Kerry Beal

Bravo being the company that makes machines for gelato, pastry cream, jams... oops - goat cheese with mushrooms As we were leaving we were informed that uptown at the Marriott there was a welcome party so we decided to drop by there for a drink with our new found chef friends who work for Unox (competitors to Rational) G&T for @Alleguede, vermouth and soda for me. Bar tender had never had an order for vermouth alone before so decided to only charge me for the soda!

Right now we are waiting for an uber which seems to be lost which is taking us to dinner with the folks from Bravo.

So today was an early start! And a long day cause the show was not very busy. Good chance to network with folks I haven't seen for a few years though. I mentioned that I was lacking in cocoa butter - by the end of the day I had 5 lbs. The first 3 lbs came via a guy that Kriss Harvey contacted and he found a pail in his storage (apparently there is a shortage right now - and this pail had clearly seen better days given a big hole on the side). Then another two pounds brought by a friend of Genevieve who welcomed the chance to sneak in the back door and look around without the outrageous cost of a day pass for the show. As usual with all the running around I do I rarely take a lot of pictures - but here are a few. 1 gram frogs a shirt I hope to win in a raffle but will buy if I don't Winner of the amateur cake decoration - actually the only competitor! I did see her in tears at one point in the day when her fondant wasn't doing what she wanted. As we became bored and started visiting more booths - we met up with the Tahitian Vanilla Company folks - and decided to make an infusion of vanilla powder in cocoa butter and leave it in the EZtemper overnight to see if we can get a nice vanilla flavour. We have a PNG vanilla and a madagascar vanilla infusion.

I think that's the one.

Think I misheard - try Tin Star

After the rest of the folks showed up - we headed out to the place where all our stuff had been delivered. Car was already full with our luggage so two of us Uber'd back to the venue and we put down the second row of seats to fit everything in. Stinking hot day here in Charlotte at the Park Center (and everywhere else). Genevieve and I started the set up while @Alleguede and Karthic went to costco to get more tables. We mentioned this to the rather disorganized organizer of the show and he said "oh, do you need a table? - you can have one of these". So now we have a surplus of tables. Coming along with the organization - a bit weak in the table cloth department. They had been looking for Chick-fil-A but it was too far out of the way - so they stopped at Bo Jangles Chicken on a biscuit is apparently their 'signature' piece. This was a rather cockle warming chicken sandwich, with equally cockle warming fries. But we were extremely peckish at this point and would have eaten just about anything, After we checked out our digs for the time we are here - we headed out to Aldi to get some necessities, milk for my tea, stuff to make sandwiches for lunch tomorrow as I'm sure we won't want to live on gelato and pastries all day. @Alleguede wanted to check out Jeni's so off we went - Lemon Bar and Gooey butter cake for me not quite sure what all @alleguede chose - and neglected to get pics of the other two. A delightful fellow who had opened the door for us when we went in, asked about the flavours we chose when we came out. Seemed a little down on his luck - but jumped at the offer for me to get him a few scoops. We had a nice conversation about fishing in Canada and he mentioned a show that comes from the west coast that he enjoys called ? the Tin Shield? Counting on @rotuts to look into that one for me. So now we are just chilling and getting an early night - we need to be at the venue for 8 am tomorrow for the 'early birds'

Sitting in rocking chairs waiting for the other members of our party at the airport.

So I lost two scalpel blades and a corkscrew to security. Only one scalpel blade left in my passport pocket! and they left me my tiny little scissors in my first aid kit. Apologies to those who don't like ketchup with their scrambled eggs. I should have looked at everything before I chose - wouldn't have bothered to put butter on a hot plate and might have taken only one egg course.

And here we sit in the lounge awaiting our flight. Going to have to go over and check out the food - I'm without my tea this morning because I had to leave so early!

@alleguede and I will be flying out to Charlotte on Wednesday this week - first real trade show since COVID. We have a booth at the National Pastry Conference that we will be sharing with Melangers.com. We have plans to share a meal with a couple of the folks who have been ambassadors for the EZtemper brand and really have no idea what's what in Charlotte - so I'm counting on the eG hive mind to help us out with some suggestions. And of course we will post to keep you up to date with what we are doing. You notice no catchy title - that's cause Anna is gone - she was my wordsmith and title generator!

CSO is how Anna always cooked them.

I add a bit of bitter almond oil - only way to get the flavour besides adding a few bitter almonds.

Gotcha!

I'm curious about the definition of bijou as you have used it to describe your kitchen?

I’ve got it in my mind that Campbells marketed a vegetarian vegetable soup probably when the first big wave of vegetarianism came through (think Diet for a Small Planet). https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artists/andy-warhol/screen-print/vegetarian-vegetable-soup-from-campbells-soup-ii-1969/id/w-6837 Andy Warhol 1969

Totally missed these this am in the Cabrellon catalogue - looks like there is one even bigger

So I looked through the catalogues for Cabrellon, Chocolate World and JKV - didn't find anything quite like a larger version of the 2207

Salad spinner?

Yup - 450 cream, 300 chocolate, 1.5 T brown sugar. I assume this is a pouring ganache?

So it's a whole candied plum flavoured with liquorice and mandarin peel - with a bit of salt? I'd probably start with this recipe, add some liquorice block powder, dried mandarin peel and salt and of course leave out the cinnamon and cloves. Most candied fruit recipes are pretty similar and this one is specifically for plums so will address some of the issues inherent to candying that fruit.

I used a combination of malted milk powder and malt syrup.

Today I met up with my high school friend who is visiting her family island in Georgian Bay for a few weeks. She came down and met me at Gouter. It was closed today but we let ourselves in and visited for a while until @Alleguede had completed some repairs on a big mixer and his sister and Bianca showed up. Bianca made us some iced lattes - We took the opportunity to grab a late lunch at Pho Ngoc Yen - I think this is the other location for the place that @curls visited when she was here for the workshop. Spring rolls Bun for a couple of us. Chicken with coconut sticky rice. Fresh rolls The foliage for Cya's pho - which apparently I neglected to get a picture of. There was a lot of food! We took home as much as we ate. Passion fruit juice.

The Hamilton Fringe Festival was happening and one of the docs who is a researcher in aging and infectious disease and was heavily involved with our research lab during COVID was doing a presentation called 'The Peril's of Being Born in the Fall' A bunch of us associated with the lab decided we needed to attend. Of course lunch first - a place called undefined was chosen by one of our number. Started with biscuits and marmalade (out of practice remembering to take pictures) I think this was a croque madam Burger Burger with 'gluten free' bun! Short rib and yorkshire benny.

Would be nice if someone could create a similar dicing unit for my old cuisinarts!

I suspect that the mixing bowl wouldn’t be too practical for what you’re doing