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chiantiglace

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Everything posted by chiantiglace

  1. Also want to add that you will more than likely have a wheat based product if you buy glucose syrup, especially if it is french.
  2. I am sorry to be argumentative but I have never heard of corn syrup having water added to it. As I always knew it to be glucose syrup that had its sugar chains broken down farther than the product labeled glucose syrup and then a percentage of high fructose corn syrup added into it. As far as I know, the ingredients for KaroLight syrup is corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and vanilla. If you have documentation of where and how water is added to the corn syrup you buy at your grocery store I would love to read it. I would find it very interesting, because I have never heard that before. thank you.
  3. I have heard about it in soups and stir frys. Why blanch it and wrap some shelfish in it. The lightly poach it in some kind of broth or sauce.
  4. black forbidden rice will dye any grain.
  5. there are a million ways to make this atlaf, for the most part it is usaually just cream cheese mousse.
  6. glucose, glucose syrup, and high fructose corn syrup are not the same thing. Chef Greweling has gone through extensive research to make his proportions exactly as he wants them so if you change something, it doesn't mean it won't work, but it does mean it will definitely not be the same.
  7. It is not really that far off topic though, its part of understand the world of a chef today and why CIA and other schools are having problems, we have just tapered into the specific.
  8. Ha, well think what you want. But the only way I have ever made myself look bad was by going too far. It's easy to over due it. If you step into a kitchen, and they ask you to prepare 3 courses from what they have in house, and you start calling up purveyors that they don't do business with because you feel like they are better and you think its not "good enough" well then you will probably be too good for them and maybe they won't want you around. You have to understand, good enough is also humbling. I am still grasping that concept and for the people on here who know me are probably reading my words with confusion because I have a personality that is always asking for more. But you can easily go to far, politics is bullshit but there is also balance in life and it is important to find it. If you want to spend 120 hours a week keeping everything in the kitchen top notch and you aren't stepping on anyones toes, be my guest, but you will notice no matter how hard you try, things just get worse and worse. Refrigerators go outs, mixers go out, people quit, people want raises, the produce check in guy was sick so he didn't do a thorough job and now you are stuck with fish that has been left at room temperature and raspberries that came in half moldy. Think of it as an assembly line. If you spend all your time making sure two pieces are perfect, sooner or later you are going to have a thousand backed up, but if you make sure that 90% are near perfect it may be practical to get the job done. So win one battle at a time, do a good job on the tasting with what you have. Get in and clean the the kitchen. Review the staff. Make the existing menu functional, slowly work out pieces at a time to how you want them. Work on new purveyors if you need them, get to know your mechanics and engineers that have been working on the restaurant from the start. And then after about 6 months to a year you ahve the restaurant in the palm of your hand and you will be controlling everything. Their is no need to show the owners all the changes you can and will make upon entering the door, infact that is kind of scary because they would like to hold on to as much comfort as they can, and if they are hiring a new chef that comfort is minimal. The last thing they want is you to come in like a hotshot and piss off a bunch of relationships they and the last chef have developed, and then they decide they don't want you, now they are double screwed. A chef should be able to do many many things, but he doesn't need to prove that in two days to get a job, character goes a long way and the people holding the pay check are the ones judging it.
  9. Yes, I'm under 30. As for my experience, I apprenticed under some of the best chefs in the country, and currently work as a pastry chef (just to round out my skillset) in an award-winning restaurant. I'm not sure what's up with your quote 'using what you have', sounds like sarcasm. A good restaurant can make do with average ingredients no doubt, but if you want to be great, you need to start off with great product. A chef isn't just a cook. A big part of being a chef is sourcing ingredients, finding the best of everything in season. Being able to adapt your cooking to suit the terroir, flowing with the seasons, etc... And then there's managing your staff, managing the business itself, etc... Cooking is the easy part. ← Matt, sounds like a great speech if you ever want to give a demonstration, but the truth is, and maybe you will find it soon, that unless you are the french laundry trying to find good figs week after week before you can even think about changing the menu when the season ends for them is almost a full time job, not to mention the 250 other items that need to be in great quality every time. This is why there is so much discussion about gmo. It is a constant battle, and its not even the biggest one. The biggest one is labor costs. So if the chef can make something great with standard ingredients I think thats good enough.
  10. what you should do is, depending on the acidity, is scale an alginate solution between .8% and 1.1%. Hydrate part of the liquid in the alginate, preferable about 15%+ and fold it into the mixture. Say you are doing chocolate mousse, very simple, you know like 200 grams heavy cream and 200 grams chocolate, nothing else. So you have 400 grams total, lets just go with 1%. take 4 grams of alginate, hydrate it in about 35 grams of cream (bring to a boil). Then cool it to room temp. It should be quite thick, like set pastry cream, but since it is pseudo-plastic it will get thinner when you agitate it unlike corn starch. So fold your chocolate into the alginate mixture and then in with the cream. Soon enough you will have a very stable chocolate mousse. Of course you won't need to do that for chocolate, but you can do the same for raspberry, or whatever. But if you are using all liquid, you can hydrate the alginate in that instead of the cream. I have used this to replace gelatin in bavarians and other aerated products.
  11. Its simple, you didn't get the air out of the chocolate. Vigorously tape the mould on the table before flipping out excess chocolate. Those chips are where air pockets resided under the weight of the chocolate.
  12. I dont know what is going on with the double churn. Maybe they are churning, thawing and churning again, but if its ice cream that involves proteins, I would steer clear of too much churning. I suggest folding in italian meringue or pate a bombe after churning.
  13. Actually, do a search on egullet. we talked about that I think almost two years ago and somehow formed our own story of events I think. I would pull it up for you but I can't seem to locate anything that I don't have the exact title to. Maybe someone else will find it.
  14. I found this kind of funny, and amazing too. I guess school helps some people.
  15. tell me what you want to make and I will formulate something for you.
  16. alginate works pretty good for aerated products. sounds crazy but its true.
  17. definitely true.carrageenan is a sure thing replacement. It depends on what you are making. If you are trying to make a strong super clear gel then carrageenan is the way to go, but for other gelling applications there may be better alternatives. I personally like carrageenan almost more than all others for simple gels to be added to the plate. But thats me. I definitely like carrageenan more than agar in almost all gelling areas.
  18. Oh yeah, not line cooks. But, I'm still surprised that mystery baskets still exist. I haven't heard of them for a long while, but I suppose that's because my city is a fairly tightly knit community, and if you're getting a new sous-chef or chef, chances are you know him through a friend or another restaurant whom you trust. ← This whole country knows each other, and it seems like connections are growing deeper and more elaborate every year. One person probably knows 5,000+ people in the industry and if you compound that by all the people that you know, knows, thats a lot of people at your fingertips.
  19. As a self admitted "know-it-all", chiantiglace, have you considered that it isn't the fact that you went to the CIA, but your attitude during your interview? I certainly don't agree with the pastry chef in SF who considered you "green", but there are many possible reasons other than the CIA that the person didn't want to hire you and he just gave you that excuse. On the positive side, it could have been that this person felt threatened by your knowledge and abilities. You certainly throw yourself wholeheartedly into pastry and it seems like you know your s#$t...if this pastry chef has only four years of experience, he could be worried about his job. On the negative side, if you're coming off as a "know-it-all", then you're not doing yourself or the CIA any favors. You and your fellow students are all reflections of the school. If a chef/pastry chef has come across more than one recent graduate who has a crappy attitude or an inflated sense of self-worth because they attended the CIA, that really sours the opportunities for others. When you show up for an interview and aren't as humble or respectful (while I'm sure this isn't what you did) as the interviewer expects (that isn't to say you can't be confident), that throws things off. Body language is very obvious as well. And if you've been in the business as long as you have, you should definitely know that anyone starting a new job is green regardless of how long they've been doing it. You have to earn respect by doing. Unless you've already been a pastry chef or a pastry sous chef, then you're green and that's that. You can't take it as an insult, that's just the way it is. Work your way into everyone's good graces and you won't be the 'green' one for very long. ← Who said I didn't get hired? I wish I hadn't taken the job because I respected that chefs drive to always want to know more. Unfortunately money was an issue. I guess we were too alike in the wrong places and too different in the right places, because at first we got along great, but things went downhill soon and he showed a severe distaste towards me for weeks. Which was unfortunate because the restaurant I switched from, me and the chef there had become very good friends, and I wish I could still work for him, but that restaurant pays less than the southeast and its tough to live on that salary in san francisco. I have a gift of stepping on peoples toes, and it seems you have a gift of identifying that in me. All in all, it was a good experience, but one horrible time in my life. I didn't want to get deeper into it, I just wanted to point out the misconception of the "greenness" because I had performed as a pastry chef for a restaurant and a bakery before I even went to school. I am just young, persistent, and ill-content. Ha, yet still happy. Everything takes time, all we can do is make an argument from time to time until things start working out.
  20. Films I like to use blends of arabic, methylcellulose, poly glycol alginate, carrageenan and or agar. I know Sam Mason likes to use a blend of hi and low acyl gellan for his "eggless" lemon curd
  21. After being in this business 18 years, I figure it's my JOB to completely crap on the insane plans of any friend that wants to go to culinary school. I mean friends don't let friends drive drunk, right? Sure, the culinary trade IS for some people. But before you decide to spend some crazy money on culinary school, know what you're getting into! Work in the food biz for a year (it's really easy to get your foot in the door WITHOUT a culinary degree you know....) THEN decide if you want to stay in the trade, and even better, do the math, and you'll know that what they charge for school isn't in line with most starting wages! If you're thinking about getting into the food biz, you might want to read this. ← at least if you go to law school or medical school, you know you're going to come out making six figures. The only way you're making six figures in the culinary world just out of school is if you count the two places after the decimal. ← I agree with this point very much. I don't want to crap on school altogether. Some of the best training I ever received I got from CIA. I am actually amazed at how much better the pastry chefs are there than all of the restaurants I have worked in, then are definitely qualified to teach anyone. My biggest point is not that school didn't help me personally its that it actually inhibited me from getting anywhere in the real world, not because of who is on the inside of school but due to the s&*%Theads on the outside who actually look down on me. I have sacrificed a lot to go to school and am still sacrificing, there is no need from someone to treat me like I am in the "green" because I went to school. I had a pastry chef in San Francisco insist I was in the green yet he couldn't deny that I performed the job very well. Since he constantly brought up the fact that I was "fresh out of school" that must have been the only reason I was in the green. Yet I thought it hilarious that he only had 4 years experience in the kitchen and I had 10. So how do you measure greenness?
  22. It makes me sick to my stomach to think I am $70,000+ in debt to a school that educates restaurant professionals and I can't even get a food runner job because I have never worked front of the house. And I have not had one person hire me on the bases that I went to school, I have not a single person say, well the school degree is what sealed the deal for me. Nope. In fact most people say, oh you went to school, great I have another know-it-all. Let me just say my know-it-all tendencies were there long before I started school!
  23. Never liked it, tried it many different ways. I don't like the bitter cocoa flavor with my pork. I have talked to a lot of people who have had the vosges chocolate bacon bar, I haven't met a single person who liked it.
  24. Every word made sense, but still don't know which side of the table your sitting on though. Very simply, the word Molecular (I dont care about the word gastronomy so I am no even going to argue that one) does not belong anywhere its being placed in the restaurant industry right now. I doubt most people that use the word even know what a molecule is. Nouvelle Cuisine still works for this genre of cooking , "New Cuisine". But because "Nouvelle Cuisine" is not and old title we have to find something to replace it for today's chefs. I'll be honest, you can think I am dumb all you want, but I have absolutely no idea what you just said in your last post slkinsey. I would argue it, but it seems like a patch work of random opinions and facts sewn together in a statement. So maybe you can break it down for me exactly what you are trying to say? your last statement which sounds like it was taken from wikipedia's definition is the only one that gastronomy should be referred to, just because some people use it to mean something else, doesn't make it right, so let's stick to that definition for analysis of this phrase.
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