K8memphis

So just to clarify - only people with real skills should be able to afford food and shelter. Dishwashers, cooks, and other people who you feel are in this "useless class of people" should live on public assistance or in group homes. Sorry, at least here in San Francisco we seem to think everyone who works deserves to be paid a fair wage. Your nephew were he working here would be earning at least $9.36 per hour, he would get health insurance, and paid sick leave. That it's acceptable wherever he lives to be paid so little for the work that he does that he can't afford shelter is a problem, not something to be proud of. If taking care of the people who work in this city means adding a 5% service charge to restaurant checks then I'm happy to pay it. ← First of all it's not up to me. It's up to each of us. There's quality and value ascribed to each job. Drug dealers for example can afford much more than I can afford but I do not choose to live that way. Dishwahers on the other hand are limited due to the value (someone else, not me) placed on this job skill. I have not been referencing cooks in this debate. Cooks are skilled laborers. This is what I said, " For example train the dishwashers to do something with bankable skills like prep the food." Isn't this a good idea for San Fransisco? Aren't trained skilled workers an asset to a community? Gives them mobility too. They can enhance other areas. If a dishwasher gets locked into a puffed up feel good cosmetic salary they are locked into that employer too. Melkor, some folks cannot advance up the food chain. These folks need assistance. It's a good thing. Why dis public assistance that already helps them? Why are food stamps bad? These folks deserve to eat don't they? It's not about feelings. It's about money. Why should small businesses like restaurant owners take the burden of providing public assistance when the government does it already? Inflating peoples' salaries is no viable answer. My nephew lives in California. He has real nice benies subsidized by the government. Believe me he is in a wonderful world now by comparison to the poor choices he made earlier.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by suggesting that someone who works as a dishwasher doesn't deserve to be paid enough to shelter and feed themselves... ← I suggest that you carefully re-read what I said if you want to understand the point I made. See if we are going to make it personal with the dishwasher's feelings then let's help him really feel good about himself and let's teach him a trade. Instead of condemning him to be an over paid dishwasher all his life. If we puff up/inflate the entry level jobs to support a family just because it feels good we are creating a useless class of people stuck in an over priced entry level position. What's wrong with a good trade for a good wage? Something out of place with providing people the tools to raise their own standard of living? We have to manufacture it for them because why? They are not capable? What statement does that make about that dishwasher? My nephew (in his 40's) is a recovering addict. He works as a dishwasher and makes too much money to qualify for his own apartment. He has to stay in a group home. Talk about irony. I am very proud of him. Public Assistance is a good thing. Ebt feeds lots of people. It's good It's not a shame. It's there to help people who need help. My son started as a bus-boy at Automatic Slim's Tonga Club. He's a chef now.

So why are we not including overhead in our discussion??? You cannot redeem your overhead if you don't charge for it. If you lowball it now you will be setting up your business on sand. General rule of thumb is three times your cost including overhead for retail so I guess twice for wholesale. But you gotta cipher/determine your break even point and all that other annoying math. All that to say Multiplied Congratulations!!! But I tell yah, we have a lovely lovely bakery here in Memphis, LaBaguette's and they are charging $1.25 each for nice sized tall poofy cookies. Like a chocolate cookie and a snickerdoodle. They have to be making much more than 33% on the snickerdoodles which probably offsets the cost of the chocolate ones, 'cause they are really good fudgey inside mmmm. So there's that too. They have huge date squares that must be at least 3x3 and those are probably only $1.50 each. They are loaded with nuts too. Glory, you look at it from both sides, from consumer, "Eeghads that costs too much." And from retailer, "Eeghads how can I afford the best ingredients and be able to attract customers at these prices?" And it just boggles the brain. They of course have a thriving lunch counter to prop up the bakery. I'm very very happy for you. However if you don't factor the hourly wage of employees and the cost of the plastic wrap you will use and the dish detergent to wash the dishes not to mention the fuel for heating hot water and et cetera save yourself the trauma and kiss it good bye now. Dude, if you are wholesaling you HAVE to cost for transportation. Where's the I want to strangle you smilie face? Now tell me I'm all wrong and you really have all those annoying percentages already figured out. (Lie to me.) Sounds like a sugar free fat free flavor free business plan?

I think that living wage jobs need to be tied to a skill set. Hypothetically in San Francisco Worker X is employed by a restaurant as a dishwasher with a living wage and has to move to Omaha for some reason. In Omaha poor dude-buddy Worker X cannot find comparable work to support his family. He would then be painfully under qualified and uniquely over paid resulting in a deadly combination in the real world. Worker X needs to be skilled in order to draw a living wage. Which leads me to the point that there are certain jobs that should not be paid living wage. Should be held by those who are not the bread winners, like teens, single people, students, retirees, and anyone else working their way up like newcomers to America. How will these folks be able to enter the workforce without entry level jobs? Those San Fransisco folks are going to have to change things up quite a bit to make it work in reality. For example train the dishwashers to do something with bankable skills like prep the food. Check out Detroit if you think just granting higher and higher wages and benies just because of a union or a law or because it feels good works on the bottom line. Chicago was going to enact living wage regulations in particular on big box stores. Target said, agh well on second thought, we'll cancel building those new stores there and cancel on creating mucho jobs and cancel bringing in muy mucho revenue. Catch you later, Chi-town. Perhaps it chenged since I last heard but that's where they were at one point. You work you ride.

I had a sweet cake store buddy send me a fat daddios pan to test for him but it was round. I loved it, performance was great. I have squared off corners on my square pans. Actually they are a pia to clean but I gladly do it. I use a toothpick to scrub out the goo in the corners. So I'm kinda no help, but I really liked the round one. I can say that I could not function without the odd and even sized round and square pans.

Sometimes they are very quick. Sometimes they take so long I forgot why I even asked. I just email them. One time they added on all these restrictions like had to quote thus & such and post a picture or some such stuff. Oh well, didn't use that one. But for truly it does feel good to ask be granted permission.

If the diner has a choice to pay it or not then it's more of a social thought. But it's a requirement on a business deal. You feed me I pay you and apparently I also pay for the dishwasher to go to the doc. Wtf. Maybe we should put a surcharge for the dishwasher's little girl to get a new outfit so she feels good about herself going to school. It's a surcharge and should just be added quietly to the price of the food. Lots of places offer health benies without advertising it. Your service providers do not list this on thier invoices. Like your lawn service or your phone bill or places like that. But they sure as shooting collect our money to pay for those benefits. So maybe I grant you that it is indeed in response to social consciousness, it still does not belong on the food menu. I'm there to appreciate a good meal. Maybe they should collect for the March of Dimes too. How about teachers stating on kids' report cards how much of our tax money goes for their benies? I think it's silly. Shoot me.

I don't think it necessary to announce it in that manner. I mean if they need a 2% increase in prices due to rising transport costs then raise your prices and leave the rest to the accountants. I mean even in the waitstaff jobs my daughter held she had to tip out the dishwashers and sometimes the cooks. There's another way to do this without publishing it on the menu. It's a worthy thing to do for sure but it doesn't belong on the menu as a surcharge in my opinion. The menu is not the place to list the costs of doing business.

I was stunningly unclear about this. This Food Sensory Science class was conducted by Chef Anil Rohira sponsored by Albert Uster Imports to define the taste sensations of sweet, salty, bitter, acidic or neutral. They went into great detail about all of the senses, temperature of the food, age of the person, gender etc. and how they affect taste. The places on your tongue that detect which taste, other factors like duration and surface area. It's easiest to taste foods between 68 and 95 degrees. Almost no taste under 32 degrees. There are two different kinds of thresholds for smell, sensation and recognition. Sensation says, 'it smells' recognition says, 'it smells like garlic'. The threshold of recognition is 50 times higher than the threshold of sensation. It was fascinating. I think you would really enjoy that depth of study in rating food sensations and intensities. Over a period of time in that class we were given several different trays of little cups of clear liquid to taste and rate on a piece of paper. Our taste buds were already full of sweet dessert flavors which unfortunatly cancel out your ability to detect the other flavors. These are very slight variances so you need a clean palate to find them. We were told that maybe all you will taste is water. With that idea planted in my brain that was basically all I tasted 'cause we were happily sweeted out anyway. They actually had a wheel that they used to plug in whatever flavors they were working with to see the profile between salty acidic sweet before they ever attempted to design a dessert. To see how the proposed flavor combination balanced. It was very scientific. I have an acute sense of smell. So I think I would have a great palate if I worked at it. But I'm not exactly motivated in that direction. We were told in that class that over time you can definitely enhance your ability to taste. So when a pastry chef is making a dessert, he is wise to hit a certain percentage into the known flavors and then add something new (strange/different). I learned in another class that they were trying to hit the right kind of strawberry flavor in a certain certain ice cream. A flavor that their Chef would approve. He rejected rejected rejected rejected. Remember Nestle Quick? Nestle's had a strawberry flavor powder to add to milk. They added that artificial strawberry flavor into thier chichi product and viola chef approved. So we are all cut from the same cloth, no? I've heard it over and over that even chef's need to be anchored to the tastes and flavors of their youth. I like beets. But I cannot introduce new meats into my repertoire for some reason. If I haven't already had it I'll pass it up. I'm not an adventurous eater. And I hate mushrooms--the mouth feel--yuck squared. Think of alll the different kinds of mushrooms and alll those times ten that I'd have to throw up. No thanks anyway. Pass the chocolate, please. How is it that some people do not 'like' chocolate?????!!!!!!! <insert fainted dead away smiley face>

I'm not going to apply for a job as food critic any time soon then. Ten times to eat something icky? Eew. That's a lot of times to throw up just to learn to appreciate something that made you throw up ten times before. But anyway, when I was at the World Pastry Forum Chef so & so did a palate testing thing. We had just eaten some of his desserts however so our palates were already skewed. Easily everything tasted like water to me. My understanding is that that suggestion should not have been offered to our brains before being tested. But still it was very cool and I'd like to try again under more favorable circumstances. He spoke about developing your palate. Was very cool. My score was somewhere between she'll be fine with the off brand box of macaroni & cheese and fois de fwhat?.

Just rambling along here... Hmm, I find salmon sweet and carrots sweeter still and both the same color. There's nothing at all wrong with that as far as I'm concerned. But just for sake of ideas to toss out there, what about a pretty squash like yellow squash or zucchini where you have another pretty play of color? Or some fluffy garlic potatoes? Now they are the same color but I dearly love sweet potatoes with salmon. It's magic. And maybe a tangy remolade. Or I remember Chef-boy once did an avocado mousse for some salmon for me it was awesome. And he also served me salmon once with the asparagus inserted into the salmon where it cleverly stuck out on both ends--very very cool. Ok I got it, add another something with the carrots like a bit of roasted yellow peppers or parsnips! Can you cut a few parsnips to mimic the size of the baby carrots??? Oooh, that would be cool!!! I mean I am not a savory cooker. I just know what I like. So take my salmon musings with a grain of fleur de sel. I think your meal sounds well thought out and lovely.

I decorated for a long time but I never got injured from that. Good strong Polish stock. I always kept my wrist turned into my arm when I decorated. Oh but for sure there's the nights when the hot heat in my hand traveled up my arm toward my elbow but no inflamation occured. I mean like after 15 hour shifts straight decorating, no icing. Then, years later I developed a nasty tennis elbow from heavy duty computer mousing, pouring over financial records while frustrated merchants chewed on me. Anyhow, nothing was fixing my elbow. I mean I learned how to mouse with my other hand and still do. But that still didn't fix the damage. So I started icing my arm down every night. Massaging ice into my injured arm for a few minutes right before bed. This draws the blood to the injured area--the life of the flesh is in the blood. The blood did it's thing overnight! Took a few weeks. Then in the morning I did some simple stretching where I put my forearm on the counter top and pulled the back of my hand up at the wrist. Dude, the pain went away. I mean I had been on steroids and stuff and nothing worked. Ice and me own blood/body fixed me up. I still have an easy weakness there but it doesn't hurt. I worked for a lady who burnt out her hand down to the nerves, got surgery, did acupuncture, and never changed how she decorated and shortly came to have to sell her business. She never wised up. She gave her arm for her livlihood and it didn't matter she lost it anyway. I love my limbs more than a business. du-uh For my purpose, I learned that once I became injured in that way, the injury could be quieted but there was no going back unless I learned to it differently. If you do it the exact same way, I think the exact same injury will prevail over you. And get worse of course. That's what worked for moi. Ice.

Y'know school is great and I am not at all discounting it. I think it will also provide a nice backdrop as you transition from military-ness back to civilian-ness. I can't thank you enough for your service. But for sure regular pastry school will provide a comfy and exciting personal proof box for you too. However, school is gonna move at a pace that is not all baking all the time of course. So another idea to toss into the idea pot are classes at the World Pastry Forum. Let me hasten to say a couple things. This is not to replace regular pastry school at all--it's just an idea. It is the awsomest thing I ever had the privilege of attending. As an aside unfortunatley, right after my WPF classes that egullet graciously sponsored for me, insert multiplied thank you's here, I had to attend another convention to learn how to open a bookstore/coffee shop and then I got my WPF pictures locked into technical hades in my webpage and the whole week was so big it's been hard to report on it and open a bookstore at the same time. I just wanna write a book and I feel bad about the non-reporting part but the point I'm trying to make is the classes were pure magic. They would be the treat of all treats to you. What a way to jump start your schooling. God I would love that for you. I just wandered/floated from classroom to classroom being led around by my nose smelling and watching and floating some more and lights are turning on in the cobwebs of my brain over and over and over. Hey, pastry chefs add the sugar for caramel a little at a time and let it melt then add some more. For meringue they do not wind up the mixer to full blast and let 'er rip, they more slowly gently whip the egg whites. I mean you get to watch them make all this crazy stuff then you get to eat it (!!!) and ask questions. It's like freaking Baking Heaven, ok wait more like Beyond Baking Heaven. I totally gotta do that reporting. But that would be so cool if you could do those classes and they have hands on classes too. But again, not to replace regular school, to enhance it and really submerge you in all things pastry in a short concentrated amount of time. Extremely satisfying/rewarding. So way worth it. http://www.worldpastryforum.com/ or click here. So all that to say, while you are in school, see if you can arrange to keep baking on the side too because there will be semesters without any food classes. Maybe be sure you get living arrangements with a stove & all.

I think the cracks and weaknesses are easy to overlook. If it breaks on yah I think you can be assured there was one.

Interesting. I imagine this would hold true for cookies and brownies that use cocoa? I have a brownie recipe that has some cocoa in it in addition to the chocolate (it provides a bit of structure and added intensity, and lets me get away with less flour). Right now I incorporate the cocoa at the end, with the flour. It just gets stirred into the batter right before baking. Do you suppose I'd get more flavor out of it by incorporating it with the buttter and chocolate, in the beginning? Would there be any drawbacks to this (like losing the structural qualities of the cocoa)? Right now I melt the butter, whisk in the sugar until it melts, then melt the chocolate into the butter/sugar mixture, all on direct heat. I'd be inclined to whisk the flour into the butter/sugar before melting the chocolate, but I'm open to suggestions. ← I mean this is a huge question. Cookies and brownies do not take well to being aged. Cocoa can be difficult to incorporate well into a liquidy mixture. The cocoa would want to lump up. Cookies baked with melted butter tend to flop. Too big a question. Generalizing this greatly about baking doesn't work. I wouldn't melt my sugar in the butter for brownies. Using extra fine granulated sugar is a plus and I add my sugar to my well beaten eggs for my brownies. I also would not want to risk overworking the flour. I would recommend just following the recipe. Interesting. I imagine this would hold true for cookies and brownies that use cocoa? ← Baking varies so much, like I said, one baker's never ever do is the next baker's I swear by this. So all that to say these rules are PastryGuru's and more power to her/him. I don't think they represent a collective voice of baking. Each of us probably goes against the grain of whatever the collective voice of baking is anyway in one way or another. And these rules do not apply to brownies and cookies. I think a lot of people think the fresher the better for cookies and brownies but everybody's different. A week is a looong time for some cookies.

Didja know how dangerous Pyrex is in general?? Knowing what I know now I would not torch it. It explodes all by itself often as in spontaneously. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/pyrex.html or click here

Warm welcome to egullet! Heartfelt thank you's for your service to me and mine and our country and planet. Baking. Mmmm I love to bake also. It's like medicine and harmony and all manner of good juju. First I think you might want to zero in on what kind of pastry chefing you might like best, but you could figure that out in school too. I particularly like to work an oven and bake. I like to make dough and batter in giant jillion quart bowls and pan it and bake it. I'm not so much into plating myself. But lots of pastry folks do lots of plating. Maybe you would like to bake artisan bread? Do you want to go solo and open a business or work in a bakery or restaurant? Spending a fortune on a culinary education is not necessary in my opinion. My son did this. And when he got out he had a diploma just like every other culinary student that paid a fraction of what he paid. His girlfriend lived near the pricey school. But I would recommend that you shop around for a nice school where you can get some good inroads and networking going for yourself. I would recommend that if you stage (pronounced stahj) that it's just within the confines of interviewing for a position or for one or two days. The work-for-free option should conclude with your externship in the last semester of school.

The top crust of a cake is another interesting cake subject that we have evolved onto from the spice thing that has been resolved. So when I bake a cake at home I get that yucky moist wet nasty mess on top for a swampy slimy 'crust'. Must be removed and is a nasty business that collects on your knife blade & tears up the cake. When I baked cake at work in a convection oven I had the loveliest sweetest carmeliest toothy crust that was a joy to slice off and a continuous temptation to resist. So it kinda depnds on how you're baking it. And it's not just the difference from convection to straight oven either. There's so many variables in baking. One baker's never ever do is the next baker's I swear by this. I bake and fill and freeze my cakes. For thawing, I remove all the wrapping immediately and brush off the frozen condensation because I don't want any possibly smelly freezer icicles melting into my stuff. My cakes do not need the random moisture. Then I ice and decorate -- all timed for delivery of being the freshest possible. I don't age my cakes meself.

We always said that if this idea took hold we'd (cakers) all be millionaires. But umm, I had an idea, maybe a happy colorful upbeat cake that looks like a giant slice/serving of cake with a big bite out of it. Or one of those really cool cupcake looking cakes that has a big bite out of it. And the bite could be kinda dramatic, real toothy with maybe some piping gel drips like saliva type ravenous tornadic bite marks. An action packed bit mark like.

I find that cakes made with butter do not come back to room temperature as well as oil based cakes. So I avoid butter in a cake unless I can keep it out of the chill box. Or if I can heat it a bit in the microwave to loosen it up that works too sans icing of course. Otherwise they definitely are deemed dry when they come to room temp.

My motto has always been if a little is good a lot is better. Especially when it comes to cinnamon. But seriously, I have a cinnamon & chocolate cake recipe here. The cayenne is spot on. You can go as high as 3/4 teaspoon without the fire alarm ringing. However I actually use two generous tablespoons of the cinnamon. All modesty aside, I'd be embarassed to share the glowing reports I get on this cake. It's just a Texas sheet cake type fudgey cake. It comes out a real nice texture though. If you are making mostly a spice cake with just enough chocolate for added spiceyness, then cut back a bit from two tablespoons. Ok think about any cinnamon roll--if you got a teaspoon of cinnamon in one bite that would not be a problem to your tastebuds. I mean I'm a cinnamonaholic though. I love to eat two or three of those rip snorting strong Cinnamon Altoids at a time--take my breath away--literally--cahhhn't breathe!!!!!!! But seriously you can ramp up the cinnamon and it's fine. Just keep the other spices balanced with it.

So I just checked this website and I would not even experiment with this for baking. It's mostly water anyway. You need at least more fat in baking than water. I'm thinking cookies, brownies and cake in particular. It would ruin any kind of pastry dough.

Well for buttering things like crackers I use Brummel and Brown. We recently switched from I think it's called Smart Balance. But the Brummel & Brown has way less well can't remember what was less but overal has 50% less fat and no cholesterol than real butter and anyway it has better stats than the heart healthy stuff we had been using which is why we switched. It is dairy though. Made with yogurt. Tastes great. I've never baked with it. I don't really have any faith in margarine anymore to be honest. I just don't really feel like experimenting either. So this is a great thread to find out. The package says there are recipes on their website at BrummelandBrown.com. Wonder if they're any good... The butter spray called I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is nice for veggies and popcorn. I never tired it on a muffin or anything like that.

This is a fascinating thread. I don't bake as much as I would like to due to restrictions in my diet. And as to margarine itself, I don't know which one is the good one anymore. There are so many spreads now I'd be lost. However I am baking more now for the bookstore that I manage so knowing which margarines are the good ones for baking is great to know. Thanks, Pam, I'll definitely try that one. But I still have one, no two recipes that I make that take shortening and just won't work the same with butter. The margarine/shortening wrestling match versus butter/oils is just like the scratch cake versus boxed mix cake wrestling match in that the ingredient we don't like is blamed for every below standard product every produced. The chemical taste, the greasy mouth feel, the poor results, whatever but truth to tell you can so easily get there with butter and scratch cake. I think that by declaring that a product is leaden and has a greasy mouth feel means that it was not made right in the first place. You can get there handily using butter. Also, factor in the imitation vanilla experiment where imitation vanilla scored as well as real vanilla in cookies. Was that conducted by Cooks Illustrated? I am a good baker. I have had countless admirers of my work declare that my stuff was so good because they knew I used only butter or it was all scratch and they could tell and that's the only way blablablablabla. So from these unsolicited responses over these many years I know beyond a shadow of an unscientific doubt most people cannot (even partially) detect ingredients in baked goods to save their lives. I can assure you that in baking it takes much much more than any one ingredient to get to a superb product with an exceptional taste and texture. I like butter. I use mostly butter. But butter cannot do everything. Margarine is a great tool in the right hands. I guess as a professional I should caution against margarine and say, "Don't try this at home." But I'd really like to say, "Try it!" A good baker knows how to spin the straw into gold.

I can put stainless steel in the microzapper, but not other metals. My understanding is that it has something to do with the water content of the metal.