chiantiglace

If you dont call cornstarch molecular gastronomy, stop calling hydrocolloids molecular gastronomy. We really have to stop this ridiculous trend. Herve This' book molecular gastronomy is an example of what a scientist does to examine food and make it better by understanding it at a molecular level. Using alginate doesn't mean you understand anything at a molecular level so why do we keep using this title! by the way, the food one this site doesn't look that great, looks like something I could have bought 10 years ago.

I guess that would be anything edible. Sounds like a good speech.

Why do I always get to these things after they have already blown up. There is always good with the bad, of course. Tim is a bit mis-lead. I think he may not realize how to be the best president. The whole time at school I resented the fact that I never saw him. Though I did go to a meeting with him and about 40 other students to discuss the schools progression and where it sat amongst other schools. The truth is, CIA is still ahead of everyone else, so how much can we really complain? The real problem is a lack of truly devoted students. Maybe they should drop down, but if they did they wouldn't be able to build the new stuff like the the restaurants, the library, the rec center, the baseball field, the lodges, the new asian cuisine center, the latin food center, etc. The increase in students is needed not only for money but just to put bodies in the seats or at the stations. Nobody knows this more than me and my close personal friends that ran all the clubs and on campus organizations. I once had the president of the ales club, wine club, cheese club, and gourmet society just to help me promote Sam Masons event because the students their are just lame. But you know what, its not just there, its everywhere. We really aren't looking at the big picture. All grades and schools from 6th grade up are seriously lacking compared to the rest of the world. We have allowed our society to grow soft. This situation at CIA is just one tiny spec in a sea of problems, but we as culinary enthusiasts are noticing it at our level. If we really want to fix the problem we need to start demanding competition in all schools and get the government out of it. If you start increasing a high demand for learning, cost will go down too. And don't get me started on the loans, I won't be making my electric payment this month because I had to dish out another $550. All school did for me was make it harder for me to get a job. People dont even pay attention to the long list of experience behind the degree, all they see is I graduated last year. I have had maybe a dozen people tell me I was unqualified for a pastry chef position because I had no managerial experience on my resume, but had they taken the time to read beyond the school they would have seen I have been a pastry chef of a bakery and a restaurant before I decided to go. I am probably one of few people in this world that school became a deterrent, even when I did so much to provide for the school. I even had to watch Tim Ryan give the leadership award to the biggest drunk in my class who never participated in a single thing for the school, not even group leader, yet for some reason a guy who founded a group, turned two clubs around, provided students the ability to meet four high profile chefs and assembled a number of tastings for the students by the students and a few large companies, I guess he was just too good of a leader. The school doesn't care, it really doesn't. I have often thought of writing Ryan a nice long letter, but one of my mentoring instructors advised me that it would be a waste of my energy because he will never read it, I don't blame him because I probably knew more about that school than he did. That might be a big reason why I haven't finished my diary, sorry about that I just didn't care to remember why my life has become so difficult. But to add to all of it, I don't want to hear anyones bullshit about the students not being taught enough, because of all my touring in this country so far, the average chef is far behind what he should be. There is a ridiculous amount of impotence and bullshit in this business. Everyone has a philosophy to make themselves feel better and nobody wants to be put to the test. I beg for someone to give me six hours in a kitchen, but the excuses are endless. This industry is parallel to the instability and blurred future of the american economy.

Well if anyone wants to start a new one, I'll join in.

thats for sure.

I googled the breakers.... WOW! Nice dining rooms! Not too much info about the brunch itself though..... could you describe it in a little further detail? ← Oh, well, I am not sure if I can remember that much. I know the dining area is in the circle dining room which has amazing painted walls, incredible chandeliers and beautiful light. The whole space is very open and free flowing so its hard to run into people. There are maybe 6 or 7 chefs performing different stations. One station has all kinds of meats like rotisserie chickens and duck I think as well as beef and turkey carvings. One station does crepes I believe and another does omelletes any eggs any style. There is french toast and belgian waffles as well as a few kinds of breakfast meats constantly prepared and brought out. All the products are carefully held in small-ish quantities and new products are constantly being brought in to replace what has been sitting for maybe 10-15 minutes. I remember their being lamb and shrimp (I think) station for the dinner-ish eaters. I remember that because every sunday I use to flirt with the 30 something year old brazilian girl who worked it. There was also a full sushi station with at least a dozen different kinds of maki as well as sashimi and nigiri. There was a full section of fruits and raw vegetables on ice near all kinds of cold foods like srhimp cocktail and steamed crab legs and lobster. There were always centerpieces of carved ice that helped make up the cold food table lay out. With the cold food I believe there were also clams and oysters. Most peoples favorite part of brunch there was the dessert set up. We had about 20 feet of table spaced set up in a semi-cirlce against the back wall that had somewhere around 40 plates and trays of all kinds of different desserts that we began preparing 3 or 4 days in advance. The craziest part of all was the fat that once a tray was roughly half way empty it got tossed. The whole set up had to look full all the time. We through enough food away in one brunch session to feed probably 300 people. It's sad, but thats what the people are paying for. Also thats not it. The have professional florists come in and decorate every week, adn every week it is different. Different kinds of vases and ornaments as well as sculptures sometimes. They really go all out to make it look like its like that all the time, but by monday everything goes back to normal.

When you say you scrubbed it out really good does that imply that it had previously been used for.... Concrete?!

If you have a lot of money and desire one hell of a brunch, check out The Breakers brunch every sunday for about $98 a person and $50something for children under 12. If you dont mind spending the money you will find some of the freshest food available at any brunch and dozens of action stations including sushi, omelet's, pancakes and waffles, and meat carving, lamb and shrimp, and countless desserts.

humorously I say: exactly when does breakfast end and lunch begin, and where is there the gap. Brunch is served all the way up to 3 o'clock typically and can begin as early as 8.

I would think the concrete mixer rotated too slowly to be very effective. Also the leaf inside the barrel that helps break up dry clumps in the concrete I would think would pose a problem with the chocolate coating (especially sugar coatings) because while the concrete is wet it isn't nearly as adhesive as cooling chocolate or sugar in general. But hell, give it a try I guess. If you could successfully cut off the leaf, and maybe tweak the motor to a higher rpm then I'd say you had a winner. But the biggest question before that is, what alloy is the machine made out of and what are the contaminates of the coating. As long as it doesn't react to food (like basic aluminum, tin, lead) then you are golden.

I would assume it came about during weddings, church service, early sporting events, community gatherings, and maybe christenings that all happened relatively early in the day where people may have somewhat missed their breakfast and are rolling straight into lunch hour. I guess insteadd of just having a sandwich and calling it a day families started to create brunch-like meals for the gatherings that consisted of basic breakfast foods (staple meats and sweetbreads) as well as the typical hors dourves and lunch items like pasta, salads and open face sandwich's. Eventually restaurants catching on to the idea probably began to offer sunday brunch who relied heavily on a famished church crowd as well as the influx of other celebrations around the year.

Really we dont need to get into to it but the bigger problem is establishing a stable economy for the people. The worst thing we can do is just feed them, then they become even more helpless and reliant on us or a "government" to support them. It really comes down to "teach a man to farm and he can feed himself for a lifetime" instead of just feeding him. So whatever we do, hopefully a combination of many things, we really need to focus on how to promote food growth in places its just not working out. If certain varieties of gm crops are the only way to work, then so be it but we should be constantly looking in a broad fashion at all possibilities to create the ultimate solution.

I actually do this a lot, and I believe many other chefs do this as well. The first time I saw it was from Stephane Weber in his brown butter ice cream. We didn't get enough of that nutty flavor so we through together a mixture with 50% milk solids in the butter to brown. Ever since then I have always added extra milk solids to my brown butter may it be ice cream, cookies, financies, cake, whatever.

The time is always right to develop. When to use that development may be the question. In fact the more we develop and map that better because when it comes time to plant we will have had a head start. If the only thing that will grow in a region of starving people is a gm, do you stop them from growing it?

Monsanto is kind of interesting. I read somewhere they were having people arrested if they found certain varieties of their seeds in a persons possession. Anne I apologize, I am going to respond to your statements, but I was a little confused so my response may not be appropriate, though it is still relative to the discussion. Doc I agree, some companies just aren't to be trusted, with a little bit of intelligence a lot of danger can occur. The good thing about genetic modification of bananas is that they are sterile and the corms have to be physically planted by human hands. Unfortunately not all plants are like this, so gm corn could overlap into regional varieties creating franken corn. That is a serious problem and large companies seem to be negligent towards it. To respond to what I believe was being said about genetic modification needing other varieties of the same product to make it better (I think thats what was said), that is not the case. In fact that is one of the main reasons genetic modification is being called in because certain "heirloom" varieties have been so wide spread that less popular varieties get pushed into the background to the point where they are non-existent. Unfortunately so much land has be cleared over the lsat few centuries for specific varieties of fruit and vegetables that wild varieties are destroyed before they are even discovered. Now scientists are taking a few remaining varieties and adding genes from all sorts of places, even bacteria and animals. There are tomato varieties with one or more bacteria genetic strains that have replaced some of the genes in the tomato to make it more resilient to pests, or climate, or whatever. I think that is what people fear the most. Maybe its not such a big deal that a tomato gets a gene from an artichoke or a nut, but that can cause major cross contamination problems. Look at soy. There was a large amount of soy that had to be pulled from market because it contained some genes from Brazilian nuts, and since there are plenty of people in the world with strong allergies to the nut they responded towards the soy as well. And it could also play a role when (as discussed previously) modified varieties cross breed naturally with local or un-modified varieties. Then people all the sudden have allergies to soy because nobody knows what plant has the brazilian nut gene and which ones do not. We should do everything we can to help feed the world, we should look at all possibilities and all possible outcomes pertaining to what we decide to do. There isn't going to be just one answer that will save the world. I just recently read about companies build agriculture in the ocean for phytoplankton so that we can increase the fish population in the oceans. The only problem is, there is no realestate in the ocean, only working rights (like drilling or fishing) with each country and then there is international water, so how does one claim a piece of ocean to farm their? heres a link: cato

Have you had the mini burgers at The Source?

The Source

change of scenery is the only thing that will get you back in. I suggest start making as many friends in the industry as you can, something positive will turn up, it always does. If I wouldn't worry about someone getting pissed at you for firing their buddy due to incompitence. Maybe its time make a decision for them, because if they have been there forever and still suck at their job then they need a little kick in the pants. If the others dont like it, tough, your the boss, and if they a start slacking or causing problems and you can tell them to hit the road. You are never going to be happy until you get a team you are perfectly comfortable with (which is pretty much impossible but you should be able to do better than what you got). Maybe your looking at yourself as a babysitter/manager rather than a leader. I think if everyday you woke up and felt like someone was felt really good about you working by there side, it would make you feel good too and thus the cycle of betterment comes about. Also your staff should be good enough to be able to give you some free time. If you are running your ass into the ground for some people who should already know how to do their job, then you are wasting your time, change it out. If you need a change so bad, I would go over every option carefully. Sorry I dont have any advice towards that, It always depressess me when people feel dont like what they do.

I also wanted to add that previously one in a million fish eggs would survive to adult hood in latter days, now farms are able to get nearly 80%, that is a huge increase.

I hope to add a bit. If anyone gets a chance to read Kippels "A Moveable feast" that came out last year I highly reccomend it. First of all, the world needs (at current standards) TWO MORE EARTHS as predicted to give proper sustinence to all the people on the planet. That is intense. So why not look to science. I dont think anyone should shout out any opinion that hasn't at least looked at some facts, not saying anyone has just for future testiment. I think everything should be done with care and concern, but I see no reason to modify some food to feed dying people. If boosting tomatoes with more products to decrease defficiency in asia, that why would we want to stop it. This discussion should be held just like any other, going over each detail carefully. There is no "yes" or "no" answer here, on vague answer could be davastating to a large number of people. Recently rice has been modified to be able to grow in considerable harsh enviroments it has not in the past, and not only grow easier and fuller, but with beta carotene provided inside now as well. That helps labor, time, effieciency and nutrition. Also grains like rye and wheat have been modified to give fuller bodies of berries and grow much closer to the ground to make harvesting much easier. Are these such terrible things? At one time, thousands of years ago before agriculture one group of people needed 12 acres of land to thrive on, now one acre of land can produce enough food for 3000 people. Something to think about is the amount of beef and pork we consume (america and europe). 1/4 of the central american rainforest has been cleared just to raise cattle for Mcdonalds hamburgers, thats quite amazing. Just think if we all keep eating hamburgers. You can a lot more protein per acre from farm raised fish, but for the biggest consumers in the world beef and pork still surpass in consumption. I have heard recently that chicken has been consumed far more than in recent years (probably because of cost). And we have all heard of the rivers and waterways contaminated by poorly handled hog farms. Maybe agriculture and livestock has gone as far as its going to go naturally, maybe its time to really invest in science. Besides, why does science always get a bad rap for things, some scientist do stupid things, but some do amazing things. If a scientist can develop "frankenfruits" to survive without pesticides and herbicides I will take it over the common produce consumed today. Modified genes dont bother me, undigestible chemicals do.

how about a banana? I definitely second the jabuticaba, nobody has this fruit, talk about a specialty order and they loook soo cool. Only problem is they may produce so much fruit your yard will be littered with the little grape/plum like balls.

Have any pictures adam? crossection?

It also makes a difference when the butter is being added. Do we think that cold, soft or melted butter can make a difference in brioche? So I would have to ask the percentage of butter in the recipe and when its added. If you are adding it at the beginning with the water I would reccomend melting it, if you add it at the end and there is a high percent I would reccomend that you keep it homogenized. but then you are whipping it wiith sugar, so that doesn't really make much sense to me.

well if you are talking about if they will still work after the expiration date has passed, then I haven't seen any changes. I have an alginate container that is a little more than a year passed the expiration, and I havent seen any changes in strength.

Just to add, I dont remember seeing enything in this article about the research facility in belgium who has been doing quite a bit of research themselves (mainly through genetic modification and test tube growth) have significantly supported african banana populations. But still, from what I have read about the goldfinger is it isn't creamy like the gro michel or cavendish, so it may not be as popular as these people hope it to be.