It’s Traeger Day 2021

For years, we’ve been spending the third Saturday in May at the venerable Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Preakness Day is practically a holiday in the High Priestess’ family. With all the coronavirus fun, we haven’t gone since 2019. 2020 was no spectators, 2021 was limited to 10,000 spectators. Since we have a group of […]

Happy Traeger Day!

So, it’s been a LONG time. Primarily because I really wasn’t getting much joy out of grilling, but also because I was lazy. I know, that’s not an excuse, but it’s what it is. This past Saturday was Traeger Day. It’s a holiday that we don’t normally get to celebrate because we’re usually at Pimlico […]

Meatsgiving

We at the Nerd Lair had our inaugural Meatsgiving event over this past weekend. There’s a story behind the event (as always)… see, friends of ours have a daughter who is a militant vegan. As such, there was a vegan lasagna at their Thanksgiving and our friends were deprived of their rightful, meaty goodness. The […]

Copper River sockeye

Memorial Day in the US is traditionally the kickoff of summer grilling season. The holiday has a much deeper meaning, but there is a history of grilling in our family. In fact, the title of this blog comes from a conversation on a Memorial Day weekend 14 years ago. Back in my more uninformed gas […]

Shop Class

The High Priestess and I had the opportunity to take a Traeger Shop Class this past weekend. For those who don’t know, it’s a great place for grillheads of all types to learn from the pros and taste some meaty goodness. While it’s geared toward Traeger owners, there’s always something that can be learned and […]

The Problem with Pizza

Had a grill pizza malfunction the other night. Not the first time I’ve had a cooking problem… won’t be the last, I’m sure. I’m sure everyone has them. Amateurs, professionals, some guy making macaroni and cheese on a hot plate or a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef. You make miscalculations, you swing for the fences and […]

Mmmmmm. Beeeeeeeeffffff.

Got my first Traegering of the year in over the weekend. Ever since I went to Traeger Shop Class, I’ve loved the idea of the reverse sear. Let that meat cook slow and smoky, then crank the temperature to finish it off. Makes sense to me. Don’t know about reverse searing? Well, common thought is […]

Traeger Christmas

2018 is in the books and we had another Traeger Christmas at the Nerd Lair. It was actually a lot of Traegering during the month of December. The High Priestess and I hosted our annual Festivus party. We tend to do this a little earlier in the month, since people seem to be busy around […]

#TraegerThanksgiving

Greetings, all. It’s been an eventful year, coupled with record levels of rainfall. In short, I haven’t been able to use the Traeger nearly as much as I would like. Let me rephrase that… I could PROBABLY smoke in the rain, but there’s still electricity and usually water and electricity aren’t a good mix. I […]

We’re back!

Been awhile since I’ve been posting anything here on the Altar. Vacation and monsoon season have put the kibosh on some meaty endeavors. Happy to say I’ve done a few things since our return from vacation. One of my favorite things to prepare is wild caught Alaskan salmon. I’ve become a salmon snob… I flat […]