Suzanne F

Hey, hey. What about you, T? and your baby seal t-shirt, too.

No, Elyse, one pie will NOT be enough. Not if HWOE is here, too, which he should be. That's one of his favorites. And he's wonderful to experiment on. (Um, with recipes, I mean. ) No, Rachel, definitely NOT a walk-up. Elevator, please!! Although mine is the only apartment in the building with about 4 steps up and 4 steps down to get in (it's something to do with the fact that they added extra floors around 1903). Nothing like Lissome's though. (If I had stairs like hers, I'd be that svelte, too ) But I was planning on loading up my Coleman cooler with ice, so you need only bring what you need to keep your stuff cold. And your stuff sounds infinitely better than Friendly's. Yes, Jon: c'mon down! Baklava is great. And the more, the merrier. and one more thing: to anyone who is reading but has not been posting for whatever reason, I hope you will come. Truly. Yes, even you

Tommy, if you're interested in making money, you don't work in this business. Intrinsic rewards, yes; extrinsic, NOT ON YOUR LIFE. At least not for the vast majority.

I don't know, Nick, I almost lost it over Foodie 52's first from last night. Maggie, GOOD LUCK!!!!! These are all great.

Yup, Rachel is right: it's getting close, time for a head count, so I can have enough glasses washed, and figure out if I need to buy paper plates. Whose in? Yes, please, BYOB as well. I will supply seltzer and non-alcoholic Sorrel Drink (and ice), but that's about it.

As the big day approaches, a reminder: PM me for directions. Soba: your time request is just fine. You won't have to fight Elyse for the oven, will you?

Jessica Harris's Tasting Brazil is a lovely book, very well-written. But most of her seafood recipes are for shrimp, lobster, crab; not too many fish. And yes, the Rojas-Lombardi is in English. It might be a little hard to find, though, since it came out about 20 years ago.

What Elyse said. In response to both Soba and Belmont.

Dear all, I will be sending out directions via PM by the middle of next week. Public transportation, mostly; I rarely drive in the city, but I assume people who do can get themselves to major streets or what we laughingly refer to as " highways" in Manhattan. If you want specific directions beyond address, cross streets, and phone number to call if/when you get lost, please PM me with you nearest subway/bus line(s) (if coming via public transit), or your point of entry to Manhattan if driving. If you haven't heard from me by Friday, or Saturday morning, please PM me again or call me at the number I will supply. Sorry to make this all sound so complicated. It's actually going to be fun. I hope. ps to Belmont: is the tram running? If not, where can you get a bus to? As for the food: some of each? Whichever you need more practice making; both sound yummy!

No, Andy: 40 X 5.15 = $206. I can't imagine that anyone would get paid for 60, when it's illegal to work that many hours. OR: they'd get $360.50 if the place paid overtime, which is highly unlikely. First 40 at straight time, next 20 at time-and-a-half; and for all I know there's a limit on how many overtime hours one may "work" (= get paid for, regardless of actual time worked). Of all the places I worked in, only one paid overtime, and it was pulling teeth to get them to pay up according to my timecard. So this is also difficult to imagine. Tommy: if one is getting paid $10/per hour for a 40-hour week, but is working 60 hours, the effective rate of pay is $6.66 per hour. That's $1.51 above minimum. It looks a lot better if you show it as 29.3% above minimum, but the basis is still minimum wage. And this is all BEFORE taxes. Also, deduct at least $20/week carfare. And some places actually deduct a fixed amount per day for staff meal, whether you eat it or not. So what does that leave you? Remember too that there is no health insurance; or in the EXTREMELY unlikely event that there is, it ALL comes off the top. To everyone NOT in the industry: What is YOUR base rate? Your effective rate, when benefits are factored in? (You don't really have to answer; just think about it. )

Specifics, no, other than it was ruby. So the color comes from both the wine reduction AND the port reduction. Oh, and one other thing about the port reduction: once it gets down to about half, you have to watch it very carefully. I can't tell you how many pots I've had to de-carbonize from port that boiled out

I can tell you FOR SURE that it's the butter AND the technique of working it into the sauce. ( I learned to do that sauce when I did my externship at Le Bernardin.) Remember first of all that the port reduction will be rather syrupy already -- all the sugar in it will be well on the way into caramelization. Now: when Ripert says: yes, the butter has to be cold -- as it always should be when you monter au beurre. And he's not kidding about the shake it back and forth, that is truly the motion used. You won't wreck the sauce if you swirl it a tiny bit, but really, you just push the pan away, pull it back, push it, pull it, again and again and again.I didn't get to see it live, but one night there was a big party, and everyone in the kitchen -- all the cooks, the pastry department, the diswashers, EVERYONE was shaking those pans. Must have been some sight.

EDIT-ION: This post was written based on Lesley C's original post, which has since been replaced with another. Which is why what I quote here is not to be found where it used to be. Why keep your opinions to yourself? Because quite a few people disagreed with you? I think you sparked a worthwhile discussion, that should probably continue with or without you. There are still so many facets of this question to talk about, especially your excellent point that one who desires professional culinary training in North America should not have to lay out vast sums of money, but should be able to get state-sponsored schooling. (Not necessarily, as some here interpreted it, at state-run schools, but at whatever school, public or private, offers the best training. Although one of the best culinary training programs here in NYC is, in fact, part of the City University.) Then there's the behavioral-psychology issue of "What makes for the strongest motivation? Someone telling you that you should be motivated because your possible future livelihood depends on it [NOT, when you talk about CIA, LCB, etc. grads], or you yourself wanting to learn the most and do the best?" And the sociological issue of "How could it possibly be all right to dump on housewives and debutantes, no matter how much money they may have at their disposal? Is that not un-sisterly?" And that it is not only "inner-city" people who need decent job training: what about all the rural folk displaced from the family farm by mega-agri-business? Or someone in the Rust Belt or a former mill towns or defunct clothing factory, now out of work because multi-national corporations prefer to pay pennies a day to workers overseas? Are they just supposed to shrivel up and die? As for your last statement: I found your "rich housewives and debutantes" categorizations incredibly offensive, and I am by no stretch of the imagination in either group. Similarly, your intimations that those who study to be professional cooks are all a dedicated lot was just ridiculous, and unfair to the few who DO or did make the effort to get full value out of their training (count me in that latter group). And your "I'm really quite surprised to see how little you people respect this profession" slap was totally unwarranted. Here in this part of North America, "you people" is not by any means an accepted way to address ANYONE. It smacks of class and racial warfare, "us" against "them," and all those nasty undemocratic feelings that we in the U.S. deny ever, ever having (hah!). And in addition, that whole statement is patently false. You seem to forget why most of us are here on eGullet: to discuss anything and everything having to do with food. It seems to me disingenuous to make a distinction among members between those who are "professionals" (i.e., get paid to cook or to work with or about food and drink) and the non-professionals, who may, in some instances, have much deeper study and stronger credentials of knowledge than many "pros" in the industry as a whole.

Again, I join the chorus saying it is you, Lesley, who misses the point. No one HAS TO "cook for a living." But many people have to cook to keep their families together, either because they earn money from cooking (the professsionals) OR because if they did not cook, their families would go hungry or eat only horrible, uneconomical stuff (the nurturers, the providers, the "housewives"). Lesley, whenever the phrase "you people" pops up, it is viewed as a red flag. Let's just say, you owe many people here an apology. And may I also suggest that you examine your own socio-economic prejudices? Oh, really, that's no pressure? Go back and read Herzberg. Oh, and by the way, most of my classmates in that professional school behaved as though there were no pressure on them to succeed, even though there WAS a great deal of external pressure from teachers, job counselors, parole officers, parents; what they lacked was the INTERNAL desire and pressure to succeed. My, how professional of you. Have you done that during service when every seat is full, too? Oh, and if a teacher does not put pressure on the students to learn the most they can, and do the best they can, that person has no business teaching, IMO. Yes, I can. She would probably react in exactly the same way as a "future professional chef" would: they'd both jump, they'd get angry (especially if they felt they were doing the best they could), they might both consider hauling off and socking you. No further comment. Which is what should happen to ANYONE in ANY program who behaved that way. In this example, you'd probably get a couple of much more contrite students the next class. Or you'd be fired on the say-so of the husband or mommy/daddy who resented that you disciplined their little darlings. Ah, the spirit of Plotz lives.

Just bumping this back up to keep it in people's consciousness. I know for sure that I will be providing homemade sorrel drink (the red, spicy, sweet kind). So if anyone would care to bring a bottle of good rum . . . Soba, whichever your heart desires; I never add rum, myself And I might throw together the hummous that was such a hit at Lissome's (if my grocery delivery today ever arrives ). Ah, my groceries finally arrived, so I have lots of CANNED chickpeas to make more humous. Bond Girl, crab meat salad sounds divine. And =Mark, even though it IS a pasta salad, please do bring it; it too looks and sounds very yummy.

Oh dear, alacarte, hope you're on the mend. What with the hot weather and all, that sort of thing is unfortunately more likely to happen, I fear. But remember, there's still the Second NYC eGullet Pot Luck Dinnercoming up on Saturday, July 12th. We can't promise any visiting British celebrities, but there should be a great bunch of people. And of food!

Lovage tastes like celery on steroids, but without the bitterness of celery leaves. At An American Place, we did a lunch dish called a Buffalo Chicken Salad: chicken tenders deep-fried plain (no breading), then doused with a butter-and-hot-sauce mixture; served over a green salad topped with blue cheese dressing (Maytag blue + sour cream + buttermilk) and garnished with more crumbled blue cheese, celery sticks, and lovage leaves. That was pretty damn good!

Steamed Chinese-style with a little oil, soy sauce, julienned scallions and ginger. Score the skin of the fish Put most of the ginger and scallions on a heatproof plate Put the fish on top of them pour a very little oil, a bit more soy sauce, and a smidge of Chinese wine over the fish Scatter the rest of the scallions and ginger on top of the fish Put the plate on the rack of a steamer with an inch or two of boiling water Cover and let the fish cook about 10 minutes (for a 1 to 1 1/2 lb. fish) -- but check to make sure it's neither under- nor overcooked Pour off the liquid in the plate before you serve the fish -- it will be somewhat diluted from the steam. If you like, you can thicken it a bit, but a sauce isn't really necessary. The only caveat is that the fish has to be very, very fresh. When this is good, it is GREAT. Simple = YUM.

I frequently see kingfish on the menu of Caribbean restaurants, Jamaican and suchlike. Brown stew fish, in a gravy with just a little heat and a lot of soft onions threads; Fish "tea" -- actually a soup with fish, squash, green bananas, maybe some tomatoes and flavored with hot peppers and fresh thyme (both removed before serving); done creole-style, with tomatoes, celery, onions, etc. and served over rice. And I almost forgot: escovitched; that is, fried and then marinated with onions, garlic, carrots, etc. in a vinegar-and-oil (but mostly vinegar) dressing, served cold. Ooh, perfect for the summer! Isn't kingfish very bony? I think perhaps it is, which also puts some people off. In any case, since it has a strong flavor, it can take a strong-flavored preparation. No delicate beurre blanc for this one.

I agree with the others about the temperature. The recipe I used to use for Japonaises (egg whites, sugar, ground almonds) called for an oven temp of 225 degrees F, and a baking time of 1 1/2 to 2 hours. As for the amount of nuts: this is where a scale is needed. You've got the weights -- no question then as to quantity. See Vengroff's Kitchen Scale Manifesto. And yes, "115g/4oz/1 cup roasted and chopped hazelnuts, ground" means first you measure the nuts, THEN you grind them. But going by weight is so much easier.

Ah -- the same way it works with roads: the more roads that get built to ease traffic congestion, the more cars drive on them and fill them up, too. But somehow it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad when it's food.

Thanks for the report! Do you happen to know how far in advance the arrangements were made?

Well, I certainly agree with you on that! Ah, but can't we lay the "blame" for that on the schools, that just want to make money? That's what I meant about knowing what you're getting into before you start any training program. As for some of the rest of what you said -- yes, definitely deserves its own thread.

To be continued another time. Good night, all.

Absolutely no excuse. and when they try to take HWOE's plate while I'm still eating (I'm also v-e-r-y s--l--o--w), I give the little look and finger-waggle to stop them. If that doesn't work, I have no compunction about telling them to stop. But actually that's a whole different issue -- one of the lack of proper training for FOH staff. Don't get me started. But yes, the host is supposed to make the guests comfortable, even if it means following their lead in eating the banana WITH the peel still on, or drinking from the fingerbowl. It is not for the host to judge and play the schoolmarm; the host should do everything to be gracious. A very Eastern philosophy. Wish we exercised it more in the West instead of being so judgmental and holier-than-thou (quite unwarrantedly).