-
Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.
All Activity
- Past hour
-
I can't, and you've gotten suggestions above although your followup questions haven't been answered. What I will note is that somewhere around here -- I've been looking and haven't found it yet -- I remember a discussion about enameled cast iron (ECI) interiors crazing from the steam of a loaf of bread dough loaded into the hot pan. I saw it with my own pans, and went to a Lodge cast iron pan (not ECI) for that purpose and I spared my ECI Dutch Ovens further torment. With that in mind, I think you'll need to evaluate bread loaded into a non-preheated pan as well as bread loaded into a preheated pan (and covered vs. uncovered!). Then look for early signs of crazing. That said, I think it looks like a great pan set. Please share your evaluation of it. I may buy one for myself, just for the chance to try it out.
- Today
-
While this is an old topic, I still used the advice here on my first outdoor event this last Saturday in Central Texas. It was really nice to read everyone's experiences and advice. Thanks to all who have shared! The list of items to bring was helpful. This is mine: utility knife duct tape scissors bandaids pens/sharpie pad of paper clipboard change (count before and after) water to drink chairs gloves garbage can (just used a 5 gallon bucket under the table. extension cord battery tablecloth lights tables microfiber cloths business cards zipties price/product list weights for canopy (hadn't thought of this ahead of time. Ran home to get something. Just used 5 gallon buckets with water and rope) hand sanitizer Things I'll bring for next time Signage for pricing each type of item. I had everything listed on a product sheet but it was overwhelming for people to look at. Some kind of visual for showing the bon bons. Also only listed on product sheet and verbally by me. This event was a replacement for our Fourth of July Fireworks that was cancelled due to weather. Better for me since I can't do chocolate outside in July in Central Texas. Some notes: Twenty percent by dollars was purchased with cash. I was glad to have brought some change. I brought about $150 in small bills. Way more than was needed but I felt prepared. I priced with even dollar amounts to include sales tax for each of transaction. Definitely the right choice. Most transactions were tap to pay with Chase POS on my phone. Only had one person's card have to be entered manually. Yes people used cards for small purchases, just buying one of the least expensive item but I felt happy they bought something. I forgot that I could have used Zelle. I had printed and laminated my Zelle QR code but forgot to use it. Would have saved me the cc processing fees if used. Having some premade boxes of bon bons is a great idea. I had six different bon bons in milk and dark chocolate. While I have 6, 12, and 24 piece options, Only the 6 piece boxes sold and probably half were of one each of milk or dark. I showed filled boxes covered with plastic wrap and taped in the back so the wrap stayed tight. They held up well. Event went from 6- 10pm. Who knew we had to arrive so early (1pm) but it worked out okay! My husband came back at 5:30 once the sun was down with the chocolates. DIdn't have any issue with melting etc at about 80F but no sun. I ordered a custom tablecloth (plug here for mustny.com who was great) and some lights for the booth. Tablecloth has an open back so we stuck all the bins and things we didn't want seen in that space. We decided to use cool white lights instead of warm white so the colors of the bon bons would look nice. We had one person stop by and say we had the nicest looking booth which felt good. Front table had the display, side table stock. I created a pick sheet to know where each flavor was located but next time I'm going to tape a sheet to each top lid. It was cumbersome to look back and forth to the sheet and color coded trays. I second the suggestion to have directors chairs instead of regular outdoor chairs. I didn't sit down but for a few minutes during the entire event and I could tell later! I felt much more engaged when standing and connecting with the passersby. Even a simple wooden barstool would have been nice. I did not generally hand out samples. I had some of the least expensive salted caramel bars that were seconds that I did share occasionally, but the least expensive ones sold themselves for someone who wanted to buy chocolate. The most expensive items, bon bons, would have likely sold more if I had given out samples. At the same time there were people who walked by rushing to somewhere else who wondered if I had samples. They clearly weren't planning to purchase but would have taken a sample. I didn't have any bon bon seconds so samples would have come out of my sales stock. While I would have sold more, what would that advertising have cost? I'm still torn. For my last event of the season the shop owner would like me to offer samples. She's not charging a booth fee and it's my last event, so I'll probably do it there and maybe understand a little better the customer sentiment. Last year at the Dallas Chocolate Festival the organizers put significant limits on how the attendees could get samples from the vendors. They dissallowed any kind of storage container. People were wanting to come in with large containers then they'd just go around and collect samples to take home. These were small businesses and I think the sample mentality was out of hand by attendees and costly for the vendors. I'd love to hear your opinion on offering samples. I had a lot of stock leftover which I froze for another event in a couple weeks. As I had never done an event of this scale before I had no idea what to expect and decided I could freeze leftovers. Will help with prep work for the next event. Hope this report is helpful for someone else!
- 81 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- Chocolate
- Confections
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
Sorry for dragging this back up but going to make seafood gumbo this weekend, clearing my freezers of crab, oysters, shrimp and crawfish. I would never think of a premade roux. Looking through this thread it seems like alot of people overthink it. I find it cathartic, you spend an hour.....just stirring, focusing, concentrating, it clears your mind, it is almost relaxing. It smells wonderful, turning into that almost peanutty smell.....dark brown. After that and the veggies, got to use homemade seafood stock. If you get this part down......it is pretty hard to fuck it up and don't add the seafood too early.
-
Just to verify, should the recipe work OK in the heavy cast iron pan?
-
I'm noticing more and more "pop top" cans here. I think it's a great idea - espeecially for donating to the unhoused.
-
do they have dates? It's possilbe one of them (probably the old fashioned one) is old.
-
Well now I'm curious. What are the ingredients and what did you do to them?
-
@Maison Rustique your, as you say doctored pizza looks really good. For dinner soy hoisin chicken with chicken stock rice and broccoli. A sort of “invented” dish. I did add a little chilli crisp after taking the photo. Was tasty.
-
Hell of a price on those turkeys. Cheapest I've seen here is 99 cents. Two stores offering free birds with purchase of $100. Sadly that 100 is easier to hit now days.
-
The Unicorn grinders are so good. I have to admit that lately I have been using a Finamill more than my Unicorn, though. It cannot grind as fast as the Unicorn, but it's fast enough for most tasks. The ability to quickly switch between pepper, salt, and cumin and dispense with just one hand is actually pretty great when your other hand is occupied, or meaty. I got it as a gift and was sure it was a gimmick, but I turned out to love it.
- Yesterday
-
After 25 years or so I finally broke down and replaced our Magnum Unicorn pepper grinder with . . . . . . exactly the same thing!
-
I thought Dr. Seuss wrote that one?!
-
@BeeZee Yes indeed. I hope to take what Ie learned from woking w the CkLegs , and the Turkey-roll-ups ive made before. and take my time doing it. the Fz one Ill palce in the refrigerator might take a week to defrost , then Im at it !
-
@rotuts, For sure, at 0.49/lb, you're netting around 7 lbs of meat from turkeys that size (not to mention stock from the carcass), it's still an outrageous bargain.
-
@gulfporter Im unambe to see the image please check ? thank ypu
-
sss joined the community
-
those Turks @ S&S ? $ 0.49 //lbs ? Im going with 4 , 14 - 15 //lbs. three are in the Freezer , for working w later and one ( to be purchased , in a couple of days ) in the refrigerator , to slowly defrost then work with . Why Not ?
-
-
I found it. Thanks! were you successful is adopting some of her techniques?
-
We did do some stamping, Robyn showed her monochromatic decoration which was beautiful, but not a whole lot more than that.
-
Our first meal back to Mexico after a 6 week absence. At Lobo de Mar in Ajijic.
-
I can't wait!
-
Yesterday’s breakfast was green eggs & ham on a ciabatta roll, an idea I stole from Joe Sasto’s recent cookbook, Breaking the Rules which I borrowed from the library. His version is eggs, scrambled with pesto, piled on toast and topped with crisped up slices of salami. I browned a slice of Canadian bacon instead of the salami and put it on the bottom, though it’s kind of invisible in the photo. Not bad. Today, I made a bean version of the pasta with butternut squash, sausage, sage, and spicy chiles from Six Seasons of Pasta using Rancho Gordo Royal Corona beans instead of pasta. I also added a big handful of baby kale. This was really good for a chilly morning. I used bean cooking broth instead of pasta water to bring things together.
-
Love these two. Sohla wears her heart on her sleeve and Ham knows his stuff. Great cooking!
-
-
Who's Online 3 Members, 1 Anonymous, 598 Guests (See full list)
-
Popular Now
-
Recent Forum Images
