alanamoana

beautiful loaves mcduff...i guess now i HAVE to get the lepard book! i just bought the hamelman book based on recommendations from my friends who are professional bakers. it is a very interesting book and so far, good reading.

i don't know about #2 and #3 but i have the jpw book and think it is great. i also saw him do a demo and i feel like he is one person i have learned NEW things from (with regard to chocolate). so i would get this book (actually, i already have ). i ordered it from a canadian company and with the exchange ended up getting it cheaper than other places.

sorry i don't know how much you should bid, BUT since the kitchen is currently using home style ranges, etc. you should make sure that something like this is compatible with their gas lines, electrical, etc. it would be too bad to buy something and then for it to be cost prohibitive to install it. of course, ignore this if you already thought of that

i just moved back to northern california after having lived in new york for the past four years. i definitely missed tj's while i was gone, but not enough to drive to the 'burbs. now that i'm back, i've been happily surprised by what tj's still has to offer. whether they survive in new york will be decided by time. i can compare tj's loosely to some of the strange bodegas i used to see on the ues that had nuts/seeds/trail mixes in plastic containers sitting outside in all kinds of weather, day after day. the products were overpriced and certainly past their prime. how these guys survive is beyond me. tj's carries similar products, stored properly, rotated and the turnover is so high that you're guaranteed something fresh. i would think their survival is more likely as they do offer more than these bodegas. tj's might not carry staples (flour, etc) but as a baker/pastry chef, i go to tj's to buy: plugra @ $2.99/lb tj's butter @ $1.99/lb tj's yogurt - cheap! eggs milk nuts dried fruit tj's "pound plus" chocolate bars @ $3.99/500g and as a person who loves to snack, their array of chips and salsas which won't break the bank and which taste good (as opposed to some salsas in whole foods going for upwards of $5 per jar) is decent. new yorkers love choice and selection, but they don't need it all under one roof! i've been to many tj's in northern and southern california and they are a range of sizes. i think they have managed to find a niche and a business plan that works for many different settings.

i used to make (at a restaurant) donuts with mashed potato and we kept the already cooked potatoes in the fridge for a few days as we made the dough fresh every day. they worked fine all the time so i would think that it translates just as well to a dough made with potatoes keeping overnight.

just to reiterate what everyone else said in anectodal form: remember when everyone was holding their breath for per se to open in the time warner center in new york city? well, it opened for about a month...and then closed for two months...the reason? their walls weren't built to code and they had their commercial ranges/ovens working which started a fire... just be really careful who you choose to do your work. i assume these guys were used to building restaurants and they didn't do it right...imagine a residential contractor trying to figure out what you'll need. but it seems you've already made up your mind.

if your friend is not noticeably pregnant (or even if she is), it might be wise to also let the restaurant know this ahead of time. often restaurants like manresa serve raw or barely cooked fish (or other ingredients) which your friend might be avoiding. if you do this ahead of time, it makes it easier (just like with allergies) for the kitchen to make substitutions. last minute stuff is definitely frowned upon by restaurant professionals (behind the scenes, of course).

in retrospect, i have to agree about the onions... the meat was cooked perfectly (can't really comment on the flavor of the meat), but the onions stole the show...not necessarily in a good way. just the steak and compound butter would have been better. hopefully, i'll be going to napa more frequently. a good friend (and previous boss) is the pastry chef at julia's kitchen at copia. she's my "excuse" for dining around in the north bay!

Lunch at Bouchon this past Sunday, the 5th. There were three of us and we started out by sharing the pig's foot (trotter) appetizer. Shredded meat and cubes of the skin formed into a cylinder were served atop a sauce gribiche with a little side salad of lightly dressed mache. I have to say this was my favorite of the day. It was delicious and the richness of the meat was nicely offset by the acid/mustard of the sauce. I stuck to something pretty mundane for my entree (actually we all did) and I had the Steak Frites. This is sort of my benchmark for brasserie dining. I order it at each place and compare. The Bouchon version didn't disappoint and offered a little something different. A large amount of chopped caramelized onions were served on top of the steak and this was topped off with a generous disc of compound butter. The dish was served with an insane amount of perfectly cooked pommes frites. I have to say, I liked the onions (as I love them in almost anything) but it was a large amount and came back to haunt me later We shared three desserts and only had three glasses of wine between the three of us and our check wasn't too huge, but definitely bigger than I would have expected (probably the wine). We had to ask more than twice for water. Overall, it was really food and we sort of camped out until almost the beginning of dinner service but never really felt rushed. I don't think I'll go all the way back up there for steak frites unless I can't find anything better in my neck of the woods. Based on other people's dining notes, it would have been worth it to try something a little different (boudin blanc, etc.). Samgiovese, how do you rate The Left Bank in comparison? Oh yeah, it was pouring rain and somebody stole my umbrella from the umbrella stand. That pissed me off more than anything else!!!

I think the "King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion" would be worth the investment. It deals a lot with bread but also cookies, cakes, batters, etc. I like it because as a general reference, it defines a lot of things and talks about technique working from simple to more complicated recipes. It probably echos a lot of what is talked about in Gisslen and Friberg, though. It doesn't, however, have many color photographs which I love to have in cookbooks. It is good to get an idea of what your finished product should look like! Since books can become addictive (see the cookbook thread in General Food Topics!), buy one or two and practice first...I say this since for you they aren't as accesible or inexpensive. I do like Malgieri's books. He had one called: "Perfect Pastry". I don't think it is in print anymore but the chapter headings are: Creams, Custards, Mousses and Meringues Pate a Choux Pastry Doughs Tarts, Pies and other Pastry Dough Desserts Puff Pastry Cake Layers Cakes Decorating I really learned a lot from this book on the basic doughs. There are a lot of photos of the processes. I just looked it up and it is available in paperback on Amazon through a third party merchant. Just a good basic reference. Good luck with your baking! edited to add: see how the list could just go on and on?!

a little off topic but my brother and i grew up calling them "glue balls" as in... "moooooomm, make us some glue balls please!"

i'm a little late to the blog, but with the chinese sausage and/or ham with all that rice...i had to suggest: make rice as a side dish one day (a little extra) and then use the leftovers to make fried rice. that's one of my favorite clean out the fridge dishes...probably something the kids might like, as well. i really like your "helpful brown bag" idea. this is a great blog and what a nice family!

it looks like from your blog you are also a cook. so, are you asking your question with the intention of trying to work at one of these places? sometimes, just because people like to eat someplace doesn't mean it is going to be a place where you can learn a lot culinarily... edited for grammar

LindaL, i think it would help the others on eGullet if you were to state your specific desired area of learning. though those books cover a great deal of information, you might be better served to purchase a different book specifically for bread baking or a different book specifically aimed at cake/dessert baking. i'm a professional pastry chef and barely cracked open the gisslen book which was used in my cooking school (older edition). i have an older edition of friberg and barely used it either (bought before i attended culinary school). do not even have the CIA book. this does not discredit their information at all...i'm just saying that those books didn't help me a ton, either before, during or after culinary school. neither do i use them as references.

in watching jean-pierre wybauw give a demonstration, he states that molds do NOT need to be cleaned all the time. people spend all this time polishing, etc. which is silly. the only time you probably need to clean your molds is when your chocolate was totally out of temper and you have crap stuck everywhere. he states that the mold sort of gets seasoned by being used (like a good cast iron pan or wok), if necessary, some of the residual cocoa butter should be warmed up with a hair dryer gently before being filled/coated with tempered chocolate. he is also a proponent of cooling tempered chocolate. chucking it into the fridge for a short period of time based on the size or thickness of the mold or coating. as long as you let the tempered chocolate set a bit at room temperature, it shouldn't be a problem to refrigerate it to help it along. he did make sure to specify that if you can't "ventilate" your refrigerator, you can leave the door open a tad so that moisture doesn't collect on your chocolate from the fridge. i'm assuming with large chocolate operations, the chilling process is done with some sort of venting to prevent humidity/moisture from coming into play. at any rate, this might not help, but it is just another point of view. maybe it will help lessen the amount of elbow grease you expend on that one particularly tedious task

"Just to clarify, is this real sesame we are talking about, or Nigella, which is often called black sesame - the "kalonji" of Indian cooking?" i'm pretty sure this is real black sesame. nigella are similar to onion seeds if i'm correct and definitely lend themselves to savory cooking more than sweet...

i don't know if this takes this too off topic patrick, but before i was in the biz and hadn't been exposed to too much "strange" food...my boyfriend's (at the time) sister used to serve this as a salad or starter: diced avocado, segmented grapefruit and very lightly whipped cream all stirred together. it was delicous. it would work as a dessert also if you lightly sweetened the cream and maybe threw in some vanilla bean to roun out the flavor.

Fat Guy! i read your post and laughed soooo hard!!! my husband and i ate at new green bo for our last dinner in manhattan (we took off for california the next morning at the butt crack of dawn )... same thing happened to us! we were shocked and actually commented on it also. it was so unusual. the server who often serves us (the very tall guy with the short haircut) was also cheerful and pleasant...he actually often is, but that doesn't mean he'll refill our water! but after it happened a couple of times, we were agape...it certainly made for a great "good-bye" dinner in new york!

as a fledgling pastry chef in 1999 i made a black sesame brulee...i like the flavor better than white sesame...unfortunately, it never made it onto the menu because i couldn't get past the color. something like fresh concrete! hehehe if i had been a little more persistent, i would have used it in other desserts. i tend to give up too easily!

you beat me to it. when i go visit my parents, there are two or three jars of peanut sauce in the fridge. my mom can't bear to throw out the jars, but because there are only two of them they can only eat so much peanut sauce! of course, my dad can eat peanut butter until the cows come home! supply of partially empty peanut butter jars exceeding demand...

don't underestimate tk... most of the pre-made items will be using per se's kitchen. tons of employees, just like per se!

your chocolate doesn't need to be in temper to make ganache, but i think it is best to have the cream and chocolate at around the same temperature. less "shock" for the chocolate to go through.

megan, although i'm disappointed you couldn't stomach the baconeggandcheeseonaroll, i'm glad you got lunch from a cart! the best ones are on 6th Ave (Ave of the Americas) where all the publishing houses are. lines around the block and they're there until like 3am! i think all the taxi drivers go there on their graveyard shifts... thanks again for a great blog! i've enjoyed it tremendously.

i thought about that too...some of the stamps they sell for crafting are very detailed and i imagine the cocoa butter would be a little too viscous for some applications. it would have to be a pretty simple and clean edged stamp to produce a good image. wendy, on the stencil and airbrush idea...could you stencil/airbrush a really cute design onto acetate to create your own transfer sheets? i'm thinking this would work best on little squares of dipped ganache where you take a cut piece of the sprayed acetate and apply it to the top while the tempered chocolate is crystallizing?! i've been shopping for transfer sheets lately and the minimum purchase is usually 25 sheets of the same design. i just want to experiment a little and this is just cost prohibitive. i'm thinking i'll just make my own. does anyone know where you can purchase an assortment or smaller amount? sorry, maybe this should be another thread.

with the larger molds, some people brush the tempered chocolate in a thin layer into the mold first. then fill with the tempered chocolate and dump. i guess the brushing helps get your initial coat bubble free and to make sure you've filled every crevice... good luck!