Irishgirl

White Chocolate would also be an option.

Can you say rigormortis? Ever tried to pinbone a fish in rigor? Been there. Not Fun. I'll wait the few extra hours thanks.

At first I thought "Sweetside"....but now.....Sugarella? In Ontario.....

Another perspective on salt on the tables..... A former boss of mine removed the salt and pepper shakers from his tables not because he wished to imply that the food needed no further seasoning, but because the customers kept stealing them. He had bought some beautiful shakers and they cost $100 per set. He didn't want to buy tacky looking ones.....but it was just easier to keep track of the inventory. At the request of the diner, they were provided, and then removed when the mains were cleared. Sometimes things are not what they seem. I do object to the waiter who is so obvious in his sales technique, that they are pushing something on you before you have finished what was already requested. I also find the ploy of "Fresh Ground Pepper" at the table repulsiuve, because most of the time they ask me if I wish it before I have tasted my food. To me it is a ploy to convince the diner that they are getting good service. Did I like the article? No. It was not well written. Can I identify with some of it? Yes. Can I scoff at some of it? Yes. She is obvoiusly a spoiled woman. But the whole "on the side" bit in When Harry met Sally, demonstrates that. Which is why Harry describes Sally as "high maintenance". Carry on.

Would you be able to give details about how to build one, as I am interested in this option. And is this a system without soil, as the aerogarden is? How is the germination done? on a moisture mat? Thanks!

After avoiding voting for quite a long period......I vote PIE! (I had two pieces of the most delicious juicy peach pie for breakfast, and now my husband is following suit.) Qualifiers: 1) More often than pie...I will make tarts, partially because I really like any tart out there, but also because I try to tell myself that they are more "healthy" than the two crusted pie. 2) Yes, there is a lot of bad pie out there, but after working in the food industry for so long and seeing what people pass as cake.....I contend that there is just as much bad cake! 3) If you haven't tried Jeffrey Steingarten's pie crust recipe at the end of "The Man Who Ate Everything"....please do. It's a winner. 4) Most "cakey" items that I do order in restaurants are of the fudgy puddingy type. Which I do not really qualify as cake. 5) I would never have two pieces of cake for breakfast. Carry on.

I heard that there is a restaurant that is run by one of the culinary instructors at VCC with culinary students as cooks. I think it is called JJ's or something like that. It is supposed to be a great deal. WAY better bang for your buck. I for one, do not go anymore because I can't justify paying $7-12 for a nasty corn dog or a soggy burger. But if you try/find this place, let us know how it is. My sister had to get her Little Donut fix last week. She went. Got her fix. Came home. Good luck!

Typically, caramel ice cream will be softer than most other ice creams. When I make caramel ice cream, I will not add additional sugar to caramelize. I take a portion of the sugar already in the base recipe that i have for vanilla ice cream and caramelize that. The reasoning is that additional sugar will push down the freezing point at which the ice cream will freeze. This is very apparent with sorbets, where if you get the Baume too high (sugar saturation) the sorbet will be too soft or not freeze. If the Baume is too low, then your sorbet will will be grainy (icy) rather than smooth - because the freezing temperature of water is higher than that of syrup. This is why a lot of sorbets taste VERY sweet....because the saturation of sugar is right for the amount of liquid. The way to balance the taste out is to add some acidity like lemon juice or some ascorbic acid. Whoops......sorry to sound so technical.. I had gingerbread, some butterscotch pudding (baked & cakey), some carrot cake and a Cinnamon Sugar Homemade Donut! Today. I am now ready to burst.

I'm guessing Lorna & Henry....it seems to me that Ling gave a description of this very picture, but did not post a picture...I could be wrong. But after Alina's response....I have this funny feeling!

O.K. So you solved the problem with the taste...and sort of with the liquid...but I will reiterate what others have said: Do your meat and veg separately, and make sure your wok/pan is very hot. But- if you do put a lot of meat in a pan- even if it is hot, it can cool down the pan sufficiently enough that the meat will "Boil" in its' own juices instead of those juices caramelizing into a tasty crust on the meat. Either use a bigger pan, or smaller batches. This is one of many things that they pound into you in cooking school. Enjoy your next stirfry! And new glasses?

My complaint is about local fish. A lot of your line up is known here as "exotics"....Mahi Mahi, Marlin, Swordfish, Escolar, Ahi....All not local. Most of that comes through Hawaii. It's good, but I wish we could find a way to support the local fishermen in a way that they would be compelled to sell local fish here. So....What do we do?

In a word, yes. The Fishermen will sell to whomever will give them the best price....and a lot of the fish goes to the U.S. THen we have to pay U.S. prices to get the fish shipped back. Dungeness Crab is local and can be caught just about anywhere....but the best I find comes from the Queen Charlottes. As far as I know...Lobsters aren't indigenous to the west coast, which is why they come from the east. I think that the markets sell "Alaskan Crab" because they think that it sounds better....just like Alaskan Black Cod sounded better than Sablefish for years. The problem(s) are that the marketing isn't there for lesser known fish, and the demand therefore isn't there either. That stuff gets sent to Japan, or thrown back. I would love to be able to get Skate on a consistent basis....(By catch of Halibut)...but none of the fish suppliers offer it consistently with good quality. Skate HAS to be fresh, otherwise it tastes like iodine. But when it is fresh, it is so sweet and unlike any other fish out there. Some people call it poor man's crab. Yes there is a huge problem. Part of it is the fact that very few restauranteurs are willing to take the risk of promoting a product that the public is unfamiliar with. Few people are that adventurous. So we don't get the products. It's sad. I have complained about the availability of consistent fresh fish in this town for a long time.

My friend Xavier from Paris recommended Chabicou to me. I have yet to try it. But I did manage to find another of his recommendations: Crottin de Chavignol. The size and look is similar from what I understand. We had it quite young. (2-3 weeks) I am told that it is the traditional cheese to have baked on a goat's cheese salad. We breaded it, fried it, baked it, and the texture was quite soft, but somewhat mealy, almost like a cottage cheese but firmer. The flavour, when warm, was fantastic! Excellent with salad and few toasted nuts. Anyway, I don't have any pictures, as this was long ago, but thought that some of you might want to try some.

Did you ask to speak to management? If you did not....and did not make your feelings known at the establishment...then you did keep your mouth shut. These problems should be addressed at the restaurant, not in a forum. Save your ire for the people who actually wronged you, not the innocent people on this forum who actually did have a good time there.

That city bus ad has generated a lot of traffic in his restaurants. Oh, and John Bishop has had his face on a city bus as well. He's no idiot. I guess that it depends on what you think that he is losing in his reputation, by having his advertising on a bus. That particular type of advertising is very effective. It reaches a lot of people. Thinking that it detracts from his image just sounds downright predjudiced to me. Like what...you consider his image to be classy? And busses aren't classy? Sillyness. I would think that the dancing chef ad on the food network would do more damage to his rep.... but those are part of the contract when you have a show, and Rob can be a character, and perhaps he needed to convey to people that he is approachable. Whatever. Harmony might work to his advantage. Might not.

Love: Butter & Good Quality Dark Chocolate being melted together Fresh Basil Fresh Thyme Ripe Peaches Grilled Pork, Beef or Chicken Croissants Baking Fresh Ripe Tomatoes Vanilla Raspberries Chicken Stock Conchinita Pibil Earl Grey Tea Hate: COFFEE (Especially Espresso) Roasting Peppers Roasting Veal Bones Roasting Lobster Carcasses Chicken Fat Fish Sauce Lamb Fat Burning Herbs Deep Fryer Macdonalds (Someone in my building eats it all the time and the smell lingers in the elevator)

Lumiere was my first great restaurant experience. I grew up in a small farm town where the restaurant options were limited to pizza takeout and fried chicken, and when I moved to Vancouver, I saved up some money (it took me a while) and went to eat at Lumiere with a very charming girl from Barcelona. I had my first taste of lobster and fois gras. I think the tasting menu was around $65 or $70 back then. I have been back many times over the years, and sent many other people there. But since the White Spot commercials and ads with the feenie's face postered all over City Buses, they have lost the g-man market. ← Why? Because you think that he's a sellout? That's ridiculous! The food is still great! The thing about Rob is he understands a bit about business. It's called SUSTAINED PROFIT. There will always be new restaurants and the next great thing coming to Vancouver. He understands that he has to keep himself visible to his current demographic while at the same time trying to generate new business so that he can maintain SUSTAINED PROFIT. That is what keeps restaurants open...the profit margin. How he goes about doing this should not matter to you as long as you still have good experiences at his restaurants. I mean for pete's sake, John Bishop did one of those White Spot commercials and no one has talked about how they have lost respect for him! Bringing this back to Harmony....I think that it would have been a more effective tool if he had put an ad in the Magazine that they distribute in the seat pocket of the planes, but hey, they want to PAY HIM for his own advertising.....so he thinks....WHY NOT?!? As Neil points out, when you retire from cooking you either have to A) be really good and get paid lots (and learn to save) or B) win the lottery or C) have your next career ready and waiting. Rob is just cashing in on his hard work over the last 18-19 years. He deserves to do what he wants. You people are extremely harsh on a man who has proven his worth. Over and over. It's silly. Just as silly as how people are going to criticize his food on the plane.

Sorry Arne for being so sarcastic.... ...just sometimes I go HUH? when I see what people write. I can see how this could hurt Feenie. People will be expecting his food on the airline, but he will have no control over it. So when they get something inferior, which they will, because that expectation will be COMPLETELY unrealistic, they'll blame him because he's the visible one. Plus...why go to his restaurants when you already had his food on the plane? I don't know. I don't think that marketing is bad, but I think that the publics' perception of how things are done is ridiculous. Perhaps this was a silly move on his part, but he just sees Bruno Marti doing it, and says..."Oh hey, I could do that..." But what he doesn't realize is that he has further to fall. SORRY FOR BEING A COW!

Truly guys- You have to realize that this is just a consulting job, and that the work is already done. Rob has nothing to do with the food once Harmony has the recipes. He is not pulled out of his restaurants for this. This is just a gimmick to get people to fly Harmony. Whatever.

Before. Try to find an object that fits exactly into opening of the cooking vessel and weigh it down with a (wrapped) brick or unopened #10 can. ← I was planning on a disk of tin foil and pie weights. I guess the question is, should I try to somehow remove the rendered fat before weighting it and cooling it? ← When I have done large terrines/pates, I weight it upside down and let the weight of the terrine mold create the pressure against the block or object with which I am "weighting" it against. What happens is the rendered fat drains during the weighting process. It makes for a "cleaner" product. So in answer, I would advise to drain the rendered fat, but I doubt if you can use my method as you are doing individual ramekins and the weight would be negligeable (sp?). Although, if you really want to try it, my advice would be to use a small can (Tomato paste or sauce?), put a piece of saran wrapped cardboard between it and the terrine(s) and then invert each one onto a sheet pan and cover a few at a time with a pizza stone or some such thing (cutting board with additional cans on top?). I wouldn't advise a brick as they are so small. You refrigerate them inverted overnight. If you are adverse to getting rendered fat on your cans, then just saran wrap them too. Good luck!

Have you looked into the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at VCC? 6-30 hr courses with constant intake. Perhaps this is what you require? Another thought would be to phone the school board in the district that you wish to work in and ask them what they would require besides your expertise.

Ok....another thought about the butcher's block. What if you took the legs off the bottom, turned it over, put the legs on the top, filled the holes and sanded the bottom and started with some mineral oil right away..... Would this work? Is the bottom flat? It would save you from having to go and cut up this great piece of wood that obviously has a lot of life left in it. Or is it because the bottom is not finished as nicely as the top? Whatever, just trying to be helpful. Love the blog by the way.

Feenie's does not have Mac n' Cheese. Lumiere used to, but they changed their menu recently, and I do not know if they still have it.

Blackberries go great with: Vanilla Mint Citrus Fruits Black pepper Cilantro Lime (Yeah, OK, Citrus) Pears Peaches (DUH!) Rhubarb Raspberries Cinnamon Star Anise Fennel Basil Tarragon Dill my 2 cents edited to add dill

They're black and very sour. Thanks for the inspiration. Currant ice cream is calling out to me. I'd better dust off the Donvier. BTW, Aren't the raspberries great this year? Wow. ← If you do make ice cream.....try adding a little vanilla bean to it. Not a lot. This subtle nuance will MAKE that ice cream. Remember to strain before churning so that all the pits get removed. Black currants are supposed to be sour. Then when you make sweet things with them, they aren't overly sweet. Haven't got any raspberries yet. Maybe I'll pick some in the next couple of days. I'm waiting for the blackberries! MMMMMMM Jam! And Peach-Blackberry PIE! Can't wait for those Glowhavens to start appearing! **sigh** I love summer....