Sleepy_Dragon

I've yet to visit the UK, but can suggest a book that might shed light on the matter: The Modern Indian Restaurant Cookbook, by Pat Chapman. He documented the inner workings of a slew of British "curry houses", and his book sheds light on the recipes for the base sauces, stocks and masalas, along with restaurant style dishes. Pat

If they're for frying, the potatoes should be blanched in hot oil first anyway, so do that, then cool and freeze. Frozen french fries sold in grocery stores are parcooked at the factory. Another thought is to thaw raw potatoes in a bowl of water, so that they are not exposed to any oxygen. Just as you'd hold freshly cut potatoes in water to prevent browning. This is probably less than ideal though, since the freezing and thawing process will rupture cell walls. Pat

Without a doubt the funniest thing I've read today!!! Now, three questions: 1. Are there any "real" recipes in this book? 2. Is there a forward by Bobby Flay? 3. Was this a "re-gifted" gift or did someone you know actually think that this would be just the thing for you? ← Damn. It's called Booty Food and it has nothing to do with cooking to get junk in the trunk? What's up with that! "...red beans and rice didn't miss her!" Pat

I've been wondering if chicken feet could be a straight up substitute for veal bones. Does anyone know? Could they be used in a brown demi? And if so, how much feet = same amount of veal bone stock power? Pat

Oh, but that's a collector's item for the hairdo alone! ← Hehehe! I'd never make anything out of the book, but I do have love for Ruby Ann: http://www.rubylot18.homestead.com/ Pat

Hmm, Consomme of Hapless Little Fucker. With special attention paid in selecting the part for the clear meat. Edit: *whew* Think I needed to vent! Anyway, what's the policy at your workplace, chefworks91? IMO how easy it is to resolve the knife-lifting also depends on the chef's attitude towards it as well. Pat

If only! Thing is, if I did gut the fuckers, *I* would be the one to go to jail! How messed up is that! Pat

These people Really. Fucking. Suck. Oh what I'd give for a remote controlled miniature tazer thing installed in the handles of my tools... Or spikes which shoot out and impale their hot little hands as soon as they grab one. I have a few such people in my class, including one particularly egregious kleptomaniac who has to gall to yell and whine about people being selfish control freaks when I catch him lifting my stuff. The caterwauling is incredible. I think overall, it's a social contract thing. People either work with one in mind where they're considerate of others, or they work without one where anything goes according to immediate gain or loss for themselves only; what it means to others doesn't matter because hey, that's other people. Also bad are the ones who leave their crap strewn all over your station. We get graded each week on factors like this, and I've lost points because of their self-absorbed behavior. One time I literally had to grab the chef instructor and tell him something wasn't my mess even though it was all over my cutting board, in plain earshot of the person who did make it. Hey, it's my tuition and my grade, your mother doesn't work here, go pout somewhere else. Damn, in fact, forget the tazer. I want a high barbed wire electrified fence surrounding my station. I love culinary school and don't want it to end, but I can't wait to get away from this particular aspect of it. I would never dream of just lifting someone else's tools or mise without asking or letting them know, or mess up their station. It takes labor and effort to be organized and ready with tools in good condition, and they have no right to just help themselves to it. Mess up your own tools and your own station and waste your own labor as much as you like, but you don't get any say in mine. As for workplaces with knife grabbers, mise en thieves and station crappers, I've basically decided I don't want to work anywhere where that's part of the culture. Why follow where the tool grabbers will go? Plus IMO the food is likely to be better when everyone is organized for themselves in the first place. Pat

Was it Kabab House? 8102 Greenwood Ave N. Pat

My class took a field trip to the Woodmark Hotel in Kirkland a couple days ago, to tour their kitchens and have time with the executive chef, Alex Nemeth. He mentioned they do afternoon tea and high tea there. Our lunch wasn't one of those but it was very good, and the surroundings are posh too, along with lakeside views: Woodmark Hotel Pat

Maybe the salt applies only to larger legumes like rajma (red kidney beans). At least, in culinary school my instructor said not to salt beans until the last 15 minutes of cooking. If they're salted in the beginning, then there won't be any osmosis of water into the beans because salt draws water to it, and would keep it out of the beans. As dal cooks comparatively fast, perhaps the salt/osmosis thing isn't an issue. In any event I haven't noticed any effect when it comes to salting dal early on and cooking it on a stovetop. I haven't tried to salt bigger beans in the beginning because I can't bear the thought of risking all that waiting time for undercooked beans. Pat

Re: Tandoori Kitchen Thanks for the first impressions, Eden. I'm going to try and get out there once finances allow. Some of the menu items you mentioned sound like Muslim/Pakistani fare, which is pretty unusual for Indian food in Seattle. Pat

Tomorrow is our Grand Buffet, and it marks our last lunch service for winter quarter. It runs from 11:15am - 1pm. Feel free to say hi, albeit briefly. I'll be running the cash register for it. After this, we'll resume regular lunch service on April 13. Thanks for your support, Pat

Tourneing potatoes. No really. Pat

For the next two weeks, our lunch service is comprised of a Chef of the Day from the graduating class. Fridays are still our buffet service. If you're interested in attending a COD, call the SCA office to inquire about availability: 587-5424. I'll post menus here if my class gets to cook any which are open to the public, but calling is a better bet as far as planning ahead goes. Most require reservations. Pat

We can get all of those things in Seattle, hehe. Historic scandinavian population, plus the Queen Mary Tea Room, complete with loaner tiara! I had a chance to make crepes suzette in culinary school last week, served up tableside in one of our restaurants. Sadly, only one person ordered it. I realize the thought of a culinary student setting fire to something in front of you can be a scary prospect, but still... Some of the things people have mentioned are things I've had a chance to make and even feed to the public. But I guess that comes with a curriculum that includes the classic techniques. Seriously though, if people are hankering after canapes and whatnot, please consider checking out the culinary schools in your area. If they're operating restaurants, there's a good chance of getting some old school cookery. Pat

I agree too about food borne illness and pathogens being a problem, especially for kids, older folks and anyone immune compromised. (Not that food poisoning is good for healthy people either... one of the worst times I'd ever felt was 3 days during high school when 800 of us came down with food poisoning from school lunch, ugh.) I don't agree about the best ways of preventing it. I'm not referring to a deliberate gunning of Lark or anything like that. Rather, I think some of the regulations are a ham-handed attempt to fix a problem with roots elsewhere, and furthermore, the fix can be worse than the problem itself. Restaurants and cooks get hit with this because it's easiest to go after us rather than the health insurance industry or agribusiness. Do folks here eat cantaloupe? It's been implicated in food poisoning via fecal contamination on its rough skin because migrant laborers have no time to run 45 minutes across the field to a portapotty, especially as they get paid crap by the bushel harvested. Another local regulation on the books as of January 2005 is not to allow the raw egg to touch the outside of the shell from whence it was cracked, in order to prevent salmonella. Leaving aside the sheer sleight of hand needed for the egg trick, how do the regulations in place keep that fecal or salmonella contamination from getting to whoever eats it? For cantaloupe, the official line is dunk it in weak sanitizer solution and scrub it before cutting it open. Ok, no more pathogens I guess, but does that sound good to you? For eggs, the guaranteed safety there is pasteurized eggs. Is that acceptable? I agree we should be working as cleanly as possible, washing our hands, keep work surfaces clean, and store food properly. In school it's very easy to do that because we have all the supplies we need and we don't experience long shifts of crotch-crushing service. But in reality, I think if I followed all of those regulations to the letter each and every time in an actual restaurant, customers would be hollering bloody murder at either 1) the glacial service or 2) the price, if the restaurant tried to charge accordingly for the extra labor. Assuming the chef didn't fire me in the first place for being so slow. Where the majority of contamination is spread is via hands. Gloves don't matter, and in fact make it worse because it's easy to forget that they're on. I've eaten at restaurants where I saw cooks go into the bathroom with gloves on, and leave with the same gloves still on. Also, we're constantly sweating in them. They are a breeding ground for pathogens, and workers with cuts on their hands can develop more serious infections when the bacteria get to reproduce in this enclosed moist environment. Leaving aside worker health, that's not going to make the food any safer either. If I don't have gloves on, I know when my hands are dirty because I can feel the residue. It's why I'm washing my hands constantly before going onto any new task. Plenty of chefs have mentioned how a clean cutting board = clean mind. I think it is the same with hands. With gloves, it's a lot harder. And to touch on what vengroff mentioned, good cooks rely on touch to tell them things about the food. Not just doneness, but whether or not something's good, or if there's anything wrong. Put a barrier there, and it's harder to tell. From my perspective, physical barriers can create mental ones. How do you bring the same level of care to something you can't feel? Especially when many people get into cooking because of being sensates by nature? For the record, I want to make it clear that it is most definitely my responsibility to keep myself and everything I touch as safe and clean as possible. And yes, I think there are some seriously gross kitchens out there. But, I think people also need to recognize where the limits and realities really are with that kind of thing. It would be nice if folks got up in arms over healthcare, agribusiness and disintermediaries keeping us all a few degrees removed from the source of things as much as they did over inspection reports. So there. My long-winded explanation of "trumped up". Pat

Daniel Boulud mentions getting Bresse chicken via a farm in Pennsylvania, owned by Sylvie and Steve Pryzant. They learned how to raise them by contacting Boulud's mentor, Georges Blanc. (Letters to a Young Chef, pg. 55) Not exactly a movement, but it is something. Pat

It means cooked food isn't being cooled properly according to sanitation guidelines. It's at the lukewarm temperature where pathogens develop fastest. Basically hot food should be either held hot above 140F or cooled down to 40F or below, because the temps in between are (dundundun) the Food Temperature Danger Zone. That being said, I agree about a lot of this stuff being trumped up. I could really go on, but will spare you all. Only latex glove companies are getting anything out of the glove regulation. Pat

Joanne Herron and Chef Jim Drohman. Pat

Next week we're running a Spanish Tapas menu at One World. It's for one week only. This is a menu we came up with as a class. Spanish Tapas February 22 - 24, buffet on the 25th. 11:15 am - 1pm. Antipasti Plate Spanish Marinated Olives, Blue Cheese, House Made Duck Prosciutto, Herbed Garbanzo Beans, Sesame Crackers -- 3.00 Fried Goat Cheese with Lavender Honey, Caramelized Red Onions -- 2.25 Roasted Tomatoes, Fresh Ricotta, Olive Tapenade, Mixed Green Salad with Pomegranate Dressing -- 2.50 Creamy Roasted Garlic Soup, Grilled Asparagus, Crouton -- 1.75 Fried Zucchini, Shrimp & Bacon bundles, Sesame Crackers -- 4.00 Spanish Paella with Shrimp, Mussels & Squid -- 4.50 Spicy Pork Kabobs with Poor Man's Potatoes -- 3.75 Fillo Purse with Spinach, roasted garlic, pine nuts, rasins, chickpeas, balsamic orange sauce -- 4.00 Grilled Asparagus & Ham Omelette -- 2.75 Baccala Cakes with Poached Quail Egg, Pickled Red Peppers -- 2.50 Desserts Almond Orange Cake, Sangria Compote, Fennel Ice Cream -- 1.75 Pat

If all breakfast must be of Cafe Campagne caliber or more, then no, Lowell's isn't going to cut it. But if you're hankering for a diner breakfast with the requisite white toast, jelly in blister packs, decades old clientele and PNW touches (crab cakes benedict and such), then I think it suits. I like going there for breakfast but I also get cravings for AM Heart Attack On A Plate every now and then. Not something to do regularly, but fun when the mood strikes. Plus I like the vibe there, as well as the seagulls with Hope Springs Eternal written all over their faces as they perch on the window sills. If your friends aren't foodies, I think they'll be fine. Plus the staff are used to tourists. You're probably going to have to give some slack here with regard to finding something affordable and appealing to non-foodies. I don't like The Athenian at all. I've been there for breakfast three times and each time the food had that muddy We-Cook-Everything-In-The-Same-Pan-With-The-Same-Spatula taste and appearance. You could also do stuff like get kebabs from Mr. D's or Turkish Delight, or piroshkys from the Russian place, and go walking by the water. Many non-foodies wouldn't resist roasting meats and eggy buttery stuffed things. Pat

That's tasty salumi. Glad y'all are running this primo. I almost blurted out Irwin Special at the phone operator but caught myself in time to ask for the crust well done. I also want to try it with a red sauce under the cheese, maybe a special order next time... Pat

T minus 45 minutes until delivery. Pat

Here is One World's French menu, February 8 - 18, 2005. One World: Paris Billi Bi -- $3.00 Normandy Saffron Mussel Bisque Salad Lyonnaise -- $3.00 Warm Salad of Baby Frissee, Bacon Sherry Vinaigrette, Poached Egg Galette de Pommes de Terre au Chevre en Salad -- $2.75 Mesclun Green Salad with Potato & Goat Cheese Cake Pate de Campagne -- $2.50 Country style pork pate with stone ground mustard & Mesclun greens Crepes aux Courgettes la Mere Poulard -- $4.50 Zucchini Crepes with Watercress & Endive Salad, tableside Bouillabaisse -- $6.95 Classic French fish stew with halibut, shrimp, mussels & scallops Agneau Roti a la Lavende, Ratatouille -- $7.95 Lavender Roasted Lamb, Ratatouille, Honey Lavender Demi Glaze Escalope de Saumon Frais Roti a L'Huile D'Olive -- $6.75 Roasted Salmon with tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil, fingerling potatoes Cassoulet Toulousain -- $6.75 Traditional white bean stew with homemade pork garlic sausage and duck confit Poulet du Jour -- $6.95 Chefs whim preparation of the poultry of the day, see server for details ... There will also be a cheese plate available. The Poulet du Jour will change day to day, our class got in a lot of different birds from a specialty meat purveyor. Pat