flapjack willy

My heart goes out to you. MB is without question a culinary wasteland. I am in the wholesale food business and know the real story about what the restaurants buy and what the locals and tourists are willing to eat. More imported shrimp and sub-choice beef are sold in MB than in any other market I can think of. Be careful.

I have seen it sold as Grouper/Basa at the wholesale leveluntil recently, when the USDA forced the removal of the Grouper name.

Interesting remark about the demise of Southern Foods. I worked for them for awhile and feel it won't be long. I now represent another cpompany that frankly, does a much better job on center of the plate. You sound like a industry insider and I assume that you have figured out how to play with the likes of Sysco and US. By the way, there are plenty of companies in our marketplace who carry many of the brands or like brands that SF did.

Chef Swartz, I must say I agree with your last post. Who do you have in mind to topple the king?

Niman Ranch packs a full cut pork shank both skin-on and skin-off. The skin-off is fresh and the skin-on is frozen. Fowlers should be able to special order it for you.

starlu?

Jinmyo, my most sincere and heartfelt apologies. I was not in any way trying to be rude or negative about your posts, quite the opposite. I have been reading them for years and have allways enjoyed them. I was trying to pay you a back-handed compliment for such elaborate preps. Lets try again. WT

Come on, do you really eat like that every day? Is that all you do is cook?

The Fairview at the Washington Duke Inn? Bistro 607? Le Residence?

Most of the above is good but the best chef I ever worked for in a place where taste was more important than food cost would allways drop two or three chick lobsters, whole into the gringder along with a good measure of bodies, grind it all up and make a killer stock

It's old school bit I think it looks neat! Years ago, we would flute them when we were ready for service but not quite open yet. It was a way to stay loose and show off to the other cooks, best way to handle them is to gently poach them in white wine or acidulated water to hold for service. Regarding the 750 potatoes fashioned into Disney-like mushrooms, my guess is they come from Vietnam. Strange as that may sound, I offer for sale at the wholesale level a complete line of absolutely amazing vegtable side dishes and enteees that are hand made and frozen in Vietnam. I'm talking a salmon filet with a carrot fishnet layed over the filet, little carved vegtables made into small animals etc. Believe it or not they are not that exspensive but not a big seller.

Gosh, where do I start? Maybe with the father and son team I hired to wash dishes, not knowing that they had just arrived in the US via the Mariel boat lift that Jimmy Carter started. You know the time Castro emptied his prisions and mental hospitals. I have long since forgotten their names but now fondly remember the way they liked to steal food from my kitchen. They would wait until we were really busy at which point they would trot back to the meat locker , grab pork chops( ignoring the beef tenderloin) and without any wrap, thrust them down into their groin area. When caught, they would smile and ask if I would like them back. I kept them around because nobody could or would wash dishes like they did. More stories to follow.

Ruthie's salmon crepes made with chees whiz and canned salmon. Yes she knew I was a chef so she watched every move I made, even when I spit it into my napkin, it was so revolting.

I know this may sound strange, but I will not eat food that someone else has prepared unless it is in a restaurant. If folks send or bring food over to the house or we are invited to a party I will not eat.

Thank you so much for the quick reply. Now I need to find some plans for the walls, ceiling etc. Any ideas?

My kids are finally old enough to enjoy helping me build and decorate a gingerbread house and I need help with a recepie that will yield the thick,dense "bread" that will stand up. I also need a refresher on royal icing. I was one of those students at the CIA, many moons ago, that did very very well until it cames to the pastry classes. I had determined by then that my affinity was for the hot line and not the deft hand of a pastry chef. It's a beautiful thing that we can all be together in a kitchen, each working our strong point.

Seek out Frank French at the Fresh Market in Cameron Village. He used to work with Will Therrien at Therrien's Butchershop in Chapel Hill. He is without one the most accomplished butchers in the state. He can and will cut just about anything, and he is a nice guy. We miss Therrien's Butchershop very much. It was a haven for food lovers from accross the Triangle.

Charlotte will be getting an EarthFare grocery store, no two stores before the end of '06. This is fact, I sell them meat products. Their near fanatical zeal for organic and clean puts Wholefoods to shame. There is an excellent Italian Market in Greensboro that is worth the ride. Stay of the interstate and go the back way. Giacomo's on High Point road. 336-547-2888. Giacomo is Brooklyn born and raised, makes his own salami and quite a good grinder.

Free range is very tricky. As stated above, true free range birds are allowed access to all sorts of feed and enviormental conditions. This can and does lead to an incosistent taste, and a product that will very in size as well. Factory raised or what we call "commodity chicken" in the wholesale business is just what you may fear it is; birds that have been de-beaked, crammed into tiny cages and feed a feed blend that may include their own waste material amongst other things. In my humble opinion, the best chicken lives a life somewhere in the middle. Low density confinement for living conditions, lots of fresh water, sunshine and fresh air ( their attitude does influence their taste) and most important of all the feed that they eat. I sell, at the wholesale level, a bird that meets the above requirements and it is absolutely outstanding. The grower feeds the birds an all natural diet and has a protocal where the feed is tested everyday. This bird sells for about twice the cost of commodity, but once you get a chef to try it they never leave it. I will ask the grower if he wants me to share his name with y'all and if he would like to consider any new ways to distribute the product. By the way, now he is getting into raising pitade's, guiena's chuckers and bobwhite quail. This guy is way out front as far as the poultry business is concerned.

Some twenty two odd years ago I had one of those kitchen jobs where you always had that suspicion that one day your paycheck would bounce. It did. I took two all-clad sauce pans for my pay the day the owner finally showed up to take what he could and leave. The pans have served me well. Granted it's only been household use for all these years but they have held up very well and hopefully will someday find their way to the kitchen of one of my children.

sir i may have said omaha beef but i was refering to omaha steaks and if you study the website closely i would love for you to show me where it says usda prime. to use those letters it must be prime and what they serve is not. i stand on what i said. i speak from inside the industry and am trying to help you folks out, you are being hoodwinked

omaha beef is the single largest purchaser of usda select beef in the world. they also quietly lay claim to inventing a macine that compresses small bis of meat into a log and then cuts them into perfect little "filets". i will give them a kudo for an excellent job of marketing. try somewhere else. in the meat business you most definebntly getwhat you pay for.

organ meats, hard boiled eggs, any food that has been overly "fussed over", left overs, squab, american cheese, soggy foods.

i thought i was the only person who de-stemed shitaki's. do it and do it for the same reason. while were openly confessing, i also help myself to to some of the candy that sits in the bulk bins, far away in the corner of my local harris teeter.