K8memphis

Stick a fork in me--I'm done!!! Oh for sure. It's called burn out. And the funny thing is you can't quite ever shake that smoked scent--always a little lingering in the air if you breathe deep--but you can move forward. Picture Pigpen of Charlie Brown fame surrounded by fumes instead of a dust cloud. And that just smoked aroma alerts you to invoke self preservation measures quicker next time. BwwwoooOOOOp bwwoooOOOP Hooray for the second time around...and the third, and the fourth...

I mean we would just go around the edge with a knife and then whack the pan and they plop out--that was at work. At home I line the bottom of the pan with a cardboard circle then foil or parchment and it just falls out of the pan. But I freeze my cheesecakes in order to handle them. Cheesecake freezes beautifully of course. Some people are allergic to freezing things but I do it. You don't really need the cardboard circle but I like the insurance. Especially if it's like a weird shape or a half sheet or something like that. Umm, my spring form pans can retain moisture in the rolled edges too. So that's another good reason to avoid using them. Just some cheesecake thoughts.

Use a for real cake pan. No holes.

It's a Rose Levy Berenbaum thing. I've read it and it looks good on paper but I never do it either. I loaned that book to someone or I'd be more specific. From her website.

Well, I was actually the first to mention them on page one but who's counting. They were two cents when I was a kid. While candy bars & chips were a nickel. So you could use up any stray pennies with an ice cube. Kept 'em right by the register for just such an emergency. So I guess that's my two cents...

Well it actually has been for a long time. Lots of food handling (of food for sale) can be criminal and tragic too. I guess 'undercover milk buys' could be a little humorous in and of itself when we compare it to hard drugs, and dirty bomb weapon sales or something. But if someone got sick we would all jump those same officials who this time were doing their job too. I'm sure most everyone has had some kind of food poisoning and it ain't fun at a minimum. I say good for them for catching the guy. Excerpt from link below: Click here for rmore. There's been deaths in the past from contamination too. There was one case (in the North East if memory serves) where the milk was actually pasteurized then some bad mojo got in the lids or something and it was real bad news for a few folks.

This thread has interested me since it started. It is of course no more ironic or giggle worthy for a server to ask what would you like to order today as is the question how do you like what I brought out. Your prophetic powers surely shine brighter in other untold areas. Here's your answer, say: "Ask your chef/owner/manager if he's ever thought about getting some fresh local greens brought in for the salads. I bet the gardens and farmers around here grow some pretty amazing stuff. That could really liven up a basic salad. Not to mention boost the local economy. Generally once the relationship is begun, the farmers themselves might make deliveries when they travel by this way. Just a thought for you to pass on. Good service here. I appreciate your checking on us" If you want a different table say, "Can we sit over there?"

Y'know my husband thinks it weird that we counted and divied out the candy as kids at home. I mean there were four of us and one bag of candy. You do the math. My Dad was a welder. Now his dad worked at Wonder Food and they had more brownies and snack foods than they could hold. He told me he got sick of brownies. Glory halelujah that's why I taught myself to bake! What about those pepto bismol pink wintergreen lozenges Ooo I love those! And Brach's chocolate stars. And orange slices and spearmint leaves. mmmm candee Oh and I totally loved loved loved Clove Lifesavers. As far as I know they don't make them anymore. Jeanne--I love fireballs! And umm, ice cubes the little hazelnut chocolates. and and and....

In a condiment happy dipping friendly nation like ours a request for any kind of fish appropriate sauce in an upscale restaurant that serves four or five different sauces anyway with the $40 beef entrees is not a trick question. I did not ask for wine reduced truffle crab and crawfish sauce no msg hold the butter served flambed. I order salmon everywhere and if it does not come with I can get something out of the kitchen. The other server I asked had no problem with this request. We were thirsty all night our glasses were not refilled. The man was a piss poor server. It happens. In general there are horror stories on both sides of this discussion. One horror story does not negate the next. I can tell you about the time as a restaurant owner myself the many times I was stiffed robbed sucker punched and etc. So creative people can be when screwing you. I get it.

What about the little drawstring bags of gold nugget gum? I had a lovely lovely candy bar for lunch every day, a wondeful double cherry cordial candy bar called "Cherry Humps". Anybody hear of that one? Chicago area?

It went like this, "What kind of sauce." My husband and I replied with a few ideas. He said, "We don't have any sauce for fish" and sashayed off. So why did he need to know which kinds if there were none at all. Which of course they had some. He wasn't a dweeb for asking which kind. But he so is on the story re-told. If you are a server and you think that indicates a fussy customer and that producing such an item is outside your purview then you are in the wrong business. He messed up in the first place by not asking me what I wanted on it. The kitchen messed up sending it out with nothing on it. McfreakingDonalds slaps in a packet of tartar sauce. Aka mayo and relish. The manager liked to have died when I told him how this jerk waiter set me up for that little one two punch.

So what's the fix? Start calling before we go? That whole automatic gratuity added for parties over 6 or 8 or whatever reeks. If I call first we're either gonna get the entire boh's dna in the soup or we might get some service for the unfair automatic charge. I should call & say some chichifoofoo restaurant critic will be dining in cognito there that evening. Described as a crabby little grey haired lady walking soft & carrying a sharp walking stick.

My husband's company takes us all out to a nice restaurant at Christmas and other times during the year--very generous, very nice. There's maybe eight to ten, twelve of us. I can tell you story after story of servers who fully freely take advantage. Because I am a guest of a guest I never put them to rights on the spot in front of everyone because I just want to have a good time too. Honestly my legs usually hurt--I gotta get up stand around wait for a manager--make sure my group doesn't see me hovering and complaining...Such BS I'm not a steak eater and we often go to upscale steak places. I ask for some sauce for the fish. "What kind of sauce?" Fish sauce you little dweeb. Tartar sauce, remolade, sauce, fluid of some kind for the fish--"Oh we don't have any." grrr "Oh the plates are three hundred and fifty degrees" Well don't put them on the table near me then, double dweeb. "Are you finished with your starch?" said dweeb squared. Then add in the usual other things, no refills, wrong this wrong that, they never check and just disappear. From a server's standpoint--what is up with this? You know there are those who take advantage. If it was me & my husband, if it was a smaller table I would filet them but I don't think they would try & take such advantage either. I do call back and let management know. I love to go out with them but I can't believe the service we get sometimes. Servers?

I have one in recipegullet that is to die for. I actually use 2 heaping tablespoonsfull of saigon cinnamon and I now also use some gelatin in the filling. I have diddled with the chocolate changing this and that--it comes out best as written. Do add the cocoa too because it helps hold the whole thing up. Viola The cream cheese filling has sour cream in it and more lemon juice than vanilla and a bit of confectioner's sugar and the gelatin. Like I mix a whole envelope of plain gelatin in a half cup of water and bloom it and then just use one half of that mixture. There's probably twice as much cream cheese as sour cream-ish. Just kinda make it up--the gelatin saves you.

So call me lazy for not looking before asking but y'know the dehydrated veggie chips you can get at the store? Not the deep fried ones. The ones that come in the clear plastic containers. How bad on carbs/sugars are they? I mean they are made from potatoes, carrots, squach, taro, green beans, non hydrogenated canola oil, dextrin, sea salt and sulfer dioxide. But I mean they are dehydrated. Really crispy and a great substitute for chips for a chipaholic. But they are probably bad huh. But not as bad as chips hopefully. They are sooo good. They don't make me get a carb craving. That's gotta count for something.

Thanks AlanaMo. I realize we are not exactly discussing fondant but a replacement for fondant however that never stopped me from getting slightly off topic. But the best way to promote the use and extreme edibleness of fondant is to dry it out and use it for decor. Like flowers or whatever. Oh my soul that is good stuff. As a cake covering agh no not so much at all. So thanks for the great idea. I have one wedding cake this year that was booked long ago before the bookstore ate my brain. So I might try it on that. But they are square tiers and I don't think I wanna deal with corners--oh maybe I will. Wonder if Swiss meringue would work. I'll report back if I try it.

Equal parts butter and shortening whipped with either confectioners sugar or simple syrup for extra smoothness. ← Gotcha, Thanks.

Would you define simple buttercream, please?

Don't burn yourself and congrats!

First of all I am not a chef. I am a baker. My son is a chef. Neither of us could handle having an apprentice 95% of the time. I mean just even when I take pictures of a process that I do to show cake-buddies or whosoever to post online, I have to add mucho time to my schedule. Sometimes there's just not enough time. I mean it just stands to reason that you gotta keep your hands, brain and body snapping, absolutley snapping to the music to keep things at the level they need to be at to survive and be successful. It is more than intense to do 100+ covers a night or produce a designer wedding cake. I have had requests for people to come by and watch and learn and it's just a whole 'nuther job on top of the job you are doing. When I am doing a cake and I am down to crunch time even if all is going very well as it usually does, I am powerful and devoid of any Emily Post accoutrements if you get my drift. I'm using everthing I've got to get this baby birthed. My husband knows to be very scarce when I'm in 'the zone'. Back away from the lady with the spatula in her hand and the strange distant look in her eyes. I'm totally focused and I'm mostly non-verbal at that point. My husband says, "You're a really nice person except when you're doing a cake." Yes that is correct. My brother visited me during the final stages of a wedding cake and I purely scared him. He stayed the heck out of my way. I mean business is business. I think you have a great work around type idea to offer classes. Otherwise how can you produce and drag dead weight around?

I was dead set against Chef-boy going to culinary school in Austin because of the sky high costs and because at that time his primary reasoning was logistics, his girlfriend lived there. He was already in food service. He already had good connections, a good network. He wore his Dad down about it and like I said we lucked out with a great interest rate but man 25 years is a looooong time to pay for school. I feel sure he will have it paid down quicker. But once ole CB got past the initial rush of school etc. he got near fatal sticker shock. About a month in he wanted to transfer all of it to a four year program blablabla. At that point, Mom put her foot down. Dude-buddy you are going to finish culinary school end of discussion. Believe it or not he listened. He walked outa Le Cordon Bleu with a 4.0 perfect attendance and the same start up wages he went in with. This with three years in the business already. Not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of debt. History is still being written but currently he makes more money than anyone else in the family. To be fair though, he works many many more hours too. He is single and devoted and excellent at what he does. Happy too. A year or two earlier that same school cost a fraction of what he paid for tuition. It should really be investigated. I guess it's a supply & demand thing. But Kevin, I'm delighted that you are being so careful and thoughtful. Lots and lots of chichi chefs did not go to culinary school. You can do anything you want to do.

Yes I agree. You are proof of this.

You can trust them to take your money and run you through their program. The$e $chool$ are busine$$e$ fir$t. And nothing wrong with that. But wipe the stars out of your eyes now because the school bills certainly will later.

I mean it's a brotherhood/sisterhood and you gotta pay your dues school or no school.

My kid, Chef-boy, formerly known as Chef-Wanna-Be, graduated from TCA there in Austin. The loan repayment thing depends on the interest rates you or your folks can qualify for and obviously the amount of money you borrow. Chef-boy got two cost of living loanettes too in addition to tuition/book loans. He worked while in school but it's pretty difficult. My recommendation is to find a nice community college for culinary school. Because his first Chef that he worked for right outa school had attended a cheap (in comparison to TCA, CIA etc.) community college in Florida and finessed his way to chef in like nano-seconds being in the right place at the right time. Find something with the right price for you. Having a degree is really good but it's only a degree no matter where you get it. Once you get your foot in any door after that, the sky's the limit---work your way up. I mean you still start out at under ten bucks an hour in the lowest positions on the totem pole. The networking you get with CIA and etc is nice but dude, is it worth that kind of financial commitment? No it is not. And it's true your work experience, aka passion, speaks much louder than any degree. But the degree is important. Just not monkey on your back for the next few decades important. kwim? I think the quality part of the education comes in working for the finest chefs you encounter after school. School is school, man. Then those chefs will help launch you further.