There are always so many great things to see and explore when your travel especially when you are a foodie. The kids are heading on a road trip of their own shortly so wanted to know if we would like to go to Cabela's. Now this is a very large outfitter's outlet so what could a foodie possibly find of interest there. Oh my gosh, I found plenty!
Cabela's
Cabela's is a huge outfitter's outlet chain that has an extremely unique decor consisting of a large number of unique displays and exhibits of preserved animals in very realistic looking natural environments. That in itself makes browsing through the outlet extremely interesting and enjoyable. What is even more interesting is since this outlet caters to hunters, anglers, hikers, campers and so much more they actually carry a lot of food related items of interest to the foodie.
I took a lot of pictures of the animal exhibits as well as some of the food related things I was interested in. Just about any equipment you would need to cook outdoors is available. They also have a lot of those little extras that can increase your outdoor cooking experience.
Seasonings, Sauces & More
Outfitter stores are an excellent place to get things like seasonings, cures and sauces that you might have a hard time finding anywhere else. Quite often there will be sauces and rubs that are in low production, just coming onto the market produced by ribbers (from ribfests) and other award winning food contestants. This is were to find seasonings, rubs, coating mixes and sauces specifically for wild game. This is where you will find a wide variety os sausage making supplies including the casings. This is also where you will find large jugs of oils especially peanut oil for the turkey friers and other large scale friers. At the same time if you are a home canner and want a heavy duty outdoor burner check this type of a store. This outlet is an excellent source for heavy duty cast iron pots and pans. So from a foodie perspective there are a lot of things to explore, get ideas from and expand from there.
Commercial Grade Dehydrator
When it comes to dehydrating there are the lower cost stand alone models that work reasonably well, homemade solar models, ovens specially designed with a dehydrating feature (Jenn-Air). Each design of dehydrator has its pros and cons. According to some the best stand alone higher cost model on the market is the Excalibur. Well this commercial grade dehydrator will knock the socks off of any Excalibur!
At $329.00 it is very close in line with the price of the Excalibur as well so the cost difference is not a really huge concern. It has an insulated housing, digital thermostat and built-in drain reservoir. At 80 - L capacity it is meant for those who do a lot of dehydrating. It comes with 12 drying trays to get all those foods dried quickly and the glass door allows you to easily see how the drying is progressing. It is about the size of a bar fridge so could easily be fit into smaller rooms and as long as protected from any water would work nicely in an outdoor shed or garage. This commercial grade dehydrator is definitely on my foodie wish list.!
Bayou Classic®
I first saw the Bayou Classic® ceramic grill on the food network and it has been on my foodie wish list ever since. It was love at first sight . If I recall correctly it was chef Michael Smith using one and I think it was a beautiful royal blue tone. The main problem for me since we use our grill year round even in the snow would be whether the ceramic would crack in the cold. Any hairline cracks in ceramic can absorb moisture that will crack with our freezing winter temperatures. The second problem would be getting the grill to temperature during the cold months as charcoal takes awhile to come to proper grillinging temperature. Still it's something I can dream about and perhaps one day actually buy if only for warm weather grilling.
The Bayou Classic® grills, smokes, roasts and barbecues using a cooking method that is 2,000 years old. Each grill individually handcrafted is charcoal operated with a spring-loaded lid-lift assist makes opening the top easy. There are two air vents to help you control temperature. A grill stand in a decorative powder-coated steel finish with rubber wheels and locking casters that makes moving the grill easily is sold separately.
I Love abellas, we have one 12 miles from our house. A ceramic cooker is on my wish list too... Have you ever looked into a Bubba Keg? As I understand it (I am still researching), they do not have the moisture issues... here's their site..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bubbakeg.com/
I didn't realize Bubba Keg made grills too. Very interesting! I like the trailer hitch adapter :) My husband has a couple of their hugh Bubba Sport travel mugs. They are quite nice, good quality so I will have to check out their grill. Thanks for the tip.
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