Lisa Shock

I'm going with mezzaluna, I have a vague memory of learning the origin of the whisk and do not want to cheat and look it up, but suspect it isn't all that old. I know that mano + metate, mortar + pestle combinations date back to the stone age, and forged knives to the bronze age. So, mezzaluna is my guess.

The thing people used 100 years ago would have been a food mill, or food strainer, with more to wash than a blender or immersion blender. Honestly, an immersion blender and a steel milkshake cup sound like the way to go.

Raspberry bakery jam is what you need to use. It will make a tasty ganache, it can also be added to buttercream for a tasty icing filling.

I actually brought in DVDs of the BBC Kitchen Nightmares show and tried to loan them to the owner, but she never bothered to take them home. I also tried occasionally asking things like 'did you see KN last night?' but nobody there watched the show. Oh yeah, we didn't do cost cards there, either.

One place I worked at, we had several regulars who hung out most of the day because we gave free refills on coffee at breakfast. They would order one pastry and coffee and take up a table from 8am til 3pm, constantly fussing about things, mostly seeking someone to entertain them. They also happened to be boring, closed minded bigots without much education or life experience, so, they weren't fun to talk to. Then we also had a couple of Sunday morning regulars who were fans of the cooking and happened to be interesting people with cool sounding jobs and fun hobbies who were always interesting to chat with. I personally appreciated when they'd catch a problem, I try really hard to make everything great, when I mess it up, I want to know. Our owner didn't enforce the standardized recipes I had written along with the original menu and let new employees 'be creative' whenever they felt like it, causing wildly fluctuating quality and inconsistent flavors. I'd complain about the new employees' (untrained teenagers, hired because they'd work for minimum wage) sub-par food and the owner would tell me to stop trying to stifle their creativity. I really enjoyed it when the regulars would complain about the 'creativity.' One couple walked out, never to return when they tried the new, more cheaply made hollandaise sauce (watered down and suddenly super spicy -made with a ton of black pepper and cayenne), complained, and was told that I'd been taken off hollandaise duty permanently. Having customers tell the FOH staff that they would not return unless I had full control of the kitchen felt good for me; the owner didn't understand the message and has been scaling back her business as it gradually slows and slows and she doesn't know why.

Actually, eels were probably a big part of that first Thanksgiving. If you served eels there's a good chance that no one in attendance would be tired of them, or ate too many as a kid, etc.

I keep wondering if maybe LCK happened, and they will surprise us with it at the end when they tell the finalists...

Stuffed pumpkin.

It would set immediately, however, the whole pan wouldn't come to temp all at once. The bottom and sides of the pan will set first.

Tempering is something you have to practice a bit before perfecting. Are you stirring after the initial melt? (also, your temp might be a little high for some milk chocolates, you are risking burning the milk part)

Cookies: Biscochitos Polvorones con Piñon Dry provisions in a nice little crate: a big bag of piñones (that's what I miss the most) a bag of blue corn meal red chile peppers red corn meal (I helped develop that, along with hundreds of other residents, with Seeds of Change) Seeds, from Seeds of Change: Green Chile Blue Corn Red Corn beans Maybe make up a little cookbook with basic recipes for green/red chile stew, biscochitos, etc. in it. Or just buy one. I'd also look for someone to give you a deal on a bulk purchase and try to include a fetish in each gift box/basket.

I place my cooked pizzas on my wooden cutting board, that absorbs some of the steam and helps the crust. We usually just grab it off the board, I've never served pizza in a formal situation. If I were planning to do so, I would probably consider getting a long wood serving platter of some sort. The wood also helps keep it warm a little better than a metal tray or ceramic platter.

I also make my own, I have a couple on hand each made from different types of peppers, some fresh some dried.

Please let us know how it goes and what worked and what was unexciting or bad. Someone in the future will surely reference this thread and you will have more detailed info on the topic once your ordeal is over.

You might have a bad bottle. It doesn't happen very often with spirits, but it can happen. The distributors replace bad bottles for the store, so, the store should be fine with you returning it. I used to manage a wine store/bar and we had a day once a week when bad bottles would be picked up and replaced for us.

Don't go cheap, don't get plastic, don't get one with a lip. A nice heavy base is useful. There are several good brands out there, I have mostly used Ateco 612 and 613 and prefer the 613. Those just stay level, and are good workhorses. The plastic high end Wilton does tilt, and I own one, but tilting cause the cake to slip off, so it sits unused at the back of a cupboard. I think the tilt is too gimmicky overall. I'd rather have a work table with adjusting height. Oh yeah, don't get the rectangular one unless you do a lot of rectangular cakes. I worked at a place where that was the only turntable and it was really difficult to use for round cakes.

You know, you can buy a cheap heating pad at a drug store and the low setting is perfect for keeping the chocolate liquid. You may wish to put a towel on top of the pad for easier cleanup.

You want a recipe that has no leavening so that your walls have crisp, straight edges. Usually, the formulas for the house type dough are different from other formulas. They will still have spices to smell nice, but, aren't really meant to be eaten. I use a formula from an old professional baking book.

I forgot to mention the king of casseroles: timpano, or, for the less ambitious, timballo.

That's the traditional American fare on election day...

There's always New England Boiled Dinner.

I know that you said you were not fond of Jello, but perhaps you were just referring to the boxed product? For some variety and texture, you can use plain gelatin to make something with your clear liquids. That consomme can be jellied, as well as your juices and teas. And, of course, you can use fancy molds to dress up your portions. Tomato water should be useful to you, you could make a lovely clear aspic from it. You could make waters from other watery vegetables like celery, bell peppers, lettuce, onions, cucumber, garlic, etc. just filter carefully. You could mix waters to make a sort of gazpacho. (too bad about the vodka, you could have a Bloody Mary made from tomato water, celery water, and vodka)

I'd look into FedEx delivery and dry ice packaging, or cold packs. Or, just get someone there to make them, I think the graham crackers would be the only item you'd have trouble finding.

Might be that your room and equipment are too cold. I usually have a sterno burning at the top of my work area and have a large silpat down on the table to insulate it. That and, I use a gooseneck lamp with a heat bulb in it to illuminate the work and help keep it warm. You can also reheat on small silpats in the microwave.

No, do not tear up the tortillas, you want them to form layers for you, and I always use 4 per layer. They become a soft substance that's easy to cut through, a little like a tamale. The original recipe for this calls for each tortilla to be fried briefly during construction, I just stopped doing that and you can hardly tell. You could use chips, but it will take more sauce to make them soft. I'd use nopales with green sauce, not so sure about the flavor with red. I usually make scrambled eggs with nopales. A layer of roasted poblanos would be good, you could add other roasted veggies, too, or leftover fajita veggies. I have also done sour cream layers when the sauce was very hot.