Lisa Shock

It looks like a meringue that has been dusted with cocoa. They probably just put in a small amount of nut flour, my guess is that it's far less nut flour than used in macaroons. Either they piped out the spikes and baked them, and then placed them on top the mousse, finally dusting with cocoa. Or, they piped it onto the mousse and used a torch or salamander to lightly cook it (like baked alaska) before dusting with cocoa.

I think he means piping in a style different from the cursive handwriting that is currently very common. I have a collection of older professional pastry books, and they show using a variety of styles for piping lettering. An old English style, with each letter piped separately -no cursive, was common until recently, you can even see Nicolas Lodge use it in his book 'Pastillage and Sugar Moulding' -part of the Art of Sugarcraft series from 1987. Books form the 1920's-30's show several Art Deco influenced styles. Before that, Gothic and Renaissance style piping was popular. I'd say, find a font or typestyle you like, and just start trying to emulate it.

In many areas here in the US, you would be required to have an employee restroom. Plus handwashing facilities in the food prep area.

One place I worked at was very sorry that they signed a lease and remodeled the building, only to discover afterwords that the local health code required two restrooms, separate ones for men & women, instead of the single restroom they had constructed. I'd consult with local officials about the laws first, and get advice from an architect as well. That said, my favorite handwashing sinks are the kind with knee-operated pedals so you never have to touch the faucets with dirty hands.

Are you weighing your ingredients? If not, I recommend purchasing a scale. Have you recently changed brands of flour? Have you tried cake flour? Is your baking powder more than 6 months old? If yes, replace it. Have you made any other substitutions in your recipes, like soymilk instead of whole milk? I suspect that your oven is not hot enough, or has hot and cold spots. Move the thermometer around a bit and see if you get different readings. Putting the pizza stone back, or some tiles in could remedy this. You may want to try pre-heating at a higher temperature -if you are not using the pizza stone. I doubt the mixer is affecting much, unless you are so thrilled by it that you are mixing it way too long just to see it in action. Good luck! I know this is frustrating!

Do you get the full power and torque of the 1000watt motor when kneading dough at a low speed? This has been a criticism of some other machines. ← It's quite good. Some person reviewing it on amazon hooked one up to a meter and found that the machine usually only uses a couple hundred watts, but jumped up for them when it his tougher materials and started using 400+. When I mix thin, small batches of things, there's a small rattly noise as if the motor doesn't have enough to do. (The husband says that's pretty common for motors operating without their usual load.) But, I routinely mix doughs where I leave it on for ten minutes to develop huge windowpanes and it's fine. The only time I ever had the motor really have to push was one time when I was juicing a case of apples. The juicer attachment says that it's 'continuous' but, a small amount of residue gets stuck inside and after a while, after my second quart of apple juice, it is enough to stop the motion of the juicer. But, pulling it off and a quickly running a towel on the inside groove to dislodge the pulp was all it took to be back in business. I would also like to point out that I have seen brand new DSM7 machines sell on eBay for $100 because some consumers couldn't figure out how to place the whip, dough hook and paddle on the machine. It's a pretty simple push and turn motion for me. -And a bargain on eBay for someone else.

I agree that professional models are not generally suited for home use, unless you have a really large family. It's almost impossible to mix up ingredients for, say, one cake in a 10qt or larger mixer. That said, I purchased the DeLonghi DSM7, 7 quart mixer in March of 2007 and have really enjoyed owning it and many of its accessories. (this is the 6.6L Kenwood in the UK) It has a 1,000 watt motor and has been able to take anything I have thrown at it. I have the grain grinder, pasta maker, juicer, citrus juicer, and slicer/shredder. I make bread every week. I usually make pizza once a week, but I make a triple batch of dough so that we can have calzones for lunch or dinner on following days. I also make all of the baked goods that my family eats from scratch and send large batches to my husband's office parties. Every couple of week I process a large amount, some of it very hard -like quince, of fruit in the juicer to make sorbets. And, with food being so expensive, I have been using the slicer/shredder to break down cabbage for coleslaws. So, I do use the mixer quite often, and make batches close to its capacity at least once a week. I know that amazon got some poor reviews of this mixer because of their weird customer service, but, it's been a great home mixer for me at a pretty reasonable price. At the time I purchased it, the KA professional models all had the plastic gear, and it seemed foolish to buy one. I have no regrets.

That's much better. Be forewarned, though, this is a very common meal dished out by hotel chefs put on the spot. I was forced to eat this for lunch and dinner for an entire week's conference once. Breakfast was the only thing that kept me sane, since they had a buffet.

Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies and is not suitable for vegetarians.

Sounds good to me, as long as the risotto is made with water or veggie broth -no animal-based stock. (I'm a vegetarian.) An easy, no-cheese appetizer might be bruschetta. Several types are easy and cheap to make including the basic garlic, olive oil, S&P. Then there's variations with (mix n match) chopped tomatoes, basil, olives, grilled veggies, pickled veggies, etc. Good luck, and try to have fun! (Sorbet makes a good emergency dessert!)

I really hate the fact that most brushes harbor bacteria and/or mold up in the area where the bristles are attached. I find that they tend to smell bad after a while, even if you can't see the discoloration of the area under a plastic or metal band. I found a a silicone brush that I like a lot at Bed Bath and Beyond, from a company called Chip Clip. It looks like BB&B has stopped carrying the item, but some store may still have a few. The beauty of this item is the fact that it comes completely apart for washing, and I know that it's 100% clean whenever I use it.

Why don't you pipe it out with a piping bag and large tip?

On the subject of bad taste, she has apparently posed for a series of nude photos for Allure magazine. The one photo attached to the story, at least online, is kind of weird because the photographer left her feet out of the photo and it looks very odd to me. Actually, now that I see more pictures (of other stars) from the shoot, it appears that the photographer has a tendency to cut off feet...kind of disturbing...

For a Santa Fe touch, how about Biscochitos? For asian, a white cake with whipped cream icing and strawberries.

When I attended in 2006, I learned a lot and got a lot of very good educational materials. It was also great to be able to ask questions and get answers from some of the top people in the field. There were even after-hours classes that did not appear on the schedule. Nicolas Lodge on running a bakery (pricing pastry, dealing with problem customers, etc) was fabulous. Anil Rohira on chocolate production and composition was more in-depth than any book I have seen on the subject. The French Culinary Institute gave a great class on the mathematics of ices and sorbet, during which I saw all of my prior mistakes laid out for me in simple algebra. This year features the following demo instructors: Albert Adrià Stephen Durfee Dimitri Fayard Ciril Hitz Laurent Le Daniel, MOF Colette Peters Vincent Pilon, and Anil Rohira Biagio Settepani Paco Torreblanca Rudolph (Rudi) Van Veen, and Robert van Beckhoven Plus, if you pay for the demo class program you get tickets to the competition, tickets to the banquet, plus lunch every day. I learned a lot at mealtimes -everyone eats at the same buffets, students and instructors. One example: I had dinner once with Thomas Haas and his assistants, and learned a lot of details on how he set up his pastry shop. (for those Food Network aficionados, I had lunch with Keegan Gerhard once, too!) The competitors set up and practice during the week of classes. Some also teach classes. But they all bring coaches and entourages. I met some amazing chefs at odd times throughout the week. These were winners of all sorts of international championships. In 2006, they showed culinary-related films in the competition room in the evening -free, with free popcorn, for those taking the classes as well as guests. I got to see several foreign films there for the first time -including the original Mostly Martha. Don't know if that will happen this year or not. Overall, I'd say that I learned a great deal in that one week in 2006. For me, it was definitely the equivalent of taking a couple of regular classes at the Cordon Bleu (where I got my pastry degree) and less expensive. I understand that times are tough and money is tight. The one bright spot is that they are allowing people to pay a $200 deposit, then pay the rest over 9 month period interest-free.

I have some yuzu seeds (from fresh fruit) that I have been sprouting a few at a time and trying to grow indoors in pots and outdoors in soil. They get to be a few inches tall, then wither and die. I am keeping the seeds in the refrigerator and sprouting a few at a time in moist paper towels. The sprouting is working very well. Many seeds produce two or even three plants! I live in Phoenix, AZ which is the same climate zone as Death Valley. Our soil is very poor, and there is a layer of caliche underneath. The soil and water tend to be alkaline. We get very little rain, but I water carefully and regularly. I first started with household potting soil, in the planters, but, lately have gone to a mix of sand and manure. The plants in the sand mix live longer, but no plant has ever gotten more than 7 leaves before dying. I started using gnatrol on the potted plants a month ago, it seemed to help a little. At least we do not have so many gnats now. In cooler months, I keep the plants indoors all of the time under a bank of grow lights. As it gets warmer they go outside during the day, then they stay outside all day. I have not had any living plants in the heat of summer, yet, so I have no idea how they may handle that. (It's often 115-126F for the whole month of August.) In most cases, the leaves wilt and then turn brown within a few days. Here's the odd part. People grow all sorts of citrus here very well. There are huge orange and lemon farms 20 miles from my house. People have grapefruit, lime, lemon, orange and tangelo trees in their yards. I figured that growing yuzu would be fairly easy because we have such a warm climate. It's been super-difficult, and it's very hard to get yuzu fruit here, so I do not know if I will be able to get more seeds if these all die. Any advice would be appreciated.

It sounds like the sort of thing that might be useful to memorize if one were to find themselves accepted as a contestant on Top Chef.

Since the 2009 World Pastry Forum will be held in Phoenix (where I live) this year, I will be attending the demo classes and the competition. Just wondering if anyone else will be there? I attended in 2006, and had a wonderful time -both in class and in the off-hours! For those on tight budgets, they are now offering an interest-free payment plan.

Were the pans clean? I've been sabotaged by other employees not washing the grease completely off pans...

I buy cleaned peanuts to make my peanut butter, so I can't help with the papery stuff, but, I will mention that I use an immersion blender to make mine and it has always worked very well.

You can even up the edges by heating up a sheet pan (not too hot) and placing the rim on the sheet pan and moving it a bit until it melts down to the size you need. It helps to have a large spatula around to move the bowl off the pan.

My favorite honey is Questa Clover Honey from New Mexico. It's unheated and unfiltered so it's thicker and has a cloudy, white appearance. They make a Desert honey as well, which is good, but not as great as the Clover. For a while, they sold jars of the Clover with strawberries mixed in, that was really yummy!

There's a chance that they used agar, and some juice in addition to berries. I make strawberry pie by placing trimmed whole berries (ends up) in a pie shell, packing in as many as will fit. I then slice enough berries to make about two cups' worth and cook those with some sugar, orange juice, a dash of grated orange peel, and add a cornstarch slurry. I pour the cooked berry/orange mixture over the top and chill til it sets up. This pie should be served the same day that it's made. Honestly, I'd try asking the restaurant the next time you're there. Some places will give you recipes.

NBC has episode one on the official website for the show. hopefully, they will post all of the episodes, so we can at least see who won! BTW, Last Restaurant Standing is on BBC America right now, on Tuesdays.

I never really got a sense of anyone's cooking skills/style on this show. The business of forcing people to work in groups has so far produced some really underwhelming menus featuring dishes that any homemaker could easily rustle up. (shrimp cocktail anyone? Insalata Caprese?) There's too much camera time given to bickering, too little emphasis on creativity with food. And, IMO, putting pressure on people to produce large volumes of food in short periods of time does not result in creative fare -especially when it has to be designed by a committee. I really think that the format itself is to blame. By keeping everyone tied to an unfriendly group, you never see an individual's strengths. I prefer Last Restaurant Standing, by far. -And, I mention this despite being a huge Top Chef fan, because LRS also takes couples where one person is FOH and the other is BOH. On LRS, you get to know the couples for their culinary style, their dreams, and their unique ideas. And, the show has people succeed or fail based upon their actual skills and abilities, within the environment that each couple creates.