chromedome

Glad it worked for you! I've coaxed a few acquaintances out of their "I can burn water" hidey-holes by explaining how easy and impressive fish in parchment can be.

Yowza! Over three hundred customers/day in a neighbourhood bakery is DAMN good. I'm in downtown Pedway Hell, with office towers all around, in a place that serves the only decent takeaway hot meal in the vicinity, and we get maybe 1200-1400 on good days. What's your average sale/transaction coming in at? I have given your address to a couple of people who'll be vacationing down that way soon; they'll be passing it on in turn to their resident friends and relatives. Unfortunately, I don't know any experienced bakers who are looking to move Stateside. Hell, I'd settle for finding one who'll take a graveyard shift here in town. I'm soooo tired of having my teenage night baker underbaking/overbaking a couple hundred dollars' worth of product every week.

It is a widespread truism that some thoughts are best expressed in certain languages. Apparently Friedrich Engels, Marx' longtime collaborator, had a real problem with this when he got older. Having sixteen or seventeen languages at his disposal, he was said to drift from tongue to tongue in the course of any given sentence or manuscript, creating vast difficulties for his less-erudite acolytes.

All of the above is excellent advice, and I cannot add substantially to it. As a starting point, though, I would recommend picking *one* book, and selecting *one* not-too-outrageous recipe that you'd like to have in your repertoire. Buy the smallwares you need to make that one recipe, and make it three or four times. After you've made it three or four times, you'll have some confidence to build on. Pick another recipe with similar methodology, and do that one a few times. Repeat as necessary. After you've made three or four recipes that share a basic method, you'll have a good enough understanding of that method to pick up any other recipe that uses the same technique. When you're really good, you'll be in mid-recipe and say to yourself, "Hey, that's not right"...and adjust accordingly. Really, there are only a few basic recipes. If you've done one sponge cake, you can make all the others readily enough. If you can make a basic yeast dough, you can make any bread with a bit of practice. If you can make one laminated dough, you can pick up the others. If you can make creme anglaise, you can make any custard...and so on. That's about it, when you strip baking to its essentials. Some advanced projects require a large number of disparate skills, but you gain them all one by one, in pretty much that fashion. Dig in, have fun, and don't stress yourself. Most of the time even your mistakes will be edible, and if they're not, well...not many things are cheaper than eggs and flour. Come to think of it, some of my current "standards" began life as mistakes, and turned out to be improvements on the original item.

I've used whole kamut to make pilafs, and enjoyed it. It would be a little chewy for most tastes, admittedly...if I was making it for company I'd probably break up the grains a bit. I've cooked millet quite a bit, and enjoy the flavour. It's better if you dry-toast it first, and doesn't "puff" quite as much. Quinoa I haven't used quite as much, but I've both cooked and baked with it. I like it well enough, and appreciate the little "snap" that the grains have even if I've absent-mindedly overcooked them. When I do that, I'll generally put them into porridge or baking. Cornmeal and quinoa waffles turned out quite well. They're a good combination for yeasted breads, as well. I use buckwheat in porridges, crepes, and breads; occasionally pilafs. I make barley risotto quite often, as well. Wheat berries are iffier, I've only used them occasionally (my sister-in-law gave me a coffee can full of them once). Teff is just too damned expensive, at least in my neck of the woods. I guess you could say that I've used whatever grains came to hand. I like them all, really.

You go, girl! Hang in there and keep swinging. Hopefully, once the Easter "spike" is over, the level of new business you've gotten from the holidays and the article will justify adding a baker AND GETTING SOME DOWNTIME.... Damn, it'd be nice if you could do that at such an early stage.

Ummmmm....tonight was oxtail soup, since I found a reasonably cheap package of oxtails at Safeway for the first time in a long time. Remember when they used to be cheap? Last night...(scratches head)...a sausage sandwich. Plain ol' supermarket pork sausages, but at least it was my own home-baked bread (dark rye/white bread swirl). Monday night (really digging, now...) my wife was out, so I made some chowder with snapper and salmon and just a bit of saffron 'cause I love saffron with seafood. Don't generally have time to eat breakfast, and lunch is at work. I work in two kitchens, fulltime and part-time, but I still cook and bake when I'm at home. Usually. Unless I'm napping.

I'm surprised you can't get the Cline Zin in BC, Coop, it's available here in Alberta. I was looking at a bottle last night, trying to decide whether it was one I wanted on the table over Easter (decided against it...don't have a good enough "feel" for Zin yet to commit to it). Harking back to your original point, CtznCane, I can only offer up my own perspective. I usually come to eGullet late in the day, and rather fatigued. I participate primarily in the cooking and baking threads, where I have some expertise to share; and also I can tell myself that it's "professional development." WOW is something that I'll visit maybe once every week or two, and I definitely fall into the "lurker" category for the most part. I am still in the early stages of learning about wines; my knowledge is almost entirely of the "book" variety. While I do have definite likes and dislikes, my grasp of the necessary vocabulary, and my ability to articulate my perceptions, are still very rudimentary. Therefore, I tend to keep my mouth shut and "go to school" on the more knowledgeable members. There are probably others who feel the same. In fact, I guarantee it. Over the coming months, I expect I will be here more regularly, and begin to participate more. I'm leeching as much info as I can from those around me, and beginning to be more confident in understanding what I taste. My goals for the year are to familiarize myself with the Italian varietals, and get a reasonable cross-section of Canadian wines under my belt. We'll see how that goes. Does any of this help?

I'm trying to imagine what a Sisyphean cookbook would be like. Every time I shelve it, it rolls onto the floor and I have to try another recipe? Hmmm. This is tangential and may sound silly, but reading Frederick Forsyth's thriller "The Day of the Jackal" as an adolescent started several trains of thought which still occupy my mind. At the time (11 years old, I think, or 12) I had little knowledge of the French, and none of Algerians, but I was intrigued by the notion of national identity as it applied to the colonizers and the colonized. French considering themselves Algerians, Algerians considering themselves French, and of course the others to whom it was quite the opposite. I grew up in Nova Scotia, a place where the French and English colonial empires clashed memorably, and where even today there is something of an old-country tie. Reading Forsyth first led me to ponder how Canadians had identified ourselves, over the years, by distancing ourselves (politely) from the imperial Brits; and from our potentially imperial neighbours to the south. This may not be especially coherent (I've had a long day) but I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Reading Forsyth also led me to Camus and Malraux about seven years earlier than most of my peers... At any rate, I am professionally interested in all things pertaining to French cuisine, and personally interested in the styles of "home cooking" to be found there. I'm also personally passionate about middle eastern cooking, though I don't know nearly as much as I'd like...and especially the cooking of the Maghreb. So, on all fronts, I'm interested in what you have to say. I've been following your posts since you arrived here at the Gullet. So as long as we avoid the subject of tourneed vegetables, I'm sure we'll get along fine... Before I go to bed tonight I'll be putting on Cheb Mami and looking at those photos in your Algerian thread again. Yowza.

Oooohhh, that hits a hot button for me. My first competition, as a cooking student, the judges trashed my entree as "confused" because although it was a Mediterranean dish, it included "middle eastern" spices like cumin and coriander. I argued strenuously with them (a stupid thing, I know, but as I say it was my first competition) that the Med has both a north and a south coast, and that they'd influenced each other for millennia. I also pointed out that North African spices were widely used in European cooking from the days of Apicius (or earlier) to the arrival of the Ottoman ascendancy. I guess it was like the ritual argument hockey players have with the referee after they've gotten a penalty...you know it won't change anything, but it makes you feel better. This is a great thread, chef, and I'm looking forward to more.

Hey, Daddy-A, how are you finding that tile backsplash? I've lived in places that had them, and frankly it's become something of a pet peeve. I've always found them a rat bastard to keep clean and sanitary. Beautiful workspace, though. You should see what I gotta work with in my post-war rental (50 yrs old +)!

I don't think that there will ever be *too many* good French cookbooks. Whatever the trend of the moment, modern haute cuisine is a French creation/codification, and the wellspring of the industry. It will be revisited, and revised, and deconstructed, and re-interpreted, and occasionally reviled and railed against, but it is the mountain upon which we all stand. There is certainly a paucity of good regional cookbooks; perhaps excepting Provence in its current incarnation as the "flavour of the month." Lyons is justly renowned as one of the great centres of French cuisine, but often the indigenous "cuisine bourgeoise" is overlooked. Georges Blanc touched on it a bit (IIRC) in his Simple French Cooking: Recipes from our Mothers' Kitchens; but there is little enough out there as far as I've been able to determine. If you want to "go regional," that's probably a good choice. Personally, I tend to favour books with a strong authorial voice. Someone opinionated, passionate, shamelessly willing to TRUMPET the joys of his/her particular favourites. I also like lots of text, especially personal narrative. One of the reasons I enjoy the cookbooks of Duguid and Alford is that the recipes are accompanied by anecdotes explaining their connection to the dish or to the underlying culture. The gloriously beautiful photos don't hurt, either! A final point that might make your book interesting to potential purchasers is your roots in the former French colonies. In the literary world, some of the English language's finest writing is being done now by authors from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. Similarly, I think you might be able to present both an insider's depth of knowledge and an outsider's clearer perspective of the associated culture. And of course, you'd have a great base of potential buyers to build on, right here at the Gullet. Talk about yer "viral marketing" potential...

I think the most succinct answer was given up thread...we do it because McDonald's doesn't. It's fiddly, time-consuming work which requires a fairly decent amount of skill. It's utterly impractical in the restaurant setting, where labour needs to be tightly controlled in the interest of coaxing as much profit as possible from a set of extremely difficult constraints. We're showing off, in short. I would take vigorous exception to the notion, expressed repeatedly upthread, that tourneeing is practical in the sense that allows the vegetables to cook uniformly. That is correct, up to a point, but it's an important point. The vegetables will, uniformly, be *cooked unevenly.* It's a simple function of the shape. The tapered ends will cook faster than the thicker middle. No way around it, unless you know a way to par-cook the middle of a 2 1/2" piece of vegetable. Now some may argue that the difference in textures between, say, an al dente middle and a fully-cooked end add interest to the dish. That may well be the case. In practice, however, the end result is almost invariably soft middle/mushy ends, or nice ends/hard middle. Neither of these is especially agreeable, to my mind. I've done 'em...can't avoid it, in cooking school...and I've even done 'em at home... but tourneed vegetables have no discernible practical advantage, to my mind. If you wanna show off your knife skills, give me some perfect brunoise. If you want your vegetables to cook uniformly, show me perfect dice. Seven-sided footballs, however mystically satisfying, don't impress me on a plate.

Don't knock it, Coop...I'm one of many who have ended up as residents here after a Google search. For Vij's, in my case.

There used to be a store in Halifax that specialized in chili-derived condiments, sauces, and rubs of all kinds. They did carry one brand of the mega-hots (the mfr insisted that a waiver be signed by any purchaser). It was not intended to be consumed *on* food, in fact it would cause a rather nasty chemical burn if you got it on you. It was intended to be measured, with an eyedropper, into rather large quantities of food. The idea, as I understood it, was to allow the heat level to be "customized" with minimal impact on the flavour profile. It seems a valid notion to me. Menton, there are a few different Matouk's being sold here in Canada. I've had that green one you illustrate, and it is a doozy! I haven't had it for a few years, and I was less attuned to hot foods at the time, but I vividly remember that combination of heat and intense fruitiness. I ate it on just about everything for a month or so until the bottle was gone. Fine stuff.

At my work, we bake anywhere from 650-1000 drop cookies every day (depending on catering orders). We use a scoop. My night baker scoops 15 cookies, roughly 150g each, onto a sheet pan. Then she mashes them with a flat plastic thingie to about 1/4" (ie, 1/2 cm) thick, resulting in a pretty uniform cookie. I'm racking my tired brain to remember the number of the scoop, but I can't. It's the one with the blue handle, if that does it for anybody. It gives you a good compromise of reasonable uniformity with speed of execution.

I just tried my first cachaca last week. I'd read all of Jorge Amado's novels in my teens/early twenties, so it was something I was curious about. I'd assumed all along that it was simply a local white rum, no different from anything else. What I bought was a brand called "Samba Brasil Gold," the first cachaca that I've seen here in Edmonton (admittedly I wasn't actively looking for it). It was an interesting pale green-gold colour, inclining toward the green. I was rather startled at the olfactory resemblance to tequila. It wasn't as apparent in the actual flavour, more so in the nose, but it was rather interesting. As with tequila, limes and sunshine seemed like the natural accompaniments. I won't be busting my backside to keep a bottle on hand, but it was interesting and I'd certainly think about getting some more when summer rolls around.

In the case of anyone other than one's mother or SO, the correct answer would be: "If you don't like it scrape it off, and get over yer (sorry, "yo'") big bad self..." Of course, there may be repercussions.

At work we use applesauce in ours. Two #10 cans in a 27kg batch, if that's any help...

For me, a very robust pot of chili. For the head cold a few weeks ago, I made one with moose meat. Very nice, an extra dark earthiness from the game.

I routinely do sides of salmon en papillote at work. Two-three goodly sides would serve 20 people adequately, and be a lot less work. Besides, you would likely find it easier to do the big dramatic gust-of-fragrant-steam tableside thing with one or two larger packages. I usually trim the belly meat or fold it under, so that it makes a more uniform thickness; same with the tail meat (I should clarify...I *trim* at home where I have specific uses for the trim; I tuck under at work where I'm feeding hundreds every lunchtime). A herbed or savoury butter of some kind works well in this sort of scenario. In fact, if you really wanted to do the oranges, you could place each supreme onto a small pat of the butter. This would minimize the "ceviche effect" while your salmon is in the fridge, but would allow the flavours to meld nicely during cooking. You could even pre-portion your fillets and then reassemble them in the parchment; giving you the dual benefit of speeding the meal and reducing your work. I find a decently-sized side of salmon is a perfect fit for standard full-sheet parchment; leaving just enough room around the edges to make a good fold for sealing purposes. I can get three or even four sides onto a standard baking sheet, depending on their size.

I have used home-frozen egg whites many times, and they work great. Over Christmas, though, I brought in some frozen/pasteurized egg whites from one of my wholesalers, and those wouldn't whip worth anything. Perhaps the more experienced could tell us whether that's typical, or just rotten luck on my part...

Mostly their stuff is passable, and the prices are not *too* outrageous. Seems to fall in quality somewhere between the entry-level Wal-Mart/Zellers stuff and the better retailers, though the pricing seems to lean more to the higher end than the product justifies (in my opinion). I have been given several items, including a pizza stone (too small, and now broken), vegetable peeler (don't use it), a rather ordinary lightweight springform pan (at about twice the price of a comparable item at the mall), and so on. Worst item? A utensil stand (spoonholder, sort of a thing) which is too small for anything larger than a tablespoon, and has a non-attached handle which means that it can't be conveniently moved. Fix the handle, make it big enough for a mixing spoon, and then we'll talk. Best item? Yeah, the batter bowl.

My parents did the weekend market "thing" for a while when they had their bakery. Ultimately they gave it up, as the extra work was disproportionate to the extra income. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I've been halfway keeping an eye out for Kurlansky's book. Read the one on salt and it was outstanding.