alanamoana

bryan, were there any flavors associated with the TG that were noticeable? i'm sure it was such a small amount it can't taste like much, just wondering. your dinner looks great, by the way!

That would make a great sig line for someone on this thread! hehehe I'm trying to keep up with this, but you are all working too fast for me! I bought the book based on the first couple of pages of this thread...if only I wasn't so lazy. I'm very impressed by all the wonderful charcuterie you have produced. Every form, every shape, every flavor just looks delicious. I wanted to thank you all for the photographs documenting all the stages of your work. It is an amazing resource. I only wish the book could have all those photos too. I normally only buy cookbooks with pictures, but I'm sure it would have cost a fortune to print (and the retail price would have shot up). So thank you all for the great work! It is much appreciated.

Trust me Will...I'm not complaining! I was the one who didn't ask for a price quote, remember? Just sticker shock! Thanks for sending it so promptly. I can't wait to play with it a little once I finish a batch of chocolates for a friend. I (and certainly everyone here at eGullet) appreciate your posts and the services you offer in addition to your desserts...those of us who can get to the restaurant, that is. We're definitely tuned to the website going live. Best, Alana

babies? they seem so small. and their quills aren't too developed yet. but you're probably right.

i have a similar photo but my guy is much bigger. i feel like it is a nutria. a large aquatic rat. they actually wanted to breed these things for food down in the southern united states (back in the early 1900's). i'm pretty sure mine was from guiling as well! maybe it is a local specialty.

does package nakazawa not have white? that might be the reason

i'm not bryan, but i just ordered some as well. total cost for the two items: $19 (i believe the alginate costs 7 and the calcium chloride costs 12) tax & shipping: $14.07 (a little bit outrageous) fun making spheres of juicy foods: priceless it is still cheaper than buying it from PCB (the adria brand) but i don't know if it is cheaper than buying from a chemical supplier...however, usually with the other companies, you have to buy larger quantities of the stuff...unless you know you're going to use all that it really isn't worth it.

yup...

well, on the new design (which doesn't have as thick a coating of cocoa butter), i used milk chocolate and let it sit overnight. the design didn't transfer perfectly. again, my chocolate was very cool as i was just messing around with it and not doing anything serious for production. so, i really think it has something to do with chocolate temperature. will work on it some more!

Thanks for the great demo Ruth. Your buttercream is beautiful. I'm amazed you can get your whites to firm peak with a paddle and not a whisk. Is there a reason you choose one implement over the other? I've only ever made my IMBC with a whisk.

from a professional point of view... it doesn't matter what kind of oven one uses...always, always rotate your product during cooking. if you're braising in the oven, it doesn't matter so much, but if you're baking cookies or anything else that's more temperature sensitive in an oven: rotate your pan front to back if you're baking two pans of something at the same time, also switch pans from top to bottom actually, sometimes, i move pans from one rack to another even if i'm only baking one pan at a time every oven has hot spots, even professional convection ovens every oven bakes unevenly always check your oven temp with a thermometer check your baked goods frequently it just takes practice and getting used to your oven's specific issues. once you're comfortable with that, it's as easy as pie!

this is purely subjective...so take with a grain of salt ... i recently ate a dessert which i described here it is the last post on the thread. please don't make the infusion too strong. it could be my personal taste, but just about any "savory" herb used to make a sweet dessert tastes grassy when overused. there is certainly a place for it. i find that the bitterness of chocolate can take more of the flavor than in the dessert that i described where the flavor was very aggressive. obviously this person felt he was being avant garde...the dessert was disgusting.

we spent over five big ones for three people and one bottle of wine (don't know about tax and tip). we did the tasting. you should be able to do $370 for two...but you might have to go a la carte.

the acrylic frames work with ganache, caramels, pate de fruit...whatever your heart desires. the thing i like about them is that you can get them custom cut in whatever size you need. they aren't too cheap though. my small frame cost about $40. but tap plastic (the company i bought it from) is very expensive. if you live in nyc (or near enough to make a trip) "canal plastic" in chinatown does a great job. but also not cheap. but they make the corners perfectly square. the company i used made the interior corners rounded (they claim their router just works that way...). the transfer sheet does work. just need patience. it is really beautiful when it comes out nicely. i only bought the transfer sheets about a month ago and haven't really used them yet. this was the first real trial. today, i tested another design (i bought four different designs). i'll let everyone know how that one came out...i'm going to try to be good and let it sit overnight.

not to venture too far off topic, but on Tejon's food blog a couple of months ago, she introduced me to in-n-out fries "animal style" they make the fries with cheese, burger sauce and grilled onions...quite disgusting, yet tasty at the same time! other than that, i sacrifice french fries in order to eat two cheeseburgers most of the time for the price though, taylor's are just sysco fries, right?

thanks sote23, the dipped chocolates are actually caramels. i poured the caramel into an acrylic frame i special ordered from a plastics company. it is 3/4 inch tall and 10"x10". this way, i get exactly 100 pieces all at exactly the same height (i've calculated my recipe so it exactly fills the frame). you can do the same thing with caramel rulers, but this is easier as it is only one piece and won't slide apart as you pour the caramel. yeah, usually the pcb transfers shouldn't take as long. i think these are different because they are somehow thicker. the actual design isn't as flat on the acetate as other designs i've seen and it is pearlized so maybe different than other single, matte colored transfers. who knows? it's a gamble each time

go to any restaurant kitchen and aside from ducasse or maybe restaurants in france you won't find much cast iron, enameled cookware anywhere being used by the cooks. it just isn't practical. often, the most you'll see is stuff served at the table in the cute little staub cocottes that come in different shapes. they do this at the blt restaurants in nyc.

well...i'm an impatient ass... i had one piece of dipped chocolate left from yesterday that still had the acetate/transfer sheet on top. i removed it this morning and the design stayed...absolutely perfectly. so, although i still think it had something to do with working with the chocolate at a cooler temeprature, it just needed to sit on the chocolate for a longer period of time (overnight). do you think i'll learn patience after this?! i doubt it Jeff, maybe letting the chocolate sit in the jigsaw puzzle molds longer than you might think...overnight...would help.

depending on when you're serving it after slicing, you'll also need to take into consideration oxidizing of the meat. slice it onto plastic wrap, put another sheet of plastic directly on the surface and press out any air. that way, you can do several servings without the beef getting warm, dried and brown. it is rather tricky to manipulate those thin slices of beef. when you're ready to serve, just remove one side of the plastic wrap, flip the meat over your plate, and remove the other sheet of plastic. i think that's why the standard presentation is the meat stuck to the plate. would be harder to remove the meat on top of a pile of lettuce unless you're doing that presentation a la minute.

i saw your baklava on the dessert thread. it looked delicious...sorry it didn't work out for the guest of honor...more for you, eh?

bake them into a cake! eta: like a financier with browned butter...in individual rings and push one prune into the batter and then bake oh yeah, then drizzle the syrupy armagnac onto the cake when you eat it...it just gets better

the more i look at who was nominated and who actually won...the more i'm inclined to ignore what the james beard foundation has to say about restaurants in general.

for the long narrow ones, most companies don't carry anything like it except for jewelry boxes...for watches and bracelets etc. they're usually too wide and too flat and they don't have inserts for the chocolates either. i've just been doing some research on this as i'm also doing favors for a wedding. the most common candy boxes are for four pieces in a square (unfortunately). i just bought some long clear plastic ones from The Revere Group. also, you can buy a martha stewart wedding and she has all her sources in the back. it is pretty helpful sometimes. try doing an eGullet search as this topic has been discussed at length previously, so i know there are links.

that's thinking on your feet, ling. it looks delicious!

it is all interesting stuff... i looked at the chocolates again and the bloom became even more noticeable after another hour or more (it has since stayed about the same). it became visible only about 10-30 minutes after removing the transfer sheets which i had let sit on the chocolates for at least an hour (PCB recommends two hours...i'm a bit impatient). i always spread out my leftover tempered chocolate onto parchment when i'm done dipping with it so it is easy to break apart and re-melt for later use...this chocolate block is in perfect temper as of right now. there's no noticeable bloom or anything. to repeat, the sides of the dipped pieces seem to be in perfect temper. i don't think the transfer sheets were temperature abused...but they were shipped from france directly from PCB. i've had them for less than a month, stored in a cool dark cabinet. my room temperature was about 68-70 degrees fahrenheit (if my thermostat temperature can be trusted). i don't take the temperature of my chocolate when i work with it (or at least not often). as it was pretty viscous, i'd say it was in the mid 80 degrees fahrenheit. as i said, my theory is just that the chocolate was too cool to melt the cocoa butter and get it to adhere properly. i did place the transfer sheet on each dipped chocolate directly after placing the chocolate on the parchment. one at a time. so they didn't sit long enough for the chocolate to set up too quickly. i'll try some more later with warmer chocolate and see how it goes. thanks for your interest in my screw-ups...whatever i can do to forward everyone's progress