The idea of going through Alton's cook book in order seemed like a good idea at the time. More or less, it will still be in order, but today I just couldn't keep it up. It was Mari's birthday, and rack of lamb seemed a better choice than seared tuna, although we'll do that soon. Anyway, this recipe is "Liz and Dick Rack of Lamb". It's name comes from the on-again, off-again romance of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, which apparently garnered enough attention from Alton that he applies it to any recipe that requires various levels of heat. The lamb is cooked over direct heat for about 10 minutes, and then another 8 minutes on the half of the grill that's not as hot (the spot below where the aluminum pan can be seen)

As you can see, the first (and only) problem I encountered was flare-ups from grease dripping off the lamb. This was remedied by a squirt bottle and then putting the lid on the grill. The meat surface did get a little black, but that didn't hurt the flavor at all.

After flipping over, the other side cooks for 5 minutes. I like a smoky flavor beyond what the charcoal itself provides, so I usually throw some wet hickory chips on a lonely corner of the coals.

After cooking the lamb for a while longer over that little round pan you can see above (indirect heat), internal temperature registered well over 138 degrees, so I pulled them off and let them rest for a while. The fuzzyness of the picture isn't due to a filter - it's just a large spot that was on the camera lens.

Overall I have to give this 4 salt cellars out of 5. The only thing I would do a little differently is perhaps pull them off a little sooner. The inside was still a little pink, but it was medium well, when medium or medium rare probably would've tasted a little better. Still, I loved the lamb flavor combined with the smoke. No special spices - just salt, pepper, and olive oil.

First things first - my wife planned and executed some excellent "Good Eats" meatballs this week.  They are part lamb, part pork, part beef, and all good.  

Above, you can see them cooking in a mini-muffin tin.  This keeps the meatball from wallowing in its own fat, and lets it drain while it cooks. The texture was great (not too dense), the breading was crispy, and the flavor didn't disappoint.  I'll call this 4 salt cellars out of 5, but note that I'm not a meatball fanatic.  My beautiful wife did a great job on these, and they are certainly the best meatballs I've ever had.  I'm still on "I'm Just Here for the Food" hiatus, since the next recipe calls for Tuna steak.  I love tuna steak, but can only get it at Costco, and we haven't been for a while.  Add that to the fact that I've already made that recipe, and it's hard to want to continue on.  I'll get there, just not this week.  Instead, I asked Mari to pick up some pork chops.  I have been wanting to try brining chops for some time now, but just never got around to it.  We've brined turkeys before, but not chops.    

Here are our pork chops, relaxed and having a good time in a solution with 1 cup of salt, 2 cups cider vinegar, and 1 cup brown sugar.  Brining isn't marinading - things happen a lot faster with brining as I soon found out.  Alton says to brine for 2 hours, but I pulled the chops out about 20 minutes early.  After eating the chops, I can say this was a good move.  Any saltier would have been too much - also, the online recipe gets dinged by quite a few people who say the chops are too salty.  One step you won't see here was cutting a pocket into the pork chops and filling each with a cornbread, raisin, buttermilk, sage mixture.  That's why the chops appear kind of plump. 

I filled the chops with the buttermilk mixture, and stuck them on the grill.  An "attractive crosshatch" was achieved on only one of the chops, and even that doesn't look that good.  I put a wet chunk of hickory wood on the coals to produce a little smoke.  In all, the chops cooked in about 12 minutes.   
The above is what the chops looked like after they came off the grill.  The closest chop is out of focus (sorry) so you can't see very well that the stuffing is coming out of the slit in the side of the pork chop.  The "pocket" inside the pork chop is made by poking a small knife through the side of the chop, and then sweeping the knife one direction, and then the other so that the entry point is small, but there's a big envelope to put the stuffing into. 

This is what the chops look like when sliced in half.  The great thing about them is that I could distinctly taste each of the following: pork, salt, vinegar, smoke, sage, and raisin, but they all worked together.  I was glad that I did them on the grill, because there was a nice crunch on the outside even though the chops themselves weren't dried out.  Alton does them on a gas grill - an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement.  I'm a hard core charcoal grill adherent, partially because I started cooking when Mari bought me Steven Raichlen's "How to Grill".  In the book, Steven points out the many virtues of the charcoal approach.  I don't see the point of grilling on gas when I can do the same thing upside down in the oven by broiling.  

Anyway, the chops were a definite 5 salt cellars out of 5.  The balance of the sweet stuffing with the salty pork was undeniably good. This is a recipe we will get out again soon.  There isn't anything particularly tricky about this recipe, so I wouldn't do anything different next time.  Just be careful not to over-brine the chops.