Game Changer

We’ve made a change to our setup here at The Altar of Meat. For several years, we’ve been cooking on a first generation Traeger Timberline 850. Great grill… really allowed a lot of flexibility in food prep and was great for reverse searing steaks or making multiple rib racks or pork shoulders. It accomplished this […]

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 […]

Ending 2020 with a bang

We all know that 2020 was pretty much a wall to wall shitshow. Between the ‘rona, the idiots running for office, and did I mention the ‘rona? Anyway. We here at the Altar of Meat have been cooking at home a lot more than usual. This is good in that it means the grills got […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

London broil

My lovely wife, hereinafter referred to as the High Priestess, has a huge love affair with London broil. She frequently requests this and will happily snack on cold leftovers. This is a good thing, as she’s currently hitting a low carb, low fat diet. As you can imagine, she’s been after me to throw a […]

Surf (and Surf)

I must say that the Timberline makes meal prep a cinch. In the short time it has graced our deck, it has probably been used more than its predecessor. Pizza? Throw it on the Traeger. Baked goods? Traeger. Meat? Traeger… duh. Last night was no exception. The High Priestess and I were actually home at […]