gfron1

I'd probably try and crisp it up in some oil and make tacos.

Here's my thought - you do great work. There's plenty of customers to go around. Hone your marketing to highlight your local-ness. On a related note, when I move to St. Louis later this year, while my focus is the restaurant, I will continue doing my chocolates. That puts me in Rick Jordan territory. His chocolates are superior, but our style is similar (airbrushed, interesting flavor combos). I know where his shop is, and mine is a different part of town, so I know there are people in my area that wouldn't bother driving all the way out into the county, and likewise with his customers not wanting to drive into the city. So define yourself and keep looking for new opportunities.

Just thoughts - my favorite recipe just has you melt the butter, not boil it. Also, I could imagine that if the mixture wasn't mixed well, you could have pockets of butter that could erupt. To elaborate on my recipe - in double boiler melt chocolate and sugar, add butter, mix; add eggs and flavor, mix. Pour and bake. A much more gentle process than yours.

Slow day so I made Girl Scout cookies - thin mints and samoas. (for perspective, these are 4" across)

I never soak my beans, ever, no variety, nope. Not gonna do it.

I had those same beans a week or so ago, and because of my work schedule we just do them in the crock all day (boil then drop to a simmer, covered) started at 8am. Perfect. In a separate pot I cooked my house cured bacon with a chopped onion, and threw the whole thing in the beans, grease an all. Delish with a splash of hot sauce.

I said lowly in the context of my spouse having been one, and he said in the office they were the low-man. I've had so many proofreaders find so many errors over the course of this project and every single one of them is praised in the thank you section It was just tongue and cheek.

My spouse tried to explain the various levels of editor to me once ranging from content development editor down to the lowly proofreader. All are necessary and all have their lens focused on different things. I was tempted to not say anything to my editor about Shalmanese's comments just to see what her focus would be on...but I chickened out.

Seconding Kerry's comment about frames and enough polycarbs. We've had this discussion here before - I, like others, used to buy every cool mold, but ultimately we realized that we need lots of a few instead of a few of lots. I basically have three: Chocoworld 1433 dome (24 cavity), Chocoworld 1526 hearts (28 cavity) and a square magnet mold. In each shape I have 10 of each giving me the ability to do 240, 280, 240 of each if I need to. I don't get slowed down now. Other thoughts: a second melter (dark and white at the same time), airbrush/compressor with extra cups - I have to guns that I keep in my warmer in case one gets too cool. I do all of my cocoa butter warming in my dehydrator - precise and big enough to handle what you might do in the future. Be sure that your frames and trays are corresponding in size. Think about packaging and what you might need - shrinkwrapper? I print my own inserts on a color laser which I prefer to paying a printer. My stickers are printed.

I've been sharing mucho mucho information on eG because I have history on this board. I don't post anything more than announcements on my Facebook page, but here I think as a community we value the learning opportunity. I say all that because I'm comfortable sharing weaknesses and flaws. Today I sent the manuscript to my editor. That means I can't touch it until I get her feedback. I scrambled to make updates the past few days based on Shalmanese's feedback. There were two concerns that I wanted to address in this revision. The first has to do with the recipes themselves. Shalmanese found some glaring concerns which will need to be fixed. I've been somewhat passive on my recipes because I know that the editor is going to prescribe a format which I'll have to re-work all of the recipe anyway. That was less of a concern to me, but I know that it will be a big task when I get the editor's revisions. The second issue (and I'm curious what previous readers think about this) is that the introductory paragraphs seemed intimidating, especially in contrast to the very doable recipes. In fact, Shalmanese said something to the effect of - I wouldn't even get to the recipes because of how daunting the essays made foraging seem. I knew immediately that this was my shift from targeting advanced cooks and chefs to a broader cooking audience. Its that balance between sales and the purity of art. And in this case, I don't want to encourage unsafe and unethical foragers, but I do want people to get out there and try gathering. The learning I want to share is about whether to send a problematic manuscript to the editor (her first exposure to it) or to delay submission and keep reworking the document in light of the new feedback (potentially delaying publication). Shalmanese recommended waiting until it was in better shape. My spouse, who worked for Wiley Publishing for many years, but many years ago in a different era of publishing, said to just send it. His thought is that this is the editor's job - fix broken manuscripts. Not knowing what the best solution was, I sent it with a note explaining that I didn't know what she would prefer, and the lingering concerns, and she should just let me know what is best for her schedule. And that's where it sits. She acknowledged receipt, and that she would read it with those concerns in mind. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Since we're playing the "this one?" game, I use a Chiba Peel S Slicer, but I'm linking the PAGE with all sorts of options.

I think Blanca is a good one, not 2 Michelin stars good, but 1 for sure.

Very true. I just spent a week de-salting my life to attempt to recalibrate. After just one week I'm toning down everything in the kitchen.

As of 8:35 this morning I understand the difference between a proof reader and an editor. I will never look back. Thank you Shalmanese.

I keep forgetting to use it in my ganache.

I keep trying different strategies to see which is the best use of the EZ in my set up. Today, I turned on my Bakon temperer and warmed 4kg chocolate to 34º. It didn't quite melt so I upped it to 36º. That did the trick. I turned the wheel on to get some last chunks (I also did strain a few at the end). Then I added the silk and poured my molds. Worked perfectly. So that was success #1. Then I wondered if I could just leave the wheel running, but take off the pour spout. So I made my fillings and set them up in my wine cooler. 8 hours later they were set enough that I could cap my molds. 15 in the freezer and had 100% pop-out! Success #2! In the past I've heeded Ruth's advice to just eyeball the silk, but today I measured. Well sort of. I use the extra silk holder to zero out my scale, the I weigh the original to get my cocoa butter weight, the I do an educated eyeball of the amount. Just a small report.

I gotta say the person who is reading it for me right now is kicking my ass in a great way. Its interesting how different people find different things. Each read has made it better, and that's all that matters in the end. I will give it one final ready on Sunday morning - with nearly a year behind me and very fresh eyes. Some essays were written nearly two years ago, and others just weeks ago. So much has happened in that year and I'm ready to hand it over and get to the next phase.

I rcvd a PM and sent the manuscript off already, so thank you for all those offers. This should be the last time I need a set of eyes other than the editors..let's hope anyway.

My editor is finally requesting the manuscript. Does anyone want to read it before I send it off? I'd love to have a fresh set of eyes - not a editor's eyes, but a consumer's eyes. ETA: I'm leaving my type-o in this post because I think its funny in the context of the post.

You can buy on Amazon, but you can also just go get your own if you have fruit trees around. Just cut and cure.

Liuzhou reminded me of a guy who brought a date to our place and sat outside in our fenced beer garden. Soon a small group of their mutual friends had gathered to sit with them and they were all enjoying beers except for the guy who was on his date. A bit later, the Domino's delivery driver walked up with a stack of pizzas for the table. I wouldn't have known except one of the gathering group was so embarrassed that they came in and told me what had happened and that he, nor any of his friends were eating the pizza because they knew how poor form this was. The group shortly after took off. Being a small town, my server ran into the guy's date just a few days later and said hi. The woman apologized profusely for the pizzas, and my server found out it was a first date, and the last.

I agree with this, but I would also add the caveat that different woods cause different levels of gunk, and it has more to do with the particles in the smoke that those large enough to be caught in the screen. Even for my Aladin I have replaced their screen and put in one that I chose from the hardware store that suits my needs better.

AT $100 I assume you are talking about the Smoking Gun. I used mine for a year or so and it just got so gunked up that I couldn't use it. I pulled it all apart (not easily) cleaned it, and it worked for another few months until the same thing. All throughout it put out decent smoke, but not great. Also, my hose mount broke off very early on and the stand was never very useful...I have not looked to see if they've upgraded any of this. I then splurged and bought an Aladin smoker from Koerner & Co in New Orleans. Much higher output of smoke. The design minimizes the gunk buildup, and easier to clean. Downside besides price is the batteries are tricky to get in and out, but it pumps out the smoke. Summary - light use, just make your own smoker in the oven. Medium use - Smoking Gun. High use or disposable income - the Aladin.

OK, I mentioned the person who licked our salt candle. We also have one who has repeatedly stabbed it with a knife to break pieces off to use in his food. How about the customer who helped himself into my kitchen during dinner service and pointed at me and said, "I'm going f&%k you right here on your kitchen floor." I, without skipping a beat said, "do I have a say in this?" Backstory that we learned later - he was from 3 hours away in Tucson, on a first-date/blind-date with another guy he met on Grindr (gay sex/dating app for those who don't know). They were going to spend the weekend at a hotel here in town and we were there first stop. Methinks this was bad first-date behavior. Different one - I was using juniper branches to scent a course and they were under a glass plate in a box. a female customer took them and hid them in her purse to take them home. When she realized that my server saw her do it she was very, very embarrassed and my server just said, "We're in the middle of the largest juniper wilderness in the US. We can get more." and winked at her.

You really don't want to open the can of worms where all of us restaurant folks tell you what strange things people do. My latest - we have pink salt candles at dinner and I had a customer lick his. I guess I did want to open that can.