Tonyy13

Um, yah, Bingo was his name-o. You are right on with the little bit less nice, and little bit more get the fuck back to work and do it right this time. And yes, it could be used in almost every aspect of life. Ever go to Wal-Mart? Imagine what one of their employees (who is probably outside talking on a cell phone, or ringing someone up talking on a cell phone, talking about this hoochie and that hoochie with the cashier three aisles from them, making all parties in teh three lines and everyone else in earshot uncomfortable) would do if you told them to hang up the fucking phone, smile and say welcome to Wal Mart, and put some clothes on that you would maybe wear to a normal job or perhaps even, gasp, an important date? Anarchy would reign. See the Wal-Mart Thread, I went off. Let me guess, you're not a chef, or a professional cook, are you? Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, etc, all of those guys have a stack of resumes on their desks of like 1000 people eveyrday who want to work for them, and they are the top in the world. So, they can look at someone and tell them to do 10 jumping jacks, and they will do it. They will beg to do them. They will hope that they have done the best 10 jumping jacks that they have ever done becuase they don't want to get fired for not doing them perfect. 99.9999999999999999999% of the rest of the chefs in teh world don't have that luxury. So, it becomes a learned thing to holler and it becomes the main method of motivation. I don't care what anyone says, when my chef is yelling at me in front of the other staff, I hate it, and I do whatever I can to do what I am doing better, so he won't holler at me anymore. Why? Becuase i am trying to be better than everyone else, and teh chef is telling them, in not so many words, that I am stinking up the joint. And I hate that. As far as the show is concerned, I loved it, I will watch it over and over again. The professionals? Didn't look like they knew their ass from their elbows if you ask me. And yah, dumb move, telling GR that you're an Exec Chef. Dumbass. There were some obviously Made-For-TV moments, like the escorts that they paid to come in tanned, boobs hanging out, whore-ish for GR to call bimbo's. Rightfully so. You're telling me that if I called three women bimbos in a real restauarnt, they would laugh and tell me that they were leaving? Are you kidding? I would get maced. And if they had been real patrons, he owuld have too, in America, that is. I wish I could see the service in real-time, to see what was taking them so long in getting out apps. Over an hour for the first app? I mean, I know they got flat sat, but they had the whole afternoon to train. And did they train or not? Lame-o. I like how that chick ran over Dingleberry (my favorite name for him, btw, wasn't he in one of the Austin Powers movies, wearing a kilt?) with the bus. "Don't worry, you aint goin anywhere." Too bad he dind't. The young kid, Andrew or somethign like that, is a punk. I hope Ramsey punches him. That would be great. And probably deserved.

Are you kidding me? This is a modern day miracle, getting chefs, in general, to admit any kind of wrong doing, let alone putting their stories in a book that is really putting the guns to the mistakes that they have made. I mean, we all know that we make mistakes, but we hate to admit this in public to anyone, although it is better than having to directly tell your line cooks in the heat of the moment that you were wrong, but still. This will be juicy, so juicy. I can't wait. Think Food Arts' They Loved It/They Hated It section. October you say, eh?

When I was 8, I asked for a food dehydrator. I could recite the Ronco food dehydrator informercial. My parents knew that they had something "special" on their hands. Oh, and the creation of the baloney melt. A slice of baloney, in a saute pan, with a slice of white processed generic brand American cheese, cooked until the baloney was browned underneath and the cheese was melted on top. Ben Franklin should be jealous of my extreme Americanism. I mean, baloney and American cheese? How patriotic.

I'm not sure how ethical this is, me being a teacher and all. Nothign is better than watchign a student make hollandaise (soemthing they are terrified of for absolutely no reason, ti has a bad rap as being tricky), and their arm gets tired of whisking the egg yolks, so they switch hands. I walk up to them, tell them that by switching hands, they are going to de-flate the egg yolks by wisking it left-handed, and they stop. They get that look like they think I am joking, but when I walk away without a smile or anything else, they get all confused. It is kind of like watching that guy on teh Gatorade commerical just crumble from de-hydration. Absolutely hillarious. In the industry, we had two that were pretty bad. The first involved fake menu ingredients. In Maine, where red dyed hot dogs are normal, we used to send line cooks of our fried seafood restaurant into the walk-in in the middle of the rush to find a case of hot dogs (non-existent). When they came out empty handed, we would send them back to see if there were any red hot dogs. Well, of course, there were none, so the kitchen manager would go around and get in every one else's face, seriously, screaming at them asking them if they stole a case of brown hot dogs AND a case of red hot dogs. Of course, everyone was in on it, and you should have seen the newbie sweat!! The other involved the hydrogenated fryer oil as well. We used to fill the fryers to the top, but sometimes got heavy handed, and some needed to be removed once the oil was hot. We used to put the excess oil in a bain marie under a prep table, and let it sit there till the end of th enight. Well, the color of the new grease with the old grease was absolutly perfect color of cooked apples, and with the hydroginated oil, when it cooled it would somewhat solidify back, just the perfect consistency to look like homemade applesauce. You know what is coming!! We used to get a big bowl of real applesauce, and be eating it, and tell some jerk-off waiter who we hated that so-and-so's mom made homemade applesauce and sent it in. We would even sprinkle cinnamon on the top of the grease sauce. The look on their faces when they got a spoonfull of the fryer grease was absolutly priceless. Then they would look at us like we were gross for eating the bowls of the same. They really got pissed when they saw that we had real applesauce!!!!

I'm not sure about anywhere else, but in gas stations in Maine, the Slush Puppy rules all. They have the "pump-it-yourself" flavors for all to enjoy, wiht cherry, grape, apple, lime, lemon, raspberry, tutti frutti, blue raspberry, strawberry, orange, and many more. You could make them as sweet as you wanted (which was always WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too sweet), and could mix flavors if you wanted to (I went through a "suicide" phase, where you mix all flavors to get quite an intersting flavor). They were chunkier than the slurpee, and much more chunky than the icee. I must say Pam, you have inspired me to get a Slurpee, and I am gladly typign away in this Florida heat siping on an ice cold coca cola slurpee. I do enjoy all of the above iced drinks, with the icee being my favorite, something about the airiness of it. The slurpee and icee are close in texture if you ask me, and again, definately more fine-grained than the slush puppy. Iced drinks for everyone!! "It's all ready already" - Slogan for a not-so popular do-it-yourself-at-home frozen drink mix in the mid nineties, the name escapes me.....

We utilize a purveyor in Orlando that is part of the FreshPoint produce conglomerate (sp?), supposedly, you can get whatever you want system wide, and they have purveyor outlets all over hte country, so try them. We get fresh hears of palm, and if you want, maybe we can setup a mail order thing for you (wink*) via Orlando if you can't get them up there.... maybe a trade for those shoft-shell crabs that are so expensive down here......

As the son of a former small business owner, I feel for the mom and pop places that are hurt by the opening of Walmart and Target Superstores. In my hometown of Waterville, ME, they just closed the Walmart, after the drag that it is on seemed to practically go under (a hardware store, a grocery store, a Rich's Department store, several auto parts places), making my town seem more white-trashy than it realy is. That being said, when the Wal-Mart came to the town, everyone was up in arms about it, saying that the above woudl happen. And youknow what? They were right. You know why? Because they shopped there, instead of recognizing that if they shopped at hte local shops, they would help them survive. It was ok to say that they liked the local shops before Wally World opened, but when it came time to spend the dollar, they chose to save a couple of pennies on a roll of toilet paper. So, who's to blame? Sam Walton or the people of Waterville? BTW, I shop at Target, not becasue it is closer or it is cheaper, but becuase it is cleaner and more organized than Wal-Mart. When we had the hurricanes last year, Walmart was a bomb, crap just everywhere (not much unlike most days, but it happened to be more than usual), people fighting over water and batteries. Went to Target, it was quiet, all lanes were open, pallets of batteries and flashlights when Walmart was rationing... it was like a whole different world. And you know what? The people at Target smile at you and seem to at least care that you are a person. I was at Walmart the other day (late night shopping, my only gripe about Target), and the cashier that was checking me out was talking on a cell phone while ringning me out. That is crap. Maybe people at Wal-Mart can't earn a living wage because they don't have the skills (people or otherwise) to get a better paying job. Life is like a mattress (not that foam crap that doesnt' move when you jump on it, a real spring mattres), when you move one part of it, the rest of it moves, when you drop out of high school, you're not gonna make a good wage, when you dress and talk like trash, you are not going to make a decent wage or get decent benefits. For every action, there is a reaction, good or bad, a consequence for all things. For the good people who work for less than they desserve, I feel for you, but I have never come accross an associate at WalMart that impressed me with anything about themselves. I'm not sayign that it doesn't exist, I am saying that I have never seen it. Ok, rip me a new one.... I am ready to hear it.... Oh, and I like to build things out of cheese too....... (Edited to say that Wal-Mart always looks trashed, not just when hurricanes threaten)

Ok, forgive me, I havne't read the entire thread, after the first few posts, I couldn't contain it anymore. I actually have had a hand at this sort of operation. I taught in the restaurant in the college that I teach at for eight months. We would have classes from 5 students to 30 students every 15 days. After that time, we would flip our entire staff. For the small classes, we would limit the amount of stations that we had in the kitchen (for example, eliminating the amuse station, eliminating a full-time dishwasher rotation, and eliminating a tournant for the kitchen). For the entire 15 days, we would rotate the students in and out of each station, all while giving a practical mystery basket exam, and then off to the front of the house class. I would not wish the confusion, complaining, stress, excuse making, and incompetency on anyone. There were the girls in the class who only wanted to do pastry, and when told that they need to work another station, they went and complained to the school bosses. Almost none of them wanted to work in the front of the house, and the ones who did, dind't want to work in the back of the house. When they liked working in the front of the house, we noticed that they lacked compassoin and caring in the back of the house. We never had a rock star student in both areas. While I do think that it is very important for each member of the staff to have an appreciation for the other's job, I can not imagine that you flipping your staff around so much would be a thing that was worthy of my food as a diner. The guy who has tatoos, piercings, and burn marks all up and down his arm, not the guy I want deliving my wine or cocktail (I don't go to clubs a lot, even then, they only pass it across the bar, and are not tryign to balance it on a beverage tray headed for my white linnen shirt). If you were to make this work, you would HAVE to have "bosses" to keep and uphold the standards. Yes, as you stated, there would be a list of expected rules and standards, but if there is no one to uphold them, then who cares? What do you do when a diner complains that their hollandaise is broken, and you ask the expediter, and they don't have the expertise to recognize it, and Francoise (who is pissed he's cooking, his manicure is going down the tubes) just didn't care about it or know how to fix it? I stay away from teh pastry ktichen becuase it is not my area of expertise, and I am fine with that. I know the basics, and I could probably make creme brulee with teh best of them, but let me tell you, unless your dessert menu consists of fruit salad, creme brulee and tollhouse cookies, you might want to re-think putting your staff there. HOnestly, I can't see this working. The best is what the beast is, and it is nothign more. The restaurant business is not everythign to all people, and the people who are the best at it, like it or not, understand that they have signed up for a life of long nights, no medical benefits, and that some snooty server who comes in three hours after they do and leave three hours befor ethey do are going to make three times more. If they didn't like those facts, than they would have quit and started in another industry. I was the only kid in high school who worked a job where I could drink beer if I wanted to, got to curse as much as I wanted to, and did something other than hanging up clothes or saying "would you like paper or plastic?". I took the bad with the good, and even though I am a good people person, and have waited tables, even been a front of the house manager, I didn't particularly like it as much as I like being in the back of the house. My preminitions about the front of the house people haven't particularly changed. Now, if you were to require every new hire in the front of the house and in the back of the house to spend a pre-determined time in the opposite place, that might work. But it can't be a thing where everyone is switching all of the time. Francoise spends three weeks on the pastry, he is a happy camper. Markus spends three weeks bussing tables and maybe working a beer and wine party as hte bartender, great. But I think that you are asking for trouble if you attempt it for any period of time. That's my honest opinion, and I hope that it works for you if you move forward. Thomas Keller would love this idea, and he could make it happen, cause he could get 5,000 applications in the first 24 hours that the jobs were posted, I just wonder if your location and offerings will look as attractive to your prospective employees..... First table I wated on, I spilled a glass of red wine on the lady sitting closest to the bar.... she was headed to theatre next door....... Good story.......

Ok, I have been on hiatus for a while, but now I am back. I ddin't have the best experience at Rice Paper, but I have only been once. I have found the menus in the VIMI area of town to be better, more authentic, and better tasting, but who am I? To each his own. This is a great area of town, and if you head the opposite way down 50, about 4 or 5 miles, right before the 50 and Kirkman Road intersectoin, there is a HUGE oriental Market, I think the name of it is First Oriental Market, it used to be a WAL-MART, and yes, it is that big. Best produce, better than Fresh Market, and live seafood, if you can get over teh smell or the cigarette hanging from the guy who is going to scale it for you. Better than anything I have ever seen, even in Boston or Providence. Thanks for the heads up on the Middle Eastern stuff, I will have to check that out...

I don't want to split hairs, but I just opened my last issue of food arts, and it has an add with TK, although HK does endorse as well. Trotter is a raisin guy too.....

Sam Adams Cherry Stout... Taste's like a urinal cake that is being pissed on... artificial cherry and pee, sounds about right...

Contessa shrimp are the best shrimp on the market. I was the one in charge of ordering the shrimp for a Food and Wine top ten best new chef recently (sometime in the past five years... do some digging in my profile, and you can easily figure out which one...), and I specifically was told to order Contessa, it is agian, far superior to any shrimp on the market, fresh or frozn, and both the raw AND the pre-cooked types are incredible( "oh no he didn't"... yes I did). I am a chef, a young one, a poor one, and I would like to think a somewhat talented one. The fact of the matter is that I buy name brand stuff becuase a lot of times it is better quality, and if that company was to approach me to endorse their superior product, I would have absolutly no problem with that. Trotter is the "worst" of them all, he endorses lots of stuff, Mac knives, boos cutting boards, Valrhona chocolate, all kinds of stuff, and I dare someone out there to tell me that one product that he endorses sucks... go on... do it, I bet you can't. Thomas Keller endorses raisins for cripes sakes, not to mention Mac knives as well (hmmm...let's see.... Trotter AND Keller endorse their product, it Must be crap!! ). Rick Bayless (Burger King), now he might have some re-thinking to do, he's still a badass chef, but not most of these guys....they are on the track that is fine. I'm with Chef Klc, he should know, he is one of the top chef's in the country, in the same boat as Keller and Trotter..... Edited because when I am worked up about a subject, my fingers type faster than my backspace button can be pushed.....

What I teach my students is 10 sheets of gelatin is equal to 1 oz. of powder (by weight). I agree that a ktichen scale is worth it's weight in gold!! Best of luck, keep posting the pics, they are great!!

Ditto, my fav.....

<-------- Native Mainer here who went to college in RI..... Man, I miss Moxie, I am feening (sp?) for it as we speak.... we really need a droolling smiley.... I have a few more: Drop biscuits Pizza Bread in RI Humpty Dumpty Potato Chips (ME) I don't know if this is a New England thing, but I have never seen Teenie Weenie Drinks in any of the supermarkets down here in the south, but I might be wrong..... Oh man, I am getting hungry.....

Alright, here you go... again, some of my pics are from places I have worked, and some are from my personal workings. I hope you enjoy and are inspired. Lemon Curd Crepe with Lemon Sabayon, Ginger Meyer Lemon Marmalade, Poppy Shortbread Cookies Stewed Raspberries with Vanilla Panna Cotta Set in Caramelized Puff Pastry with Candied Lime Zest and Royal Icing Lid Kabob of Roasted Fruits with Broiled Guava Sabayon, Passion Fruit Sorbet Souffle of Calvados in a Gala Apple Shell, Calvados Sabayon, Apple Sorbet, Apple Crisp, Caramel Poached Dice of Apple Chocolate Trio- Chocolate Sorbet, Chocolate Tarte with Lemon-Thyme Sabayon, Chocolate Fondant Cake Caramel Trio- Caramel Poached Apple, Creme Caramel, Caramel Ice Cream (Might be Leche con Leche, I am not sure), Nougatine Crisp

Anna, I asked a pro food photographer and she said that magazine photographers don't use white because when taking hi-res shots, something messes up the color and apetrure value of the pictures. She said that light is reflected sometimes differently on white with studio lights and filters. So, I wish I could elaborate more, but unfortunately, that is all the info I have regarding magazine shoots.... Great point Peach, perfectly said... Thanks, this is so much fun, I love helping out!! Plating just makes practice, and if you have had as much practice as I have had, you wouldn't be happy with them either. It is like when you exercise, how at first, you would be happy with running just a mile (at least, that is how it has been in my experience!! ), but after eight years of running, you would look at a mile and wonder how you ever only did one... (I have yet to reach this point in my exercise life..... ).... So keep it up, you will get there....

Great looking dish!!! Plating is nice, simple, and the food looks well cooked. Perfect! Very nice job.... Doctor, Thanks for the omission of the sprig, I can't stand that...

As long as it isn't Flay.....

Swiss Chef, You have to tell me if you are getting any closer. How do you feel about the dish? Do you feel that it looks better than previous plating attempts? In my opinion, I feel that yes, it is closer to what we talked about in the course lecture. But again, my word is not the end all say all. I like the plating of this dish better than I did of your previous dishes, but I do not think that any of them are bad. As far as your pasta dish goes, I think that it looks great just the way that it is!! I would think that it would look ok on a black plate, but I personally would steer away from the blue plate. The black would allow the pinkness of your shrimp to sing, and the pasta wouldn't look sort of dingy (not your fault, it happens whith pasta made from semolina and whole eggs). Overall, I am happy with the fact that you guys are participating, whether or not your plates are perfect in my eyes or not.... Glass plates are tough, not too much goes on them. The only time that I feel like glass plates are nice are when they are being served on a table that has a white tablecloth (and so we are back to a "white" plate....). I feel that they do have their applications, but they are less readily available for home cooks, so I dind't go too far into talking about them. I find that desserts usually seem to look relatively well on glass plates, usually becasue hot food causes steam to make it look cloudy, as well as fat is nearly impossible to hide. With desserts, I usually see the plate dusted with powdered sugar, which can hide some of the imperfections on the plate. Overall, not a huge fan, but again, they absolutely have their applications.

Sorry... Didn't mean to offend..... Richr, I am hungry now!! Good pic, that looks wonderful, and while I agree with your rosemary not being functional, if you are using your roasted lemons and juicing them to order on your chicken, than I think that they are absolutely in place. Great job!! This is really cool from where I am looking... you guys have started to critique your own plates based upon what we have discussed in the class, a sign that you have gotten something out of our discussion. Bravo, and keep up the cooking and critiqueing (sp?)....

Abadoozy, I agree with that statement, although there are many restaurant supply stores all over the country, and with the increase in specialty shops both online and locally, these barriers are dwindling... You would be suprised, as far as I am concerned at least, if there are any other pros out there, let us know, but I usually create a dish from what I have on hand. Rarely do I order a product just for one dish, and if I do, it is a specialty item that is only avaialable for a short time, and is usually so expensive and such a treat that it would be overkill to have it on one or more dishes. Again, I make sure that all of my items on a plate are functional and are adding sustinence or flavor to a dish. I challenge you to try to roast that squab breast perfectly 10 times out of 10, whether or not your plate it perfectly for a family dinner is another story.... ... and that's fine. The food police aren't coming to arrest you. LIke I said above, when I am at home, I do not plate perfectly every time. Sometimes function ovecomes form. But when it is a special occasion, or there is a reason for me to do it (sometimes just becuase I am feeling artsy), I do the absolute best that I can.

Swiss Chef, I am glad that you found a usefull resource for your antique plates. Those pics look good, but are very old school (I guess antiques are kind of "old school" too, arent they?...). I think that the name of this course should have been contemporary plating and presentation, that would have been more appropriate to both my knowledge, and the help that I am able to assist with.

Shalmanese, I would like to stsress what you said, and say that I agree with you. I would like to kind of quell the idea that I make my food look good and present it accordingly becuase I "have to" even in a restaurant. I do this, and I feel that many others do it, because there is a sense of accomplishment that is within us when we do a great job making our food look great. When I cook dinner at home, I will admit, that I do not go crazy making great platings. I do make sure that I cook my food correctly, a major obsticle that is in the way of many amateur cooks, and a reason why I concentrated so much effort of the lecture notes regarding proper cooking. Your absolutely right, if you don't find this fun, or you don't like to do this, than don't do it. Don't waste your time, or your effort. Hell, if you throw a dinner party, order out, and concentrate on making some cocktails or something like that that you will enjoy. Life is short, don't sweat the small stuff....

Just a little clarification here guys, when you say that you want pictures with all courses, are you refering to a home dinner featuring salad, entree and dessert?