chromedome

I don't yet own my own place (less than two months, and counting) but I expect to make periodic visits FOH. At my current employer, I have been able to see and witness the impression I make on our guests; anywhere I've been sales have gone up. Casual twice-a-month diners have become every day regulars, after a few minutes' conversation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to schmooze for the sake of schmoozing. But if a guest wishes to talk to me about my food, I'm all for it. I know that I can communicate effectively with my clientele, and I know that nobody will "sell" my passion and perspective the way I do (at my last cooking class, a client devouring my roasted-beet salad implored me to "Never tell my mom I'm eating beets..."). I've cajoled my frequently conservative, meat-and-potatoes clientele into trying any number of unusual things, some of which have become major "fan favourites." I'll be more than happy to come out of the kitchen and talk to the guests at my new place, as the workflow permits (I won't have much help in the kitchen for the first year). I can only see it helping my business (won't be "making the rounds" just 'cause, though...).

Arne, you are a genius. Trust a kitchen designer... As an avid home cook turned professional chef (soon to become chef-proprietor), I've often wondered how I'd lay out my dream kitchen if I got to build one. So many of those "dream kitchens" I see in magazines are simply laughable - do they wear roller skates to get around? Ride a Segway? - that I'm often at a loss to think what the owners were thinking, unless it was impressing the neighbours. Local star chef Larry Stewart (the Hardware Grill) and his wife have a tap over their stove, for filling stock pots. I like that. Your separate pieces suggestion has just joined it in the "permanent ideas" file. For my current usage, I favour the good ol' traditional top-freezer style. I haven't liked any of the side-by-sides I've used so far (sorry Jaymes) and with my preference for room-temp water, I wouldn't use a water tap or ice maker (I use about two dozen ice cubes a year, max...). I've used bottom-freezer units a couple of times, at various catering functions, and frankly I find them a pain in the ass. I have an action-packed schedule at the best of times, and I only get out shopping once or twice a week. I tend to stock up on things and freeze them, meaning that I'm into my freezer every weeknight for dinner makin's. I'm probably about 60% refrigerator usage to 40% freezer usage, not counting my upright deep freeze in the basement. For me, top freezer just makes sense. However, as previously observed, that's a personal thing.

My favourite thing at the T & T here in Edmonton is the tank full of shrimp. I'm probably just twisted, but I find all those beady, worried little eyes irresistibly humorous. I imagine them whispering, "Have you tried the chicken? The chicken is good..."

The generally-accepted ratio for stock making is water at 100%, meat/bones at 50%, and mirepoix at 10%. In other words, if you've got 4kg of chicken to work with, you should use no more than 8L of water. I find that wings and legs provide lots of gelatin in a stock, but I'm too damned cheap to use the legs. I'll occasionally poach chicken legs or "parts" in the nascent broth, along with the backs/wings/necks/other cheap stuff. I fish them out when they're cooked and use them in other dishes, but in the interim they've enriched the stock. I'll also usually throw the bones back in, after deboning the legs. I'm spoiled at my current workplace. Y'know how you get a tablespoon or so of pure chicken jelly in the bottom of your roaster? Well, we roast off 600-800kg of chicken some weeks. I get 20L buckets of the stuff to work with. My customers think I'm a soupmaking genius...

In April I'll be moving to a small New Brunswick village, just up the coast from where Connor Bros can sardines in huge quantities. I'm hopeful that, since many of the local fishermen supply that monolithic cannery, I'll be able to buy a few dozen fresh ones here and there to put on my menu. After eating several dozen myself, for experimental purposes, of course...

I have never dined at your restaurant, chef Cantu, and given my budgetary and geographic constraints it is unlikely that I will any time soon. Aside from any consideration of agreeing or disagreeing with your philosophy, though, I have to respect anybody who can stir up so much heated debate on this forum! I can certainly agree with the notion of patenting an invention or innovation first, and then throwing it out to see what people do with it. The laser itself, after all, was derisively described as "a solution in search of a problem" when it was first invented. My concern, with many of these high-tech solutions, is that the industrial apparatus necessary to create the solution entails significant problems in and of itself. Even a relatively low-tech piece of "greenery" like biodiesel poses questions (how to raise large enough oil crops without massive use of petrochemicals, in the current fashion of large-scale agriculture?). It's a difficult thing to think through. How much gas would one laser in one restaurant save, as opposed to the emissions and energy usage involved in the manufacture? (Not being obstructive, here, but curious)

Yeah, then bring your machete to my parents' place in Nova Scotia to stock up on mint. My father says he nearly falls off the riding mower, trying to subdue the mint in their back yard down by the lake. I'm looking forward to visiting them, this year, to harvest my own winter supply. Maggie, we definitely do things the same way; I've got thigh-sized bunches of savoury and tarragon hanging just a few feet from my head as I write this. Of course by now, I should long since have stripped the leaves and packed them into something air-tight, but I've been too damned busy. Also, these are the last few bunches, and I've already packaged/used up/given away about three times the quantity I still have hanging. I never knew tarragon would overwinter so well, here in the frozen wastes of Alberta! It was a friggin' jungle, I kid you not...a six-foot high thatch of tarragon before even my radishes were up! I had to cut it down and dry a bunch already by the first week of June (for the benefit of you non-Canadians, that's only about two weeks into gardening season where I live). I tend to freeze more of my sage than I dry, because although I like both flavours I use the fresh sage more. I also freeze cilantro (I plant it two or three times, because I use a lot of the leaves and also a lot of the coriander seed), dill, fennel fronds, and fenugreek (I planted some seed from the packet I bought at the spice shop, just for shits and giggles, and got nearly 100% germination...that's what I call fresh spices!). Thyme and oregano I usually dry, though I do like to freeze a bit of oregano too for its different flavour. I normally freeze basil, too, but that was a moot point this year as for some reason my basil only got about two inches high (too close to the all-conquering tarragon, I think...).

Well, yeah, sleep. And to relax after a hard week of cooking and baking at work, I like to, uh...cook and bake. Pathetic, isn't it? There's also a lot to be done around the house at any given time, since my ex has been laid up with a broken leg and my kids are always off doing something or other. My major recreation away from work is reading: I average something like a book a day year in and year out, though since my last promotion that's declined to maybe three hundred a year or so. Of those about 60% will be related to food and cooking, as will about 40% of my online time. As for the rest, well, my curiosity ranges pretty widely. I might be reading anything from a biography to a sociology textbook to the latest Terry Pratchett novel. Right now I'm into the last nine weeks (OMG!!) of planning and preparation to open my own restaurant. This entails learning the regulatory environment of another province (I'm living in Alberta, but moving to New Brunswick) as well as finishing my cashflow projections, finalizing the financing, planning the initial menu, contacting suppliers, establishing some food costs...y'know. Stuff. Then, utterly exhausted, I get to open the doors and deal with tourist season.

Your design looks great! I'm not personally a fan of tile anywhere but the floor (tile counter and backsplash are something of a pet peeve, in fact), but it's your kitchen so my preferences don't count. It will certainly will be beautiful when you're done. My kitchen was designed by some architectural criminal genius back in the 1950's, and my only workspace is my table or a slide-out cutting board. Everything else is taken up with appliances, because I also don't have (nearly) enough storage. About half of my kitchen stuff is on shelves down in the basement. [/envy][/selfpity]

Personally I like to taste the rice, so I use a very light broth and usually skip the wine altogether. The exception would be when I make a risotto with seafood or saffron, in which case I'll use whatever white I happen to have on hand (but if I don't have one, I'll skip the wine without a second thought).

Who does the cooking in your home? Mostly me. My daughter will usually pick up the slack, if I'm not home, or else they'll just pick at whatever's around (or use up the week's worth of cheddar on grilled cheese sandwiches). My son and ex will cook once in a blue moon if the mood strikes. Do you eat foods from take-out or restaurants or buy ready-made foods often? Almost never. Do you cook absolutely "from-scratch" using unprocessed ingredients often? Almost always. Are you single, married or living with other(s)? Oh, um.... Well, I am still living with my two kids and my ex-wife (long story) until mid-April. Do you have children? Yes, as above. What sort of work do you do? I'm a chef. Do you feel you have enough time to cook the sorts of foods you like to eat? Only some days. Usually I'll find a way to break up the prep, if necessary, so that I can make what I want. For the past several years, it's been less a function of time than of catering to the tastes of wife and kids. That means nothing too spicy, no lamb, no fish, no spinach, no organ meats, no olives, no anchovies...meh. I'm interested in the questions of time, culture, society, money and class. As they relate to food and how it fits into our lives, of course. Ex and I both come from blue-collar backgrounds; my father was a sailor, and hers was a truck driver. We both grew up in basically meat-and-potatoes households, although in my case my parents were beginning to experiment with different things already by the 1970's. As a question for "extra credit" , is the form of your daily cooking/eating/dining different than it was in your family when you were growing up, and if so, how is it different? Much more diverse. I tend to keep lots of Asian and Middle Eastern ingredients on hand, and use them regularly. We also eat a lot more pasta and rice, as opposed to potatoes. I buy my long-grain rice in an 80 lb sack from the local (Afghan-owned) convenience store, as well as my basmati; I go to one of the local chinese stores for sticky black rice (I like it for desserts). I also, once in a while, will do a flat-out restaurant style plated meal, just 'cause I feel like it ("Sorry guys, it's 'chef food' again..."). ←

Harking back to the timer thing: at my workplace we use dozens of them, and the brand we buy does indeed have the count-up feature (a lifesaver, for sure). We order them from Starbucks, theoretically just for timing coffees (yeah, right!). I don't remember the brand, but I'll check for you on Monday. I'm sure they'll be available from other sources, and they are not overly expensive. They are small, about...(thinks frantically about inch conversions...) 2 3/4" by 1 3/4"; eminently pocketable, and have both the magnet and the stand/clip on the back. I usually use the clip to attach the timer to my apron if I'm walking away from the ovens, since my hearing is not so great and I work in a noisy place several hundreds of square feet in size.

Every area is different in some respects, I guess, but there is one bottom-line reality that I think most kitchens face. Unless you are a world-famous star chef, there is only so much you can charge for a plate. Here in Canada, for example, the glass ceiling for entrees seems to run about $30CDN. There are exceptions, like Susur Lee, who can charge more, but for "ordinary" fine dining outside the core of Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver that's it. So, in an industry where margins are already tight, where does the extra money come from for labour cost? Don't get me wrong - as a "grunt" chef I get paid dirt, I'd love to see wages higher - but I also know how much work it takes to get and keep labour costs in line. If I don't make a profit, in short, I don't get to come back and do it again tomorrow...and I really want to. If anyone's got a good answer to this, I'd dearly love to hear it.

Wrote a long and fervent response, previewed it, and said to myself, "Nah. Don't go there." Suffice to say that I'm the only one in the place who ever closes anything, cleans anything, puts anything away, bags garbage, takes garbage out of bin when bin is overflowing, etc. Don't get me started on the subject of knives in the sink... To forestall the inevitable comments, let me say that I spent a solid ten years attempting to instill some sense of responsibility for day-to-day chores, and it's just a lot easier and quicker to do it myself. Even when I've been working 60-80 hours.

I've only just found this thread, so forgive me if you've long since been satisfied on this point, but... Jaymes, empanadas probably antedate latkes in the Jewish world by some centuries. During the Middle Ages (and probably well before), baked or fried pies with sweet or savoury fillings were widely popular in both Jewish and gentile communities throughout Europe. In Spain and Portugal, the wellsprings of what we now call the Sephardic community, these pies would already have been called "empanadas" before the discovery of the New World. My copy of Gitlitz & Davidson's A Drizzle of Honey (a book of recipes from the Jewish/converso community of 14th/15th century Spain and Portugal) contains some 20 pages devoted to "meat and fish pies." So, if anything, empanadas would be more traditional than latkes, for the Sephardim at least.

I have to confess, I also traveled that road to shame. I was the youngest university student in the province at that time, and in an unavailing effort to seem older than I was I affected a pipe and scotch-drinking. After trying a few shots of JW neat, to see what it was all about, I concluded that the earthiness and smokiness of the scotch would be well complemented by the root beer. I can't say that I would drink it now (single malt with a drop or two of water is my preference these days), but I don't think I was entirely wrong either. It at least makes more sense to me than people who spoil good rum with Coca-Cola (you're perfectly welcome to put Coke in cheap rum if that's your thing).

The atmosphere of the kitchen is a powerful thing, isn't it? The sheer adrenaline rush of performing at a high level for an extended period, the satisfaction of battling pain and fatigue to meet ridiculous time demands, usually with insufficient resources? I ask myself many of the same questions you do, Ron, though in my case it's complicated by the fact of being 20+ years older (I'm a career changer). I love what I do, but recognize that the pay is not commensurate with the time and stress demanded. The physical and mental strain are not to be lightly dismissed. This time of the year, in particular (November and December are ghastly busy where I am), I am usually ill from the pace of the preceding six-eight weeks. To me, the bottom-line question has to be your passion. Do you still have it? Does good food, and good cooking, still excite you as it used to? The workload will be similar from one busy restaurant to another, but the chef's personality makes a huge difference. I've been blessed in my bosses and co-workers, but many of my friends and former classmates have not been so fortunate. Having lived a varied life since I left home at 15 (in the '70's, that would be) I have drawn a few lasting conclusions from my experience. One of them is, "Life is too short to work for an asshole." In short, I would suggest that you take some time to rethink your experience, and take that chef's unfortunate personality out of the equation. Look at what's left. Do you like it? Do you want it? I don't want to sound paternal or condescending, but man, you're young! At twenty-two or twenty-three, you've got time to try several things, yet. As I read your post, I see a love for food and cooking. If you come back to the industry for another four or five years, you will have ample opportunity to learn and grow professionally. If you ultimately decide that it's not for you, you'll have still learned many valuable skills. The people skills you acquire in the pressure-cooker world of the kitchen transfer well, and few other careers can inculcate the sort of focused intensity you learn as a cook. These are both very portable things, which would serve you well in the longer term. Conversely, if you choose to walk away for three, four, five years, well...that doesn't mean you can never come back. Speaking now from the chef's perspective, if I'm interviewing a guy who got burned out, tried other things, and decided the passion to cook was still there, well...I'm probably going to give that guy a job. Not without the soul-searching interview, you understand, but he'd have an advantage. Please understand that this is not hypothetical on my part, I've got a couple of guys working for me who went that route. Finally, bear in mind that there are other ways to make a living as a cook besides working in a restaurant. Cooking classes, catering, personal cheffing, and the like, alone or in combination, provide a satisfactory living for many talented cooks. Self-employment is not for everyone, and can certainly be a terrible slog, but it can also be very satisfying. Many members of this board earn their living this way. Like most people from Atlantic Canada, I come from a long line of pragmatic survivors. My attitude is that you make your decisions in life, abide the result, and press on. Whichever way you choose to take your future, you cannot go far wrong if you approach it with passion and integrity.

A pleasure to read as always, Maggie. I've been churning out tourtiere filling in 20kg batches for my work, ever since the weather got cold. Our head office chef's recipe is a little different from the ones you cite: three parts ground pork to one of beef (no oats or potatoes), onions in big chunks, and the seasonings restricted to salt, pepper, and an utterly unreasonable quantity of allspice. It's very different from the ones you've cited, but it's exactly the way his own grand-mere made it; and several customers have told me that it's the first "boughten" tourtiere they've had that tasted like the ones back home. Of course, it's one of those dishes...every farmwife had her own version. Chris, rappie pie is somewhat heavier on the grated potato than a tourtiere would be, but they exist at different points on the same continuum (what part of NS did your family come from? I'm a Bluenoser myself...).

I made truffles for everybody in 2003 because we were really, really broke and I could get the couverture at cost through my work. Guess what I *have* to make, every year, now? Ungh. This year I think I'll conscript the daughter (13-year-old pastrychef in the making) and add some cookies to the mix. There's more to life than chocolate, after all...

It's easier to make a fountain work with a chocolate that's formulated for dipping, as these already contain a large quantity of extra fat to make them melt easily to a thin liquid. At my workplace, we use the Callebaut S-12 coating chocolate for that purpose. It still takes a fairly startling amount of vegetable oil (coco butter's too damned expensive) to make the fountain run properly. Just within the last few weeks, though, I've been given a tip from a local chocolatier that made the ol' light bulb go on for me. He uses a thin ganache in his fountains, which gives the desired consistency but with better flavour. I haven't had the chance yet to give it a bash, but it sounds brilliant.

Oh, and an afterthought... For centuries whale meat, like beaver, was considered to be "not meat" in the Catholic countries of Europe, and therefore suitable for Lenten or fast days. The Basques and Scandinavians, in particular, had a thriving trade in catering to this little bit of culinary hypocrisy.

In Northern Newfoundland, in the 1970's, whale was occasionally eaten in the outports. I know that smaller whales often became fouled in fish nets, which may be why they were taken in the first place; once the animal's dead (and your your nets are fouled, which means no fish), why would you not? Toughness is certainly a characteristic of most of the animal's flesh. This is only to be expected, since most of the whale's muscle is used constantly for swimming; therefore tender little-used muscles are hard to come by. There are many ways to compensate for that, of course. The way my father prepared it, when we were given some, was by long braising in the oven. It came out pretty tender. The flesh was rich and dark, definitely gamier than beef. I'd say it had more in common with seal or moose; that rich dark gaminess that some perceive as "livery." I don't quite make that association myself, but then again I like liver... I'd be chary of whale meat, on the whole, because so many species are dangerously depleted. Assuming that I knew the animal was humanely harvested, and that it was from a non-threatened species, I would not have any real objection to cooking and eating it.

I'll cheerfully join the chorus of "oyster" fans, and second Luckylies on the virtues of the tail. That latter may be hereditary, as my mother always made a point of sneaking that little tidbit as soon as a bird hit the table (before, if she was the one cooking it!). On one occasion, when I was about six, we were visiting at the house of some friends. I wandered in from the living room, where the kids were eating, in time to see Mom in her usual fork-first powerdive at the roast chicken's nether regions. "Yep," I said, to general hilarity, "ol' Mom sure likes her tail...."

FWIW, I worked at a restaurant here in Edmonton that used three GE Profile ranges in lieu of a commercial range. On the whole, they worked well in very heavy usage (five course meals, up to 80 covers a night) and were in general very reliable. We had a couple of incidents with oven doors crapping out - again, bear in mind the ultra-heavy usage - and the igniters will need to be replaced periodically, but for the beating they took they were surprisingly reliable. I'd expect that for home use your experience would be just fine, though if you're confident enough with electrical wiring to replace your own igniters that would probably be a plus.

Make herbed butter. Put some of your windfall into the food processor with a stick or two of butter, and whiz it until it's well mixed. Shape into a log, and freeze. When you want to use a little, slice off a disc and have at it: melted on a piece of fish or chicken, added to an omelette, or whatever. It's a good way to preserve most herbs.