Steve Klc

Well, then we disagree. Wouldn't be the first time. Good point about all bottled sauces sucking, Blue. Again, if that is the case, that's a different issue and any member would be free to make that case, free to explain why they feel that way. Brig might feel that way, I doubt it, but if he did then perhaps saying "How can Charlie Trotter's, Rick Bayless's and all the other celebrity chef pricey bottled sauces suck so bad?" would be more appropriate. No, the issue still stands, as Jinmyo posted previously and as I framed--which are the bottled salsas Brig finds superior to Bayless and why?

Fair and reasoned response or third degree? Try to imagine the merit eGulleteers would find in this statement: "Charlie Trotter's restaurant sucks. It just does. For the prices you pay you'd expect it to better than restaurants at half the price. Trust me on this." You've shown him one way to be more qualitative. Toby has shown him an even more thoughtful, more helpful way when she wrote: "his jarred salsas lack that freshness and immediacy." That's a criteria at least you can build on and explore and discuss. Which then brings me back to which other bottled salsas regardless of price you're comparing them to--and which ones seem not to lack freshness or immediacy as much. The third degree seems warranted in this case.

Bottled salsa different from fresh. OK. Back to Jin's question, Brig, which you avoided answering directly. It's simple: you say his bottled salsas suck. A strong statement. What I'd like to know is why you feel they suck in comparison to other bottled sauces--and for you to name a few names of the bottled sauces you feel are superior and why. Name the "top you can find" and the "some very good" please. Also specify which salsas, which blends in the Bayless line you find so egregious--and why. I know, all of them suck, all are poor, all are mediocre, all cost too much--they just do. Dig down in your investigative vocabulary, find some adjectives and try to describe why you feel the way you do. "They do" is not quite enough. Otherwise, you're just venting, just dissing someone. Anonymously I might add.

I've recently posted a few thoughts about fondant and wedding cakes here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...t=0#entry188954 But this has to do with being a stage how? If I thought you were actually interested I'd tell you the story behind that cake--how it came about and how it ended up on the cover of British Cake Decoration--at the time quite significant for an "American" because only one of Colette Peters fancifully distinct creations had made their cover. I was the second American so featured, and apparently should consider myself very lucky. (For the record, I considered myself fortunate and lucky, because I see talented people go under-recognized by the media far too often.) Since you make wedding cakes as well you know brides have different expectations, different notions of what is boring, beautiful, elegant or funky. As an artist I try to identify and then surpass those expectations for each individual client. That's what I try to impart on the stages and students I've had over the years, it isn't necessarily about tips or trucs or recipes but a way of seeing, a way of approaching your work, your client and yourself. As far as grasping the beauty inherent in this particular cake of mine, well, I'm afraid I can't help you there. You either get it, or you don't.

No tsquare, your doctor/lawyer in training examples are paid--minimally--quite handsomely--or pay out themselves, in tuition, for the privilege. You're clearly aware of architectural practice so perhaps there is an analogy to be drawn to cooking. Though the not-for-profit charitable aspect in this vs. the for-profit distinction Rail Paul highlights seems a key distinguisher to me--but then I'm not a lawyer. We have enough lawyer foodies on this site, so anytime now, Steve, Ron, et al?

A wonderful hypothesis this: "In my opinion, Mario's success at his other restaurants has resulted from the studied merger of authenticity and inauthenticity. He knows how to capture the spirit of Italian cuisine in a way that pleases American palates." I wonder what role pleasing himself plays in all this and whether pleasing American palates is merely coincidental?

I'd consider pairing pistachio flour or pistachio paste with the rosewater as an experiment, MartyL. Use a light hand with the rosewater. I prefer the "French" rosewater (and orange flower water) in the little blue bottles. Of course this stretches the classic French nature of this.

You know what they say, where's there's heat, there's fire or smoke or something like that. Well, anyway, I would like to see some documentation, some sourcing, some references, etc. posted to this issue--I suspect this might already have been discussed well on Cheftalk--at least from the foodservice perspective. Undeniably cost, risk, insurance liability, injury deserve closer scrutiny by all of us.

No, Andy, I suspect a general trend if this was pursued more closely: hotels, especially large corporations, have policies in place which forbid unpaid interns and stages for precisely the reasons offered on this thread. F&B Directors answer to GM's and both are over the head of the chef and both seem subject to more corporate concerns--this is also why there are formal "paid" externships as part of culinary schools; freestanding restaurants and smaller establishments, especially elite restaurants and overworked bakeries and patisseries, especially with chef-owners, are more likely to accept students, unpaid interns and stages. Especially if a known chef were to call on your behalf--or if you were a experienced professional already. There is a presumption that you know your way around but there is undeniably this longstanding, informal--but quite possibly risky--process where the best chefs accept other chefs into their kitchens to work and learn and share and then go back to their own kitchens inspired. The elite chefs interned, staged, learned at the feet of others, and so the process of giving back can renew itself. Some you have to pay for the privilege; some you just show up and work. There's a whole lot of sharing and intermingling without pay at all of these festivals, events, celebrity and charity dinners going on nationwide as well--guest chefs and their teams just show up the day or two before and cook in strange kitchens for no compensation, working and plating side by side to pull a dinner off. I've done this alot, gone on the road, hosted chefs and cooks myself and have never signed a release and never actually thought about it. I think an important issue has been raised. I also think there may be a difference between young, unskilled labor being taken advantage of and more-established professionals choosing this route--but that doesn't mitigate the insurance/personal injury aspect.

The "structure" of an upscale meal in the French tradition may be the same. But I wonder whether Escoffier’s influence and imprint can still be felt immensely? Tough to deny that in a mechanical and organizational sense. However, there is a dark side and a dulled palate to unbridled rose-colored Escoffier-worship--there are reasons why we moved beyond the static Escoffier, reasons why Point sought to go in another more dynamic direction relatively quickly after Escoffier on the culinary timeline. Let’s consider some areas Escoffier seems to me less relevant or no longer relevant: 1) There's no chance of one chef ever being so dominant, so feared, so powerful ever again, nor one book carried or consulted by chefs so often because we've transcended that possibility. In fact, I defy anyone to recount the last time they sought advice from one of his books on other than a curious historical whim? 2) Escoffier stood for orchestrated sameness, blind unthinking repetitiveness of dishes, categorization and standardization of names, ingredients, proportions. These weren’t guidelines these were marching orders, a religion if you will--a religion organized around the principle that there is one correct, one authentic, one best way to do things determined by one person. Valuable at the time, quaint notion today. Fortunately for me, there's no culinary equivalent of the Pope. If so, I'd be excommunicated or exorcised; 3) Presentation has evolved dramatically, even if considered solely within high end French cuisine; 4) Service has evolved dramatically, even considered solely within high end French cuisine; outside the remnants of French formal, below which most restaurant meals are taken these days, restaurant service is, shall we say, distinctly less Escoffier-like. The entire service profession has regressed to the point where if you happen to receive excellent service--it is perceived as an exception; 5) There's probably a debate whether high-end French cuisine can even be defined anymore--and if it is even relevant anymore when considered on a global scale; 6) There's certainly much more spontanaeity and personality expressed by chefs--the Escoffier model was to suppress this celebrity, spontaneity and personality of chefs, all except for himself, of course; 7) Escoffier championed the professionalsim of chefs--argued for establishing guidelines and standards a la the ACF and factories like the CIA. Too bad the CIA and other schools like it have little positive impact on the fine dining scene that most of us speak of when we speak of the best restaurants or chefs in this country or the world. Their influence is more felt in "the foodservice industry." Also too bad (for Escoffier's relevance) that today chefs can become wealthy celebrities, food personalities, authors and culinary authorities without having demonstrable skills in the kitchen. Sort of turns Escoffier on his head; 8) Menu-writing has evolved; menus themselves, the number of options, how courses are arranged or selected in so many different possibilities--all augur against Escoffier's relevance. We're at the point where tapas and mezze and first courses often make up the entire meal. Entree? It won't ever disappear but it's only lessened in importance as tasting menus, grazing and dining styles become distinctly less Escoffier-like; 9) Inventiveness on a technical and technological level has dramatically advanced--how much one can legitimately trace that back to Escoffier and how much of a debt the profession owes him is arguable and certainly worth discussing; 10) How ingredients are sourced and shopped for, how relationships are pursued locally, the emphasis on freshness of ingredients, that food should taste of itself, even the notion of cooking of a place as unique to that place--all run counter to Escoffier and possibly the most damning indictment against him. Perhaps Escoffier is not as relevant as you might think. And we haven't even gotten into how food is actually cooked these days versus in his day. I would also add that “bringing up to date what was old fashioned” has happened a few times since as well, beginning with Point who overthrew the tenets and practices of Escoffier--is that remaining relevant? Perhaps the whole "reform working conditions and society as a whole" may be overblown, since arguably pay and working conditions have not continued to improve, both skilled and unskilled labor still goes unrewarded, unfulfilled and unrecognized. In that sense Escoffier does remain hugely influential--the celebrity chef can attract wealth, fame and fortune--largely at the expense of the grunts and underlings doing the real day to day work in the kitchen. To be considered with all respect, but in partial opposition to the tenor of this thread.

We multi-task around here--and this thread can function on another level as well--not just home user, not just pro but "pro-leaning" amateur as well--smart, capable people who'd like to do a better job at home than the many mundane media sources would have them believe they are capable of. And everybody has to start somewhere David--my first attempt at a sorbet was in one of those cheap Krups glaciere type machines with a removable core 10 years ago and I didn't use any stabilizers and didn't even know what glucose was. I made a simple syrup and I added a bit of egg white to improve the texture of the sorbet just as the books at the time told me to. (The egg white does not in and of itself prevent freezing to "ice"--it just helps--if you get ice the sugar is really off, i.e. not enough.) I finally settled on"Frozen Desserts" by Caroline Liddell & Robin Weir as the best of the beginning bunch. Charming little book, erudite even, by two UK cooks perfect for a home user. Get it, use it. You're at this level right now. You may or may not outgrow it. You might want to consider getting a saccharometer (cheap) as JD mentioned or playing around with the immersed/ floating egg (cheaper) as Ben mentioned as imprecise ways to measure sugar content in your mixes--and use those guides to help you predict how soft or firm your sorbets will be. Try to watch that Alton Brown ice cream episode on the Food Network or at least read that thread on eGullet--he uses jam/pectin instead of a raw egg white and that would be better. I outgrew this Liddell/Weir book and this methodology, though there are some gems in there that I still use--recipes that "work" not that the authors can convey scientifically why they work or teach you what you need to know in order to develop or create or repeat this success on your own. But even at this level there is some discussion of the role alcohol plays in a frozen mixture and I applaud them for including metric measurements so you can weight everything--much more quantifiable. Second stage--if you choose to get this far, if you care--and by no means do you have to care this much--but just don't complain when you're not getting the results you want if you stop short. This is for the pro and pro-leaning amateur--begin by reading the seminal chapter on fruit ices in Hal McGee's "Curious Cook." This will help you improve the texture of your sorbets tremendously but it is mathematical/scientific and it is beyond many home cooks. Fact of life. However, even Hal admitted toward the end of that chapter that he didn't really get into the even more key elements of sorbet-making--as I have mentioned--stabilizers and different sugars. I personally believe these are within the grasp of serious home cooks and if the food scientists and molecular gastronomist-wannabees of this country--the McGees and Corrihers--worked with the best pastry chefs of this country a la in France as w/ Herve This and Pierre Gagnaire or Philippe Conticini or in the UK with Peter Barham and Heston Blumenthal--we'd all be alot better off, a lot further down the road to clearing up this frustration over producing frozen desserts at home and in restaurants. Begin to read what you can on the differences between all the types of sugars the food industry uses--and why they use them: glucose, inverted sugar, dextrose, powdered glucose, 0% powdered milk and yes, stabilizers. Try to understand why crystals form in ice cream and sorbet and how to combat them. This is the road to true ice cream and sorbet enlightenment. But no one will look down on you if decide not to follow through this far.

Bri--I use "not hold them too long" only in the context of stuff done without stabilizers--so mixtures without the Cremodan or the Gelglace. Something someone might do at home. A basic batch of creme anglaise ice cream, say. Spin an hour or two before dinner, put it in the freezer, and you should be ok by the time dessert rolls around. Any longer and you could get crystals or lose texture. If you nail the right Baume/Brix and have the right percentage of glucose or inverted sugar in your mix--then perhaps you can spin once during the day and "hold" throughout the evening. Even at home. This is because these other "sugars" help retard crystallization and retain softness even frozen. (This is also what is meant by lowering the freezing point. )But overnight, by the next morning, you'll taste degradation--and that is why the old French way to deal with this was simply to melt the frozen ice creams and sorbets down--and then re-churn them the morning of the next day--for that next day's service. Stabilizers allow you to "hold" these ice creams and sorbets even longer--for days--and is why they are often used in foodservice.

Jason--somehow I knew you would be attracted to this "Porsche" of stand mixers. I saw it in Bloomingdales the other day, without a price marked. Very stylish, very solid, since there is so much stainless in our house already, and our last Cuisinart just bit the dust--damaged shipping back from an event--I figured this might be a nice upgrade. Then I checked online and saw the price. I'd have to hear some reports from people who actually use this machine that is good before investing that much. For now I'll make due with my K5A, mandoline, immersion blender and knives. The interesting thing about this is that Bosch has a similar version of this unit in white plastic--same power rating--at less than half the price. I believe it's called the Bosch Universal and was also at Bloomingdales.

Then there's always the Bosch Solitaire: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...lance&s=kitchen

JD--I don't know anyone--any pro anyway--who advocates the egg white anymore. Though you can buy frozen, even fresh, pasteurized egg whites now I still wouldn't recommend it. It's just a quick fix, a throwaway not based in good science or knowing what you are doing. With the Musso--a very good machine for ice cream and sorbet at home--you do have to go 1) alternative sugars in the mix, like glucose and inverted sugar or trimolene and possibly 2) stabilizers. Not necessarily. If you adjust the sugar/% water mix and spin when you need a batch--i.e. not try to hold or store it in the freezer overnight or for longer than an hour or two--you should be fine without stabilizers. But don't be scared off by stabilizers. It's just natural stuff like carob bean flour, carragenan, sometimes with dextrose and 0% powdered milk mixed in. Gelglace is one I have used from Patisfrance--which contains pectin and carob flour. There are usually helpful little guides like "add 5 to 10 g Gelglace for 100 g sugar" that aren't actually that helpful until you start to experiment. There's usually a trick to utilizing stabilizers--mixing them into some sugar first and then whisking them into liquid, applying some heat, say up to 185 F and allowing it to ripen before churning. But the best stuff I've worked work by--by far--is Sevarome from Yssingeaux, France. Lots of different formulations--some for sorbet like 64S--usage 2 to 4 g per kg of base, some for ice cream like 64G--4 to 6 g per kg and 65S--2 to 2.5 g per kg, they sell dextrose as well with guidance like "6% max of sugar in ice cream"--which means take the total weight of your sugar content in the recipe and substitute 6% of it for dextrose. Some people use more than 6%. Dextrose speeds up melting in the mouth, and reduces freezing time, among other things. But with all these things it is possible to use too much. Look in books like the Adria and also the Oriol Balaguer--now translated into English--for his ice cream and sorbet recipes, they have good "stock" simple syrups so you can see the percentage of glucose to sugar he uses in recipes--roughly 30% to the weight of sugar, and also the grams of stabilizer or amounts of tricky powdered sugars they use. I've tried many of the recipes in batch freezers and they are good--even without stabilizer--as long as you don't try to hold them long. The Balaguer has the best discussion of different sugar types and their properties that I've seen in a pastry text as well. And I have not actually seen the "home" PacoJet--I'm just relaying what I've heard--that one is--or will shortly be-- available in Europe.

Cab--do you get the sense that Hevin has felt pressure to expand outside of his perceived core of expertise--chocolate--and move more agressively into ice cream, pastry and food? Is anyone familiar with any links or articles which may have noted this timeline? Usually, it seemed "chocolatiers" offerred a minimal, perfunctory selection of pastries--usually chocolate tarts, chocolate-glazed eclairs, a chocolate terrine, a few macarons. Call this the Maison du Chocolat model. I'm wondering if there's a trend or a story here--not just additional locations to sell packaged goods regularly available--but chocolatiers expanding their product line, adding emphasis perhaps with more of a "Salon du the" concept, in order to compete for media or for market share? Is Hevin trying to compete more on the terms of Herme and Peltier?

Night--yes, the other great thing about the photos on that site is they are dated--unlike most on the web--so you can also get a sense of how current or representative they are--for instance, those were the first of Herme's "white" themed collection I had seen. This might be racist and stereotypical--but the perception I've always maintained is that Japan found out what the best was and imported it. Designers, cooks, ingredients, handbags, whatever. In just about everything. And as far as the Japanese reaching out to the French--importing the French chefs, their cooking, etc.--perhaps you're detecting that they've re-focused of late because that happened a long time ago. Cross fertilization dates at least back to the "Nouvelle" era, minimalism and more Japanese aesthetics showed up in French food even before Japanese ingredients did. And in many cases--Japanese standards for French products are higher than the French--i.e. chocolate manufacturers are often asked to produce special, even more expensive lines of chocolate, hewn to even tougher more demanding standards, than the chocolate used by the finest European chocolatiers--specifically for the Japanese market. Bux--thank you for that link to Loufood's post--now I can match up the Aoki "Macaron Sesame" to the "crave-worthy" picture here: http://fine.tok2.com/home/takutaku/patisse...aronsesame.html (Note: I'm too old to actually use a phrase like "crave-worthy" but thank you Loufood for your adept phrasing. I will be happy to repeat it, in quotes, and give you credit! We need more "crave-worthy" desserts and reports!) And that taste test might be interesting, because in my experience the French and Japanese pastry chefs interpreting Japanese ingredients still retain that flat dullness, that extreme subtly of flavor inherent in things like red bean or sesame or green tea--no matter how "French" they try to make them. There is an inherent austerity, for lack of a better word, in those ingredients that I don't think one can, or should, overcome. To appreciate their beauty, you have to recalibrate a little bit. If one applies Western or traditional French pastry standards to them you risk missing them entirely. Also, these kinds of things tend to work better when they play a harmonious role, following the flow of a cuisine which itself appreciates understatement, lack of richness and lack of intensity. Loufood, when you speak of the Hevin preboxed assortment having "very little variety in taste and texture. I have not yet made chocolate so I cannot speak to this in more technical and ideal terms - but I will and very soon" I (personally) don't think you have to speak in technical/ideal terms. Speak viscerally, speak about how you perceive flavor and feel texture--and especially compare to others you've had in that class, i.e. Herme, like Cabrales did. Especially compare to Maison du Chocolat, which is more commercial, seems to use inferior chocolates and ingredients at least to my palate, BUT whose chocolates aim for the same traditional style of Hevin. For instance, do you feel the current Hevin line, as sampled, was enrobed more thickly than Maison? One issue to consider--apart from our individual taste and subjectivity--is that the "traditional" French like their chocolate subtle, very subtly flavored. Meaning they want to taste chocolate--and only chocolate--revelling in the glory and intensity of chocolate--for like 3/4 to 7/8 of the way through the bon bon--and then search for the flavor, the hint, the wisp, of flavor near the tail end. For some, this is the supreme refinement, the supreme achievement of the chocolatier's art. Agree or disagree, and we all certainly will, this is what some of the best chocolatiers aim for. Also, apart from flavor intensity, traditional chocolatiers sometimes try to attain their perception of an "ideal" ganache--a repeatable smoothness and texture--that sets up just so--so each variety has it's own perfect percentage, to them, of cream to chocolate to trimolene (or other inverted sugar) to butter to fruit or infused flavor--that when combined have the right flavor and the right consistency representative of their style. This may or may not be what you're perceiving with Hevin--and to some would be considered a strength. Consistency across the line. Again, the most direct comparison would be to examine other lines within that style--the traditionalists--and compare. Of course, stuff is increasingly in flux now--French chocolatiers are jazzing up their products, pushing flavor more forward in their recipes, becoming less subtle, all the time. In some respects to compete with the Spanish, Belgians like Marcolini, compete with French-style chocolatiers selling more agressive, more flavor-forward bon bons to the Americans. It is becoming harder to remain subtle in this media age. One final note, I never buy pre-boxed chocolates. I always try to select my chocolates by the piece after looking them over. Even if I'm buying 65 pieces. I know Lou, I'm a tourist. Point well-taken. And with regard to the chocolate hangover, just how many bon bons were consumed and in what time frame?

The more pressing question, Cab, is: will you partake of the infamous--once and perhaps still glorious--dessert trolley at Le Bec Fin?

In addition to Cab's Le Bec Fin/Bar Lyonnais recommendation, always a good one, a New York-based member should consider eating at Django--Philly's Django not NYC's Django: http://ae.philly.com/entertainment/ui/phil...5&reviewId=8094 It's the kind of restaurant you don't find in NY anymore--very sophisticated food at a bargain price in a very small dining room where the chef cooks and his wife runs the front of the house and selects great cheese. Dinner only. In fact, Craig LaBan ends his review with Aimee Olexy and the cheese: "It is almost moving to watch her bring them to the table and lovingly describe each one. The passion of her own handiwork once again twinkles in her eye." You'll have a twinkle in your eye as well. Really, go, bus or train, stay overnight if you have to, you'll thank me later. In fact, you'll want to dine there the next night. This applies equally to the NYC core Italian vs. French cuisine advocates and the "application of technique" vs. "very good shopping" contingents. BYOB as well.

Wgallois--very interesting angle--how does one go about ordering dessert and what are the possible strategies for success? I'd never heard your strategy expressed before but I do the very same thing--when I have no knowledge going in about what is good--I usually order "interesting" or "different." That said, I have no problem with what some perceive as boring or pedestrian--brownies, vanilla ice cream, creme brulee--as long as they are good. As Suzanne notes, all too often even the simple desserts are not good. This is the real problem and I wish more restaurant critics pick up on this distinction: it is not that these classic or boring desserts are classic, boring or just not very interesting, the problem is that they are not GOOD. Chefs and restaurateurs who do not hire and support pastry talent--and do not place the requisite emphasis on desserts if they try to do them themselves--should be criticized publicly. It is not enough for a critic to use a throwaway line in a review saying the desserts were perfunctory or not to bother. Too often, the problem lies at the feet of the chef or owner. Give me a good creme brulee--and by the way, it's not as easy to do a good creme brulee as some might think. (Another thread.) Now, my strategies (or is this tactics?) are not quite 100% the same thing as you saying "you choose the dish which you think that you would like least," because my experience tells me I'd probably think I'd like the brownie/vanilla ice cream/creme brulee least. But, a little bit more about my "strategy." Unless I know of the pastry chef or have heard reports of at least decent desserts at a restaurant, I often do the cheese thing, sometimes order a nice dessert wine as a liquid dessert, or don't order a dessert, go home, and nibble on some terribly expensive varietal bittersweet chocolate (with pure cacao butter content and no added vegetable fats, of course) or some Haagen Dazs vanilla swiss almond ice cream. I usually eat out with my wife, also a professional pastry chef, who typically orders dessert everywhere no matter what, and I sit smugly across the table muttering "I told you so" when the dessert lets her down. I feel pain when dessert sucks and suck they do. Except when the chance dessert doesn't let her down--or when we know ahead of time the desserts might be good--or when we're recognized as pastry chefs--and then we get all the desserts, many more than we could actually eat in terms of room left in our gullet. To see them, revel in them, appreciate the skill and choice of flavors and "application of technique" or the "very good shopping," whichever the case may be. We start thinking about the menu of desserts as a whole--how it fits with the meal and the cuisine which precedes it, figuring out what equipment they might have, how many hands might be involved in the preparation, we look at things like texture and crunch and hot versus cold all across the menu, we look at how thin, how light, how colorful, how seasonal, how a la minute things are--across the menu. So in a sense, when warranted, we enjoy the dessert menu as we have enjoyed the savory menu and hold it to the same extended scrutiny. The problem is very few places warrant such attention. And always chocolate. Now, my question for you wgallois and everyone else--do you order differently if you know that there is a full time pastry chef in the restaurant? Do you ever ask "who" the pastry chef is--to gauge the response of the server or do you just assume a restaurant must have a pastry chef? This is tied into a larger theme--which affects dessert selection and choice--which is that pastry chefs are losing jobs, pay is declining, and all this is occuring as pastry chefs are supposedly gaining in prestige and awareness as never before.

And Lesley, you have me piqued with the mention of Sadaharu AOKI--do make time to share more of your sense of the place. I googled it, found its nascent website here: http://www.interq.or.jp/gold/sada/ with but a few pictures, including one very interesting millefuille-type construction--which might be of phyllo--sprinkled with pistachio--but might that powdered bright green "pistachio" actually be powdered green tea? That would be very cool and something I hadn't seen or thought of before--there are some matcha green tea mixes you can buy in the States that have sugar already in the mix, which instantly dissolve and are meant to simply be stirred into water for a sweetened green tea iced tea. I wonder if that's what he's using to "dust" this pastry? Thanks to the wonder of the age we live in, and Google, I also found this site: http://fine.tok2.com/home/takutaku/gateauxtop.html which has a beautiful array of pictures from many of the patisseries mentioned on this thread, in case anyone is interested in poking around.

Now Cab--leaving aside for the moment that though bittersweet chocolate "tastes unappealing overall" it has not prevented you from assessing chocolates and chocolatiers who depend primarily on bittersweet chocolate to create their product--I'm not sure what you're trying to say by: "I thought each of Pierre Herme, Maison du Chocolat and Christian Constant offered more balanced chocolates, in the sense of having an appropriately limited amount of ingredient inside the couverture relative to the outside chocolate component. There were a lot of nuts in the J-P Hevin chocolates that had nuts. For some where the added components were not nuts, there was still overutilization in my view." With this, are you essentially saying that the Hevin chocolates you sampled--presumably flat, dipped and enrobed "squares" of ganache--were covered with too thin a layer of chocolate--i.e. there was too much filling (the ganache) in relation to the shell (the pure tempered chocolate covering?) Is that what you mean by "appropriately limited amount of ingredient" and "overutilization?" If so, what you just done for me, presumably Lesley and many other readers who appreciate fine chocolates--is reinforce our widely held view that the Hevin chocolates are superior and are more worthy--on a purely technical and skill level--because of this. Here's why: generally, the thinner the shell--the thinner the covering--the MORE skillfully prepared the bon bon. (It's harder to achieve this thinness and requires use of better, more expensive, more fluid chocolates.) This may not be what you're actually trying to convey--but if you take the roughly equal size and weight bon bon of Herme, Constant, Maison, Hevin, Peltier, whomever--say 10-12 grams--cut them in half--look at the filling and how thick or thin the covering or shell is--you can generally assess the better chocolate by how thick or thin the shell is, i.e. who has the least amount of chocolate after dipping or enrobing--and also by how evenly and completely the chocolate covers the ganache, including by flipping the bon bon over and assessing visually how cleanly the bottom was "footed." Now, some of you may be saying that Steve's making a chocolate bon bon sound so complex. I apologize for that, but chocolates are a combination of so many delicate, intricate, scientific steps--and of course this does not take into consideration flavor yet--this just begins to speak to visual, clinical assessment of skill and technique. But Cab, at this point this is also where flavor--where appreciation of dark chocolate "as an ingredient" has to come into play because the only way to judge or assess the skill of this enrobing, and the correct "balance" of filling to shell is to gauge how well the chocolatier has chosen the covering--i.e. the correct percentage, degree of bitterness, cacao bean blend--in relation to the amount and flavor of the filling. That said, I feel there are many perfectly valid, incredibly helpful assessments anyone can make without even eating chocolate let alone enjoying chocolate: very detailed observations and criticism of the store, the service, the ambience, the packaging and design, the price and especially notes about the size, shape, consistency, shine of the chocolates--which would reveal alot about the skill and preparation and freshness of the chocolates. This can be ascertained simply by observing the product through the glass cases and would also convey alot about the knowledge or acumen of the observer. Without tasting a chocolate, it could be sliced in half and assessed visually to great reward. But to talk about chocolate in terms of visual "balance" and an "appropriately limited amount of ingredient" and "overutilization" doesn't serve a critique of chocolatiers well--if it doesn't also include what glorious magic occurs inside your mouth when you eat it. That's where the true glory and success of any chocolatier is revealed. I happen to believe all assessment of chocolate--like a dish in a restaurant--has to begin with--is it good? is it delicious? What's happening in your mouth, how is the flavor and complexity revealing itself over time as the bon bon melts, as it slides from your tongue to the back of your throat, as it lingers after you have swallowed. And then it proceeds from there. Others may disagree. But only then can you go on and assess if the "balance" of flavors work and if not, why? I can't help but feel you're too inherently limited in this Cab, by not appreciating dark chocolate as a flavor or ingredient. I admire that you're open and honest about this. Visual balance is one thing--as I hope I've revealed, you can intuit about balance, you can dispassionately, clinically quantify factors and measure filling to covering, you can observe technical skill. But you can't really qualify, you can't "know" if you don't like the essential, complex and overwhelming ingredient--dark chocolate--which everything else has to be balanced against--nor can you detect or appreciate the subtle differences in that ingredient itself. As far as taste, I fear you're really at too much of a disadvantage in this respect.

"Plus their service is the most psychotically chaotic I've ever seen in a patisserie - when it's crowded you have to fight through the crowd to take a number, wait, order, take the order ticket to the cashier, wait, pay, take your paid-stamped order ticket back to the counter, wait, pick up and finally leave. Insane." Loufood--I first experienced this system at Fauchon and it initially struck me as a weird way to conduct business. It irked me to no end. Then I asked myself if the experience would have been different if each clerk behind the counter handled the whole transaction--including taking the money, processing charges and making change? I don't think so and frankly, I don't mind it when the person handling the food just handles the food and boxes it up. Money is dirty. Cash registers are dirty. Constantly removing and then replacing plastic gloves would be neverending and inefficient in places which require their staff to wear gloves. Then I asked myself how I'd like to deal with this at every single station--bread, patisserie, chocolate, gourmet, etc. I wouldn't. Then the other option would be just to hand over all the product to customers, approach the checkout register, stand in long lines a la an American supermarket, have it rung up, pay and leave. The problem with this is that it puts ALOT of emphasis on the person running the register to ring things up properly--and would require boxes, nicely tied with bows, to be opened and inspected in many cases, no? That line would be slowed by any problem, any discrepancy, and would be sure to snake its way throughout the already cramped store making it even less easy to engage the counter help. I have now come around to appreciate the merit of this system in certain places--browse, order what you want, browse some more, collect your slips, have an espresso, wait in line to pay once--but all this time NOT having to schlep the stuff with you in an already crowded store, go back to collect your items, leave. Now if only Fauchon were not a shell of its former self.

Cab--this seems somewhat clinical and detached: "For me, the balance was lacking in many pieces, some of which were overwhelmed by nuts or other ingredients, say. I don't purport to know what is better chocolate, but the J-P creations sampled seemed to fall short to me." Have you gotten to the point where you are enjoying dark chocolate--where bittersweet chocolate actually tastes good to you? And fall short of what?

So the true spirit of Sara Moulton lives on!