chromedome

...with added criticism as a bonus. You betcha. It gets to be a problem pretty quickly, in a small city with a limited pool of line cooks. The worst of it is that it's so counter-productive. After three months as her chef de cuisine, I had even the surliest of the kitchen crew problem-solving and contributing (I challenged each of them to come up with one new dish using existing mise, which would go up as a daily special with their name on it...a couple of them were popular enough to become part of the regular menu). Then she sacked me because things weren't changing quickly enough. Aye, well.

...which, really, says it all.

The joy of working for amateurs, right? The last time I worked for someone else, the owner was a very bright woman with an excellent concept and a great grasp of the food-production side of things. Her shortcoming was a belief that every single person on her payroll should approach every single shift with an owner's passion and intensity...for, you understand, just over minimum wage. When she didn't get that level of commitment, she would hang around the kitchen and berate the cooks, often as soon as their second shift. Needless to say, that didn't work out very well.

Print directly to a DEC LA-120?

I encountered this just yesterday, with Alinea's new (and not completely functional) website. Not, alas, because I'll be dining there. (Edited to clarify: The actual text on the site is perfectly legible black-on-white, but the menus on the main screen are in white on pale grey. Somewhat less than ideal, to my mind.)

I couldn't tell you how many people told me "you should open for 'X', it would be a real money-maker for you." No. No it wouldn't.

Seriously, it's the water. I've had people do blindfolded taste tests of tuna packed in water vs. tuna packed in oil. When it's packed in oil, tuna tastes like tuna. Packed in water, it tastes like the inside of the can. I'm not talking about the fancy, super-expensive stuff from Spain or Italy, mind you, just plain old supermarket varieties. Fat phobia is so 1980s, people. It's a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil, which you'll usually drain away anyhow. Buy oil-packed.

It's a stormy night, so I pulled leftover choucroute garnie from the freezer (FCO points!) and boiled up some potatoes to go with. Perfect cold-night comfort food, but not photogenic.

An almond tuile, maybe? Almond florentine? Either one would be relatively easy to cut during the brief interval after it comes out of the oven.

My GF had a hankering for risotto tonight, so I made saffron risotto and breaded chicken thighs with carrots and a bit of kale from my parents' garden that I'd blanched and frozen a few months ago. No pics, because I just didn't think of it. Don't usually do anything "chef-ly," though, so I thought I'd mention it.

I see them pre-packaged here like spring mix, rather than done in-store as the prepared salads and fruit trays are. I'd assumed it was done mechanically, but there may indeed be large squash-processing sweatshops. I honestly don't know. Food-prep staff typically make minimum wage or barely over, in either case, except in areas where living costs are exceptionally high.

There is zero GMO wheat commercially grown at present in the United States or elsewhere. The "wheat belly" argument hangs on some very shaky assumptions, but in any case it refers to normal hybridization and selective breeding rather than genetic modification.

That's a very large category for me, and yes...cookie dough is one of its occupants.

I've asked them to just put it on a side plate for me. The locations here seem open to that.

I've eaten at a few of their locations. If I was still working the line, I'd be somewhat tempted by their breakfast-and-lunch only format. On the upside, lots and lots of fruit on their plates. On the downside -- at least in the locations I've visited -- it's often underripe and poorly prepped.

Yup. The biggest obstacle for a new technique or method is an ingrained conviction that "hey, that just ain't right!" Programmers like to joke that the only reason God was able to create the heavens and the earth in six days was that he didn't have an installed base of users.

It's actually one of the hot culinary trends, right now (the things I learn while working....).

Good one. Guests at my cooking classes are always amazed when I put the damp tea towel under my cutting board to keep it from moving...you can almost hear the cumulative sound of the pennies dropping. Inexpensive plastic cutting boards often have a textured back, in the pious belief that this helps keep them from slipping, but -- as the Gerswhins put it -- it ain't necessarily so.

That kind basically *is* regular pasta, with added fibre (inulin, IIRC). You don't get the various other benefits of true whole grain pasta (B-vitamins, etc) but it's at least a modest improvement nutritionally, and as you say the texture and flavor are unobjectionable. My late wife was a big fan.

I suspect you're in the right place. Coming to terms with the current owners of said freezers would be the issue.

Evidently there's a market for hamburgers that resemble dog turds. It's a wonderful world we live in.

They're in pretty much every Canadian supermarket. I suspect they're probably widespread in the US as well, but they're an easy product to overlook if you aren't specifically aware of them and looking for them.

As always, one's mileage and freezer may vary.

I would venture to guess that the early-adopter, food-geek demographic has some value in itself. Businesses are keen to target "influencers," and Anova has a well-established presence within the -- for lack of better terms -- enthusiast, avant-garde portion of the food loving community. For a stodgy, established brand such as Electrolux that's probably a large part of the equation. Dunno about the rest of you, but when I think of Electrolux I still visualize the Dachshund-shaped canister vacuum cleaner my daughter used to ride on as a toddler.

I would consider that a wash, at best, because they're also going to absorb off-flavors from the freezer. I used to do that with stock and opened bottles of wine, and quickly decided it was best to pop them from the tray to a Ziploc bag once they were frozen.