K8memphis

A good friend of mine is 'Bigfoot" from the book "Kitchen Confidential". I spoke with him about this many years ago. He said that he has his waitstaff pay the credit card fees, and that it is absolutley legal. He is a self proclaimed labor law guru. This was about 8 years ago. ← Depending on what percentage of their tips he was collecting for this purpose, it might be legal and still manifestly unfair. I have no knowledge of what types of actions in this situation are legal under labor law; however, in any case, I'm commenting not on legal issues but on questions of fairness. I've noticed that other types of establishments, such as gas stations, charge less to people who pay cash. Why is it that in a restaurant, it would be fair to charge an employee instead of a customer for a fee that is solely the result of the choice of mode of payment by the customer and the management's agreement to accept that mode of payment? ← Again, the restaurant's setup to allow tips to be taken over their credit card processing equipment is in itself a benefit to the server and to the customer and to itself. It's not a given nor a penalty it's a benefit to the server. The establishment has to pay dearly for this process. 3% is often the benchmark quote for processing fees, but's it's much much much more overall. It depends on the business' credit worthiness etc. If their salesman was a crook or not. How long they have been in business. What they signed when they got thier equipment. The fine print is a joke a true laugh fest. Each merchant is put on a rack and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed tighter and tighter for a jillion fees. Sometimes the paper products they have to buy are priced so high it's beyond stupid. Sometimes they are forced to upgrade their equipment for another jillion dollars. Or they have to endlessly rent the box for big bucks a month. There's a whole lot more to it. I had one merchant who was here in Memphis. The shipping on his one box of receipt paper was embarassingly high to go from the warehouse in Memphis to a Memphis address. It was all hog-tied to his contract with the processors. One of the upgrades we bequeathed to a business was free shipping on paper goods or free paper. Sometimes they would sign a contract for free paper but pay though the ass for shipping. It was lots of fun explaining all this. It is fair to have the server pay for the part that specifically processes thier tip.

The reality is, that cost already has been passed on to consumers. It's just that, because nearly all restaurants accept credit cards, you can't easily see the difference. But that 3% has to be paid for somehow. With most customers nowadays paying credit, the cost is just buried in the general cost of running a business. But you are, in effect, the one paying it. ← I don't think that's the point, Fat Guy. Management has the right not to accept credit cards. Servers have no such right. Therefore, it is manifestly unfair to penalize them for serving customers who pay with credit cards. And considering how low their pay is in the first place, it doesn't seem fair to further lower their hourly rates globally in order to absorb the credit-card-related costs that management decided to incur. ← If a restaurant had an issue with a credit card transaction they would have called me to look it up for them and diagnose the problem because I used to work for a credit card processing company. Adding on a tip is a costly business in terms of the processing. It seems fair to me that the server should pay their part of it. The restaurant could chose to not allow tips to be added onto the credit card too. It's expensive and can be complicated sometimes. One of my former employers in the food industry started making their servers pay the tax on their tips also. They found out as an employer that they were being charged tax on the gratuities so they passed that onto the servers.

Cool cool cool! Thanks. I'm gonna try out some like McCormack cheese sauce powder y'know in the envelopes at the grocery store. Or like umm, the powder you make cheap mac n cheese with. Something powdery cheesey. Wonder if Penzey's got something? Unfortunately I'm cutting it too close to order online because I want to perfect it now. Wonder if any of our gourmet stores carries that white cheddar powder. I think I've seen terraspice at Fresh Market? Maybe? The skinny little braid was the bomb! Tasted real good as is in fact. But I feel like I will need to make those last minute-ish or re-crisp them in the oven. Memphis in May is moist if nothing else. Thanks, Alana!

I gotcha now. Because for one reason, a lot of people would not have a clue about what size of cakes to order. And even back 30 years ago brides would get a picture of what they wanted and need it thus & such size with satellites or no satellites, delete the bottom tier, add a middle tier, or whatever. The math can blow the ears off the side of your head. You get it all figured out and then they call & add 32 servings or oh no I do want four satellites. Ever the more so now with the internet and wedding cakes being popular enough to have tv shows about 'em & stuff. I guess we have to draw a line between standardized cakes and cakes to order though. In a bakery with standard cakes in standard decor format it's not a problem. With the tiniest bit of customization it's a possible nightmare. I've never used standard cakes in my business. I've almost always used standard cakes & decor when working for others. Standard cakes are a snap time-wise. Customized cakes can eat time like marauding garbage trucks. But I mean because how else would we do it? For customized stuff that is. And myself, I don't see the sizes being standard myself. They're not even standard from bakery to bakery. There's too many variables I think. I mean if someone is doing small medium large cakes with fresh flowers or something like that, yeah, no worries. I worked for this one person who only knew 6x8x10x12x14x16 inch measurments. They could only do a 2 inch graduation in tiers. Using an odd sized pan never occured to them. Neither did a four inch gradiation between tiers. And this person would blow a gasket if the cake we baked did not look exactly like the picture (like for a 50th anniversary).There's no way a 2 inch graduation in tiers will result in the same silhouette of a cake with a 4 inch graduation in tiers. Hello-o. There's just so many details. Nobody knows the truffles I've seen. But actually I have someone wanting to order a "three tier cake". I said, how many servings? If she doesn't come up with a number then it's gonna be $50 per tier. Very small tiers. I'm flexible.

The braid is 4.5 inches long, the wheats are 2.5 inches long, very tiny tidbits. I like the looks of both--these are just the rough draft after all. Now I want to christen them with a pleasing flavor. They just amount to a crunch or two in the mouth which is perfect now I need to add flavor. And this is without any wash of any kind. I think I'm over the cheese stick idea--I'm gonna go with this basic idea plus flavor. Garlic would be easy but not compatible with the other stuff. I guess I need a powdered cheese? Or something. Oooh oooh, what about just a bit of asiago just to lean it toward cheesiness. But I'd rather have a cheddary flavor...ideas??? A cheese flavored wash?? How would you do that? Cheesey popcorm salt maybe??? Is there sucha thing???

What about a cheese straw type wheaty looking thing?? With puff pastry or phyllo or something? I thought about pate choux but discarded that idea for some reason...it would puff to much maybe...

Oh it says 450 upthread...wish me luck... Oh yeah oops didn't let it rest long either

And I made a real tight snake and made a braided one I really like the braided one. Umm, wonder what I oughta brush on it for a great wheaty effect. Umm, an egg yolk-ish something maybe thinned with milk. I don't have any of the shellac mentioned upthread. I wonder how I could make them cheesey flavored? Without them spreading or getting weird in the oven. Maybe umm, bake then brush with something an sprinkle some cheesey do on them? Slow oven?

Yeah, umm, I just did a little dough with some lime, a jiliion tortillas can't be all wrong, and umm, some honey and water in some stone ground wheat flour. Then just clipped them with scissors. Wonder how hot I should bake at? Slow oven? Alana, yeah, but if you can get that definition with a live dough, like the definition in the bread with the place for the bottle in it, I guess the difference is just whatever you choose to use? Length of time you want it to last or ???? I mean it's got roses and grapes and wine oh my.

I have a question. I need to make some little tidbits to eat as part of a larger exhibit. They need to look like wheat stalks, like little braidy looking little wheaty things. Just the illusion of wheat of course. There will be a vase with wheat stalks on the table so something just to further the idea. So I thought about messing around with pretzel dough but then I thought I could do a decorative centerpiece too. So if the centerpiece with the bottle upthread was made with a yeasted dough, what is the advantage to using an un-yeasted dough for a centerpiece? The recipe listed is with rye flour and simple syrup for the dead dough. Is rye flour better to use than wheat? If you were making a little tidbit to eat what would you make it out of?? Pretzel-y or bready or what formula if you have one??? How it looks is more important than how it tastes but it needs to be tasty. Any and all help/ideas welcome. I would love to get the cd's and stuff but this is for early May so I'm just gonna wing it with y'all's input/help.

I'm not sure I understand the reason for the question now. I mean the obvious reason is, if I order a three tier cake, I could get one that could feed any amount of people. How big is a 3-tier cake anyway? How big is a wedding reception??? Umm, if there are any variables or vagaries there then one needs to be more specific somehow. That's ok if there are no plans to cut and serve it to the expected number of guests attending but I mean that's why it's done that way. So there's enough cake for everybody. No? When you do any kind of custom work, you have to have a common denominator for making sure there will be enough cake. The size pan doesn't work because what if you do a one layer tier. The amount of batter is the common denominator because then you can portion that amount out into your configuration successfully. Size of pan is too constricting. "Should Bride A pay more than Bride B for the same exact cake?" Hell friggin yes if that's the way the cookie crumbles. There are a 1000 variables in doing cakes. However, if one has an establishment that has certain certain sizes only and certain certain decor only, then one can price all those production cakes exactly alike, a range of servings is provided and away you go. But I promise some brides who need 100 servings will get the same cake as one who needs 87 servings. So there's wiggle room there but if you customize cakes for brides then yes for dang sure the same cake can be priced differently for two different brides. From bakery to bakery from sea to shining sea say for example you want a cake for 100 people, you can get vastly different sizes of 3-tier cakes to feed 100 people. Is that what you mean, GB??

I got 3 and advised to stay in my own country. I got slurp & burp right and one other stray one but not the Polish fish thing even though I'm Polish Sorry, Pop. I even got sucked into the stupid right/left fork one too. Duhr signed, Pathetic

Put it this way, we get enough food for a couple meals because we tip well on our take-outs. Great service too. I mean it all depends on what you wanna find in that bag, y'know?

Gee - I haven't done that since - well - last Saturday. ← It takes several decades of burnt paws but eventually you remember to leave the towel or potholder ON the handle so that perhaps this can someday, please God, be avoided...or you just burn yourdangfrickinself again. and again. Complementary one size fits all t-shirts.

Not to worry, eventually they grow up and move out and you can finally log on!!! An empty nest is a beautiful thing.

You could set them out on ice too. I mean if she's willing to pay for all this drama. Y'know like you could use those stacking stainless steel pans they use in steam tables & stuff and fill one with ice, place the smaller one on top and camoflage it so it looks pretty and set the desserts out that way. Or ice down some big containers set trays on top or some such a thing. Just a chilling thought for you.

And people also order wedding cake by a certain configuration and that configuration needs to be able to feed X number of people. So what you do is figure out how much batter you will need to use to make that set up. Then determine how many servings that amount of batter will feed when it's all baked off. Then you can price it that way. And that wiggle room in the amount of servings available that you noted, GB, is why I use the small traditional serving 1X2X4 because I have been served cake sliced so thin you can see through to the pattern on the china plate. So if my client wants to serve a larger portion they order more servings. No one ever does though. Like I recently had a bride order this way by configuration, a square square petal round round. It was tricky to get the right amount of servings and pivot the cake around the particular sized petal cake pans that I have. I could have sculpted a petal cake or built one but Pricing is an art form in itself.

Under close examination, even using a very bright light, I can't detect any variation in coloration in my banana bread. I suspect that the described condition, (I hesitate to call it a "problem"), stems from the bananas themselves, since they'll always vary in size and ripeness, which affects both sugar content and texture. Maybe we all subconsciously adjust our batter to minimize these differences, which could give rise to some unusual variations? SB (like bananas because they have a peel) PS: It tastes very good, thank you. ← I laughed even though I knew better (a peel)!! Wait, I hope no one thinks that I'm suggesting the dark bottomed b bread is from using over-ripe banana. No no no no no. I think the dark bottom b bread problem is from an emulsion issue with that particular batter that's top secret and apparently flawed. Maybe a detail or two is missing since it is so top secret. And because it doesn't work. I was just relating my experiences with b bread in general. Just my own personal how to make great b bread. Because the op's formula is off. Needs a new one I think.

Sunday my husband got po'd at the restaurant where we ate. We were seated next to a table that was paying their checks, separate checks. We sat we ate whatever, we left and they were still there AND they stiffed the waitress. double grrr

Very cool about freezing bananas and We rock!! And umm, for what it's worth, my b bread was one of the first things I posted here on egullet right here.

When I was in my banana baking days, I made a coupla mistakes. Like I forgot to mash the bananas first and I already had stuff in the mixer bowl eggs, butter, sugar, whatever. So God forbid I dirty up another bowl to mash 'em in so I just tossed the peeled whole bananas into the bowl and no they didn't mix up very well. So I had to smush them by hand and I didn't do a very complete job because of the quantity and time constraints. Oh well I thought, a few lumps won't hurt this time. The bread was noticeably better. Cool. I mentioned my other incident where I could not wait for the bananas to darken. These booboos amazingly produced a better product for me. Therefore, I would never use a ricer for bananas. And while the charm of banana bread is that you are able to use up forgotten over-ripe bananas, this should never have become the gold standard in my book. It's not that great a stretch of the imagination when you think about it. Have fun on your B Bread adventure! Edited to add: Sarah, <highfive> on roughly mashed bananas!!! And MightyD I'm sure Sarah asks only because your request brings out the Sherlock in her and she wants to solve the mustery.

You need very little flour... too much and nothing will stick. If you don't put anything, the eggs won't stick either. You might want to add a little bit of water to your eggs to thin them out... it also helps. ← Yes add water or milk and beat the eggs a bit to loosen them up. When you do the flouring you have to kinda pat the item with your hand to loosen the extra flour or kinda jiggle the piece or whatever you are breading so it will still be coated but with the barest amount like MagicTofu said. Knock it gently on the side of the container. Then dip in egg -- and your container should have a nice quantity of egg so you can dunk the piece into the mixture and hold it down on that side so the flour gets absorbed into the egginess but it's all still sticking to the chicken and turn and do the other side/s. Then kind of hold it up so gravity pulls off the excess then again kind of jiggle it to release the last bit of excess. Maybe gently swipe the tip of the piece without wiping off your moistened flour. Then when you put it into the final coating you can kind of be sure the breading soaks up into all the egg stuff. I use a little pressure to coat. In other words, you have a nice quantity of the flour, the egg mixture and breading. At the first stop, you coat well but tap off the excess. In the egg you coat well, letting the flour absorb the egg. Then into the final coat you make sure the egg absorbs plenty of breading. The dishes you use can be a factor. You want to use something big enough for the size of the pieces you are coating but you need an inch at least of stuff in there for nice results. Some people use plastic bags to coat stuff. That's too messy for me, but works great for some. Happy frying! PS. and umm, like if you were breading chicken, you would dry it off with a paper towel so that the flour will adhere to the chicken's own moist surface not to water globules.

I was a fairly good girl yesterday. I had a small head of cauliflower for supper with some cheese on it. No chocolate allll day. Which for me & my issues, carbs beget carbs. If I eat the wrong carbs, it triggers me to crave more carbs which then the carbmonster stores food after that and doesn't burn it off. And I am going to be much much much more careful with my holiday eating spree/binge this year. I relaxed too much for Christmas & Thanksgiving and I am an all or nothing type person. So it just set my weight gain in motion which messes up my health and I really haven't taken good control of it since then. Wanted to but not wanted to enough y'know? So this thread is helping me. A lot. I'm like that too - it's a kindness that our minds have done us... ← Apparently my mind is not so kind. I mean I love vegetables. But I love chocolate and chips more but they don't love me. I don't get sick enough when I eat the wrong foods so they are still a temptation for moi. I mean yesterday I made a load of pizzas for my husband's office for lunch and I did not take one bite! Oh what a good girl was I!!!!

I heartily applaud you with a standing O even. Good and great for you. I have fallen off the wagon lately so you are an inspiration. I'll eat it but I wanna eat chips and chocolate and cookies instead I can't eat the quick oats. I like the old fashioned stuff. I cook it slowly so it doesn't glop, it stays in happy little oatsome circles. I like it savory only cannot do sweet grains! So I have bit of salt, a tid tad of Smart Balance (buttah) and toss in a few walnuts. Top o' the mornin' to yah!

It is too sweet. Kind of an acquired taste. Try these.