gfron1

Alright - I think I'm caught up with questions and comments. Since yesterday was so slow, I have almost no prep to do today - just a bit of freshening up. That's why I have time to be on eGullet right now! I've already finished my daily cookie baking. BTW - on the NYT/Paul Raphael hybrid chocolate chip cookies, I've had to drop my temp down 25F to get them to bake properly. The guts weren't baking evenly with the extra absorption. I just threw my first round of bread in - that, heaven forbid! - I did by hand instead of in my mixer. Chef used to change her specials daily. I think they should run for a week. Our average customer will come once a week - we have a handful of people who eat here every day (except yesterday ), but otherwise I think a weekly special makes more sense. I've now met with both of my distributor reps and am waiting to hear back on a few questions. I asked our current one - Zanios - about a price lock. He said that they only do that when you commit to buying 80% of your products from them. I asked how they would know, especially in our case when I buy a good portion of products off my own shelves. He didn't know. Sysco hasn't answered any of my questions yet. I mentioned that this cafe is so strongly influenced by eGullet...this morning I re-read ChefCrash's topic on easy baklawa for a bid I need to do this morning. A local Lebanese author is having a book signing and wants 4 dz baklawa pieces. I also re-read the sourdough troubleshooting topic since all of my loaves had eruptions yesterday. I proofed longer, lowered my oven temp, slashed with wreckless abandon, and my first batch looks awesome so far... And speaking of sourdough. About six months ago I shared a bit of my starter with a guy who has been researching the history of bread. I gave it to him with instructions to care for it, and the explicit instructions that he couldn't give it or sell it to anyone. Well, small town...a friend told me he was giving it to folks at our farmers market on Saturday. I'm not really too upset since most people are too lazy to keep a starter going, but still, it was a breach of our relationship.

Thanks for pulling me back to my mission. Right now we don't have much in the way of local food production. We have ranches o' plenty that raise just about anything, but our nearest USDA processor is almost 2 hours away. I'm talking with some ranchers north of us (near where the wedding will be) about lamb, cow, chicken and even ostrich. If we can get the meat to the processor and back to me, that will help a lot. I hadn't thought of that. Why wouldn't someone's backyard produce that I'll wash be any less safe than some salmonella laden mass produced produce? (rhetorically asking that) I'll make an anonymous call and see what they say.

I finally figured out why I kept calling them pan au chocolate. My mind works 80% in English, 20% in Spanish and 0% in French. So let's just say I'm making the Southwest version of the French classic

It will be a buffet line with nice plastic plates. I'll be carving the meat (it'll actually be pre sliced as per the recommendations in the brisket topic), and helpers will scoop the rest for portion control. I explained to the family when I brought out the plate that this was just a taste of each of the items. I fully expect plates to be piled high and over flowing, and not neatly arranged. Good point. I don't want to push them to divided cafeteria plates - too tacky for this event. But adding a bowl makes it wobbly or more difficult for the eater to walk around with their plate. I'll stew on this one... Absolutely. That and the potatoes are the fillers. For the tasting, I wasn't trying to give them a full meal, just a taste. The bride nixed the cornbread. I thought green chile cheddar cornbread would have been perfect with this meal. The add-ons are also a great idea. Nice extra with little cost. Yet another good point. I'll have to talk with the facility owner and clarify with him what will happen with the tables, chairs, etc. since he is providing them. We can add that onto the final contract...which by the way, I haven't heard back from the family. My guess is they're getting another free meal from another caterer. I've got plenty of dried morels which is the recommend form in the Sauces cookbook. Drinks are being provided by the facility not me. So I'll leave that to them.

Not harsh at all - I appreciate it. One of the things you're seeing on our floor is a compost bucket. A local rancher brings us an empty bucket every other day and feeds our food scraps to her chickens, and our compostable serving containers go in the compost. In return we get good karma and some eggs. The towel bucket is obviously our soils to go home for wash. Chef let them build up for a few days, we were going to wash daily. Is it just an issue of getting them out of the food area? That's easy enough. And with the way you put it, it makes me think that we've never washed the container itself...gross!

Alrighty, so here I go - day 1 behind the wheels. Now, here's my insecurity speaking...this isn't some big fancy, heavily bankrolled, multi-star affair that we've been talking about. It's just a little cafe added on to my little store. But it's ours and we built it from scratch. So we're pretty proud of it. Now that that's out of the way... Some people wake up to singing birds, a pot of coffee made by a loved one, a dog placing a newspaper at their feet. I wake up to this: My to-do list. As I said, I had trouble sleeping so I was very tired when I got in just before 6. The sun hadn't quite made it up yet, so I ran in the dark, turned on my oven, reviewed my list, and ran home to shower. It was a much shorter run than I would have liked, and probably needed, but I wanted to make sure I was prepared. All of you pastry people know what this is: My final fold for the croissants. I've been using the Dessert Circus recipe and its worked very well for me. I've had to add a step of chilling the dough before the first roll out which Jacques skips, but mine was oozing so badly I had to. Its worked perfectly ever since. And here they are: Now, I just said that these were the best I've ever made. I want to clarify - not in looks, but in flakiness and taste. If I could rub a genies bottle, my first wish would be for a proofing box. I still have to do the old hot water in a measuring cup trick. Very slow. But they were good. So good in fact: Do you see the glaze in my eyes - its not sugar glaze! This was an oozer, so I wouldn't let it sell. Call it quality control! Next, I had to finish up some apricot work. I picked two buckets from the back yard of my dead neighbor (she died last year and the house hasn't sold). I just pitted and added a bit of sugar and water and boiled: Oh and a bit of sherry for good measure: And, oh! my morning snack: This was my 5-grain sourdough baguette that didn't quite rise enough, so I ate it with the apricot puree. I don't really eat that much of my product - just tastes here and there. This is the storefront: It's an old 1880s house on our main street. Lot's of history that I won't get into here. Just say, its old. This is right before open - we hadn't set up the chairs yet. This is the cafe sign: Ummm...we'll be working on signage real soon! if you can read the specials, I did an apricot chicken wrap (using my puree), and a summer garden pizza. Here's the kitchen pre-service: You can't see the other half off to the right which has the stove, walk-in, freezer and my other service station. Ok pros - how many violations do you see here? Seriously, I'd like to know if there are so I can fix them. And finally, chef's order system: I hate it. It will go when the last printed card is used! BTW, that is chef hiding behind. She donated a day to me today to offer tips. As I mentioned a few posts ago, we were washed out! Slowest day ever for the cafe. My guess is that I'll be slammed tomorrow as everyone will go out for lunch. I'll keep the specials the same so I don't have to do new prep. But, I'm back in at 6 to work on bread. BTW, did I mention that my friggin' mixer went out again!!!! That's my second genies bottle rub! I'll get to questions and comments tomorrow - I'm beat.

I'll call them chocolate croissants from now on Old habits are hard to break. So are old languages!

20 minutes after service and I have time to check in - only briefly though since I have to get going on my breads for tomorrow. Well, it was the slowest day ever since we had a torrential downpour all through lunch. I think I made a dozen orders, almost all to-go. Now I have questions for you all...and answers to the questions above. But, I'm tired as a dog from lack of sleep. I'll come back after I'm done and get into the nitty gritty. BTW, my pan au chocolate were the best batch I ever made - I filled them with nutella!

Thanks guys. Its 5:30 my time and I've been up since 3. Not nervousness, but had a bit too much vino at a friends last night (how Bourdain of me). I'll catch everything up tonight, but the brief run-down is that yesterday I finished cleaning and organizing - resetting the stations for one person instead of two. I moved things to places that my long arms will appreciate more than the kitchen of the munchkins. Then I baked, baked, baked. I wanted to get ahead of the game in that dept. I also had to put out the big order that came in on Saturday. Its nice to have my grape leaves back in stock and some new chocolates to play with (I got Chocoa at the recommendation of Qzina - seen the ads, but never used it), and a few new cheeses - but damn - they back ordered my brie and I forgot my Parmesan! How can someone forget the Parmesan!? I'm a bit nervous about the baking. I sent our store newsletter out last week and the post office was quicker than usual. In the newsletter I talked about my baking and we were slammed on Saturday with folks asking for croissants and sourdough. My guess is that we'll have a line at 10 when we open. And my second guess is that we'll be sold out by 10:01. The other fun thing that happened yesterday was someone at church said, "I heard you retired." Now, I just turned 40 a few months ago, but that's silly. I said, "If by retire you mean less money and more work, then yes, I did." But as I was thinking about it (in light of pierogi's comments) I thought, "If by retire you mean, quit the rat race to do what you love, then yes, I did." So here's to my first day of retirement! Can I have my social security now...please! Quick note - someone earlier suggested asking my distributors if they do a price fix for a longer commitment. I thought that was a great idea and had never considered it before. I have asked, now we'll see what they say. I'm off to turn on my ovens and go for a run!

It was a productive day - my goal is to get ahead on baking so I can focus on lunches and gourmet-to-go come Monday. I got one batch of the juniper berry sourdough in the cooler, and I'll do another batch tomorrow. Both will be baked Monday am. I did another batch of chocolate chip cookies - so I should have enough for over a week. They're aging until Mon or Tue. I did a test run at kumquat macarons - they turned out well but need some tweeking. I still think this would be a nice add-on if I can figure out how to do it without kumquats - I agree that I should rely on extracts. One big motive is I always have cups full of whites laying around. I also cleaned and reorganized the kitchen and walk-in, including putting in two new wire shelves for my cheese. Those doubled my space! And last, but not least, my order finally made it at 9:00 tonight, which meant dinner at 10:30. I don't know about the rest of you but I always have lot's of backorders, and so its always a crap shoot. Tonight I got a bunch of things that I didn't expect, and didn't get a few key items - my Demon du Midi which is my go-to brie, and in fact, the only brie I ordered - SHIT! I'll have to see if one of my food service distributors has anything decent that I can repack. I'm off to bed, and I have a long, long list including shopping for Monday.

That's really nice looking - thanks for posting it. What's the top glaze?

I hadn't thought about them. I'm going to push for locals to sell me their eggs too.

Blahooey! Nothing good at the farmers market and my egg ladies weren't there today! That's disasterous (not really, just means I need to go to the store). I'll have to check in with them because last year they had their flock taken out by a black bear, and we've been having mountain lion troubles this year, so I'm hoping alls okay. I'm putting a sign up today to let customers know that we'll buy their produce. If they sell it to me at the same or better rate than my distributor, its a win-win.

Cool - now playing artist...when you got to that pastel screen you can't add another layer because it would be covered by the pastel in the final print, but if you reversed the order and let's say hand painted swirls or polka dots, dried, then did the pastel spread. Or, have you tried doing a screen, and while wet, carving away at it to reveal blank transfer, then doing another screen?

One of my goals for tomorrow at the farmers market is to up the percentage of locally raised foods. Then my plan is to make stickers or cards that will show what % of the food is locally sourced. I'll do the same with organics. I believe this will be a good marketing tool to draw customer loyalty. There is one fully organic/vegetarian restaurant in town, but the main complaint is that they have small portions and exorbitant prices. I've also got a lot of baking to do tomorrow. Someone gave us a huge bucket full of apricots, a big bundle of rhubarb and some other vegetables. So I'll use this as a get-ahead on baking for Monday.

I'm back ya buncha hijackers! We've been loosely calling it "aging" but more accurately its hydrating. And I do agree that I believe freezing would stop the process we're trying to encourage. I did read the Ideas in Food post about it, and while it would save time, its not really an issue for me since I'm a week ahead of the game. Or my cheapo answer, why spend money on the vacuum bag if saran wrap will do? I definitely shape before I freeze because I don't want to do anything more than I have to at 6 am. I pull them out, and throw them in the oven. Also, HERE is the link to their article. When you look at the picture of their cookie, its not the look nor texture that I want. Remember though that they are going straight from softened butter and I am going from melted butter. My texture is far more appealing to me. (ETA: Actually I'm really happy that you did a bit of hijacking. This topic has become much more of a reporting out than the dialogue I had hoped for - so please do hijack away. Also, be sure to check out the Chocolate Chip Bakeoff topic.)

Its done. No more "normal" work. I can wear shorts whenever I want Now my attention shifts to a big delivery I have going down today. Its a small town peril. I get my cheese out of San Fran. They delivered it to a flower distributor warehouse in LA (thanks to connections found in eG) yesterday. My trucker out of Houston arrives in LA any minute and will go to my Armenian distributor in Glendale. My chocolate (Qzina) will drop off early this afternoon, my soda (RealSoda) drops off just after that, and then the Armenians will load it up with my olives and such and get ready for the truck's arrival. The truck will stop by the flower warehouse first to get my cheese, then the consolidated pallet, then back east on I-10. I'll meet the truck around 4 am in Lordsburg (1 hour south) and get my stuff at the truck stop. Then I get to unload a 10' pallet of foodstuff. Its actually one of my favorite things to do - its like Christmas. The nervous part is that if any of those steps doesn't happen according to schedule, then the whole thing is off until my next order which is about 6 weeks from now. But in the meantime, I'm off to relax in the mountains. Ciao til later!

Mike is exactly right. Just make the RecipeGullet version and age in the cooler for 3 days. I always do a double batch and as they cool and firm, I portion scoop them, push them into pucks then finish the chill. After the 3rd day I put them all in the freezer so I have dough for the week. 375F til done. I like my edges better on the un-aged versions but that caramely taste is outstanding with the aging. Prasantrin - Chef has a really tight menu right now - lot's of ingredient overlap and efficiency, with virtually no waste. I'll cut back on some of the non-menu items, but I want the transition to appear seamless to the customer. I figure after a month I'll start bringing my items in - top of my list is a muffalata (do what you know and love). I think your advice is very good though and if I find that I can't keep the pace in the beginning, we may be out of a few things due to (fill in your excuse here). Patrick A is at the national FCCLA competition right now in Orlando and he's my right hand intern/man. I'll be very glad when he gets back next week.

That's it - don't let the secret out to the world, but the NYT upgrade is nothing compared to tossing in the muscovado and browned butter. And heaven forbid you upgrade the chocolate quality each time! Right now I'm using Guayaquil (I think that's Cocao Barry 64%).

That explanation sure helped me alanamoana. With that, THIS topic about top US pastry chefs might be helpful. Not all will have books, and its only the US chefs, but its a great list.

Two hours of paying job left (because believe me - I'm outta there right after the party!) Apparently our HR Director resigned right after me - he got tired of all of the turnover - and I've had quite a few calls to step into that position. Normally more money and no supervision would have an appeal to me, but I have no pangs about this move. This has never felt so right. On other fronts, I am excited as a Japanese school girl at a SMAP or Hey!Say!7 concert! I'm viewing tomorrow's farmers market in new eyes and can't wait to see what I can snap up for specials. I'll learn very quickly about shelf life of local organic produce - can't imagine it will last as long in my walk-in as the steroid veggies from the distributor. Note to anyone buying out a kitchen...don't worry about the inventory of what you're buying - you know what's in there. Or, if you really need one, do it yourself, don't ask the owner to. BUT, do have a crystal clear inventory of what's not included. There were a lot of unwrittens in this deal that wasn't on either list and now they're leaving. As I said before, we're talking small change, and its not worth the damage that it would cause to our relationship, but it will result in me having to pay a bit more upfront to stock the kitchen. And last - so I don't get all the fame and glory for myself - the hybrid of Paul Raphael's chocolate chip cookie (in RecipeGullet) and the NYT aging process are making me rock star cookies! They are selling as fast as I can put them out.

You must have read my Daily Gullet essay. I love 'em with whipped cream, caramel sauce and sprinkles - go light on the coffee flavor please

Kumquats, being citrus, don't like to freeze. Did you have them indoors for the winter? I think you should try again. ← They were inside all the time. We moved them to every nook and cranny trying to find some place that they liked - never did. Maybe I can find a customer who would care for it for trade.

My two favorites that I've made in recent years are sage ice cream sweetened with agave and a chocolate thyme olive oil cake. Both were huge hits.

Here's a question for the pros. When I did my training week, I was exhausted by the end of the shift. And now that I'm in at 6 every morning, I expect to be even more exhausted. Leaving out the options of drugs, coke, booze, back alley sex, and all the other things that Bourdain describes, what do you all do to keep your energy? Or do you just go home and crash?