pastrygirl

I find smells particularly hard to ignore, and some do make me feel queasy, which interrupts the eating experience. Like when I bought a used car from a dealer and they detailed it with something that smelled exactly like urinal cake - cheap industrial cleaner perfumey smell. I was really upset. It's been a year and the smell is mostly gone, though I do get a whiff every now and then when the car has been closed up for a few days. There are some flowers that turn my stomach, I can't handle those really fragrant lilies or more than a whiff of gardenia. As for dining patrons, there have only been a few times when I was seriously put off by another's perfume or cologne. I think I skipped dessert or took the rest of my food to go.

What happened is, sugar is a fickle mistress! I'd give repairing it a shot, add a little water and heat it back to bubbling then carefully blend with an immersion blender and cook to temp.

How can you avoid a scent in the air? Or are there no scents you dislike so you are never bothered?

I was surprised recently to see black garlic at Trader Joe's. I guess it's more mainstream than I had thought!

I don't see why they wouldn't be technically edible, but would they be any good? How fleshy or hard are the seeds? Maybe if nothing else you could sprout the seeds.

We do have good pizza in Seattle or at least reasonably "authentic" if you get the craving. I don't know about east coast pizza, but via Tribunali, pizzeria 22, and I think a few others are VPN certified. Lots of Asian cuisines to choose from, some with more upscale options such as lionhead, monsoon, seven beef, ba bar, joule, kraken congee. We also have a couple of branches of Din Tai Fung - I don't know how they compare to Shanghai, but I certainly do enjoy the juicy pork buns (soup dumplings).

The video I linked to above looked ok on my phone but not my laptop, here's another using the raplette

@Jim D. check out the bottom video, that's a lot of ganache!

I try to work quickly and not mess with it too much. I put my frames on silpats on top of parchment - the parchment is so I can grab the silpat and gently shake the frame to help level it. I will have to try @Chocolot's zigzag method, I am intrigued!

http://bedding.lovetoknow.com/table-linens/chart-standard-tablecloth-sizes This chart says 8-12 inches.

Very ... Rustic

How big are the nib pieces? Do they get cut or pushed aside?

"ethnic cuisines that are not well-represented at home" ... such as? In Seattle: lots of great Vietnamese food here, pho or pickup from a deli Farmers markets usually have a few food trucks or carts, especially South Lake Union on Saturday Eating your way through Pike Place Market is always fun, try the szechuan flatbread sandwiches across from Emmett Watson's oyster bar I'm not sure what the Belltown scene is like anymore, it seems pretty bar-focused. There are some decent places on 1st, Local 360, Macrina for breakfast/bread. You could walk from Belltown up to Taylor Shellfish on lower Queen Anne. Also on QA, a lot of people love Toulouse Petit, especially for brunch (I wasn't that impressed). And if you just feel like a salad one night, the Whole Foods on Westlake and the Metropolitan Market on Mercer both have good prepared food & salad bars. Le Pichet on 1st near the Market is a perennial favorite and easy on the wallet. Quinn's on Capitol Hill is a good casual spot for meat and beer. Lots happening on Capitol Hill theses days, I can barely keep track. Do check the Eater top 38. I don't know if I've ever seen oyster stew on a menu here, it may exist and I haven't noticed or it may be more of an east coast thing. Plenty of raw oysters, though!

+1 if pretzels and too-firm gianduja both will break multiple strings at once (which I know from experience ), nibs would be a disaster. Best case scenario would be that they caught on the strings and pulled through the ganache, but that would still be a disaster. Sprinkle on top either before or after dipping, but definitely after cutting!

Go for it! I mix feuilletine into peanut butter gianduja all the time. The coconut oil shouldn't interfere with the crispness at all.

Amazon would definitely be worth looking into. They ask for different percentages based on category, IIRC its 10-20%. Definitely worth the reach that amazon offers. I've been meaning to explore it more myself.

I don't know, I've never made dumplings myself. If it is a softer dough, it might not sheet as well. You'll also have to weigh whether the labor and waste of the ravioli method is really more efficient than making by hand. Or use wonton wrappers I've eaten a lot of dumplings though, and aside from ravioli, they all seem to be formed from one piece of dough rather than two. So depending on what cuisine you are claiming to replicate, it may be confusing to your clientele to receive something that looks like ravioli but is supposed to be xao long bao, or shumai, or wontons, or momos, etc. Just something to consider. Good luck!

kerekes has a magnetic mold that's not fluted. http://binged.it/1RXbtaS as for hobby molds, you can get a decent shine but they are harder to work with, floppy and trickier to scrape and handle when full of chocolate. Some of them don't have smooth tops (a ridge around the edge) that also interferes with shell molding. I use a few hobby molds for the occasional solid piece, when I do I pipe the chocolate in rather than ladle and scrape.

kerekes has a magnetic mold that's not fluted. http://binged.it/1RXbtaS as for hobby molds, you can get a decent shine but they are harder to work with, floppy and trickier to scrape and handle when full of chocolate. Some of them don't have smooth tops (a ridge around the edge) that also interferes with shell molding. I use a few hobby molds for the occasional solid piece, when I do I pipe the chocolate in rather than ladle and scrape.

Check out Squarespace and the other website builders - Shopify, Weebly, I'm sure there are more. You do need to invest some time into writing content and creating images, but if you can do that you can put together a decent site without having to pay a website designer. I use Squarespace for my website and it works pretty well for me. I'm sure it could use a few tweaks by someone with that specialized knowledge, but it's intuitive enough for those of us who aren't tech nerds to upload content, adjust inventory, and ship orders. Chances of launching a website and starting to make a living overnight are slim. You will need to do further SEO, marketing, advertising, outreach, etc. What do you think will make your site exceptional? Selection? Quality? Price? Tea of the month club? Fast shipping or fancy packaging? If you're not already in business, consider what you want your brand to represent before you build the site.

You'd have to melt all the butter gobs, not just half of them.

Are fluted edges ok, or does your heart desire smooth? I know I've seen some large disc magnetic molds out there, but IIRC they were fluted.

Thanks for the correction. But France still doesn't have the vast range and prairie lands we have that facilitate pumping out cheap beef for everyone. Even if there are more feedlots than cattle drives, cattle are inefficient and growing feed corn takes space too.

I think the US' meat habit comes in part from having Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming - lots of space for beef cattle to range. France is the size and latitude of Oregon - also know for its lamb and ducks. Farming is probably on a bit smaller scale there, and you can fit more ducks than cows on a few hectares, and they are more suited to the climate.

I would think that any poured glaze will still be a little soft and sticky when set. Give your cake a generous gap between it and the box and drive carefully