chromedome

My breakfast is pretty much based on whim, and what's on hand. I don't have a whole lot of hard-and-fast rules about it. In fact, I can veer anywhere from no breakfast at all to "fully ballasted" and it doesn't really faze me either way. One thing I very definitely don't have in the morning is breakfast cereal. It was on hand for the kids, but on the very rare occasions I had a bowl it would be at night, when I felt the need for something light. That's because on the one hand I find most breakfast cereals (even the "virtuous" ones, like Cheerios) to be disgustingly sweet; while on the other hand eating cereal at 7 leaves me ravenous at 8...hungrier than I'd be if I had eaten no breakfast at all. I like fruit at breafast time, though it has to be part of a larger plate. Fruit alone also has the effect of making me hungrier. I try to scale my breakfast to the demands of the day. If I know I'm looking at 16 hours of kitchen mayhem, I'll try to load up with eggs and fried potatoes and toast and bacon or sausage or ham. Most mornings, though, tea and toast (my homemade bread, so it's not as Spartan as it sounds) is more than adequate. Coffee addict though I've been for many years, I find I can't drink it in the morning any more (gives me the gut rot). Coffee is lunch time onwards. Tea is up until dinnertime, as coffee will not keep me awake but tea will. Go figure. Pie for breakfast is an honourable tradition at my house. I figured that it was healthier (and probably had less sugar) than commercial cereals, so I never had a problem giving it to my kids if it was there. I like porridge when the weather is cold, but it could be jook and chili sauce instead of oatmeal or Red River. Depends on my mood. Leftovers rock. Over the last year, I've come more and more to appreciate rice for breakfast, especially cooked up with lots of good leftovers (to my ex and kids, the fridge was a black hole...if I didn't use the leftovers, they'd stay there until they could leave under their own power). Cold pizza? You bet. Steak and eggs, or chops and eggs? Absolutely. Eggs Benny? Special occasions. Pancakes or waffles? Every weekend without fail...a family tradition (I taught my daughter to make them before I moved away). We'd occasionally have waffles and ice cream for a light dinner during the heat of the summer. My kids loved that. On the subject of workingman's breakfast, I have to tell you that the biggest breakfasts I've ever eaten were when I was gillnetting with my father and uncle in Newfoundland, back in the late 70's. Unlike the farmers, fishermen were obliged to load up as soon as they were dressed (no bringing the boat in after a few hours to eat...). A solid fisherman's breakfast in northern Newfoundland would consist of one or two plates of baked beans, six to ten fishcakes, three or four slices of bread with jam and/or molasses, and a half-pot of hot, sweet, milky tea. If there was any leftover cold fish, meat, or potatoes from a prior meal, that would find its way to the plate as well. Considering that there'd be a gruelling 16-20 hour day to follow, and only a packed cold lunch (sandwiches, etc) along the way, it was important to fuel up properly. I do have to concede that it was a lot to take on first thing in the morning, but I was so ravenous all the time that I didn't really feel bloated.

Almond paste is available in varying degrees of quality, like so many other ingredients. The better versions contain only almonds and sugar, typically 50/50 or (better), 66% almonds to 34% sugar. The sugar prevents the almonds becoming almond butter (y'know, like peanut butter). Cheaper brands use lesser percentages of almonds and may include preservatives, artificial flavouring, or other adulterants. Marzipan is made by adding additional powdered sugar to the almond paste, and some glucose (sometimes corn syrup, in North America) as well. Marzipan is more malleable, and can be rolled and shaped in any number of ways. It can also be dried to a beautifully smooth surface which may be painted on with edible pigments for interesting effects.

I like Lapsang Souchong, but I'm thinking that the milder smokiness of a Keemun would work well. I've got some Mao Feng Keemun that I think would go well with an earthier (as opposed to fruity) dark chocolate...must try that once I get my chocolate supplies laid in. I haven't tried the combination, but I would also think that a nice malty Assam tea would complement a lighter and fruitier chocolate. I feel a special tasting night coming on...

I was following a similar train of thought, looking for somthing to use with white chocolate. I'm thinking that I may try one of two things: either a jasmine tea-infused ganache, or reduced icewine. I'm leaning toward the tea, 'cause it's a lot cheaper than icewine. I'll likely try both before the year's over, though.

I'm going to be opening my own restaurant soon (a month or so), just outside Saint John, New Brunswick. Like most chefs of my generation I have an ideological attachment to using local product whenever possible, so I've been trying to track down suppliers for interesting ingredients. It hasn't been easy, and was not made any easier by being on the other side of the country. In the Vancouver and Western Canada forum, there is a popular thread addressing this very subject. Over here, though, I have only found threads focused on specific items in specific places. So I says to myself, "Self...we need one of those for my end of the country." So here it is, folks: your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a knowledge base for Quebec and points east. Want to find something? Post a question. Found something you want to share? Post it here. To start the ball rolling, I'm going to offer up a producer of duck and related products in Cormier Village, up Moncton way. They are called La Ferme du Diamant, and they were hard to track down...no website, and the telephone isn't listed under that name. You can reach them at 506-532-5579, or find them at the Dieppe farmer's market. They sell duck (whole and in parts), foie gras, confit and rillettes, and a variety of French-style charcuterie. You're welcome.

In less than 48 hours, I'm going to be pulling out of Edmonton and pointing my car east. I'm heading to New Brunswick to open a restaurant (yay!), and I'm going to be driving so that I can take my things with me instead of shipping them. I'm going to be crossing from Ottawa, and probably follow the southern route through Quebec to the New Brunswick border, and then the #2 down to Saint John. Seeking the wisdom of the assembled multitudes, then, my question is this: are there any roadside places along the way that merit a stop? I'm not looking to delve into a strange city in search of a meal, however excellent; I want to know where the good roadside diners and truck stops are. Y'know...good, simple, filling food. Any suggestions? (I'll be starting companion threads on the central and western boards, if your expertise extends across the country.)

Mine are always white or yellow. For the last while I haven't had to hoard them, because as chef I've had the key to the linen stores... I may be in the minority, here, but I think both the mitts and the towels have their place. I like the short (wrist-length) heavy-duty Kevlar oven mitts, found at most kitchen supply places. They're thick enough that it takes a long time for the padding to wear thin, even in a busy place, and they're short enough that the cuffs aren't hanging over the gas and catching fire. I tend to use the mitts for heavy items (full stockpots, roasting pans with a full case of bones in them, etc) and the towels for most other things. I have burned myself more with towels than mitts, but that says more about me than the towels. I have incinerated a lot of towels in my time, and a few of my whites have scorched cuffs. At one time, my daughter's weekend sport was checking my forearms for tell-tale bare patches where the hair had burned off. To me, forearm hair is my early-warning system: when I smell burning hair I know I've got a split second to move my arm before I scorch something important. Towels are the most amazingly versatile tool in my kitchen, though. In addition to the above uses, I especially value them as a way to get a decent grip on a slippery fish skin. Skinning a fillet without a towel is an exercise in frustration, unless your fingertips are sandpapery by nature. Side towels also provided one of several unintentionally humourous moments in Ruhlman's Making of a Chef. Early in the book, the obviously-awed Ruhlman mentions that the CIA uses specially-imported towels from Germany, since American-made towels are simply not of high enough quality. Shortly thereafter, he pounds home the point that these towels are not to be used for wiping hands, cleaning counters, or anything else...they are for handling hot pots and pans. That's emphatically all. I remember cracking up when I read that. What are they saying, there's no American towel fit to hold a pot with? Gimme a break! (No offence, MR...I loved the book, I just found that part funny)

Overnight refrigeration works just fine, with pretty much any bread (I've often had to postpone baking until morning, because of fatigue or overly-long shifts or what have you). There's a small chance of the bread spilling over the pans/bowl, but you should know by about the 2-hour mark if that's going to happen (it seems to depend on how warm the dough was when it went into the fridge). Check your dough after two hours: if it is already right up to the rim of the bowl, or already at baking size in the pans, punch it down and re-shape it, then return it to the fridge. You'll be fine the next day. You will find that your bread bakes to a beautiful reddish-gold, much nicer than it otherwise would have, and you will also get a fuller flavour. It will get a better oven spring if you begin to bake while it's still cold from the fridge (you'll have to slash the loaves to keep them from bursting). The only downside to this procedure, such as it is, is that the surface of the loaves will show a number of "blisters," where bubbles had formed in the dough. I don't mind those, it just tells me that the dough was slow-fermented for better flavour. Some people have aesthetic issues with the appearance, though. To each his own; I'll take flavour any day.

I've cut/mangled onions with a butter knife, in the effort to cook at someone else's house. Not even so much as a nasty ol' steak knife out of that Walmart knife block. That was pretty rough. Aside from bachelor quarters, though, I'm okay to improvise almost anywhere.

I'd call it dinner. A few short moments after that, I'd call it a pleasant memory. In fact, upon further thought, I call it Something I'm Going to Make Real Soon Now.

Fun stuff. I have great bunches of "rules" that I cheerfully ignore, many of which have already been discussed upthread. Unfortunately I haven't had my coffee yet, and can't come up with a whole lot right at the moment. Hmm, let's see... Pie for breakfast is an ancient and honourable tradition in my household. I don't wash OR scrub OR brush my mushrooms, at most I'll wipe any unusually dirty specimens (not applicable to wild mushrooms, though...). I don't sweat refrigeration a whole lot when I'm at home (my grandmother had a pantry right up until '75 when she moved into the house she's in now), though at work of course I adhere to industry standards. Tomato paste in beef stock is a vile and disgusting practice, and now that I'm the chef it doesn't get used. Escoffier was dubious about it, and in this I agree with him wholeheartedly. As you may imagine, I also dislike traditional demiglace. It's not a "rule," but the widespread revulsion over anything bone-in or with visible fat mystifies me. That's fine, just pass those bits down to my end of the table. I have nothing against raw fish as such (I'll cheerfully fill myself on sushi if someone else is paying for the damned stuff) but let's face it, people...almost every seafood you can name tastes better when cooked. Most recipes calling for unsalted butter work just fine with salted. Some are improved. Crispy chicken skin is unnecessary at the table. It's much better if the cook disposes of that prior to the meal, rather than having it clutter up the serving dishes. I always cook my stuffing inside a chicken (or under a spatchcocked chicken), but never a turkey. The damn things are too big, and dry out well before the stuffing is done. In a chicken I spoon the stuffing in loosely to fill the cavity halfway, as opposed to packing it full with a solid plug of stodge. Extra stuffing I put in a baking dish and spoon drippings onto, which makes it taste pretty much the same. Almost any rule you can imagine about bread baking is either wrong, or can be worked around once you've got a feel for the process. I had a roommate once who insisted that it was necessary to put a pinch of salt into your coffee. That was his single, prized, "gourmet tip." Don't do it. Many people think of soy sauce as a uniquely Asian ingredient, and therefore adding it to western foods creates "fusion." I grew up in a household where soy sauce was routinely added, in varying amounts, to almost any dish containing meat or poultry. It adds a bit of salt, a bit of colour, and a nice depth of savoury flavour to those dishes, and when used with due discretion is not notably "Asian." As for the whole produce issue? Local factory-farmed is better than organic from 3000km away. Local organic/home-raised/heirloom are all better than that. My own backyard, or my neighbour's, is best of all. That reminds me of another rule..."if you are limited for garden space, don't bother growing things that are cheap and widely available in your area." I happen to like spuds and onions straight from the garden a whole lot better than store bought, so I always plant them. My rule is to plant and eat what I want. There are lots more dangling just outside my consciousness, but I've already violated my rule about posting before coffee...

If you make strudels or other phyllo-based items regularly, you can use up some of your crumbs by sprinkling them between the layers of buttered phyllo. The crumbs keep the layers separate, making the finished product flakier and crispier.

I've been rifling my freezer in preparation for moving, so I've had a number of those discoveries in the past couple of weeks. Cherries that I'd bought on sale last year, during the peak of their oh-so-short season: found those one night when I was craving fruit, but everything was closed. Inhaled the lot between loads of laundry and dishes. No less than five kg of lamb trims, brought home from work; cleaned of excess fat and bony bits, ground, and turned into kofta and lamb sausage (another private treat, since I'm the only one in the house who likes lamb). Multiple packages of chicken carcasses and trims, diligently set aside for stockmaking. Last year's abundance of rhubarb, just in time for a revival of the rhubarb thread. Frozen peaches, frozen cranberries, frozen blueberries, frozen saskatoons. A big hunk of smoked bacon rind, from my first experiment with home-cured bacon, which is destined for the bean pot Real Soon Now. I'll be moving to the east coast in two weeks' time to open my own restaurant, so my task (one of many, to be sure) is to turn all of these ingredients into a freezer full of things for my ex and kids to eat. My daughter and I are working our way through Bread 101 (I showed her basic lean bread last weekend, this weekend we're using a pre-ferment, and before the day's out she'll have made her first brioche and ciabatta). My goal is to have at least 24 loaves in the freezer before I go, so that she'll have had enough "reps" to be comfortable making it on her own.

I've had the opposite problem the last few years, as a naturally nocturnal person coping with a 6:45AM wake-up. It is essentially impossible for me to fall asleep anytime before midnight, and sometimes beyond that. This makes life rather difficult for me, especially since if I nap at any point after getting home I can't sleep later. It's ironic that, as a person perfectly suited to "normal" cook's hours, I've had all daytime shifts for some time. I've coped by catching up as best I can during the weekends, and going to bed early when my fatigue level gets to the point of helping me drop off ahead of time. Geez, maybe I should be scoring myself some weed, that always makes me nod within minutes...

The first meal I shared with my now-ex was steak and eggs at a Tops 24-Hour restaurant in Vancouver, in the wee small hours of our first real date. I don't remember the first thing I cooked for her, but since she was living on peanut butter and rice noodles at the time, I do remember her being impressed (she moved in a few days later). I still do almost all the cooking, and my daughter picks up the slack most days if I'm working late. First thing she cooked for me was her grandmother's borscht (tomatoes instead of beets). She thought she was cooking for leftovers, since it's better the second day. I ate the whole pot in one sitting.

I usually cut mine to length and let them dry to the leathery stage before cutting and/or cooking them. A little bit of flour, semolina, or cornmeal tossed with the noodles after cutting will keep them from sticking together. I haven't tried freezing the uncut sfoglia yet, but probably will sometime soon. If it works well, it will be a big timesaver for me.

I've had the Glen Breton Rare (the Canadian whisky, from Glenora), and it's a perfectly decent lowland-style malt. Unfortunately, it sells for $20 more than comparable lowland malts, so I seldom buy it. They sell all they make, though, so who am I to say they're doing anything wrong? I plan to stock their 10 yr malt and possibly their brand-new 15 yr malt at my restaurant, since they are the "home team."

There's something to be said for the boil-and-drain method I suppose, though I seldom use it myself. The key, if you're going to do it, is to not cook the rice until it's done. Check the rice after 5-6 minutes. You want it to be not quite al dente, but not entirely chalky either. Drain it and turn it under cold water a few times, to rinse off some of the surface starch. Return the rice to the pot and the pot to the heat, with a tight-fitting lid on it. As soon as you see some steam escaping from the pot lid, turn the heat to minimum and let the rice finish cooking in the steam for ten minutes or so. The rice will be light and fluffy. This is similar to the traditional Iranian method of cooking rice, although that has one or two additional steps. I do agree that this technique reduces the flavour of the rice, so I seldom use it except for dishes which will have potent flavours (saffron, curries, etc) added to it or served with it.

That's a good feeling. I've never had the opportunity to remodel a kitchen, but I have moved more times than most people would in a few lifetimes (my lifetime average per location is about 16 months, and I'm 43...do the math). On that first day, no matter how frazzled things were, I always made a point of having a bit of time in the kitchen. When my wife (now ex-) and kids smelled the bread and soup coming together, they knew that they were home. It was a minor ritual in the midst of a major upset, but it made a world of difference. I'm moving again in a couple of weeks (long story), and bread and soup will be the first things I make in my new kitchen.

[shrug] I've worked with them, and I've worked without them. I'm more comfortable using a mixer with the shield, because I'm just enough of a klutz to catch my apron in it while it's running, or some damned thing... I also favour steel-toed boots for working in. Call me paranoid.

The Michael Ruhlman/Eric Ripert Return to Cooking does contain recipes, but the heart of the book is Ripert's creative process as he moves from place to place and season to season.

I use it in many of my cooking classes to give an example of how reductions work. All the flavour, without the water! At home I mostly use it in baking, but in my sessions I'll often use it to make a punchy mayonnaise or vinaigrette for winter vegetables. For one example, you could shred raw beets/carrots/white turnips on a box grater or a food processor, washing after each vegetable. A hint of ground coriander in the beets, nutmeg in the turnips, and toasted cumin in the carrots (just a hint, mind you); and toss each vegetable separately with the orange mayo. Stack them in distinct bands of colour, with the beets at bottom so their juices don't discolour everything else. I also use frozen OJ for a quick-and-dirty Maltaise, or for glazing roast pork. It's also good for making a quick orange-pineapple ice cream (pineapples are cheap and plentiful most of the year, up here).

There is substantial variation from one type of rice to another, from one brand to another within a given type, and of course the age of the rice is a factor. There's one other that hasn't been mentioned upthread...the quantity that's being prepared. As a rule, the more rice you're cooking at a time the less water you need. Assuming "ordinary" long-grain rice as sold in most North American supermarkets, the standard rule of thumb is two cups of water to one cup of rice. And this is fine...if you're using one cup of rice. If you're using two, you'd probably want to cut back a bit on the water to keep your rice from being mushy. At my work, we make rice in 4" deep hotel pans; the ratio there is two water jugs of rice to three (scant) water jugs of water. By water jugs I mean the clear plastic ones that sit on the table during meetings and seminars...y'know the ones I mean. (A point of semantic interest, Fat Guy...you add water, in search of "fluffy" rice, while I subtract...to me, the opposite of "fluffy" is "mushy," while to you it seems to be "dry.") In my cooking classes, I advise people who have trouble with rice to bring the pot to a simmer and then pop it into the oven, with the lid on tight, for the rest of the cooking time. I find that the all-around heat makes it easier for the unpracticed to have evenly-cooked rice, rather than crusty on the bottom and chalky/undercooked on top. Another point I stress is the importance of a resting time when the rice has finished cooking. At least five minutes with the lid off is important to allow the rice to dry and cool slightly. Attempting to "fluff" the rice with a fork or spoon, while the grains are still above the gelatinization temperature, does not give the desired result. Same thing as cutting into a loaf of bread while it's still hot, it'll always be a bit "doughy" even if it's been baked perfectly. The above applies to long-grain and basmati rice, the kinds I primarily cook with. I haven't played enough yet with shorter and Asian rices to comment on those.

I'm a pretty pragmatic person, where appliances are concerned. At my current workplace, where we serve roughly 2000 people every weekday, we use both heavy-duty and domestic appliances as applicable. Our microwaves typically last about two years, although the one elderly Amana is still plugging away after God knows how long (it may be original with the store, for all anyone knows). We have even gotten four years out of a cheap-ass low cost StarFrit mandoline. Go figure. I'm thinking that the smaller of those Warings would probably work well for what I intend (some broiling, the occasional rotisserie chicken for guests' picnic lunches). I'll also be picking up some low-cost Belgian waffle-makers, on the premise that at $30-40 for a domestic unit vs. $800-1500 for commercial ones, I can afford to throw away a lot of broken waffle irons and still come out ahead. Commercial units can wait for my kitchen reno (third year, hopefully) when I can make a proper spot for them. Life is filled with compromises, no?

I like a combination of roasted and raw for my stock. I'll usually roast the carcasses of my leftover birds and stash them in the freezer, each carcass divided between two freezer bags (for small batches I'll use one, for full batches I'll use two). When I've got a chicken I want to use (often a large "retired" hen) I'll typically reserve the breasts for another use, on the grounds that they don't add much flavour anyway. I simmer the rest of the bird with the roasted half-carcass and my mirepoix, until the leg meat is tender. Then I lift the bird from the pot and remove the legs, reserving them for another use. The rest of the fresh carcass goes back into the pot for a couple of hours, until I'm satisfied with the flavour of the broth. I find that the whole chicken imparts a better flavour, and the wings/bones etc give lots of body to the stock. The roasted bones deepen the colour (usually - but not always - desirable, to my mind), and add complexity to the broth with their toasty/caramelized overtones. When I have opportunity to plan my stock making, this is my ideal situation. That being said, I often have to improvise due to time constraints, so I go with whatever I have on hand. If I end up with a light-flavoured broth, I'll either use it for risotto (where that is preferable), or else when I make soup of it I'll be sure to jack up the flavour with other ingredients.