Mikeb19

Rounded quenelles (aka 1 spoon queenelles) are the standard in most pastry kitchens these days (when it comes to scooping iced cream, whipped cream, mousses, etc...). They look nice, you can scoop stuff out of shallow containers, and theres never a shortage of spoons in a kitchen so you can have many apprentices scooping around the clock (iced cream scoops always seem to disappear). And yes, imperfect quenelles are still frowned upon, I've been yelled at a few times for it, and now I yell at others for it. A good one spoon quenelle should be a perfect egg shape, smooth all the way around.

After working the pastry section for a year or so (actually that would be working the hotline AND pastry section at the same time for a year), I'd perfected the 1 spoon quenelle (and many other pastry techniques, enough to get hired as a pastry chef). Basically, a very hot spoon, and lots of practice. A 'scraping' motion is necessary rather than a scooping one. Personally I prefer an iced cream scoop (those round ones which still make a smooth shape, but a more spherical one) to the spoon, but spoons are easy to procure and still make a nice quenelle.

Speaking of fiddleheads, try sautéeing them in butter, then adding some fresh lime juice and fresh grated ginger (a little salt too of course). That's how my old chef taught me to prepare them, and I still haven't found a better way. Back to the original question. When I was a kid we'd go around foraging for wild strawberries on a fairly regular basis (they grew in the woods around the farm), but not much more than that. Nowadays I like to experiment eating stuff when I'm hiking in the backcountry, but I grew up on farm vegetables and whatnot, I'm not very experienced with foraging I'll admit...

Best food memories (childhood or otherwise) would have to be at my grandparents' house. My grandmother, would always prepare us a feast whenever we came over. Always included: - pickled vegetables - borshch (my favourite was cold borshch on a hot summer day) - perogies (potato and cottage or cheddar cheese) - cabbage rolls - cucumber salad - a roast of some sort with gravy, or a ham with mustard - whatever vegetables she picked from the garden that morning Desserts included fresh berries from the garden, apple pie, perogies with berry filling, fruit compote with iced cream, etc... Every restaurant I've worked at I've tried to include at least 1 Ukrainian dish on the menu.

Tomotoes, raw onion, dill pickle, 5 year old cheddar cheese, ketchup, mustard. Bacon and mushrooms are good, but not essential. Washed down with an ice cold beer, in the company of friends, and theres nothing better.

At one restaurant I worked for, Sysco would bring us organic fruits and vegetables, some very nice prawns (head attached and everything), as well as all of our stuff like paper towels, cleaning supplies, etc... Not everything they stock is crap, our rep would go out of his way to find nice, local stuff for us (and a few other restaurants). They have much more buying power than a single restaurant, and in many ways this is an advantage. Then again I don't know if Sysco up here (Canada) is different than down there, but we were getting some nice stuff from them. And yes, everyday we'd give the rep a hard time about who he works for, their processed shit, etc..., and everyday he'd joke about adding that stuff to our order...

8. We didn't care. We still partied like rockstars, every single night, in between the 16 hour shifts. 7. While we didn't get to eat anything we wanted to, we did eat very well. Also we'd get some very tasty scraps (foie gras, truffles, caviar, etc....) The servers would also hook us up with small amounts of very good and expensive wines. I ate some stuff I never could have imagined previously.... 6. We did get to see plenty of them, VIPs and all. Of course I was higher up in the ranks by this time. 5. Again, by the time I worked my way up, my chefs would routinely ask for my opinions, ideas, etc... Didn't mean they always used my ideas, but they sometimes did, they allowed enough creativity to keep it interesting. 4. True, cooks usually remain poor. Of course, we also eat well, and we can make a decent enough living. Plus, there are plenty of 'bonuses' that aren't recorded... 3. Depends, it can be hard, it can be easy. Working in a very small, gastronomic restaurant was incredibly easy for me once I worked my way up the ladder. Once you know how to cook, season food, gain some confidence, then things just keep getting easier everyday... 2. When I first started in fine dining, I worked with a French chef that was at least as bad as Mr. Ramsay. But I was an apprentice, and didn't really know what I was doing. Later on I would get along very well with said chef, and he didn't yell at me anymore... Nowadays, if a chef tried that shit with me, I'd knock him out (I've actually done it before, believe it or not - kept my job BTW). 1. While it's not glamorous, the truth is that very few, if any 'dream' jobs are. And honestly, while I've been away from the kitchen the last 6 months (I had to leave initially due to an illness, ready to go back now though), I miss many of the more glamorous aspects of the job. Composing tasting menus on the spot, special dinners, having cute waitresses think you're the shit, meeting famous people, and making a guest's day... In some ways I've been lucky. I rose very quickly up the ranks, got to see and do alot of shit no cook my age would ever see or be allowed to do. Got to work alongside some great chefs, not just work under them. Of course, this path caused some physical and mental stress/illness, I was forced out of the industry recently because of it. Ready to go back, but need to take it a little easier...

Work hard, absorb as much information as humanly possible. Never make the same mistake twice. Keep your cool, try not to stress out.

La Cuisine (c'est de l'amour, de l'art, de la technique) - Pierre Gagnaire and Hervé This Lucide et Ludique - Pierre Gagnaire L'Encyclopédie culinaire du XXIe siècle - Marc Veyrat As well as various other books by Fredy Girardet, Alain Ducasse, and even some American barbeque books...

When I first started cooking, people told me that if I ever wanted a break I'd have to take up smoking. I'd take one anyway, if they had anything to say about it I'd just tell them to fuck off. Eventually, as I worked up the ranks, people would never question what I did anyway, so if I had a rare free moment, I'd sit down and relax for 5.

Just like other industries, there are both smart and dumb people in the cooking business. The smart ones usually rise to the top, and the idiots don't. By the way, I've met plenty of idiots that have University degrees and high grades, doesn't mean a thing. And I've met some very smart people who don't even have a high school diploma because they had to leave school and work at an early age because of some shitty life circumstances...

About the planning thing.... It's impossible to plan anything more than a day or two in advance because you never know what's going to happen. Staff not show up, ingredients not available, lots of customers, no customers, etc... Not to mention the amount of information chefs need to remember, the other stuff tends to get lost up there...

1. Perogies - potato/cottage cheese are my favourite. Served with fried onions and sour cream 2. Potato pancakes 3. Potato bread

Well, most dips taste good spread on things, and most spreads taste good when you dip things into them. As for hummus, if I'm lazy I'll just find stuff to dip into it, or I'll spread it onto a pita for a sandwich.

Also to add, money doesn't buy happiness. But it's hard to be happy when you can't afford to pay the rent, and are months behind on all your bills, with creditors coming at you.

First off, I was also a cook in high end restaurants (although I never travelled around, just stayed in my city). I too, was the blacksheep of the family, always catching shit because I gave up thousands of dollars in university scholarships, moved out of the house when I was 18, and cooked. It was rough, I was poor as @#$%, living in a housing project, surrounded by criminals, got into trouble with the police (at one point the police were telling me I was facing 5-10 years jail time for something I didn't do), etc... My family would always talk down to me, so I just said #$%$ it, and stopped talking to them altogether. Sure, it sucks when you don't have family to turn to for support or help, but you can't change them, and you've got to do whats best for yourself. Nowadays I'm out of cooking (at 22 years old lol), out of the projects, on decent enough terms with my immediate family (we talk on a regular basis without incident), although I haven't seen any of my extended family in about 4 years. Just trying to find a legal way to hustle a few dollars, nothing sucks more than serving caviar and foie gras in a restaurant, then coming home to an empty fridge and no money for groceries... Right now I work a manual labour job, after 2 months on the job I make as much money in a 35 hour week as I would have in a 50 hour week at the restaurant (and I made alot of money compared to others in the same restaurants). Anyhow, I wish you good luck, just realize that high end restaurants aren't always the best way to make money. At most of the restaurants I've worked at I've had access to some numbers... Not to mention I've made friends with several owners. Anyhow, the most profitable restaurant I've worked at, was a barbeque restaurant. It's been open for 2 years now, is packed day in and out, and the owner invested a rediculously small amount of money into it (serves very good barbeque as well, and has live bands playing on weekends). The owner of the best fine dining restaurant I worked at, wanted to sell...

Championship Barbeque by Paul Kirk Without a doubt the best barbeque book I've come across.

Only once did I work in a restaurant where I got a check bounced. When I found out, I confronted the owner of the restaurant, and told him I want cash right now or I was gone. Sure enough, the safe popped open, and I had a stack of bills in my pocket. Bottom line - if you don't get paid, you shouldn't work.

The first restaurant I worked in was in my own neighborhood, and I already knew most of the other employees before I worked there. So I never really got hazed, but still know every trick in the book. At my first fine dining job my CdP asked me to get him a left handed saute pan. He was a bit of a dork, so I put him in his place. Anyhow, the best pranks we pulled were when an employee quit. At one restaurant, we broke into the guy's car, popped his hood, and removed all his spark plugs. Also, in the winter, coating the doorhandles of his car with ice. Then theres also the old trick of taking their street clothes, dunking them in water and freezing them in the walk-in freezer. Another time we camped outside the back door, peppered the guy with eggs, and then dumped a large bucket of flour on him.

Well, it was finally time for me to leave the kitchen. I was a pastry chef, I was making more money than anyone in the restaurant save the executive chef, and could still barely pay my bills working 50+ hour weeks... (gotta love the economy in Calgary) It's not as if I was a failed cook, I worked in the top restaurants in the city, in some of the top positions. But it still wasn't enough - high stress, low pay, and the economy just added to those pains. Cooks were no longer applying for work because of the lack of money (most going to construction jobs), so that increased our stress, and our wages were reduced to pocket change as rents went from 500 to 1500 dollars... Now, I'm working a random manual labour job, doing some easy construction type work. Without any training, as the new guy, I'm making more money than I ever did cooking, and only working 9-5. It's also much less stressful, and I actually enjoy my evenings instead of trying to ease the pain with alcohol and drugs... Should I get certified in a trade, the money making potential is definitely there... Anyhow, thought I'd share a short story about leaving cooking, as I've seen plenty about leaving other jobs to come into cooking.

Bartending is actually closer to cooking than serving is. I've cooked (at a very high level) and tended bar (very occasionally) BTW. Anyhow, when it comes to bartending, you're making drinks for servers to bring to their tables, much as a cook provides the food. Bartenders actually work with product, they need to manage their bills, they get swamped with orders the same as the kitchen does. They're mixing up drinks, as a cook would mix up incredients in a dish. And they need to know how to make stuff taste good. All these things cooks and bartenders share in common, and servers don't. Bartenders and cooks share a special relationship, not only of their love of food and alcohol, but also because the jobs are much more similar than they seem. BTW, I've also known a few very serious bartenders who have made the leap into cooking.

Wow.... Anyhow, as far as 'fast-food' goes, I'll usually get a donair or a vietnamese sub sandwich. I really can't stand the franchises... When drunk and at bars or clubs, often there will be vendors selling hotdogs outside - nothing better than a hotdog at 2:30 a.m. when you're wasted. If I'm drunk and in the neighborhood, usually I'll pick something up from a convenience store, or just order pizza. Theres never any fast-food joints open late around here...

Hervé This has several, including a recent one he co-authored with Pierre Gagnaire.

Maybe the industry needs to change then. You simply CANNOT run a business off of passion. It's not a fucking charity. It's a business. If money doesn't come in the doors close, period. If you work simply for the love of the job, guess what? Now you're a slave to your job and your employer. Why do we all work? To pay bills, so we can LIVE. But guess what, the economics are changing where I live. 10 years ago an average house cost $140K, right now an average house costs $420K. But cook wages (in fine dining) have gone up only by a couple dollars an hour. What used to be a good wage for a cook 10 years ago, can't even pay the bills right now. Businesses either adapt, or shut down shop. The difference between when I started in the industry, and now? Now I have investments, I think about my future, about business. Sure, when it comes to work I'm not as passionate as I used to be, but now I actually have a life - I can see my friends, my family. I have a place of my own to live in. As far as not being 'strong' enough to make it in the business - I've seen my best friends arrested, I've come home to see all the walls in my house covered in blood, my house trashed, I've had the police tail me many times, I've had people pull weapons on me, my friends, I've even had one of my best friends die. I've seen the gang life, I've seen some people very close to me get caught up in it, and still others I've seen become drug addicts. And throughout all this bullshit, I STILL managed to succeed in some of the top restaurants in the country. I didn't go through all that bullshit so that in 10 years I could STILL be living in the ghetto.... Call me bitter if you want, the only difference is that now I'd rather work to live, instead of living to work. Again, I'll say - restaurants are BUSINESSES, not charities. And you know what, there ARE restaurants out there willing to pay up. Too bad for those who can't pay up. Right now I'm sick with an extended illness, however in a few months I'm going back to work with a clear mind, and a new plan. No more fine dining, theres no money in that. I'll probably end up in a corporate restaurant, or something high volume - I've got enough experience that every resume I drop off gets me a job offer. And you know what, I still do love cooking. I just don't love working for nothing.

There is nothing scary about it, corn syrup is a cheap form of sugar, and simple syrup has become an almost extinct idea. Too bad, because if you do a taste test, other glucose syrups do far better on the tongue than corn syrup. Glucose, fructose, it's all SUGAR. Natural means nothing. Cobalt is natural, but I'm not eating it! ← There are big differences between glucose, fructose, sucrose (table sugar), lactose, inverted sugar, etc... Different chemical structures (for instance, glucose and fructose are both C6H12O6, different structures though, and sucrose or table sugar is C12H22O11), different levels of sweetness, etc... Glucose syrup (aka corn syrup since the majority of glucose syrup on the market is made from corn starch) is ideal for iced cream because of it's humectant properties (inverted sugar - which is sucrose split into glucose and fructose chains - is usually added as well to balance out the sweetness, as well for it's humectant properties). Iced cream made from sucrose just doesn't compare when it comes to texture (and while making a simple syrup with sucrose does yield a somewhat better result, glucose syrup is better still). Ask any professional pastry chef (which I am, BTW).