chiantiglace

I would much rather have Michael Pollan, I just finished reading his new book coincidently. I would also believe the Kenneth F. Kiple has an amazing knowledge of food and the production of it as well. It may be presumptuous of me but together I think Pollan and Kiple could have some amazing conceptual ideas on American food and agriculture.

Custom plates & flatware certainly aren't new or avant-garde, but are rather seriously retro (in a Western European context)...see the Victorian & Edwardian eras, please. My turn of the century silver service has ice cream forks, short-handled oyster forks, long-handled cocktail forks, lemon forks, snail tongs, fish forks, ramekin forks, bouillion spoons, gumbo spoons, blah, blah. Don't even get me started on the serving pieces. Dinnerware from the same period includes a blinding array of specialty dishes for particular food items. Similarly, the idea of a plate specially chosen for the season or dish being served is an important component in japanese high cuisine. I'd like to see family-style service, too. I don't want a whopping serving of something, and family-style saves me the trouble of pushing around half-eaten food, or trading plates with a dining companion who wants a taste. ← Thanks for quoting me, but I never said they were new ideas. Everything we see is a regurgitation of something else, thats how life works. My prediction was simple and to the point of what I expect to see, I may or may not be right but I certainly never proclaimed it to be an absolute original idea, because their simply is no such thing. Just because we may not know the origins of design does not mean there isn't one, there always is and origin(s) or it is most definitely an accident put to great use. We can spend the rest of our lives explaining what has been before and describe to each other how someone wasn't the first to bring forth an idea but I would rather not. what we should do is pay attention to what is becoming fashionable across all borders. My true hope is that there will be no single new "movement" of any sort. A movement to me implies that their are borders to cross, and I hope we are getting to the point of living somewhat border-less, at least by informational design. Once the awareness of people comes to the point where ideas are skipping between cities in mere hours, certain ideas will become great and dead within weeks instead of years. This I believe is a good thing because the most devoted of people in a given field will probably be less - likely to shun something due to over exposure. Just like when foam and fruit caviar get a bad wrap once in a while from chefs who have seen it over and over but never put it into practice. If we get to a point where things become understood quickly enough then we can accept them easier thus adding so many techniques, ideas and styles to our repertoire so that maybe you can use foam, or something totally new without feeling outdated and just know that it works so well with your particular plate up. I am looking forward to the advent of customizing chefs, able to perform so many different ways of preparing food, a certain genre of eating great without worry where its origins may lie.

I don't understand this post. You are replying to us as if we have a problem with music or something. That has absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with what we are talking about. He can play any instrument he wants, listen to whatever music he wants, practice whenever he wants, that doesn't matter. But if he wants to take a career seriously he needs to drop the certain hobbies that get in his way of succeeding. I am debating if I even want to post this reply because I am very confused with your reply, I don't understand what listening to Beethoven's 9nth has anything to do with him dropping his after school hobby to take on a career path, we never told him to never pick up the instrument again, but he needs to clear his schedule.

A lot of carbon remains CH3-CH2-OH. You have gases (hydrogen and oxygen) burning off of the alcohol groups, as well as other gases bonding by sugar molecules of the hydroxyl group. I am not sure what remains after burning but the entire alcohol group is not burned off. Similar reactions happen when you caramelize sugar, the carbon is left behind which is what darkens the mix. The more you cook it, the less gases remain and the higher the ratio of carbon, until its one solid mass of black carbon. I am supposing that with the release of energy the molecules rearrange and lose their flammability. Thus some molecules remain. If nothing but the carbon remained, the after tast would probably taste very bitter and flaming would never be preferred.

whatever you do in life, don't waste time. You only get one.

HAhaHaaH. sorry. This city is imploding, a couple places are bankrupt and no restaurant is doing good business. Every corporation has frozen employment for free of more losses. You cannot even staige at any of the MGM properties, well under their code anyways. You can sneak in if you persuade the right chef. everything is at a stranglehold here, good luck.

The alumni department doesnt do as good of a job as they say they do. They have records for everyone but unless someone updates their information it never gets changed. There were no listed CIA grads in my county growing up, but somehow I was able to work with eight, strange right. Since I lived in Palm Beach around two years ago I can honestly say there are far more than one in that county. The executive chef of The Breakers is an alumni plus five leading chefs and pastry chefs, not to mention dozens of alumni cooks. I am sure Cafe Boulud has a couple CIA Alumni as well. I just met Wes Holton who was an alumni and he just came from the cafe in palm beach, he is the chef at the brasserie here in Vegas so I woudn't doubt whoever took his place is an alumni, or someone under that person. You can also check out L'Europe. Hell if your birthday is right around the corner you might as well just say you are 18, for a staige you don't have to file any paper work. If I had to do it all over again without the edge I had, I would probably take a dishwasher job. Get the cleaning work done quickly and ask to cut some vegetables or something. Next thing you know you are putting together a lot of recipes and base work for sauces, soon enough someone will quit and they will show you how to execute the remaining portion of the pantry position. Next thing you know there is a new dishwasher and you and making salads and tuna tartare. I know there are a lot of little simple places in florida. apply to duffy's sports bar and cooks some quesadillas and hamburgers. You have to try and make friends with people already working somewhere. People who know you are more likely to try you out. There is a level of psychology that if you are close to someone, they don't mind helping you because by helping you they feel they are helping themself. Ask your parents, family, neighbors or anyone you are connected with if they can get you a lead into a kitchen. Your first job doesn't have to be glamorous, but if you could steer away from the fast food, I would.

too much starch (carbs). Americans want meat on their sandwich and want to save their carbs for sweets, or french fries. If all you have is english muffins and potatoes maybe its not so bad, but I think people will always pick a turkey sandwich on focaccia or a potato sandwich. When I read the title I though the potato was being used as the crust(bread) and that sounded pretty good to me, but once you took the meat away, I lost interest . Though I have been one to put shredded and sautéed potatos and onions on my burger.

give it up, give it up, give it up, give it up. Unless you are a godsend on the horn and it will carry you through college with a scholarship, GIVE IT UP! I was very good at football and baseball, but I did not play a single year in all four years of highschool, though I was a competitive swimmer I was able to do that because my meets were during the winter when business was exceptionally slow so i was able to finagle myself to arrive at work later in the evening and take swim meet days off which may be once or twice a week, no biggie. But had swimming gotten in the way I would have killed that one too. I was so devoted to work for more reasons than just career orientation, but thats beside the point. If you want people to take you seriously you have to gie up the elementary crap. This is an industry that will take your life away. Ha, there are so many threads here devoted to people who have had it with this industry because they are so beat up it kind of makes me laugh (because if I didn't laugh I would most definitely cry). It was a good suggestion to search out CIA alumni, if they hear of your devotion to enter the CIA they are very likely to at least let you staige. If you have no experience I suggest you pay a lot of attention, their are a lot of rookie mistakes. I was fortunate to know probably everyone in the restaurant industry in my region through my father, so getting a line position at 15 was more than an easy task, I actually had selection of which place I wanted to work at, so I feel bad you are having such a tough time. I am curious to know what part of florida you are in exactly? And also I would keep chain restaurants as a last resort, because I think their are a lot of people in this industry that may hold it against you. A lot of ridiculous philosophy with chefs in this world. You can always contact the ACF as well. Check out conventions if one pops up, it will give you a chance to talk to local chefs, be persistent. There will be times when you are at a chefs door and all you want to do is walk away for fear of rejection, but that one time you were sure to get rejected will be the person to bring you on, so just get it in your head that whatever happens doesn't matter, you will make it someday.

First of all nowhere did i see you mention the two years of work experience that is needed to get into the Culinary. Secondly, the best suggestion that i can give you is to go to the CIA and do the 4 year program. that way you get not only the cooking aspect of the culinary, but the business aspect of the education. there are many different programs that the CIA offers in there 4 year degree program that will be beneficial to you in the course of your career. (cause god knows not everyone wants to be a commis for the rest of your life) Let me know if you have anymore questions chefjgates@yahoo.com ← HUH!?! two years? it is 6 months required and we have discussed this countless times that it is so easy to side step the work experience required that anyone with a part time barista job can get in on that "experience". Many different programs that cia offers? They offer three to be exact, nothing more, nothing less. Baking and Pastry, Culinary Arts and restaurant and hotel management. Though strangely in the 16 or so months for the bachelors program after the aos is finished only includes one culinary class where both culinary students and pastry students are jammed into one room (which I kind of like) and work together on not so advanced projects. Harry, take it from a guy you may have a lot in common with. If it's science you seek, a strictly classical school like CIA is not going to enlighten you. But if its great food you seek, a university will give you little to nothing on that aspect. I can't tell you how many chemists and "food scientists" I know who couldn't scramble an egg or boil pasta. So you need to find out which is harder for you to teach yourself or gain understanding without formal education because I am sure you dont want to go to school for 8 years to work in a restaurant. I chose CIA because I can very easily teach myself organic chemistry, and have. Though ingredients are expensive and so is equipment so CIA wasn't the worst choice in the world. The greatest thing about being at CIA was the constant discussion I had with my chefs. You won't get that automatically, you have to force it out of them sometimes. So figure out what will the easiest for you to understand relatively on your own and go from there.

Guittards 72% works wonderfully with Pinot Noir. Thats kind of lame they only want chocolate items. Wine makers who do not appreciate food? strange, at least thats the way it looks to me.

pick up a lot of books. Sit down. Read. Visit as many research facilities as possible. experiment with ideas. staige. staige. staige. Save your money, go to UF, it has a very good food science program, not as highly rated as cornell but one of the best. Search online for programs to sign up for, lectures to join. In four years, you might not want to cook anymore. These restaurants aren't going to hire some kid straight out of a university, regardless of what you want to do, you need to move around and gain some experience. If your parents are paying your tuition, cia is a great choice. If you are paying for it..... well, lelts just say I think about that choice everyday of my life.

I never liked this recipe. You can use plain maltodextrin, milk powder and caramelized sugar. Grind up the hardened caramelized sugar with milk powder and maltodextrin. When you add cream to the mix you are adding water content, and only bringing it to 230f leaves quite a bit of water content in the mix. The more water you have, the more maltodextrin you need to absorb. If you start will little to no water content the you only need a fraction of tapioca maltodextrin. Instead of 30% you may only need about 5% and a weird gloppy ball won't form on your tongue.

all of these styles have been around for a long time. Stacking has been around since ferdinand point. And the style you are describing is sort of a mixture of japanese and what people claim to be spanish styling but really the style that is referred to as "spanish" is actually a knock off of modern italian plating that I guess never really pushed its way out with "star chefs". I like this style of plating but when people copy it they don't always know what they are doing. So people just thrown little sprigs of micro greens on a plate just because they have seen other people do it. Putting micro beet greens on a plate that has beets makes sense, but putting them on a plate with a mixed veg and rack of lamb is sort of unnecessary. A lot of people today are adapting to visual appeal and not really considering the dish from the ground up so the person who created the dish, their view may be very biased while someone about to eat it may look at it as a random assortment of products taken out of the walk-in. They way food will change, but not how you think it will/expect. The reason is because the plates are actually "evolving" not just changing. People are collectively finding what works best on all levels, so little things may change but I don't think we are going to see a "movement" like you would in art because even though chefs are artists on many aspects they are also businessmen, leaders, creators, motivators and adjustors. An artist only has to worry about what people will like to see, or for the self-indulgent, what they like to see. A chef has to stay in business and keep people employed so their is far from going into a menu then a painting. And their really are many styles at work these days. I have picked up a few things here and there all over the place, and I can say with ease that I do not keep seeing the same thing over and over, granted I do continuously see things I feel could be rearranged or better presented, I do not see the same thing over and over. What you may start to see in the future is not simply the way things are plated but what they are plating them on. Obviously Alinea and other restaurants have put a lot of focus into this but I would put money on the ideas becoming more and more accepted. I have seen a lot of restaurants get a few strange new pieces of dining ware to present their food, usually just a few for high profile guests, but as time goes by I think they may become more and more standard kind of like the various plateware and glassware, and even silverware we see today that we would not have seen twenty years ago.

I will say this, it really shaped the cocktail's history. The need to mask the flavor of poorly or quickly produced alcohols without much aging (or any at all) helped create most of the classic cocktails we know today. It was also estimated that people (when they could) were drinking far more whenever they could because they didn't know how long it would be before they had another drink. I am sure it had a substantial effect on food because wine is so important for many sauces. It probably had an effect on some commonly preserved foods. Since there was little to no refrigeration at the time pastry/dessert wasn't really too common so alcohol wasn't missed too much there except for in cooking fruits like cherries jubilee and banana's fosters. I do know this, when prohibition was lifted it actually helped bring the economy out of the depression. Finally people were aloud to drink without punishment and the government was able to tax alcohol. They were losing a lot of taxes from illegally bootlegged alcohol. In fact it was they opposite, they were spending loads of money trying to stop it, so the what was a cost flipped to a profit. Another interesting observation was that prior to prohibition men and women rarely had a drink together. Men would drink in saloons/taverns/bars while women mainly had their drinks at home. Due to the fact it was hard for and singular person to get a hold of their own alcohol, women had to pack into speakeasies along side men, thus the first "clubs" were born and probably how the dance age came about (charleston, bopper).

why can't you use ground up puff pastry?

sorry kenneth, I didnt bother answering your question because the topic was so long already I didnt read and figured someone answered already. You can achieve a foam like that with soy lecithin, methyl cel or xanthan. Just bur mix until you have enough foam an scoop it off. on the other hand poly glycol will allow you (in conjunction with methyl cel or xanthan) to get a very smooth foam that is really unlike any others. Versa whip is tremendously easy to use. Just add about 1.5% to any liquid and whip it like egg whites.

I dont know why people keep calling foam air. Something isn't and "air" until you vaporize it. Just because you are trapping air inside peptid and lipid bonds doesn't make it "air" it is just aerated. Sorry, I am a bitch when it comes to language, but is there anyway we can continue to call it a "foam" until has particle dispersion and properties of what is actually "air" or a "gas". The main reason I ask this is because it is possible to make flavored air, but no one does this, as far as I know. Something that I would like to start working on in the future. But the thing is, with the air you would still have to trap it. So if the product inside the trapping is the flavor, then call it air, but if the trapping itself is the flavor, we should call it foam. Thank you.

you know, from that company we always get them from, except this week because they ran out so we got them from another company. Does this bag look bigger to you? I don't know, does it matter? Probably not, a bag is a bag is a bag.

Oh yea, there is so much artistry and finesse in messing up a recipe because a recipe calls for cup up chopped pineapple or a teaspoon of orange peel? what? I guess in an artists mind a gumbo is much more artistic than a composed pastry. I am not picking on you gfweb, I know thats not your quote, I am picking on all those cooks who told me pastry is a science and cooking is an art. thats like saying dry walling is a science and roofing is an art. what? My argument can go on all day with this one simple ignorant quote. What that person should say is "my cognitive ways limit my drive to be better".

Ted, I have probably worked, staged and trailed in around 35 kitchens across the country, the only person who had weights for savory menus was in a restaurant run and owned by a pastry chef. Cooks are generally afraid of a scale, I have no idea why. Something about turning it on I guess. I have tried so hard to convert people. They keep telling me its faster to use a measuring cup yet they walk around the kitchen for a half an hour looking for one and the scales never move but a couple feet. It may be a verryy long time before weighing becomes a dominate feature, maybe never.

What is the point? All of the restaurants here are laying people off left and right because of the economy. I know a few pastry chefs who had to dumb down their desserts considerably so anyone could plate them. Also, why RAO's? There are probably three or four restaurants at Caesars alone I would pick over RAO's. That includes the forum shops. And Charlie's is rumored to be closing its doors soon. I don't know if its true but I have been hearing it a lot over the past couple of months. There are tons of other restaurants they could be checking out instead of that list, and they don't have to stick with the strip, there are some pretty good places off strip as well. oh well, las vegas will always be hype.

practice your rolling skills....

whoever said they are making panna cotta gelato is pulling your leg. Thats like saying your making puff pastry cake. what? Since panna cotta doesn't have a distinctive "flavor" you can't make it into another texture. It is panna cotta because of the texture. SO once you churn it, its not panna cotta, its eggless ice cream that seems to have gelatin in it for some reason. There are plenty of recipes for icce cream that do not use eggs, so this idea is misconstrued, sorry.

I suggest that you measure it into a metal bowl that you can heat up over a flame quickly and then add into the recipe when needed.