alanamoana

nvnvgirl, i think using the cornstarch was your mistake...that's usually included in pavlova recipes probably to get the crispy exterior and softer interior...for meringue for pies, you can use almost any other kind, just leave out the cornstarch ...better luck next time.

some places (like whole foods) carry an "organic" food coloring paste set. i don't know if that's what you're looking for. i'll try to get the name of the product. otherwise, you could probably make your own for basic colors like green, red, etc. the old school way with spinach leaves and beets and things.

hi everyone, just a quick question on meringue. my chef wants me to make a meringue. sounds simple. he wants it to be crispy on the outside and sort of chewy on the inside. so, i made a pavlova type of meringue. he then said, no, that's not right it shouldn't be marshmallow-y in the middle. so i made more and baked them longer. he said, still not right, they should be almost hollow in the middle. does anybody know of a way to make a meringue that is crispy on the outside, slightly chewy on the inside but mostly hollow? is this a pipe-dream? p.s. thanks in advance for the help

well, this isn't really a recipe, but an idea of sorts. when i've had to fill a cake and i'm using buttercream icing...i've just made a fresh berry jam (cooked down until thick) and mixed it into the buttercream. you get a nice rich filling without too much hassle. maybe this can get your brain going on other similar ideas until more people weigh in.

how can you say that he paid his dues? isn't his family very wealthy and that's how he could afford ct in the first place? i guess being behind the stoves all day counts, but some great chefs took a lot longer to open their first eponymous restaurants because they didn't have daddy financing the venture. but i could be wrong.

On eGullet, particularly in the Baking and Pastry Forum, there are many professionals who wonder why pastry gets slighted so often. Granted, we are biased as this is our profession, but can you explain or make clearer the reason behind passing mention of desserts and pastry chefs? For example, when you try a dessert that is exceedingly good or even exceedingly bad, why don't critics more often mention the pastry chef's name in the review? Or from another perspective, pointing out whether the desserts are even made in house? As one of the final impressions a restaurant can make on a customer and especially a food writer, i find it interesting that barely a paragraph per review is set aside for dessert and the pastry chef. Thank you for joining us on eGullet and taking the time to answer our questions.

What about Cafe Gray? In all the discussion of the time warner center everyone is talking about per se, masa, rare, etc. just wondering what people thought of cafe gray at last night's opening.

i don't find the service at gari to be particularly bad, but they do rush you and it certainly doesn't compare to yasuda in it's level of formality. gari is a "neighborhood" restaurant, so expect families (regulars) with young kids and some other unusual and rather noisy people to be packed into a tiny space. i think they both have merits, but i do prefer yasuda to gari for my money. but gari is only one block away from me...so i just order haru for delivery

i second bistango. i don't know if the il fornaio there is still in operation, it is down the street from bistango and decent for a chain restaurant...good bread! other than that, as everyone has said, lots of chain restaurants. what about "the lab" mall...that's pretty close to john wayne isn't it? there's a southern food place there and i think tim and liza goodall opened a place there as well (though i haven't heard great things) i should add that i haven't lived in irvine in about seven years, but i know people who still live there and sort of pay attention to what's going on there.

welcome to nyc stone. i too understand your pain! i lived on polk and sacramento in a three bedroom, two bath, gas fireplace, parking garage with automatic door, washer/dryer in unit, small balcony, HUGE apartment...only to move into a 4th story walk-up one bedroom new york apartment... beyond ikea, bowery street is full of restaurant supply (industrial) places which would have metro-type shelving or probably even custom made stainless shelving at decent prices. sort of like clement street in the sunset. there's even a more approachable place near union square on 17th street (i think it is called broadway restaurant supply). good luck settling it in. i loved san francisco, but i certainly do love new york now! alana

they can be frozen for quite a while...some bakeries (which will remain un-named do this regularly).

this is something i learned from my dad: peanut butter and ketchup. for an added twist, peanut butter and sriracha. reminiscint of spicy peanut sauces or satays. i guess it must be a family thing.

i too oversalt! i've found that hiring an outside and objective consultant to monitor my salt use is the best...that means asking my boyfriend to test stuff before i add more salt . really though here are some basics: don't salt sauces and soups (anything that has to reduce) until late in the cooking process as you may just concentrate the salt content while reducing. taste often during your cooking process to avoid oversalting do layer your salting/seasoning if it is a multi-stage process (without much reduction) so that you can control the amount of salt in each stage (where you'll be tasting things) and so that you don't add too much salt at the end (where you can screw it up permanently). the reason that people say you tend to use less kosher salt than regular salt does tend to be true (especially when you're measuring the salt in a teaspoon or the like)...but not because of what you think...it is a result of volume. the crystals are large and irregular so take up more space than regular salt...so there's more air between them and you're using up more space for less salt. you should read "what einstein told his cook" by Robert Wolke. there's a lot of interesting information in there that may be useful.

i don't think patricia yeo's leaving had too much to do with az closing. there just wasn't any business. it is a strange location to be so near places like union square cafe and be just slightly off the beaten path. i won't go into any more detail as i worked at both az and pazo.

i paddled outrigger in san francisco for four years...one of my teammates would always make poke for our gatherings, that is, if i got the tuna at my restaurant "discount"...meaning, the tuna guy was from hawaii and extending the aloha spirit would always give me a price lower than he would charge the restaurant! it was great! wow, i miss those days.

even though you can get a lot of things anywhere i like to bring back: kaki mochi li hing mui or other crack seed products lemon peel hawaiian red salt/rock salt and the usual mac nuts and chocolate covered mac nuts - even though you can get them anywhere, people still appreciate it and they know that they really came fresh from the islands .

smelled them in boston, so i'm sure you can get them in new york (maybe not retail, but for restaurants). they are very mild smelling and yes, maple-y. the mushroom guy said that he knew of a chef in boston who used them in an ice cream (i assume for an intermezzo type of thing that was savory, but sort of sweet). i'm not too into using what might be considered odd ingredients in sweet preparations, but they did smell nice and i can definitely imagine them being used in a lovely risotto (nix the vanilla bean though, way overused).

is this equal parts almond meal and powdered sugar? i.e. 1K almond meal and 1K powdered sugar?

something relatively asian that i thought of: candied kumquats. they make a nice ganache also.

anybody have experience with grean tea powder? you should check out recipe gullet because i think that's what michael laiskonis uses in his green tea ice cream which is very good! i think good green tea powder is more expensive than (certain) tea leaves, though.

depends when the wedding is. i guess you can get berries all year round, but you could also buy purees which work well with chocolate ganache and you could add a little bit to the dough to color it as well... i'm thinking very traditional here with raspberry: pink dough and raspberry ganache with chambord? passion fruit: orangey-yellow dough and pf ganache on a side note, i worked at a restaurant in hawaii this past summer that made their jin dui (the chewy sesame coated balls) sort of sweet: they colored the dough pink (just food coloring) and filled them with a relatively sweet filling of duck and dried apricot...they were delicious as a dessert and typically asian in that it still contained savory ingredients!

mostly on the west coast, but restaurant lulu sells their product at high end gourmet shops like "draeger's", etc. the restaurant itself didn't use any of it! p.s. don't know where the truck came from...jensen's house?!

i don't have experience spraying anything other than chocolate, but here's my experience with that which may apply to your question: the machine "freezes" or clogs up readily when the chocolate mixture isn't warm enough...but i assume that's from the fat. the machine generates a lot of heat through friction so if you're doing something cold that doesn't have fat (which could seize the machine) you'd have the problem of it possibly heating up your product. i guess the only thing to do, is to give it a try oh yeah, and let us know what happens wait a minute...i have an unused wagner in my closet as i write this....

i have and use a benriner...as do most restaurants these days. i haven't necessarily lost fingertips, but i have made pretty racing stripes along my fingers my advice: NO, YOU CANNOT GET ONE MORE SLICE!

p.s. is it just me or is it strange to finally have a face to match with the moniker?! i've now met several eGulleteers and it's interesting to see who matches what was in my imagination...or how far off i was!!! thanks again neil!