chromedome

At my farmer's market I've been using flat freezer packs that work very well. They're gel filled like any other freezer pack, but they are rigid and about 10" X 15." I get them here (Atlantic Canada) at my local dollar store. I cover them with cloth napkins that complement my tablecloth, and use them for my cheesecakes and such.

A "tickle" is a small inlet, and there are plenty of those in Newfoundland. A "tickle ace" is a particular seagull that is palatable enough to be eaten, where most are not. "Bakeapples," or cloudberries, look like a yellow-orange raspberry but with woodier seeds. Instead of tall canes, they grown on tiny plants in the middle of marshy bogs, where biting insects will swarm you in thick clouds. Oh, and you get one berry per plant. Someone gives you bakeapples, you *know* you're loved. Lots of Newfoundlanders have pressure canners, because in the old days it was the only way to put up meat from a moose or other large animal, that didn't involve salting the damn thing. Not that cured meats are bad, by any means, but by spring you'd get pretty tired of it. I still get the occasional jar of moose or seal from relatives back on the Rock. Yeah, lots of old-school recipes out there for game. You ever find yourself in need of a recipe for jellied moose nose, I'm your man.

I generally use meat in mine, though it was meatless this year except for the suet. Either pork or beef is fine, though I'll use game for preference if I've got it. Around here (New Brunswick, Canada) the traditional choice is the neck meat of a deer or moose, though beef neck is considered an adequate replacement if you haven't been hunting.

Easy to grow? Yeah...and the ocean's a trifle damp. Getting them to grow is easy, getting them to stop is a son of a gun. When my father was ready to harvest his first crop, he went back to the friend he'd gotten his first handful of roots from and asked how to prepare them for overwintering. "Prepare them?" his friend snorted. "Dig up every friggin' crumb you can find, and I guarantee you you'll still have twice as much next year." That being said, they're a tall and beautiful perennial - closely related to sunflowers - and if you have the room they're very striking en masse. They are very invasive and should not be planted without some forethought, but can be useful to crowd out a less-desirable weed.

I'm not hard to get along with. If you're better at making jus, I'll have the jus. If you're better at gravy, I'll take the gravy.

I don't know that you could label one or another school the "best," any more than you could name a "best" wine or "best" radio station. It would depend on your own individual criteria. I had excellent instructors at both NAIT in Edmonton, and NSCC in Halifax. I learned a great deal in both schools. NAIT, of course, has a substantial advantage in funding and equipment, as well as (if you're interested in that sort of thing) its tight relationship with Culinary Team Canada. The Dubrulle school in BC, George Brown in Ontario, and the Culinary Institute of Canada in PEI are all well-respected institutions. You'll get a solid education at any of them, and most of the country's other schools as well. Ultimately, your career trajectory will depend more on you as a person than the school you went to. Be responsible and organized; work quickly and well; show a passion for continued learning; be there when you're needed; don't grumble about doing your share of the cleaning...if you do these things consistently, you'll rise to the top in just about any kitchen regardless of where you've trained.

It's been my observation that the route you take to get there is not usually the primary factor. Oh, there may be some career paths that require very specific training/experience to get into, but as a rule it comes down to you and the passion you bring. Most times, you'll need to make it happen for yourself. To pick one example, unless you live in a larger centre there may not be much for charcuterie in your vicinity. If you live and breathe for the glory that is cured pork, then you will probably have to make it happen for yourself. Scrounge or build a smoker, pick up some salt and TCM, cultivate a pig farmer, and - very important - get yourself square with the local health department. Book a table at the local farmer's market, go door to door, harangue any chef in the area who'll let you into his kitchen. Work as much of a day job as you need to pay the bills, and just keep plugging. Sooner or later, you'll make a go of it. Or not. But even failing will teach you a lot, and the next time out you'll have a better idea how to go about it. I started in the industry at 40, after a lifetime in sales. Yes, it's brutally hard. Yes, the money is shite; even - especially - if you have your own restaurant. You do it because, in your heart of hearts, you have to. At the end of the day you may end up doing something else food-related (most of the wholesale reps around here are former chefs/line cooks who wore out on it), and that's fine too. Even if you get out entirely (and you're plenty young enough to put in 8-10 years before doing that), you'll learn a lot of portable skills. Tell me a career where efficiency, accuracy, reliability, planning, and ability to perform under pressure are not valued?

A chef I used to work for had lots of dislikes. He'd frequently stick a spoon into something and say, "Mmmmmm...tastes like crap. Just the way it's supposed to." I'm fortunate to not have many real dislikes: parsnips, cauliflower and avocadoes pretty much are it. If I lived in California that last one would be a bitch, but as it is I'm pretty much good to go. I don't care much for green bell peppers, but that's because they're relatively flavourless compared to red or yellow.

I do a lot of haddock at my diner on the east coast of Canada. I generally season the fish before dipping it, rather than seasoning the batter. That works for me, FWIW.

So...how did you make out?

I haven't been in for a while, and I guess I missed this one while it was live. Did you ever get down my way, Violetfox? FYI, for anyone passing this way...drop me a PM or identify yourself as an eGullet member when you make your reservation, and I'll (a) make a point of being here; and (b) come on out for a chat.

That's the one I got for Christmas from my fiancee. I love this woman. I also got McGee for my birthday, and have picked up several others at Value Village and suchlike outlets. Best bargain-shop acquisitions were Anita Stewart's Canada, New York Times Cookbook, and Alford and Duguid's Home Baking. Total outlay? $15 CDN. God, how I love cheap books. Since my last post, I reckon 23 new ones. I've also opened two restaurants, so I'm damned if I know when I'll have time to read them.

FWIW, Peter, the Newfoundland side of my family does in fact pronounce it "bruise." Of course, each part of Newfoundland is somewhat different, too. Purity's "Hard bread" (not the "sweet bread") is the standard brewis across the Rock, as far as I'm aware. You should find it in Superstore or Sobey's in the seafood section, usually merchandised near the lobster tank. The fish would traditionally be salt cod, aka baccalhao etc. The fish is soaked and then simmered; the brewis is soaked until soft and then gently heated in the same water. Drain both, and serve with scrunchions. Onions in one or another form are ubiquitous, too...fried, raw, or sometimes marinated in a bit of vinegar. Leftover brewis would become dessert with a drizzle of molasses. Of course, brewis was "back-up" food. It was what you fell back on if your potatoes weren't enough to carry you through until spring.

Well, I played around a bit on the weekend. I made up three batters on the basic flour/water model: one consisting of just flour, water, and leavening; one with a percentage of cornstarch; and one with a percentage of rice flour. I also had separate bowls of flour and cornstarch for dredging, just in case that was a factor. I started out with baking soda and vinegar as the leavening, because in my previous experiments I'd found that this combination (or soda and lemon juice) eliminated the need for any extra ingredients to provide browning. I can certainly affirm that leavening is one of the most important factors: when insufficiently leavened, the batter gives a meager and leathery coating. Initially I tasted soda in the finished product, and I ended up at a ratio of roughly 3.5:1 (vinegar/soda). This left me with no discernible flavour of soda or vinegar, but was still inadequate. Rather than pursuing this any further, since the browning effect was already adequate, I added baking powder incrementally until I got the degree of leavening I was looking for. The batter made with all flour was definitely the best-tasting. The one made with cornstarch had a curious "non-flavour" in comparison, while the one with rice flour was fine but a bit blander than the one with all flour...nothing additional seasoning wouldn't fix. Initially, I used slightly over 20% of the alternate starches in each batch. I did a second version of the experiment, increasing the alternate starches to 33%. This time, the cornstarch batter was distinctly the loser in flavour. The rice flour batter was again slightly bland, and the all-flour batter was distinctly superior. As for texture, there was little to choose between them. All three, once the leavening was sorted out, provided perfectly acceptable crispness. None of them held especially well, though, with the crispness fading rapidly after about two minutes. All in all, I was not especially happy with any of them. At the last minute, in a spirit of whimsy, I made up a batch of my existing batter from the commercial mix, but with beer as the liquid rather than water. As is often the case, my "just for shits and giggles" experiment turned out to be clearly the best of the bunch. The batter browned to a richer gold than usual, and not only was the batter crisper than before but it also remained that way for several minutes. I'm very happy to have stumbled onto a significant improvement in my batter, but I'm still somewhat galled at having to use the commercial product. It definitely rubs me the wrong way. I'm going to play around some more, now that beer is back on my radar. I'll also experiment a bit with corn flour, which I see as an ingredient in the commercial mixes. I will not be re-introducing egg as a factor, since I've found in the past that it makes a cakier, fritter-like batter that's not at all what I'm looking for at the moment. Further reports as warranted...

Dogfish is not readily available where I am, while haddock is cheap and plentiful. More to the point, it's what's expected by my clientele...therefore, it's what I give them. I generally pay around $5/lb CDN (plus or minus a bit), which is about $3.70 USD. I've looked at several recipes that have the whipped egg whites (Jamie Oliver's, for instance) but I wish to avoid them because of the extra time involved. I do pretty much all things back-of-house myself, and after working 100hr weeks all summer at my other resto I'm not keen to do so all winter as well. Also, batters with the whipped egg whites won't hold their air very well over a four-hour lunchtime service. I could make smaller batches more often, but again that's taking time away from all the other things I need to be doing. Not to be a sourpuss or unduly negative, you understand. I just have some sharp constraints to work within. If this was easy, I wouldn't have needed the collective wisdom of the mighty Gullet, right? Have not had time to experiment today, but we'll see what the weekend brings.

Cod is closely related to haddock, but cooks differently. The flesh is firmer and has less moisture. Haddock is in some ways less than ideal, but it is the standard fish-and-chips fish in my area and is very cost-effective. My stopgap solution of commercial batter is not a bad one, it's just unsatisfying to me intellectually. I have a perfectly acceptable product, but dammit I don't want to settle for "perfectly acceptable"! The closest I've come was with thin flour-and-water batters that had varying degrees of chemical leavening. The best was with baking soda and lemon juice or vinegar, but getting the proportions just right was maddening (and was costing me a lot of fish). I have no issue with breaded haddock, but to my mind it works best when pan-fried rather than deep-fried. Panko I wouldn't use because I'm in a very conservative area: I've had people send fish back on occasion because it wasn't cooked to dryness. For the same reason, Helen, I'd probably not use your kara-age suggestion. Not at this location, anyway. Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll experiment with several of them, and report back. In the meantime, if anyone else has anything to offer, by all means let me know.

I don't find that the marrow adds a whole lot of flavour to my stock, but I still try to not eat more than half. The rest goes into the pot. Rather than all bones, I like to use a fair portion of sliced bone-in shank: say at least one part shank to two parts bones. I favour marrow bones and knuckles, given my druthers. If you want to be really frugal, fish out the shanks after they've simmered to tenderness but before they've yielded up all their flavour. They make good soup or stew, if you don't mind cutting out some of the bigger chunks of gristle (I put those back into the stock pot, of course). I don't use tomato paste, because I don't like the flavour it gives my stock and I can do just fine without the colour if the bones and mirepoix are roasted adequately.

When we recently opened a second restaurant, we knew that fish & chips would be a major part of our stock-in-trade. We're in a fishing area, for one thing, and the east-coast fish fry is a strong tradition here. Also, it's what the tourists expect (come summer). My fiancee had a reliable beer batter she'd used for years on onion rings and (her personal choice for battered fish) smoked salmon. We thought we were good to go, until we tried it on haddock. The only adequate description of the result is...blecch. The batter didn't crisp up or colour properly, and was doughy on the inside. We pounded our way through hundreds of recipes in books and on the 'net, and were unable to come up with something that satisfied us. The beer batters were all much of a sameness, involving roughly equal portions of beer and flour by volume, with various other additives more or less on the whim of the individual. None of them worked worth a hoot. I also looked at several non-beer batters, some of which came close but failed us in one way or another: either not colouring enough, being too doughy, not crisping, not staying crisp for more than a few seconds after cooking... you name it. What I'm looking for is a thin batter that puffs nicely, colours to a nice golden-brown, and remains crisp for some minutes after the fish comes out of the fat. The ideal recipe would not involve an unreasonable number of steps or ingredients, nor be procedurally finicky, since this will be used in a production kitchen (in my case, anyway). Ultimately, failing to find a suitable recipe in the limited time I had available, I went with a commercial product. Two, actually, since we found that a blend of the two was better than either of them in isolation. My personal gold standard is the fish and chips at the Saint John Alehouse, which is far and away the best I've had in years. I now have a nasty case of batter envy. I wonder how much hooch I'd have to pour into Chef Jesse to get his recipe?

Some of you may well have wondered if the 'Dome was still around anymore. Well, I haven't been on the site much in my copious free time, but I'm still kicking. My second summer was easier than the first. That was partly because of having some experience to draw on, and partly because I had a practicum student from the local community college to help out. He's from China, and was very diligent and reliable...an absolute godsend. I got to meet another eGulleter - Opus came for sturgeon on his way through from North Dakota - and generally managed to keep myself busy and out of trouble. I shortened my weeks down to 100 hours by bringing in a commercial dishwasher. That may sound like a hellacious work week, and it is, but it's a serious improvement over last year's 120 hours. Those last couple of hours a day are the ones that really grind you down, trust me on that. Tourism was down badly in my area this past summer. There has traditionally been a falling-off during presidential election years, so that was part of it. Then of course there was the exchange rate and the cost of gas, so what with one thing and another it was something of a "perfect storm." We held our own at my location, though, managing to maintain something very close to last year's numbers despite the downturn. The problem, of course, was what to do about the off-season. There is certainly winter business to be had in our area, but it's going to be a long slow process without significant amounts of cash to throw into promotional efforts (and just for the record, I am without significant amounts of cash). So, rather than remain open like last year, bleeding money and working the phones, we decided that we'd close for the season. The initial strategy was to seek a part-time position for a couple days of the week, while continuing to hustle catering gigs the rest of the time. In the event, though, a more interesting alternative came to the surface. We've opened a second restaurant. Not far away from my original location, there was a small diner in one of the gas stations. It had closed down in August, because the woman who used to run it decided she was getting too old for the daily grind. We were able to work out an arrangement with the owner of the gas station/convenience store, and opened up as Harbour Diner on November 3rd. It's very close to the big generating station at Point Lepreau, which is currently being refurbished, which means that thousands of contractors drive by us every day. I think that should provide enough business to keep us going until we're financially solid. It's an unpretentious little place, with just eight tables and twenty-five seats, but we do a pretty good trade out of there. We crossed our break-even point (speaking in terms of daily sales) by the third day, and have been on the black side of the ledger ever since. We're only turning the most tenuous of net profits, but by God we're in the black in our first month and how many restaurants can say that? It's a short menu. We do fish and chips, some damned good burgers, hand-cut fries, hot sandwiches...the basic necessities. We're still using local products where we can, even here: our potatoes, onions, carrots, and beef are all local, and our seafood comes from local suppliers. We're in a fishing area, so fishermen are a big part of our clientele as well. We also serve breakfast, which I think will eventually be a good line of business once the workers at the generating station figure out that we're open by 0600. These guys work twelve hour shifts, so our takeaway breakfast sandwich is a monster: three eggs, "Texas Toast," and six strips of bacon. We also have my elegantly-named "Big Honkin' Breakfast," which has two eggs, Texas toast, a quarter-pound each of fresh country sausage and sliced ham, four strips of bacon, a piece of French toast, and a big mound of country-fried potatoes. It's been popular, although at least once a week it will vanquish an ambitious first-timer. It's been fun doing the simpler food. We came in with a pretty straightforward philosophy: give people food they already know they like, but do it better or bigger than they expect at the price. So far it seems to be working. The plan is to have one or two cooks hired and trained before spring, so that I can continue giving my attention to the Mariner's Table when the season rolls around again. Last summer's practicum student will be coming back again as my de facto sous-chef, which will be a boon, and I should have both a kitchen student and a server from the community college this coming year. I'm hoping to trim my work week by another twenty hours, if all goes well, by the simple expedient of having people available to delegate to. We'll see how that works out in practice.

For forward planning...where can I find a source of good statistics (ideally, for free) for industry averages? I'd like to see some ranges based on type of restaurant and type of venue (ie strip mall, industrial park, standalone). Poking about online, I've found that 6-8% of gross revenues is what's most commonly mentioned. In the case of a restaurant located within another establishment - ie, a theme park or hotel - this can go into the range of 8-15% of gross, based on the assumption that the other establishment provides a consistent stream of backsides in seats. Feedback, anyone? Specific examples from personal experience may be offered up by PM, rather than aired out here in public. Thanks, -'Dome

It'd be great to be there and work with you and Chris. Sometime before the season gets underway, I really have to get down for a proper day's visit.

As I've mentioned in other threads, I feel that the Maritimes could and should become a destination for gastronomic tourism. One piece of groundwork I'm laying right now is to locate as many existing events as possible, and try to get some networking/cross-promotion efforts in place. If anyone knows of existing festivals or events across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI, will you please post them in this thread? I already have the two I'm involved with, the Fundy Food Festival and Indulge NB, but am interested in anything else that's going on. Thanks!

Well, the Fundy Food Festival was fun, if not nearly the success I was hoping for financially. There was snow on the day, which cut down on the turnout, and my table was directly across from the dais where the student cooking competition was held...so during the busiest hour of the day, you couldn't come near me because of the crowds watching the kids play Iron Chef. I got auctioned off for $250, which was the lowest price of the day. I'm not upset, though, since all of the other chefs involved have been around the area for a lot longer and have solid reputations. Also, the people who bought my services told me that their boss had sent them in with firm instructions that they were to bid on me, specifically. That's always a boost for the ego. I've been asked to participate in another festival, "Indulge NB", this fall in nearby St Andrew's. I've been brainstorming a bit with the organizer, because this ties into one of my longer-term ambitions. As I've mentioned before, I want to pull together as many local chefs/producers/events as I can, to turn this whole region into the gastro-tourism destination that I think it can and should be. On that head, I'm in search of some advisors to help me make connections, decisions, etc. I'm going to start a couple of new threads for that specific purpose, but if anyone reading this has some connection/interest there, I'd like to hear from you in a PM. I'm looking for those who have been active participants in gastro-tourism (ie, have planned vacations around specific events/regions), or have promoted events, or are in the travel business and look for festival/tour opportunities. I will not be able to respond to any PMs for a couple of days (I'm leaving for a funeral in Nova Scotia in the morning) but will be happy to hear from anyone with any constructive input for me.

My paperback copy of "Joy" is holding up pretty well, except for Volume 2 breaking in half. My daughter's got that, for the time being. It's the same 70's edition, but I bought it in pristine condition from a used book store in Chilliwack in '93. My most battered, bedraggled cookbook is my grandmother's wartime "Victory Binding" of the American Woman's Cookbook, a vintage competitor to "Joy." It has a special section at the back of work-around wartime recipes, cognizant of rationing and shortages. My mother has a more modern edition from the mid-50's, which was the first cookbook I remember ever reading or using. I got my grandmother's copy about ten years ago. It's falling to bits, holding itself together from sheer bloody-mindedness. Several pages have decades-old recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines, others conceal handwritten recipes. Lots of them have annotations and corrections in my grandmother's hand. I was looking at it earlier today, with mixed feelings. After caring for her for nearly 20 years, my parents finally had to place my grandmother in a home, two days ago. Her Alzheimer's had progressed to a point requiring round-the-clock supervision, and they simply were unable to keep up. She is 93.

Yeah, they're not exactly a cutesy fish, are they? I like working with sturgeon, though. It's got a very delicate flavour, so you can go for subtlety, but it's also very firm and meaty, so bolder preparations are an option too. Unfortunately, the supplier is on shaky ground...ACOA originally gave them $1M less than their business plan called for, and seven years later they're slowly suffocating for lack of that same million dollars. The Saint John river has the last healthy population of wild North American sturgeon, which is where the original breeding stock came from. It's a shame...sturgeon is one of the most-pressured fish, and there are only a handful of companies trying to offer a sustainable supply. I hate to see them go splat, but I sure don't have the bucks to put into it, myself. I'll definitely let you know how the auction goes. The other chefs will all have an established clientele, so this'll give me a yardstick to measure the impact of my writing.