gfron1

Now is as good of a time as any to ramble on my day off. We're up for our 3rd JBF recognition this year, and I feel like I understand the process so much better than in the past. JBF has undergone so many changes in recent years, and I've got more industry supporters now than my first nom, that more of those friends are sharing with me what no one tells you about the process. Over the past weekend we served a minimum of 5 judges. I research all of our guests to know who I am serving, and how to best tailor their meal, so 5 guests were pretty obvious...who knows how many others might have come in. It's a stressful time for staff because there are no off-nights allowed. There never are in fine dining, but service is even more intense than normal knowing the consequences. They're also very aware that it will reman this way until the first week in April and so we are talking about how to best care for ourselves and each other. Last fall we missed an amazing opportunity with a national outlet because we had an off night at the worst possible time. I've beaten myself up ever since...recognizing that we're human and can't be perfect at all times. That gaff was a harsh call-back to New Mexico when I blew an opportunity to be a Best New Chef for Food and Wine when they asked me how long I had been cooking, and I gave them the wrong date because I didn't understand the consequences of rounding my answer. I think the JBF process still has some structural flaws (to my outsider knowledge). The biggest is that X number of judges are used to examine X number of restaurants. First, the judges have to be able to grab a seat in the restaurant (I take care of my staff so we're closed 2 weeks after NYE which means 2 weeks of not being able to seat judges; and I have private events on the books that block judges from grabbing seats), and then if they CAN get seats judges don't necessarily go to every restaurant on the semi-finalist list. And I assume they have to pay their own way so a higher ticket restaurant like mine may not be in the budget of all judges (I would suppose JBF would offer scholarships for some judges). The point being, I know I have a smaller group of judges visiting me than some of my peers. My guess is then that restaurants with more seat opportunities, and lower price points are more likely to get more judges. And I don't know how things are tabulated, but I would hope that the more places you visit the more power your score has, but IDK. That's not griping, just analyzing. Related to all of that, I think the more restaurants represented in one community, the worse the odds because you essentially split the vote. IDK know how the initial selection happens, but just acknowledging what seems to be basic math for those of us in large geographic regions. On another note however, I am so thankful that the judges are more diverse. I'm glad farmers, activists, academics and all of the peripheral professions related to restaurants, are now included. That certainly will help deter the old boys clubs and nepotism in awards. And I think judging what the standards and goals for restaurants can shift from the perfect quenelle to a meaningful meal. Anyway, just rambling to my eG friends since my beginning was in this forum, and my heart remains, even if my keyboard time has disappeared.

Here we are a couple of months later and his channel is still silent. I hope we haven't lost him forever.

It's a melon fork. You can scrape with the back tines/bar to release the melon, and then use the front to eat.

Here are a couple of classics I've done recently. Pineapple buns. I was playing with patterns on these. And sesame balls - mine are filled with sweet Missouri black turtle bean - my localization of red bean filling.

Last fall for Mid-Autumn Festival I made these mooncakes. One is very traditional wu ren (5 nut) and the other was my bastardized St Louis style which was gooey butter cake filling. I was playing with colored doughs on this set.

I started THIS topic because I've been making more and more pastries since we only have one Chinese bakery in St Louis and I'm tired of running up to Chicago just for my fix. I've been building my cookbook collection, but mostly I'm still using YouTube channels - especially Daddy's Cooking Career which is heavy on pastry. I thought I'd share what I'm making to see who else might be baking or making pastries. There seems to be a lot of nuance as to what is from mainland China, Taiwan, and surrounding countries, so I'll do my best to be accurate in my attributions. Anyway, today I made this peanut pastry. Barely sweet, fried and crushed peanuts with peanut/sesame paste, wrapped in a traditional water and oil dough. Not sure what this one is called, if anything specific at all, but very nice with my morning tea. ETA: a friend just told me this is 花生酥餅 and likely inspired by a Shanghia-ese red bean pancake 豆沙窩餅. FWIW, here is St Louis we have: Wei Hong (Cantonese bakery and restaurant) Foundry Bakery (Taiwanese bakery) And up in Chicago there are many but I typically go to: Chiu Quon (Oldest Chinese bakery in the city) Sweet Bean Bakery and Coffee Shop (Taiwanese...my absolute favorite! Worth the 5 hour drive each way)

Let me try this, because, geez, how do I summarize 5 years?! If anyone has anything specific they want to know I can easily respond to questions...FWIW, I am wrapping up a paper on 5 years of operating as a Reparative Restaurant. HERE's a link to the working doc.

I'll share some thoughts shortly. There's a lot of reasons I've been silent, most of which is just ridiculously long hours.

And last night I had my epipheny Of course there are culinary schools and of course they would have text books. A friend helped me with my translation search issues (I was simply using: 面点 食谱）and I have a professional pastry book shipping from baidu to his uncle in Shangdong Province who is visiting next week. I'll report back once it's in hand. He said it is a set of 4 but only got the most advanced for me so I'll be checking out the rest of the set once I see this book.

I'm not using the correct terminology I suppose. I'm thinking pineapple cakes, all the various buns, taro globes, mooncakes, mochi, etc...

I'm looking for books I may not yet have, and they can be in English or Chinese (I think my Mandarin skills are good enough to survive a cookbook). Youtube content has been helpful but I would prefer something more formal. I suspect there's a whole world of Chinese-language books that I am not aware of. What I have currently: Taiwanese Desserts Ideas, Ilda Eitzen (very poorly written) Mooncake and Milkbread, Kristina Cho Not exclusively pastry: First Generation, Frankie Gaw The Food of Taiwan, Cathy Erway Win Son, Josh Ku Made in Taiwan, Clarissa Wei

Chef Wang is one of my favorite YouTube channels, and a few weeks ago he got into trouble with the system. HERE is the CNN version of the story. HERE'S a slightly biased video explaining the cultural implications a bit more. My 5 second summary: A long-forgotten Chinese general was hiding in the mountains during a war, and decided to cook egg fried rice, which sent off smoke plumes that alerted the enemy of his whereabouts. Stupid mistake. So, if you cook egg fried rice near the end of September, when this incident happened, you are considered unpatriotic. Chef Wang released an egg fried rice video a few weeks ago, which is now gone from his play list. I saw the video and thought it was an odd step backwards in his repertoire, but he does do quite a bit of home cooking on top of his restaurant quality dishes. Was it on purpose? Who knows, but he apologized and said he would never release an egg fried rice video again. He hasn't posted any videos since. FWIW, he lightly argued that he releases numerous fried rice videos throughout the year, so this was just poorly timed. Well, I hope he's able to come back because quite frankly his channel was a wonderful gateway to Chinese culture, and the far vast majority of the world would have had no idea of the backstory had the Chinese government not alerted us to the gaff.

This is all very unfortunate how the fact checking is playing out, but regardless, Heidi has always been such a supportive eG friend, and was always a boost of confidence and joy for me back in the early days. I sure have missed our interactions here in the forum.

I go through 5 gallons a sorghum each month at the restaurant. We use it daily in both sweet and savory applications. I prefer it to molasses as its a bit more complex especially the freshly pressed juice when its boiled down. I also use the flour quite a bit for my gluten free breads...but that's not what you're asking about. Word of caution - cutting corn syrup in is rampant. You'll be able to tell if the syrup begins to separate - a corn syrup texture and a more gritty texture. Many Amish and Mennonite communities press sorghum.

Could not agree more. Those were so good but never survived the 70s. For all the haters in this thread let me just say, I'm sure they're not as good as my child-brain remembers, but the recipe that I did tastes exactly like the boxed, and has the exact texture as the originals, but fixes the fatal flaw of filling to crust ratio...as well as removes about 20 preserving and coloring chemicals. I still make my version everytime I do a brunch pop-up and they are always the first thing to sell-out. Bougie pop-tarts can kiss off...if it's not an homage to the original then it's not a pop-tart.

The human brain is amazing sometimes. I immediately recalled a pivotal article from Behr in 1990 on Bay Leaves. Changed how I shop for them forever.

That's been my go-to travel food for years because it's always better than fast food. Lately there's an expansion of Naf Naf, which serves middle eastern food.

Kicking this topic back up in case there are fresh eyes. Have never let this project go.

Every time we lose one of these long-timers it hurts a bit more for our community. For me, it has always been the writing that attracted me to eG and I always enjoyed Maggie's.

This was my set this year. Lemon dark chocolate Hazelnut & passion fruit Espresso & house tapped maple

Ha! That was a $300 Kenmore glass top 4 burner stove from Sears (does Sears even exist anymore?) The funny thing is I've downgraded in my current restaurant with six $50 induction burners from Amazon and a few sets of Ikea pans. And to give me even more to chuckle about, one of my biggest competitors recently closed its doors (not laughing at that part), and they had been open less than a year with a purchased $100,000 Heston range system. That chef was also the captain of US Culinary Olympic team...it's not the equipment that makes good food.

This is amazing to me. I don't have her subscription but have attended a few workshops with her and have a number of her recipes. My critique of her is that she over-relies on additives that lend shelf life, which, while good for sales is not so good for the human body. Specifically I'm referring to her use of sorbitol. I know she was strongly challenged by a student in a workshop once so maybe that has changed. and FWIW, I get So Good each issue. I'd say 10% is chocolate and confection, and most of it is stuff that we've seen elsewhere including the chefs' social media.

I do adore dry pot cabbage

That opened a whole world of recipes for me. Thank you. Let me dig around and see if I can't find the closest recipe and I'll circle back if I need more help.

I've completely fallen in love with this dish, but the variations I'm finding online don't seem quite right. I'm eating this at my favorite Szechuan restaurant, and most online are saying Hunan. My version is a little bit sweet with virtually no spice/heat. Can someone suggest a recipe or the pinyin that might help me search for a recipe better? Thanks