Steve Klc

Lizziee--the black chalkboard is the key--what are you moving the piece of chalk over and clicking on? That's where "recetas" is--if you aren't seeing it, there's a problem. But below recetas and below buscar is salir--if you click on that, you begin the exit process, it shows you some credits and then you click on a down arrow and you're out. You should not have to turn off your computer--that's not good, actually. You will also have salir on top of every "white" page--i.e. a non-chalkboard page--on the far right--click on that and you exit as well. And for everyone reading this who want to order the book--JB Prince in NYC is the only US source at the moment who has it in stock for immediate delivery. Kitchen Arts & Letters also had a few copies but sold out quickly.

Here's what should happen: Load the disk and "see" the disk on your desktop; Doubleclick on it; You should see a black disk in a dialog box with two file folders, Doubleclick on the black disc; You should see and hear a white screen with El Bulli 1998-2002 and then two black options--castellano and Catalan--click on one of these; You should get the cool chalkboard; From there click on Recetas would be easiest and most immediate; Allow it to index and load for awhile--and then click on one of the many "indices"--in this case, try "fotos;" Cool, huh? Every image for every dish splashed across the screen for all 4 years--all clickable. To go back to the indices--see on the top line how it has "recetas fotos" or something like that--with recetas "lighter" than fotos which is darker? That means you are in 'fotos"--to leave fotos and go to another indice just click on 'recetas.' I'll have to do this just to make sure I'm remembering correctly. But say you click on the group of 2001 photos instead--it will take you to a screen which says "recetas-foto-2001" across the top with even larger thumbnails--move your cursor over an image and it will appear in the large preview box--click on a numbered thumbnail which looks interesting and it will take you to the recipe--which is printable with one click. The top line now reads "recetas-foto-2001-receta" and to go back to select another recipe, just click on 2001--this logic is followed throughout. So you don't really have to know the words--work your way from left to right and back again to navigate. To exit, click on Salir; then click on the arrow; then you should see the macromedia tag and you're out. Did all that work? I'm using a Mac but can get onto a PC if need be. For a PC they recommend Pentium III-128 MB RAM-Windows XP and 24 bit color but it should work on systems with less--the specs are on the page in the CD-ROM booklet. I'm using it just fine on a G3 600 MHz iBook with 640 MB RAM, OS 10.2.3 but with only 8 MB video memory--it certainly would run better on a newer processor.

OK--close all browsers and Word documents and e-mail screens but do not log out or shut down your computer. Put it in the CD drive and what happens?

Lizziee--have you figured out the CD-ROM and how to change between the different menus and formats?

Jake--have you called the restaurant and asked to speak with Christopher Vasquez as far as the corkage policy yet? He is the GM and if you don't get a "straight" answer out of him I'd be very surprised. And as far as the limoncello is concerned, I've only tried a handful of the drinks at the bar--and I'm not a hard liquor/liqueur kind of guy. My palate doesn't go there. I will try to remember to ask Jose, I'm cooking with him in Cleveland this week at the MOCA. You might want to ask Christopher as well--he oversaw the development of those drinks and the bar and if you feel it could be done well, I'm sure they'd be interested in hearing from a satisfied customer. Just how do you go about making your own limoncello? (By the way, I hear there is a "50/50 leaning toward the negative" review of Zaytinya in the Washington magazine this month. I haven't read it yet, but since I mentioned the Sietsema/Washington Post review above it is only fair that I mention it--you all can decide whether it is valid or not.)

It seems to me La Colombe was exercising their freedom of choice in the very same way some on this thread argued for individual patrons exercising theirs? As Holly said "I respect the owner's quest for the best possible cup of coffee and it is his decision to make." Same as any patron--free to go elsewhere. And yes, I have been to the wonderful Metropolitan Bakery. I could have gone there or walked a little farther to La Colombe--and chose Metropolitan. It was so good I went back to Metropolitan each morning. I can't speak to the hype--as a visitor and foodie I only knew of La Colombe because of a few French chefs and restaurateurs, like Boulud in NYC, used their coffee and I tried their coffee in my espresso machine. I heard about Metropolitan because I had eaten at a few Philly restaurants who used their fantastic bread. I knew of no hype associated with the La Colombe location/bar. All I know is I came back to DC with a big bag of Metropolitan loaves to freeze and a bag or two of La Colombe (from the Whole Foods Market store.) Both were at least as good if not better than what I can get in DC--a few of our Breadline varieties rival Metropolitan but not the full range and La Colombe is just a little bit better than our Quartermaine. (The three DC restaurants I'm associated with--Cafe Atlantico, Jaleo and Zaytinya--all use La Colombe at present, both for coffee and espresso. But that can always change.) I have a question for you all--how many realized La Colombe was now producing espresso pods to compete with Illy? I just found out last week.

http://www.jbprince.com/product.asp?0=289&1=296&3=326

Karen--how much of your prepared/commercial/frozen selection comes from the mainland? Do you have the same bags of frozen chicken parts and Kirkland-branded items that we might have at Costcos all across the US?

Have you been to Miel yet, joiei? http://www.mielpastry.com/about.htm

Think of it like a thicker, stronger phyllo.

Nick, I'd gladly part with my early "Art Culinaire" issues, I've never been that much of a fan, least of all of the desserts. (Sorry joiei, not meant as a direct reply.) If you'd value them, PM me. #15, 17, 18, 23, 27, 31, 32, 33, and 35 could be yours. Of course you'd have to cook for them, I'm not interested in a monetary exchange.

Miss J--you don't have to buy the professional model--the "Profi"--just buy whatever cheapo home model iSi that Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table carries--for now. Until you get hooked. The cheap models are usually all white. You can also froth/foam some mixtures with the whipping disk of an immersion blender under certain conditions instead of an iSi system under charge. Ben--I've done a ginger-infused creme anglaise as an espuma--paired with a chocolate cake, an orange caramel sauce, candied orange and salt. Your idea--perhaps with Earl Grey tea--sounds great as well. And the foam would be a good textural contrast to the creme brulee--I'd worry more about overdoing egg yolk content rather than creaminess. So maybe do your foam without any yolk--like a ginger meringue espuma on top of the brulee. Reinforce the tea with a clear caramel sauce possibly infused with a bit of orange zest and deglaze with warm, steeped tea.

Nick--it also seems like your people are very fortunate to have you. Now, my question to you is how representative of the industry do you feel your system is, and both the compensation and loyalty you instill in your people? Everybody over $10/hr and you probably taking a pay cut or turning back a bonus in order to do it?

Belmont3 I'm very comfortable saying that schools often are not being completely honest, completely forthcoming with their prospective students in terms of the success and salaries and long term professional viability of their graduates. It's self-defeating of them to do so, for it would just drive students away. I do think schools do a decent job reciting the "you won't earn much in the beginning" line but I don't think they do a realistic job qualifying or quantifying long term earnings--which for me is the more grievous error since students go into such debt to attend either school. If I were a prospective student all over again--I'd do a serious cost-benefit analysis and consider all sorts of factors that the cooking schools would not be eager to discuss--like I'd consider working for free and travelling to experience the best, an alternative Michael Laiskonis suggested on another career thread that it might be better to spend your tuition moneys travelling to Spain and France and New York and eating at the best shops and restaurants and developing a sense of palate, etc. a sense of appreciation for what is the best and why. You aren't taught any of that in school from underpaid, underexposed instructors. I also believe this is another tangent, another rationale why Chefette started this thread. I'd want to know the percentage of a school's graduates who are working in their profession 3, 5, 10 years down the road, what they're doing, how many have been driven away and why--and I'd want their names to talk to them. Another issue is just how far ahead are you, having gone to cooking school, and just how long it will take to dig yourself out of the tuition hole you have dug for yourself. I do not feel schools generally turn out "over-qualified" students--I don't have that high opinion of the job they do, the relevance of their curriculum and the skill and experience of their instructors vs. the value of real "learning on the job" under good chefs and pastry chefs; as to over-saturation, again, I think that is addressed by the numbers of skilled positions in kitchens, the salary level vs. the percentage of people who have worked their way up in kitchens--the prep cooks and dishwashers and runners who could never afford to shell out $30K in the first place--who have those jobs and that cooking school graduates hope to supplant. More likely a cooking school graduate will either work in a restaurant doing unglamorous prep, make next to nothing and speak Spanish just like Malawry (see her TDG entries) or take a job in foodservice, doing high volume in repetitive fashion with little connection to the fine dining scene which may have prompted them to go to school in the first place. The issue, as I see it, is getting some good information about how long it might take to move beyond that role--and hopefully somewhere along the way you figure out or someone tells you whether you have what it takes or not. All I'm after is enabling prospective students to have more informed consent. Nero--it's never discouraging if some seemingly harsh or skeptical statements help you think about things down the road and make more informed choices--however they turn out.

Nero--good luck paying that back. I hope you marry well. But, kidding aside, you are or will be in the very near future in the perfect position to comment on this--in terms of how your expectations have matched up to the reality of the workplace--and what role your school played in that process. Yours will be a voice worth hearing from as other career changers contemplate attending your school. You talked to someone working for Puck and saw what might be possible--Chefette worked for Jacques Torres at Le Cirque during and after she went to FCI and had her eyes opened--both of you are the exceptions to the rule. Not everyone got that opportunity. And please realize about some of the jobs Chefette just posted--especially the salaried or management level ones--we're talking minimum 60-75 hours per week for that 32-35K!

And, just in case it's necessary to remind anyone, every day people are considering paying out $30,000 to attend career-changing cooking schools like an FCI to "pursue their dream"--or contemplating attending the CIA and incurring the student loan debt load of a typical university or private college education--just to enter a marketplace like this. This is where the long term implications of a faulty premise--based on a faulty, misleading model--may be felt--and down the road, Nick, I'd suspect it will affect fine dining much more than foodservice--widening the gap between the two and making eating well or at a high level much more expensive and much less likely to be within the grasp of eGulleteers. What effect better compensating those who work in "fine dining" will have on this remains to be seen. But Rail Paul's hypothesis for the future, that "it's a terrible model for creative, challenging, and, yes, expensive, dining" seems to ring true for me--except that the hundreds of people wouldn't be executing them as precisely as one might think, like everything else on this thread. NeroW--you focus on something implicit in Chefette's original post--what do you think would happen to cooking schools if the real word got out? As I've advised prospective students before, the key is not to talk to the happy but stupid self-justifying current students at any school--but to find out where the graduates are a few years out of school--see how happy they are then and what kind of hourly wage they are pulling down. Or, more likely, if they're even still cooking. Dave--I think you support chefette by saying the American public will get the cuisine it deserves and supports--which is perhaps why she started this thread! You also support her by observing that there will always be a ready supply of less talented under-experienced workers to take their place--that's exactly what's been happening and the issue is--do you think that bodes well for the future of cooking and fine dining? And you have 3 current pros who are in a direct position to know precisely about salaries and hourly wages chiming in so far--and I hope more will add their thoughts so it would seem less easily dismissed by calling it anecdotal.

Yes Suzanne--you worked in several very good restaurants at some point after you went to cooking school--I'm not sure if you do at the moment--but what kinds of hourly rates and restaurants salaries were you seeing in NYC at the time? Did it surprise you? It certainly hasn't gotten better since. Wingding/Meredith as we all know is working, she's a very experienced lead restaurant pastry chef in NYC in a hot restaurant and she says that Pastry Art & Design salary figure is a crock--I take that to mean it is much higher than reality--and she's in the one restaurant city potentially capable of paying that figure! I, as well, have little confidence in PA&D's methodology or accuracy. NickN--I wouldn't say "that someone at Denny's is earning pay similar to someone at an upscale joint" I'd say in many cases they're earning the same or more after benefits are considered. DC is worse than NY hourly and salary-wise--decent restaurant bakers and pastry chefs make 32-35K if they are lucky and hotel pastry chef salaries have been reduced simply by firing older workers and replacing them with younger workers who'll take a pay cut--if not by eliminating pastry departments entirely and outsourcing. Lelsey C has said pastry chef salaries are coming down and/or being eliminated in Montreal--a city one might expect would have the critical mass to support paying a premium for good work--and the skill it takes to produce it. Nick--what do you pay your staff hourly and how in line are these numbers?

Yes--sabayons work very well--and now you can even do "warm" sabayon espumas with the newer model stainless steel iSi, which is designed to hold in a bain marie and go through the dishwasher, unlike the older models. Miss J--I see them the same way as you do; I suspect it is only some who see them as inherently "affected" and that they have short memories. "Jello" can be as misguided as "gelee" in the wrong hands. Look in any of the more commonly-available historical cookbooks, any source from England or France or Colonial America and you see versions, historical precedents of the very same "funky" foams and gelee things Adria and other modernists are perceived as doing. I think you stated it very well when you said they're simply a "way to introduce different textures/contrasts to desserts." The larger--and different issue--is what this has to do with the perception of "homestyle" desserts--simpler, more rustic and often inelegant presentations of dessert. I wonder, too, if a stated aversion to "foams and gelees" as perceived fussy elements might just be "code" for a larger dislike of modern desserts, French desserts and plated desserts that reflect some skill, some refinement? Though, I'd also add that both gelee and foam have tremendous savory applications as well. If you've ever had a warm espuma of foie gras, in the right hands, you know what I mean.

Meredith--the first step is realizing that there are so many possibilities--so many ingredients--that there could never be one base recipe ensuring one consistent end result. Some common foaming agents: 1) gelatin--say 4 or 5 sheets of gelatin in a L of water or a L of fruit puree; 2) it could be dairy fat--say 200 ml of cream with 500 ml of fruit puree; 3) it could be egg--whites, like a meringue or yolks, like a creme anglaise. Then you have to factor in the "charge"--how many charger canisters you load into the iSi--some work better undercharged, some over-charged. If you're using the .5L model--that means some will work better with 1 charge or 2 charges. Even within this ingredients vary so much--for instance, I'm doing a creme anglaise-based espuma infused with cardamom in one dessert. With the fat percentage of the cream I'm using at that restaurant--I had to cut the original recipe with 25% milk to get the results I wanted. Then there is technique--are you storing your foamers upside down--keeping the contents against the nozzle and the propellant behind the contents (best for consistency) or are you standing the foamer upright (nozzle up--allowing the contents to settle to the bottom) and requiring you to invert the foamer each time you use it? Because each time you do that--or each time your staff picks up the foamer and shakes it--shake, shake, shake--you're activating the contents and risk over-shaking them--even before you discharge them. Overfat mixtures are especially vulnerable to this. That's the most common mistake--people thinking you have to shake, shake, shake each time before you discharge. In effect, you're overwhipping, building up more pressure and you'll get something more like highly activated Ready Whip rather than a light, creamy lucious foam. The charge keeps the foam mixture fairly inert--and actually preserves the contents because it removes all the air in the chamber--much like the way certain wine preservation systems work. For best foam recipes check the Adria 1998-2002 CD-Rom, the Alberto Adria dessert book or the Balaguer pastry book--that last is the only one in English. And when you say it wouldn't work--were you straining your mixtures through a fine sieve first before loading?

Tarka--was your butter hard or soft when you started? Is plain flour AP flour? It would also help if you told us where this recipe is from--author and title please, even a link if it is on the web. A trick, too, in rolling out crumbly doughs--roll them out in between two pieces of plastic wrap--lift them up and drape over your tart tin--peel one side off--flip over--peel the other side off--and then press gently in place. What's a Magimix--is that a UK brand and a version of a stand mixer? See I'm guessing UK because all your amounts are in weight. Did you use the "paddle"? Sometimes it also helps to give a final push or schmear together on the countertop before wrapping and refrigerating. And when you say you never had any problems before--was that with this recipe, the Magimix or other doughs you've made in the Magimix?

I haven't stopped in to the new location yet and wondered what effect opening in a much larger space, in that part of Georgetown, would have on the quality and detail of the product as was apparent at the small P Street space. I look inside the new space and sense a Bertucci's corporate vibe. Have you been to both Vengroff and are you in a position to compare?

No, when you compete it's tough to get a handle on what everyone else is doing and it's even tougher to take good pictures. You sort of rely on others to document. You'd have to go to the event website, rummage through the archives, etc. After you finish this--you've been up essentially for like 34 hours straight--you're not worrying about documenting your stuff. You have to clean your kitchen and you just hope you didn't embarrass yourself in front of your friends and colleagues. You go to sleep. One year my parents attended but they couldn't get close enough to get good pictures, one year all the showpieces were vandalized by kids and by humidity before the official photographer could get studio-quality shots, last year Michael Schneider, editor of Pastry Art & Design and one of the organizers, was actually moving one of our pieces to have it photographed better and it inadvertantly broke. Stuff like that happens. I've talked about it before on eGullet I think--especially about trying to do the chocolate showpieces in the heat outside under a tent, in 1999 I did the chocolate work, in 2000 Colleen did the chocolate piece, in 2001 I did. After that I decided I had supported the event enough and had done my little part to raise awareness. I got out of it what I was going to, as well. We tend to move on pretty quickly to the next event, the next project, though. If there is any admiration, it is shared and it comes hopefully from watching live or from the TV special--conveying what it is like over the 10-12 hours--watching the work unfold and the competitors deal with the adversities of temperature and equipment not working, baking at altitude, etc. It's really quite exciting. But thanks for your nice words.

Jason--yes, now that chefette has posted everyone can see her "Marilyn" cake avatar, which was quite a tasty, inventive and delicate cake. At the time, the "work" judges--the German, Dutch and Swiss judges whose job it was was to walk around all the kitchens and watch us work, our habits, assess our "new" techniques, our cleanliness, our organization--were...shall we say...under-appreciative of just how special that cake, in judging parlance an "entremet," actually was. Ironically, it was one of the most photographed items by the judges themselves! Colleen conceived of and then implemented the Marilyn look in innovative fashion, which involved silk-screening, a shower liner from Home Depot, developing a caramel gelatin of just the right taste, color and texture--and then applying it at just the right temperature onto a cake which is also at just the right temperature. Also, the jagged caramel tuiles--incredibly tasty and paper-thin--stuck onto the side of the cake were also made by an innovative technique--powdered caramel sifted onto a silpat and baked, allowing it to fuse, then harden as it is removed from the oven and cooled. (That's the principle behind many of the flavorful powdered dried tuiles and lollipop things Ferran and Alberto pioneered at El Bulli.) Caramel as paper thin as a sheet of phyllo which packed flavor but would crack at the merest hit of a fork. One of the "taste" judges said to us he downgraded our cake--taste-wise--because he had just come back from France and had too many caramel cakes and desserts there. That's what you are up against sometimes in events like this--differing standards between the US and Europe--and not making a big enough impact due to different sensibilities or peculiarities of judges. (That's OK, though, the previous year, while this judge was still a competitor, our team outscored his head to head.) As unappreciated at the time as that Marilyn cake was, it has been splashed on just about every promo and ad and brochure and magazine article since. I wouldn't be surprised if those same dismissive work judges still don't "get it." The Italians, who cover and appreciate stuff like this very seriously, liked it so much they've run it several times in their professional pastry journals. As far as this TV show, I haven't seen it yet. I was getting ready for a media luncheon the next day at one of my restaurants, Cafe Atlantico, and forgot to tape it. But if that year's production crew had the same level of commitment as the year before--which was also taped and produced for the Food Network--after commercials there isn't much time in an hour to really focus on more than the top 2 or 3 teams, and also try to tell some kind of story, some kind of narrative. It's a tough job. And the organizers of the event have their own idea who is going to place in the top positions. The MOF's were a given, Drew Shott's team was a given and I can't even remember now who came in third. As it should be, I hope the show focused on those teams. (And not like the show from the previous year--where the 3rd place team must not have been predicted to do so well by the organizers in advance--and as a result the TV coverage seemed skewed more toward the team which actually came in 4th--En Ming Hsu, Michel Willaume, and Thomas Hass--and not the 3rd place team. That year Colleen and I finished right behind En Ming, coming in 5th with our teammate Richard Ruskell of The Phoenician. We were barely mentioned then, we're probably barely mentioned now--but that's as it should be. We didn't do well enough.) Suzanne--on this I can only speak for myself, but I like all that garde manger stuff on the savory side, all those refined and elegant banquet or buffet presentations. When I have occasion to see some of them--say at a more formal hotel brunch--and it is done well--I still enjoy eating them and I'm appreciative of the labor and technique involved. Sure large scale presentations are a dying/dead art--but many of the same techniques are still used in high end French restaurants, especially involving gelee--it's just that the little set pieces and those cold composed salads are prepared for individual diners and presented on individual plates. I see remnants of this from Boulud to Michel Richard to Antoine Westermann and even in what some of the more innovative Spanish chefs are doing. That's not analogous to pastry showpieces, however--but more analogous to the plated desserts, petits fours, entremets, etc. that we're asked to do. In the French competitions--or French influenced ones like this $50,000 Pastry Challenge--we're asked to do modern viable stuff and it is taste which counts the most. The showpieces are extra--to show skill in that area as well. Perhaps part of the decline, and why that savory-aspic work has fallen out of favor is that it was not tasted? That was also, historically why so many of the best chefs and pastry chefs didn't take the ACF-style "Culinary Olympics" very seriously--the French didn't go and neither taste nor originality was much of a factor. I still think ice carving is viable and artistic--and it is mostly chefs not pastry chefs who do ice. I also think you'll see the ACF dinosaurs modernizing a bit--and adapting their competitions to fit the times better. More live cooking, more market basket stuff, more taste as a factor. Still the ACF, though, so don't get your hopes up.

Brig--there's only one of his salsas, with chipotle, that I can say I like--and I think my opinion comes closer to Toby's in that it is a close approximation of, but inferior to, something you could perhaps make yourself or get fresh. I have no problem with anyone expressing an opinion of the Bayless products. I'm eager for you to back up your tough talk with some specifics, that's all and back it up with some comparison to other bottled salsas--which you have said you tried and which you deemed better--so in a sense to get you to define for us your criteria for judgement and the bottled salsas you consider to be good--to be superior to Bayless--and to say why. Other than that, I love your tough talk. The people who champion the Bayless sauces can defend themselves and I'd try to get them to tell me why they liked them with as much vigor as I tried to get you to be more specific. "Bayless salsas are great" is just as unhelpful as "Bayless salsa sucks."

Which brings us back to Toby's astute comment of Bayless "While his jarred salsas lack that freshness and immediacy, I think they're pretty good approximations." Comparing bottled or canned to fresh seems unproductive due to process. Perhaps there is a bottled salsa somewhere which compares favorably, if so, I'd like to know what it might be. Comparing bottled to bottled, though, against some standard of achievement that's possible within the category, with some specific observations, still seems warranted if you want to make the case the Bayless bottled salsas "suck." Like Ladybug contributing helpfully with "I like recognizable chunks of vegetables in my salsa - the bigger the better. The Ro Tel brand had more chunks. Also, the Herdez stuff came in a can and I can detect a metallic flavor." Now we're gettin' somewhere--toward her criteria and how she assesses salsa. Specifics are good.