versions. The thing is you are only gonna be using half the Weber for indirect, I generally use both trays in my ProQ so I can easily cook enough for a group. The extra height of the proQ meant I could smoke a whole massive turkey in it, too.

I know you are set on a weber now but.... https://www.macsbbq.com/hot-smokers/charcoal-bbq-smokers/ProQ-RANGER-elite-bbq-smoker I've got one of these and it's really good. It still works just like a weber, but it's also a big smoker.

For seitan Gaz Oakley is a good source, he's got a few videos on making different fake meats. You will want to knead it for longer than you think you need to and for way past the point where it's getting tough and hard to work with. I think in one of his videos the guy I linked to above just throws it in a stand mixer with the dough hook on for 20 minutes which seems far easier than the punching and stretching by hand I was doing. I've never used it in a sauce - I've just boiled it and then pan fried or cooked in the oven. I expect after boiling it you would want to let it firm up in the fridge before adding it to a sauce.

I couldn't find any thread on this but I've got into using 3D Pens recently and wondered if anyone else used them? Someone I know picked one up as a sort of cheap introduction to 3D printing and so I started looking at a few videos to see what it was all about and was really impressed - so far my own creations haven't been great but it's very relaxing work and it's quite gratifying to have an object at the end of it. I do a lot of doodling usually and it's similar but I end up with some weird creature I can put on my shelf at the end of it.

I've got two or three old machines sitting around in my loft I was going to throw out but I might see if I can get them up and running with emulation now.

I only really drink scotch and water when I'm at a bar that doesn't have any decent beers or mixed drinks. At home 90% of the time ill make sours, and then it's almost always a daiquiri or a margherita I'm currently trying to dial in a recipe on a a daiquiri with Paranubes rum. It's a sugarcane rum from Mexico which has an Agricole sort of feel but is really unique, the aroma and taste is really savoury with notes of tomato, black olive and pepper I tried a 10:3:2 ratio last night but even with that little sugar I wasn't getting the crispness I wanted. I'm going to mix up a new batch of simple before I try again so that I can make sure it's at the right sweetness.

Try a Last Word with a peaty scotch and you might be converted - I think that one is in the Death & Co book actually (Pete's Word) - there's something about scotch and chartreuse which really works. And it is 3 competing flavours - but it becomes greater than the sum of it's parts. It's from a book called Beta Cocktails which is full of drinks that push the boundaries like that.

Union comes ground for cafetiere in waitrose - check the ground on date for a recent bag.