Steve Klc

Pat--would be willing to share with us how they found you? If you haven't ever told the story of how you go about building an oven "on the road" somewhere--like on a website you could link to or in an article that was written about you and your work--perhaps you'd be willing to talk a little about the process here? Were there any special zoning or logistical problems which DC presented?

For me it was like a ripe melon but yes aromatic yet dry, dry, dry. The carmenere we also found delightful: just complex enough, just bold enough, very tannic, fresh blackberry if I had to pin down one fruit and some spice late. We had it with duck confit, lamb shank, quail with a tamarind glaze and grilled beef and it proved very all-purpose. I have to admit being surprised a Concha y toro wine could be so good. How does the Crios sell? Do you have to push it and explain the odd grape or does the cute green label sell itself?

Quite by coincidence I had both the Concha y Toro Terrunyo Carmenere 2000 and the Susana Balbo "Crios" Torrontes Cafayate 2002 during a meal last weekend and enjoyed both--have you had either Carema? I didn't see what they cost, I'm guessing the former was somewhat pricey, maybe 50 bucks on a restaurant list and which might have been perceived just serious enough to please a few corkdorks and the latter was more of a bargain, fruity, floral and interesting. Both proved very good food wines.

Brig--didn't we discuss this Field exhibit a long time ago and how it might have been made a little more interactive and educational? Well, the AMNH listened and there are a few add-ons which will hopefully make this stop a little more distinctive. I was a consultant to the AMNH educational department and I had a hand in developing a few programs for the Museum which are unique to this stop, including a parent/child hands-on chocolate discovery class, a master class in chocolate appreciation and connoisseurship, and an evening in July in the Museum's ongoing "Art-Science Collision" series, when Robert Wolke joins pastry chefs and chocolatiers to discuss the artistic processes as well as of the chemical and physical properties that enable chocolate to be molded into art. The first four chocolate works commissioned by the Museum, and inspired by their Halls and collections, were unveiled this week in the Rotunda--currently on display are the pieces by Chefette and me, Bill Yosses of Citarella, Heather Carlucci of L'Impero and chocolatier Eric Girerd. Then another four will be installed later in the summer by Kim O'Flaherty of Valrhona, Martin Howard of Brasserie 8 1/2, Pat Coston of Ilo and cake artist Colette Peters. More information on these programs and other chocolate-related programs which might be of potential interest, one with Zarela Martinez, another an evening lecture by Michael Coe, co-author of the fantastic book "The True History of Chocolate," lecturing on its Pre-Columbian history, can be found at this link: http://www.amnh.org/programs/chocolate/?src=p_ex Some programs are free, some have a nominal fee. I'll be there on the 10th for that media event if anyone wants to corral me to ask questions about how any of the pastry chefs made any of the pieces. (Though our media preview was Tuesday June 3rd--the June 10th preview will focus on the curator and the science/history aspects of chocolate.) The downside of the kinds of contracts RA enters into is that they usually control all aspects of foodservice. I hear the Museum shop will host different authors and chefs on the weekends and allow samples and tastes to be passed out. I think if you come looking for samples you will be disappointed, it isn't set up like the New York Chocolate Show. But I can ensure anyone taking the master class that they will sample quite a bit of chocolate.

You mean besides reading eGullet, Tom Sietsema's weekly online chat, his Wednesday mini-column in the paper, and the Washingtonian magazine Best Bites column? Are those already givens for you? I'd be surprised if you need some other source for relevant openings, closings, chef and service changes. If you are a food writer, the publicists will find you! For the rest of us, Tom's weekly chatters do a pretty good job alerting him to or asking about all these issues, albeit this usually occurs anonymously so take that with all the appropriate grains of salt. And Digital City? I haven't seen much that was interesting or especially timely there--last time I dropped by it was perfunctory and stale. Chowhound, though somewhat predictable and not that discriminating, has a much much more active and knowledgeable DC core than Digital City. Al-D--so true about Style--especially the at times snarky Lloyd Grove, "Reliable Source," the tremendous Roxanne Roberts and "Out & About" section on page 3 of Style. Some restaurants get play there that don't get play elsewhere.

Erin--there's no such thing as the best chocolate dessert in NYC. There are so many talented pastry chefs working with chocolate in NYC restaurants that no one dessert can be called the best. Two that have stood out on my palate in the past year, admittedly subjective, among many other equally excellent chocolate desserts in the city, were the "Rice Crispy, Peanut Ice Cream, Chocolate, Condensed Milk Cappuccino" by Jean-Francois Bonnet of Atelier and a salty chocolate caramel dessert by Yvan Lemoine of Fleur de Sel--but you'd also be hard-pressed to do worse at Daniel or Cafe Boulud or Citarella or ...well, you get the message. A few weeks ago I had the best presentation of mostly chocolate petits fours I've ever had in the city at Blue Hill in the hands of their newish pastry chef, Pierre Reboul, formerly pastry chef of Vong. Though we didn't have a chocolate dessert that night, I'd go just for his petits fours--even calling in advance and asking if you could request, at a surcharge, a special chocolate dessert tasting. Most good pastry chefs at the best restaurants will eagerly accomodate such a request and present you with a chocoholic's dream. (Off-topic--I'm with Lesley, I've yet to have a good champagne-chocolate pairing. To me, the pairing seems to be about advertising cachet and positioning the two as luxury items.)

I'm very close to Jonathan Day's position on this--meaning that there is no valid position for or against foams. I've written this before, it's like saying you are against sorbet. Spence, you against tomato sorbet? How could you be? Foams have been around for a long time--much longer than Adria--and the mind, tools and techniques used to produce them are like anything else in the chef's repertoire--mousse, sorbet, sauce, custard--whatever--they're just an option to be employed in a dish, hopefully in the service of pleasing a diner. But foam is neither inherently good or bad, neither flavorful or not, neither a wise choice or an ill-gotten one. Pastramionrye has made a few interesting statements: "i am wanting to do a pernod foam for a fish appetizer that has a saffron cream sauce...just a little spray to complement the other flavors in the dish" Aside from speculating on the fish/saffron/pernod combination, in this case, do you want a "spray" like a spritz of some droplets of flavor--or do you want a foam, also called an espuma? These are two different things P. Foams can have very different consistencies but they are mousse-like not aerosol-like, as something that would come out of an atomizer; "a foam should ideally be light and frothy and airy, and the pernod somewhat subtle due to this. i thought it would be visually appealing as well." well, foams shouldn't necessarily "be" anything--they are what a chef wants them to be in the context of the dish he wants. If you want a subtle foam, you make a subtle foam; if you want something intense or airy or green or rough--you make it that way. If it works in the dish, visually in a presentation-sense and on the palate, it works. "and i dont know where you all go to eat; but i have not been inundated with foams at the restaurants i choose to go to" with this I agree completely--you live in DC, right, and cook at Palena? I'm in DC and I'm not inundated with foams, I don't think a lot of area chefs understand them, but I have seen them for years and I've had my share of good ones and poor ones. The French are anti-Adria-foam and (generally) don't want to use the iSi because a Spanish guy developed the technique, but even Antoine Westermann had a few foams on his opening menu at Cafe 15 in the Sofitel. I use foams and espumas myself--and of the 24 plated desserts on my restaurant menus at the moment--5 have foams as a component of the dish. Not the key element, a side player. Would that be inundated? At Zaytinya I do a creme-anglaise-based cardamom foam and a gelatin-apricot-based foam, at Cafe a banana with a touch of cream foam, at Jaleo an "arroz con leche" foam (milk with a touch of gelatin and salt--the milk that the rice is cooked in so it has the flavor of the rice, lemon and cinnamon) and also a "crema catalana" foam, which is creme anglaise-based, served alongside a very traditional flan. So P. if you've eaten at Jaleo or Cafe Atlantico or Zaytinya you've seen foam. (Jose Andres and Katsuya at Cafe Atlantico have several savory foams on the menu, including potato-vanilla, foie-gras-corn, and an anchovy foam. But these are in service of little dishes among many. I don't think Jose has a single foam at Jaleo or at Zaytinya.) In any event, a higher percentage of my desserts have a frozen component than have a foam component--is anyone fretting about desserts being inundated with sorbets or granites? The coconut foam "recipe" mentioned here is just one of many ways to skin that cat--you should see Grant Achatz's description of how and why he makes his coconut foam on another thread, which begins with fresh-shaved coconut. You can also make a coconut foam simply with coconut milk and a touch of cream--you don't need gelatin at all. Chefs mix and match proportions of things to get the texture, flavor and airiness they want in their foams--just as chefs mix and match ingreidents to get different textures, intensities of flavor and mouthfeels in their sauces, reductions, creams, etc. If you go the "Immersion blender route" realize you will likely get a froth--something bubbly and frothy--not a foam or "espuma" with usually has more body. Even the Adrias use the immersion blender technique for certain dishes where wispy bubbly froths are more appropriate for what they are trying to create. There's been some technical discussion of this on the site--French chefs not wanting to use the iSi Profi whipper and instead using the immersion blender. A few chefs are playing around with those new self-contained milk froth pitchers, including Grant. I saw him in an ad for one of these not too long ago. Tools, recipes, techniques for foams--just weapons in the arsenal. The end result is what matters not the buzz word or the process behind the dish. Foams can be water and gelatin based, they can be pure or diffuse; some chefs might not like using cream instead of gelatin in a foam because the cream might dilute the flavor, another might embrace the fat the cream would add to a foam and complement an otherwise lean austere dish. To each his own. Report back on how you do--the recipes which come with the iSi foamer are a good starting off point--they cover most of the main forms. I'd think an anise infusion thickened with gelatin might be one way to go since the sauce already has cream in it. Maybe infuse anise in a fish stock or consomme and then add gelatin? And also realize if your dish goes awry it's probably not the fact that you decided to utilize a foam, just that your still-developing palate or your ability to synthesize techniques let you down. As more of the chef within you emerges, you'll find the most appropriate outlet for all these influences, tips and techniques which you are assimilating.

Mr. Food: "How the wine list-price, quality, thoughtful selection? do they allow corkage?" List was ok--mostly entry-level accessible inexpensive bottles, under 30 bucks, many around 22 or 23, some eclectic choices. I considered the Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare, around $11 retail on the list for 22 I think? I think most people will drink beer and their typical patrons will not ask about corkage.

Claire--the praise you are hearing is for "E. Guittard" not regular old "Guittard." HUGE difference. Guittard is a huge company, one of the larger chocolate manufacturers in the world; however, only their recently introduced, upscale line of couvertures--called E. Guittard--designed to compete head to head with Valrhona--is what I use and what I'm praising. The regular old crap you see in grocery stores is just that, regular old crap. By the way, most chips taste funny and have a slick, waxy feel to them, that's because chips are formulated differently--formulated to hold their shape longer at baking temps. A "couverture" like E. Guittard, though, would melt readily.

Dessert wasn't yet a priority, Darren. No printed dessert menu. No espresso machine yet. In addition to some outsourced ice creams I think Graig did a bread pudding last night. We didn't have the heart to order it. The only scoop I got last night from Graig is there will be another wood-burning brick oven pizza place opening soon nearby in Penn's Quarter--called Ella's. You heard or read anything about this place? Apparently Wayne Combs, an ex-chef of Jaleo, is consulting.

Tom Sietsema's review of Bistro d'Oc is up: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?n...083175&typeId=2

Darren, the mini-hamburgers at the weeks-old, beautifully-designed Matchbox on 7th & H St are definitely worth checking out. They're delicious, actually cooked medium-rare, served unadorned with a pickle slice on a toasted mini-brioche bun and draped with fried onion strands. Do bother with these. Salt, parsley, parmesan sprinkled on top of all. Nine bucks for a plate of six. Sietsema was all over this, mentioning it in his Dish recently and so were you. And yes, Graig the chef will give you a little ramekin of a fragrant Maille dijon mustard if you ask, we did and it was worth it. We were dipping our leftover pieces of bun into the mustard after scooping up all the little bits on the plate. There's much more promise to Matchbox than being a merely good pizza place--I loved those onion straws, perfectly seasoned. Our server, gracious and cute as a button, asked if it was OK if the burgers were cooked medium-rare and we said, well, of course! She came over from Bistro Bis and I wish DC had more servers with her skills and attitude. The draft beers that we appreciated, much like you with Newcastle, were Chimay and Rogue Dead Guy Ale. After the burgers we had the Fire & Smoke pizza (various peppers and roasted things like onions and tomatoes, gouda cheese and fresh basil) and the Chicken Pesto pizza, and followed the pizzas with the pear, arugula and goat cheese salad--all of which were quite good. The pizza crust reminds me a bit of Bertucci's (at its best) somewhat sweet with some semolina maybe in the dough; our crusts were pretty crisped and charred and good. (More important to me than trying to pigeonhole its style or disparage whether this is or is not pizza according to some subjective definition--it is pizza and it is at least very good.) Next time I'm ordering the spicy meatball or Matchbox Meat combo--those came out all around us and looked and smelled fantastic. "Bertucci-style crust with better toppings and flavors" was how I described it as I was eating it. Very good for its aim, price and style, with the bonus of being served in a stylish setting. The chef came down to see if we liked the mustard, turns out he cooked at Bistro Bis as well and it showed, not only in the pizzas but also in his non-pizza apps and dishes--they're cooked upstairs and on that top dining room level you can see him expediting and see into the kitchen. Every little touch of his with seasoning or spicing worked, elevating this charming place past just mundane American pub grub into accessible food with a little charm. Chalk another one up for Penn Quarter, assuming Penn Quarter extends this far north. In any event, it should, for Matchbox has nothing in common with all the other crappy underwhelming restaurants remaining in our faux-Chinatown. Though it is still new and may have a few front of the house service kinks to work out, it's a good restaurant already and could evolve into a very good one. I can't say it's consistent after just one visit, but I can say I wish it were in my neighborhood. And I wish I got our server's name so I can ask for her section when we return. There's also one incredible table in the restaurant--a great banquette booth on the second floor in the back, facing out. It's already busy, kinks are being worked out, it should be ready and as consistent as it is capable of being by the time Sietsema gets around to actually reviewing it. He did them a favor by mentioning it briefly, they can gear up.

Do you wish more food pros posted and participated openly in your online chats?

Seems you were all over this as well as Tom! And yes, the chef will give you a little ramekin of a fragrant Maille dijon mustard if you ask, we did and it was worth it. We were dipping our leftover pieces of bun into the mustard after scooping up all the little bits on the plate. Maybe we should start a Matchbox thread because there's much more promise to Matchbox than being a merely good pizza place. Continue non-burger Matchbox talk on thread here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...4&t=21846&st=0&

Haide, while I think this thread, and the contributions so far, have been heartfelt, well-meaning and full of much good advice, I'm not necessarily going to be as supportive as most. And that's not because I'm just mean, bitter or cranky, though at times I can be. If you take one post on this thread so far to heart, take the post by snoop to heart. I agree with every single word and the tone of it, in fact, I feel that's one of the best posts we've had on eGullet in a long while. Get inside every word, every aspect of that post, and let it churn around inside you. It should make you uncomfortable. It's nice to be hopeful, to embrace the frisson inherent in a new challenge, a career change, but it is more important that your hopefulness be an informed hopefulness. And to be able to justify to yourself embracing a career change, I'd recommend you make it from an informed position. So I support all those on this thread, snoop most definitely so, urging you to get into a kitchen any way you can and experience it before enrolling fulltime in school and incurring the expense of that school. Here are some alternate realities to consider and or discuss: No matter if or where you go to culinary school, your real education is going to begin with your externships and then your jobs after school and usually this will occur in a restaurant or hotel kitchen. In fact, most schools just feed you into the restaurant or hotel or foodservice production rat race. So expect it. Yes there are allied professional opportunities for culinary school grads but these are the exception--so is succeeding and making any name or money for yourself in these allied food professions. Who are best chefs or the most famous chefs you know, those idols or heroes possibly enticing you to enter the field--and how many of them made their name by leveraging their relationship to their restaurant, or had their identities defined by the media in connection to their restaurant? Most if not all. Before you lend credence to the allied food professional route to the kind of critical, personal and financial success you might be dreaming of--investigate just who has succeeded by going this route--and ask yourself whether these are the exceptions or the rule and will this route be any more or less likely for you than having to make it in a restaurant or hotel or bakery first. Assess how sane the notion of borrowing money to finance culinary school is. This has to be given serious consideration. Yes, the money may be out there for you to borrow but how do you think you're ever going to pay it back on what a cook makes? Cooks are grunts. You're likely going to be a grunt for a long time, you're going to be a valued, vital warrior but an underpaid grunt with few benefits. How you going to bankroll a startup if you're still in tuition debt? So begin thinking longer term and thinking about your support network. Yes you'll continue learning, if you are lucky to work with good people, yes you might land a job at a hot place with a hot chef that you can use to leverage your way into a better career arc, but you're not necessarily going to make enough to live let alone pay back your loans, especially if you are still paying back your real college student loans. Top places don't pay--in fact, many top places pay less because they know you're resume-padding off the cachet and rep of the chef. More than likely you will be underpaid, under-appreciated, and under-fulfilled for years and years, if you are lucky to last that long, until you find your niche and/or set yourself up in an ownership situation. Or until you figure out how to channel your passion--and yes, you most definitely have to have passion for this. The likelihood is after you graduate and incur all this debt you'll be competing side by side with cooks who never went to culinary school, don't speak English as well as you do, are supporting three kids, cook somewhere else on their day off, who are very very grateful for the opportunity to earn whatever they are being paid, and in any event are better and faster than you anyway. I don't want to rain on Pastramionrye's parade when he says "and after 6 months at l'academie you will be in the field working at a top notch restaurant...just think where you will be in 2 years, as opposed to tthe other schools where you will still be in classroom work?" Well, where he'll likely be is competing against the previous two and next two years of L'Academie graduates still hanging around town because L'Academie doesn't have national cachet or a national network, not to mention competing with the glut of all the other cooking school grads bouncing around town, hopefully learning, not making much, filling all the forgotten line positions around town like faceless interchangeable puzzle pieces. The lucky ones--the rare exceptions--who work hard and have some talent--might impress a mentor enough to take them and only them under their wing and help propel their career along. Hopefully this will happen for pastramionrye at Palena. The odds, however, are against him long term as they are against each and every cooking school grad. This industry can be incredibly fulfilling, but it also has a tendency to eat its own. You think Chinese kitchens are sexist and anti-woman? You don't see many women in any kitchen, be it the French Laundry, elite four-star French places, or chain restaurants. And if you do, it's more likely women are slotted into salads, pantry, cold station or pastry. It's the rare chef and kitchen that is truly gender-blind. You ready to be slotted? No, you're not. I guess, all this leads up to is you're 23, you're a wide-eyed speculative kid. Everyone conquers fear in their own way--so, too, will you. You are not too old. You don't need to speak French and you certainly don't need to go to cooking school in France, though for some that might be the best option. But the only way you can get ready to make this decision, to make an informed decision about pursuing your dream, is to first get yourself into a kitchen and start to experience what it is really like for yourself. Only then can you begin to answer Holly when he writes "Are you willing to endure the hours, physical and mental hardships to pursue the restaurant businesses. The horror stories are probably partially true in many restaurants, untrue or true in others. But it is hard work. It has to be something that deep, deep down you are driven towards." And as Bux says, there are many, many alternatives, especially for stubborn self-starters. So put off the school decision for a while. Once you've been in a kitchen or two, once you've begun to see the scene and see some of what your eventual reality might be like, your unique decision and your unique issues will be a lot more in focus. And read the thread nightscotsman linked to, paying particular attention to the posts and self-reflection by Michael Laiskonis, one of the best pastry chefs in the country. If he could do it all over again, he'd give serious thought to taking some tuition money and instead eating his way around the best restaurants in Spain and France. My wife and I, both pastry chefs as well, would probably recommend much the same thing. But only once you realize you are serious about food and you won't realize that until you get hooked in a real kitchen environment. That thread is one of the ones I'm most proud of on eGullet--and you won't find near the depth of talent and voice on display on that thread anywhere else.

Robert asked "How useful, then, do you consider restaurant reviews from your colleagues?" Let's explore that a little bit: 1. You file Postcards in the paper's Travel section from cities you visit with a few capsule reviews of restaurants there, for this, you receive unjust sniping in some local quarters as if your time would be better spent at home. What these armchair critics fail to realize is this travel, this experience broadens your perspective and helps put what is going on in DC into a better, more informed context. Chefs travel to see what their competition is doing--why shouldn't critics? But, how influenced are you by critics in other cities--meaning do you usually turn to a restaurant critic or food writing colleague in those cities, whom you know and trust, to help inform your selection? Would you be willing to share a little of what goes into your selection of a Postcard destination and the restaurants you visit? How consciously do you factor in your Post readership, your audience when you make these selections? 2. How do feel about writers or critics dropping into your turf to extensively "review" the scene? I'm thinking not so much the Marion Burros piece in the NY Times about the "Penn Quarter," since Burros is in a position to know DC well but the Times' habit of dropping an Amanda Hesser into SF to do a major piece on the scene there or importing a Regina Schrambling into Chicago for a major re-assessment of the food scene there, as if either NY-Based writer could have an informed sense or perspective on the local food scene without enlisting un-named local help. In these cases--do you think either audience--the New York audience back home or the local SF or Chicago audience--is well-served by this? 3. How well is the New York Times "keeping abreast of a moving target" when the most recent reviews of Jean Georges, Lespinasse and Le Bernardin are by Ruth Reichl from 1998? You mitigate this staleness nicely by writing a yearly Dining Guide, full of re-assessments, and of course your weekly online chats. When the Inn or Kinkeads or Citronelle slip up, you're there to call them on it in a timely fashion. But do you have any sympathy for a Robert Brown when he writes "in New York, unless it is one of the most high-profile restaurants, we never hear about most restaurants again from any single reviewer" and then realize that even the most high-profile places, like Lespinasse, Jean Georges and Le Bernardin, are not re-reviewed when a new critic steps in, like Grimes did?

Darren, I would most definitely add to the list of burgers worth checking out the mini-hamburgers at the weeks-old Matchbox on 7th & H St. They're delicious, actually cooked medium-rare, served unadorned with a pickle slice on a toasted mini-brioche bun and draped with fried onion strands. Salt, parsley, parmesan sprinkled on top of all. Nine bucks for a plate of six. Sietsema was all over this, mentioning it in his Dish recently.

Sorry Tan, can't help you with SW distributors. Call up my friend Don Holzter, who is the pastry chef of the new JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix. Tell him you're a friend of mine. He'd know all the distributors. You could call ParisGourmet to find out about Cacao Noel distribution, they have an 800# I'm pretty sure.

Used being the operative tense. He's apparently shifted allegiance, to Weiss I believe. At least he was promoting Weiss at the New York Chocolate Show last year.

Gosh Matthew, my little pan info pales in comparison to your last post--we all thank you for framing this issue in different terms, on the one hand I'd love to read links to any studies or assessments re: the dangers of baking in aluminum as elyse has suggested some authorities believe but I read the same things you probably read by Wolke, who is an underappreciated literate scientist and cook, and you've also made me think about the issue differently as well.

Tom--how much of your work is online at Washingtonpost.com--so viewers around the country can read you without actually going out and buying the paper?

Darren, point taken but don't forget MCI Center opened in like 97--and that's maybe 5 years after the Jaleo owners rolled the dice gambling that something might happen in that (insert word here: scary, seedy, nasty) part of town.

Jose is in Mexico right now, doing research for the next restaurant he and his restaurant management group is opening--an upscale Mexican-inspired restaurant in Crystal City, VA. There was another article about this in the Post recently--how Proximo was also going to open a third Jaleo there as well and how the hope was this might help to redefine the character of that Crystal City strip. On this and the lab I'm somewhat out of the loop--I've been in Bethesda-Jaleo for awhile getting their new dessert program up and running. "Arroz con leche a la moderna" anyone? I'd ask Tom to reveal what he knows about the lab and what this move might mean to Crystal City! (Remember what Jaleo opening in that derelict downtown DC spot 10 years ago helped do to that location.) By the way, I HAD the foie gras, salty corn dust and cotton candy "lollipop" last weekend during the dim sum brunch--it was stunning, served on a wooden skewer standing upright in a small glass and was being served to the tables around me at the time that had ordered the unlimited tasting option.

"I see that I will just have to experiment. Sounds like it is an interaction between type/color of pan, baking sheet, temp and whatever else. I am having a hard time understanding why a brown pan would perform significantly differently than a black pan. Did it just need more time in the oven?" I haven't worked with tart pans in years, but because of all my restaurant work I have worked with indivdual metal molds of many different metals and compared them side by side with each other and flexipans, etc. If you do this you find out very quickly that all the different metals absorb and conduct heat differently--and depending on 1) wall thickness and 2) what you are baking 3) its size and 4) how you are baking it--the end product is most definitely affected. Take the same shape small mold from say JB Prince--in stainless steel, aluminum, shiny tinned steel (which is inexpensive but rusts if you don't dry them meticulously) and the new brownish "non-stick" metal (which is usually twice as expensive as the comparable tinned steel mold but does not rust.) In my restaurant work I use aluminum and the brown "non-stick." Test some of your favorite little cakes, crusts in them and you'll see differences in how quickly and evenly they bake and acquire browning. You'll probably find one metal that "works" best for a particular item and shape you're baking in them. You'll find which rack you place it in the oven matters, so do, does double-sheet-panning with some to prevent too much browning from below. Me, personally, I find the pure aluminum mold best for one cake I do--it heats up the fastest and most evenly and for that particular timbale-shaped cake that metal is best--in stainless steel that cake never worked out right despite my adjustments. Generally, with long slow bakes at lower temps (325/350) it seems to me to matter less which metal you use.

I agree with you completely Zeb.