gfron1

Pittsburgh absolutely has more than one. Ask at In the Kitchen, Sur la Table, Williams Sonoma - all of them will know the best place to refer people so the knives they sell are well cared for. And better yet - go to your favorite decent restaurant and ask the server to ask the chef. Every chef in the universe will know who to go to and who to avoid. Some random info that might prove helpful - A Pittsburgh bladesmith A whole Reddit thread on the topic Angie's List which is now free to join A Story about Penn Ave.

@quiet1 Your profile doesn't say where you are, but odds are good that there is a local sharpener. The questions to ask are - Do you sharpen with stone, grinding wheel or some other contraption. How much per inch? What angle do you sharpen to or is it custom angle? I'm sure others would quibble with these but it's where I would start. I have a local knife shop that does wheel which is too aggressive for my knives, and I found that i was much sharper on my EdgePro than these pros were. Ultimately my point is that if you have a local sharpener you can talk with them about what you want, and not waste time mailing knives.

Ugghhh, another day of lease negotiations...and on Christmas Eve! I was gifted a nice article yesterday in our regional food publication Feast.

Financing and Investors For the Kumquat I had a few family members loan or gift us, which allowed us to get bank and SBA loans to get open and ultimately buy our building. For Bulrush we're looking more publicly for investors. Since we’re looking to raise six figures instead of seven, it’s not too scary, but still something I’ve never done. Here in St. Louis the contemporary path is to offer a bunch of pop-up dinners and then start asking. I watched as Michael Ga llina did this for his new place he’s opening in town, and not knowing what the details of his final result were, it seems fast and painless. I’m having a similar experience. I’ve asked a few people directly, and made a blanket statement on Facebook that garnered a few, but haven’t had to beat the bushes too hard. I’ve got friends, family, past customers and a couple of recent customers who simply approached me with their offer. Of course this feels great knowing that they believe in me, and unlike the Kumquat where it all felt very risky, I’m enjoying showing them my financial projections. This has all sorta fallen into place in a two-week period. I’m not done yet, and still need final numbers from the landlord to know how much I need to raise, but it’s feeling achievable. A friend referred me to an investment advisor, who I met with yesterday and he turned out to be a hunter and foodie. Great connection. He is now in the process of connecting me with his friends that might be interested. On my end, I need to wrap up my business plan so I can give all these potential investors hard data and terms. Like I said, this was daunting with the Kumquat, but no so much this time around. [A short primer for those who've never done commercial real estate: The landlord offers a price per square foot on the property. That is the price per year - ie $10sqft for a 2400 sq foot property = $24000; divided by 12 months = $2,000 per month lease. Add on NNN (triple net) which is insurance, management fees and utilities splits which might raise the cost a few dollars a square foot. If you are asking for renovations, as we are, that cost is then often paid for up front by the landlord and then returned to the tenant in their monthly lease. So for example, if they do $100,000 in renovations (you may or may not be given an allowance by the landlord - money they're willing to invest to fix up the building at their expense), they will spread that cost out over the terms of the lease at a certain interest rate. ]

Yes, but I consider it low-fruit. There was much more creative potential with Curious Kumquat.

And I did buy the URL Bullrushstl.com to account for the spelling errors that will occur. This weekend I ate at a great restaurant in Orlando called se7en bites...yeah, that was a pain to google and facebook search. Part of our thought process was also what names people will have to make fun of us. I can't say the Curious Kumquat's ultimate mock-name since this is a family-friendly forum, but we already have anticipated Buls%^t which I can live with

or how about hard tomatoes, milk that lasts for over a month, rancid oils and on and on. I really have a difficult relationship with food these days.

This is even more complicated for me. In New Mexico I bought my meats almost exclusively through 4H youth in the area. No it wasn't technically by the book, but I documented every step to make the case that I could slaughter, butcher and pack my own meats under controlled circumstances. In St. Louis my hope is that I can buy 4H but have it sent to a legal processor. I've already established a relationship with a couple of local hippie farmers and our plan is to do two things. First, I will buy all of their "waste" at the end of the weekly farmers market - blemished, dated, whatever...I'm just going to process and cure/pickle/confit/conserva anyway, so I don't care what they look like, they just need to taste good. Second, they will grow fun things that excite them - versus them growing for me, I'm going to cook what they grow. That's more fun both sides and will keep me on my toes. I've also asked them to give/sell me their field forage - I would expect dock, amaranth and other greens. Most importantly for me is that we share the same ethic for organically raised, byodynamic as we can, no waste. The flip side to your question is that I'm already running into purveyors and many don't return calls, don't send me price lists, don't follow up...I have options so they are off my list. Like all big decisions the name came on a long dog walk in the woods. We like Bulrush because I serve cattails regularly, and using the European word for cattail gives it a slightly exotic but still accessible name. It's also early in the alphabet which is good for listings. The Biblical reference (which is how most Americans know the word) doesn't hurt. And it's a nice strong word. I wanted to avoid the trends of ambersand-ed names or goofy characters in names. Ultimately it just felt good to us. Absolutely. It's what I know and feel most comfortable serving to people. I'm so overly disillusioned with the American food system at this point. Quite frankly most ingredients repulse me (WTH is slimy chicken?!) so I'll keep doing my thing.

I did and this won't be it I want to write about knives...that's where my mind tends to be.

Pretty much all of my professional life has been documented in these forums so it just makes sense that the next phase be documented as well. I started cooking professionally about 8 years ago when my small (but mighty) gourmet grocery morphed into a successful restaurant in Silver City, NM. This past summer I closed the Curious Kumquat and moved to St. Louis, which is where I'm born and raised. I've been working to open a new restaurant here in town ever since landed, and in the next few weeks we hope to have wrangled investors to sign a lease on a building, with an expected opening date of July of 2017. Over the course of these upcoming months I'd like to share... •Investor recruitment and terms •Staff recruitment, pay and training •Facility identification, renovation and equipping •Operational budget preparation •Marketing •Adjustment of my philosophy and practices from a one-man show in a remote community to a multi-person operation in a major city I would love to have questions and requests guide my posts. I expect to post once per week but knowing how my mind likes to dart around I wouldn't be surprised if I post more frequently. In the meantime, I'm off to Orlando for a dinner I'm cooking this weekend in support of my cookbook. I hope y'all enjoy!

Urgent macaron baking question - Recipe calls for 180ºC convection for traditional sized cookies. I'm making 1" cookies, so smaller than normal, and using a regular oven. That's a lot of converting. Suggestions for temp?

It's December. That means his cookbook should be shipping soon. And as a follow-up, Sconzo posted his review. His words as he left the meal were "interesting and unique" if I remember correctly.

Yes, mine has thickened over time and functions just the same.

I've been hooked on yucca root mash with scrambled eggs, sauteed chard and fiery hot salsa.

wow. someone liked a post and that alerted me. I didn't remember documenting this meal. What a flash back. i've been doing this same thing ever since and certainly no more 2 am finishes!

I have a bag. Haven't used them much, but I have them.

Just chiming in to reiterate what was said above. As many of you know I make a living foraging. And I can say firsthand with countless examples, that an oyster mushroom that has spent a little time on the log in a number of rains becomes saturated through and through. So on that point @TicTac is 100% undeniably correct. However, a short amount of rain does not absorb. I've found many young mushrooms after a serious but unsustained rain, which while a bit slimy on top, are not saturated through.

that's a good thought @DiggingDogFarm. I hadn't considered going at it from that route.

My visit was too long ago to be useful, but I will say that gelato in Miraflores was spectacular as was the ceviche. If you're adventurous enough to head north I absolutely loved Huarez which is the gateway to the Huascaran mountains (the purpose of my visit). The scenery is so much more spectacular than down south IMO. This is the mountain I climbed when I was down there. Mate de Coca is very helpful in dealing with high altitude issues if you leave Lima and is readily available even in teabag form at the merdacos.

I want to make a sturdy but biteable little cracker made of granola. I've puffed my own rice and amaranth, and I want to add some toasted oats, small nut pieces and other stuff. The crisp will be used as part of a savory course, but I assumed it would be bound with honey, molasses and sugar in some ratio. I don't have much time to work through options so I'm asking here. I'm assuming I'll need to cook the sugars to hardtack, but maybe not. And I'm assuming I can do any ratio of the sweeteners to get there, but maybe not. Thoughts anyone? This cracker can NOT be soft like often happens with a granola crisp, but also can't be so hard that you can't bite it easily.

Gluten free is where I'd go, but it would be wherever amaranth, chia and all the other goofy stuff is. Often times there's a Bobs Redmill aisle, and not that he has mesquite (as far as I know), his stuff is normally nearby. Have you tried a health food co-op? I am surprised that WF doesn't have it however. Check out LaTienda.com because they aren't too far away from you and maybe they have a storefront associated with their website. I know they carry Zocalo brand mesquite.

I found it here in St Louis at Whole Foods and a local co-op. A quick google search just gave me a long list of suppliers.

@kayb Of course you can order from Amazon, but for an autographed copy that would happen through My Site. And I would love to do something in the Little Rock or Memphis area - close enough that I wouldn't need to endure a 3 week hurricane-laden ordeal! Maybe others will chime in from the area to let me know that there's interest.

Up early again and off to Cleveland. First off, what's with these tolls?! One road charged me around $40! That was nuts and the roads weren't even well maintained. Pfft! Cleveland was a book signing, not dinner, but it went fabulous. I met a number of eGullet and Facebook friends. I also had the opportunity to meet one of my foraging heroes - Jeremy Umansky who is preparing to open a Jewish deli with foraging influence. He and I foraged a bit for mitake mushrooms, but really just enjoyed sharing knowledge and stories. I also got to enjoy amazing cocktails with EdselL at The Spotted Owl and pizza at Vero's. He's been a good friend over the years and it was great to see him in person. Up the next morning and off to my final city - Indianapolis. One last great meal - very rousing crowd who brought some amazing wine (much nicer than I'm able to drink). I had a few good meals there including Milktooth for breakfast. The publicist dropped the ball on the signing at a local bookstore, so I loaded up and headed home to St Louis. It was nice to be home after 6500 miles of driving over three weeks. Now a few random thoughts. 1. While my publicist did a good job setting things up, future authors need to know that they should do this work themselves. Setting up signings, media, travel...it's best to just keep it under your own control. 2. In the end I've had to ship all of the books that were supposed to be handed out on the tour - well over a 100 books. At media rate including the envelop it cost around $5 per book. I think my final tab was around $800 and my agent is negotiating with the publisher to see if we can't recoup some of that expense. This wasn't really the publishers fault but the gesture should would help since the tour set me back a few thousand. On top of that I've had a handful of books come back damaged which is additional expense to replace and re-mail. My suggestion to others - don't self distribute. Tri2Cook told me that Alinea came to the same conclusion with their book. So - take heed! 3. Finally, eating well while driving is difficult. I solved that problem with modern technology. I navigated with GoogleMaps the entire way. With that running I would open Yelp and depending on if I wanted to sit down or grab-n-go I would sort by 1) Open Now, 2) Restaurant or Coffee/Tea (many have fresh made food), and 3) Distance. I would then back out on the map so I could see what I was driving toward and then scroll the highway looking for markers. A quick scan of the makers would tell me if it was a chain or an independent. In three weeks, excessively over eating like I do, I only at at a chain one day - that was because the hurricane closed everything else. Great way to travel eat!

While in New Orleans I watched the weather unfold as Hurricane Matthew changed its course and schedule. Two days before my event we knew we had to cancel the dinner but I still needed to get my books and I had also ordered a mobile deep fryer that was waiting for me. Despite my spouse's pleas I raced along the coast hoping to beat the hurricane, grab my stuff and get up to Atlanta for my next event. Matthew had other plans and instead of the predictions of a morning landfall in the Orlando area, it arrived the night before. I was racing down I-75, the road almost completely to myself. The northbound road was bumper to bumper for hours, but on my side...just me...and electric company cherry picker trees and the occasional Red Cross relief van. Maybe this wasn't the best life choice, but I had already had so many issues on this trip that I really needed to re-set and get back on track. I arrived at my friend's house in wave after wave of solid sheets of rain. We enjoyed a few drinks and kept our fingers crossed that FedEx would get my pallet to me in the morning. Nope. No such luck. The hurricane passed with only minor damage, and I waited until the last minute before I had to drive to Atlanta to keep my schedule. FedEx tracking just showed "On truck for delivery. delays may exist because of inclement weather." Off to Atlanta, with my fryer, without my books. At this point the publisher is in a tizzy and I've resigned to just have a fun trip and make the most of it. By Atlanta the weather had cleared and I was enjoying a beautiful fall day. I held a book signing at a small independent shop but no one showed - compared to the previous 10 days I wasn't bothered. Atlanta's dinner was spectacular. The crowd response I enjoy. No major glitches. Got to speak only Spanish with my helper (hired by the host) all day. That fryer that I had to get in Orlando...well, it required a special plug that wouldn't work. Why did I go to Orlando again? But like i said, the dinner was great. The next morning I was up and off to Norfolk for a pitstop. I tried to take as many non-major highways as I could but as the trip wore on I was increasingly wanting to just "get there." A quick sleep then up to Wilmington DE for my next dinner. Delaware was a lot of fun. Great meal. Great crowd. Lunch at Talula's Table. Numerous visits to electric supply stores hoping to miracle-solution the fryer...never happened. I gotta be honest, the northeast scares me. So many people, all in a hurry, I just wanted to not be killed in my car! But GoogleMaps talked me through things and it wasn't nearly as scary as I expected. I found a few cool foodie gems on the roadside to boot! Now it was time to turn back west...