Some things I did today:

1. Smoked the pastrami I'd been curing for three days in a
(non-traditional--there I said it, Victor) brine. I used the new
Great Outdoors smoker I got and seasoned yesterday. Some assembly
required.

2. Dried some of the overabundance of cherry tomatoes a friend brought
over yesterday. She's a gifted gardener, but she doesn't really like
tomatoes.

3. Picked the first batch of figs for the summer, and set them to
drying.

4. Removed the salmon from the cure it'd been working in for 36 hours,
rinsed it well, and dried it. Returned it to the fridge to dry some
more and develop a pellicle.

5. Experimented with the new smoker after the pastrami was done to
determine if I could jury rig some sort of cold smoking trick for the
salmon. I settled on two big aluminum roasting pans, big enough to
hold a sack of ice each in the smoker. Instead of running the propane
burner, though, I made a small fire of twigs and small limbs in an
iron smoke box intended for use in a standard gas grill.

6. Put the salmon in the smoker and tended a tiny twig fire every hour
or so, keeping the temperature below 90F.
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modom

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