Great report, and your presence here is so welcome.
A question on cooking steaks at home: I, too, pride myself on mine but the limitation I face is not being able to achieve the really high temperatures that professional steakhouses do. The only time I can is over the summer when I grill on wood on my Weber and achieve satisfaction (plus one visit to the hospital when the Weber lid swung slightly, the edge hit my forearm and crisped my skin – talk about serving food garnished with the chef’s own cracklings).
What do you do to get high temperature?
