markovitch

adjective: saccharine

Maybe you could flash a pack of candy cigarettes, and go lean against the wall with a faux cig hanging out of your mouth? ← i'd make the food smell like bubbleicious!!! hahaha

when i got ancient family copper retinned, the man who did it told me the tinning was so old that it had a high lead content. i don't know how old they are, or how much lead we're talking about, but since he re-tins things, i thought him a trustworthy enough source to mention here.

Hello, I just bought myself a new cuisinart coffee grinder, and i am now in the market for a spice merchant. i remember seeing posts here pointing to favorites, but i can't seem to find them. I have found thespiceshop.com and a few others, but i never act without the opinions of egulletteers:) I also remember alton brown repping a specific online merchant, but i can't remember that either. help me egullet? thanks! edit: arrg, i put this in the wrong forum. i flagged myself already. sorry

News bulletin for smokers. It's no secret from non- or ex-smokers that you smoke, even if you chain-eat breath mints. You don't have to breathe in my face for me to notice the smoke. The odor lingers in your hair, your clothes, your car and your home. It's a nasty habit, and yes, I've been there once or twice. If you're touching or breathing around my food, please don't smoke. ← Do you demand non-smoking cooks when you eat out? I wonder how often that works out for you. what if the waiter is a smoker? can they serve your food? what if the farmer smokes? I'm quite sure every smoker knows they emit odor. there's no need for a 'news flash' As for rules and regulations, they really run counter to the alpha-personality on the line. Ask for a break when you don't really 'need' one is going to get you laughs, not breaks. Mandatory breaks are conterintuitive to me--15 minutes right after service before you start cleaning and prepping doesn't make sense-- i'd rather work through it and go home 15 minutes earlier. But when you're pulling a double or a triple, even non-smokers should get a chance to rest their dogs for a minute. I'm also not insinuating that my situations are at all indicative of the world around, this is just my work history. Stepping for a smoke is just one of the few drugs you can cop to fiending for while working. maybe back in the 70s and 80s you could beg off to get another kind of fix, but not in any house i've worked in.

you can flour them and fry them into birdsnest-like fritter things. great for nesting highly presentable mains.

i started cooking in kitchens @ 16. i was a 2 pack a day smoker within months. like Pontormo said, i was in a situation where if i wanted to sit down, i had to ask for a smoke break. no smoke? no break. i quit smoking 2 years 3 months and 28 days ago, and i haven't been granted a break since (different chefs, restaurants over the years) no smoke? no break.

to each their own, i say. i haven't painted since finger paint, but i still like Titian...

Martin Yan was a guest on Emeril's show last night...

Doesn't anyone find ostentatious that her autobiography is in three volumes? All three books contain enough good writing to make one book, plus a lot of fluff to gouge the market. I thought Patric Kuh's short bio of Reichl's tenure @ NYT in "The Last Days of Haute Cuisine" did her more justice than her own words.

an expert is someone who is convinced they know more about something than you do

you need to verify whether or not the child is a celiac-- spelt, kamut and many other 'wheat' alternatives have gluten.

as for me, it is not a person, or persons, but a series of experiences at a young age. Those, and a naked determination at 10 never to eat a tater tot casserole again. most recently, I have to thank the personal growth that came from cooking for a houseful of college kids, and my stint as a food columnist for my college rag. archive here in case anyone is interested.

The contractual obligations between some universities and their hospitality contractors often pushes carts off campus property-- at my alma mater (granted, a very small school) the food contractors had first dibs on any catering on the grounds, as well as monopoly rights. The student-run coffee shop was actively deterred from offering anything worth eating. At larger universities food service often looks a lot like a mall food-court.

Employees demanding access to financial records? In an industry where you can get fired for pretty much anything, the fantasy of honest and well run restaurants profit sharing, paying livable wages and providing benefits is far to grand for me to imagine. Not to say it doesn't happen in some places, but arguing for whole-scale conversion? only in the most perfect world.

FG, i thought your piece was interesting, and very well written. I would like to bring to attention a very well written and interesting rebuttal. Disclaimer: I'm not the waiter, nor do I take a side. Just and FYI to all.

and develop a taste in condiments. on campus food will quickly become condiment-delivery devices.

ramen, frozen stir fry mix. the biggest obstacle I hit during my college tenure was finding the time to use up fresh products i bought-- yes frozen isn't nearly as good, but neither are the science projects they become when you don't have the time to cook them before they go south. plus cooking time is a fraction of fresh.

'the bubbles tickle my nose!' -ICJ the franchise has no history of 'qualified' judges. i, for one, cut the producers some slack. There is no real way to screen test judges, and they are charged with the difficult task of making ICA appealing to everyone, from casual channel-surfers, to 6 y.o. children, to uptight gourmands like us. That means trying to keep the amout of ingredient/technique lingo to a minimum (ICJ had that 'Dr Hitori" there to provide any definitions) as well as keeping the banter and commentary lively (no easy task). For a long time i thought that ICJ was a serious show from start to finish-- i thought the inane comments from 'celebrity judges' were funny only after translation-- but a japanese friend of mine informed me that no, those judges were actually saying things like the quote above. i think they have done a great job so far--and i hate EVERYTHING else on foodTV.

vegan gelatin= <a href="http://www.bulkfoods.com/agar_agar.htm">agar agar.</a> powerful stuff, it is. Amy Pearce, a friend of a friend, was the pastry chef at Millenium in San Francisco. her rockin' desserts are <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580082076/qid=1122934320/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-6728409-9642235"> here</a> An aside, I am surprised that wine and beer do not have to comply with EU's strict labelling laws.

I'm in the hippie food business, but i gotta say that gluten is H-e-double hockey sticks on your gastro-intestinal tract. Remember people, it's nature's rubber bands. I'm not going to get into this fake-meat debate though; live and let live and eat what you like.

i have to say, this is the last thread I of my creation I thought would survive for this long. I think it was my first ever. anywho, i havent been imbibing a lot of spirits lately, but i did get a fantastic bottle of 10yo 10%rye from pappy van winkle. yummy. i made splificators :) Mark

well darn. i thought i'd come up with a winner here.. it seems the towel-fever that grips pro kitchens doesn't transfer to here. oh well

I get two towels per shift. Throughout my shift, my chef tries to steal them. so does everyone else. I try to steal theirs. Why? because there are never enough towels. Every person i've worked for/with has had a different dao of towels, managing the wet and the dry, the dirty and the clean. You must stay alert... the disaster that ensues when you dab at an errant thyme leaf with the wrong towel keeps you on your toes. what is your dao of towels?

coffee breakfast of champions, yo. btw, i made my deadline. defense is wednesday morning, bright and early. i'll def. be having the same breakfast for that.