Sethro

Looking for something light and crisp.

Out of all the new arivals, for some reasone STK's menu appeals to me very highly. I think it'll be my destination the next chance I have to eat out.

Patisieries are much cheaper than dessert bars. They also require a much smaller time commitment. Sweet courses interspersed with savory courses, is a meal. A meal is something people are willing to budget out a chunck of time and change for. All desserts does not a meal make. Dessert bars seem to be doing very well so far, but I can't imagine a full-scale dessert restuarant staying afloat in NYC. The focus of the issue should be emerging interest in the pastry chef's savory fare. Whatever reason we have for being drawn to pastry as supposed to hot-side, it reflects some difference in approach, and makes for some very intersting savory dishes. Maybe one day people will even stop with the "cooking is art and baking is science" bit. I hate that so much.

Unfortunately no more breakfast. It is very much worth checking out though.

I think that there is definetely a growing market for dessert-centric restaurants, but dessert-only restaurants still only appeal to a very small subset of diners. That's only natural, given the percent of sales on average desserts generate for a restaurant (tasting menus not considered). Sam Mason's, Pichet Ong's and Jahangar Metha's new digs will all feature savory foods (albeit incorporating ingredients and techniques usually indigenous to the pastry department). Sam's and Pichet's are much larger than either Chickalicious or R4D, and I don't think plated dessert sales alone would accomodate that difference. Even for me, it takes some odd planning to schedule in a trip to Chickalicious or R4D, because I know I'll feel like crap if I have only dessert for dinner. So I have to plan dinner and dessert seperately, which is not ideal because it usually results in a major jarring of my sensabilities. I believe a halmark of a great pastry chef is the ability to create a flow from savory to sweet dishes, adding to the experience as a whole as supposed to creating a seperate experience. Of course when your eating dinner here and dessert there, that's an imposability. Even though I find the food at R4D fascinating, I've only been in once (hopefully I can make it twice soon). I can see myself frequenting Mason's far more often though, because it should be able to accomodate my hunger as well as my curiosity.

My point is that they've were available as ever between 2002 and 2005 as well. I don't even think they cost more. Strange.

OK, that's interesting. I would have known it was under constriction, since its been so readilly available for purchase all over the city (consistently for as long as I can remember).

This strikes me as a really odd question. Is there some peppercorn embargo or scarcity I missed?

Thanks again for the kind comments! Nothing really happened, it just wasn't a good fit for me. I'm expecting next year to be an exciting one (for NYC in general and hopefully for myself in particular). The exec chef at Chanto is going to implementing a new dessert menu of his design, and I hope he and the restaurant have great sucess.

Today is my last day at Chanto. Thanks to those Egulleters who made it in, I appreciate it.

That's great, thank you.

Found pics of Alex Stupaks new desserts on flikr here. Very impressive looking.

I've tried freezing foams before. Basically because the foam is mostly empty space, it develops a tremendous network of ice crystals (worse than the worst sorbet ever), that makes it unusable frozen or thawed. Its really unecessary anyhow since VW is able to be re-whipped repeatedly. On a related topic: Anyone have any experience with high-fat foams? Are any of these stabilizers fat soluable? If not I thought maybe I could saturate the vw and stabilizers into isomalt and then burr that into the fat base. I know isomalt and fats will hold, but if I make an isomalt water mixture and blend that into the fat, will the water weep out? Any advice would be appreciated.

You can roast or boil the peaches, then slide off the skin and leave it to dry on parchment. Once they're dry, brush them with egg whites and dredge them in supefine sugar (just like candying herbs), and arrange them in curls by draping them on a drying rack. That way you still getthe crunch and the flavor, but the colors are really beautiful.

What is that?

From personal experience, I don't like to use it in sauces, coulis etc. It develops a very slippery texture even in small doses. I usually only use it to thicken a liquid base for another purpose, but never for a finished sauce. I think alot of people use xantham becuase its trendy, when good old cornstarch or agar would do the job better.

Suprisingly, alot of the pastry additives we use are widely available in larger health food stores. Agar powder, sugar subs, natural gums, you name it. It never hurts to look around.

I'm not aware of glucose or corn syrup having any stabilizing properties. I also don't think that the purpose of adding egg whites to a sorbet base is stabilization, although it does affect the texture in other ways. In terms of sweetness, corn syurp is about 70% as sweet as sugar, and glucose about 30% as sweet. If you are really just trying to make an already perfect sorbet base a little softer, I would sub about 15% of the sugar with dextrose. If ice crystals are a problem, subing another 15-30% of the sugar with glucose powder is a good way to increase the dry mass.

Just a heads up: the Eg 10% deal ends with August.

No. It was probably just radically incongruent with the location, and all that it carried with it (jacket required, high price point, etc)

I don't know why I said "clear" either. It must have stuck in my brain from the thread title. I think in todays landscape you could call anything dairyless a coulis, like basil coulis etc. Not necesarilly even fruit based.

Coulis is one of several interchangeable pastry terms. To me it implies nothing but a clear sauce. I think powdered agar is the best way to go. Cornstarch tastes...like cornstarch, and gums are slimy even in small doses.

Good tongue, that's creme fraiche in there for a little acid and "funk". Thanks again for comming in (and for the very nice comments), it was a pleasure to meet you guys.

I reckon you're right. My bad! There were also some really sweet, reall BIG blackberries around last week. All the blueberries I tried were on the sour side, unfortunately.

I recomend the tri-star farms strawberries, if you get there early. Fridays across from the mcD's, and Wensdays right next to the place you got the purple basil.