gfron1

Ohhhhh....well, that would make a difference, wouldn't it.

Everyone in the universe can do this but me. The basic pinstripe of colored cocoa butter on a bon bon shell. I take a small pastry bag and put the cocoa butter in it, snip the end with a small hole and apply very light pressure as I carry the bag over the mold. Instead of a beautiful stripe, I get glops and drops and squirts. I thought my cocoa butter might be too hot, so I cooled it but then it clogged the hole of the pastry bag. Help please.

I hire secret shoppers 4-6 times per year who do an average of 20 visits in total. I buy them the meal but don't pay them, and ask them to a do a very basic form (obviously very specific to us and our training): 1. First and foremost did the server bring joy to your table? This is our single biggest training point. If yes, what specifically did they do and if not, how would you describe their behavior towards you? Were you greeted and told goodbye? 2. Timing: Were you greeted and seated promptly? Was your order taken promptly? Food timing is dependent on busy-ness, but once your food arrived did the ticket get brought to you very shortly afterwards (we do this for business lunchers who are in a hurry)? Was your payment picked up promptly? 3. Check-ins: Did your server check in with you at least once after your food arrived to make sure everything was to your liking? Did they handle the check in well – such as “everything ok” versus “how is everything and can I get you anything else?” Basically, did they act as if they cared about how you were doing and did they take care of your needs? Did they interrupt your conversation or was the check-in appropriately timed. 4. Was your water bottle replaced if emptied? 5. Was the table clean when you were seated? 6. Was your silverware brought to the table prior to your food? 7. Did the server use positive language (Thank you, may I) versus negative (Sure, No problem, OK)? 8. Was dessert described to you when the menu was delivered? 9. We train our staff to perform in a way that gets a 20% tip. Did your server provide a level of service that is worthy of more than the standard 15-18%? Specifically, what did they do or not do to earn that tip? 10. Final comments that might prove useful in training our staff?

With my agent's blessing - I'm posting her email to me today. As I've said previously, we designed our proposal in the style that we want the book, in hopes that my designer gets picked up as part of the package. Specific names deleted to protect the innocent. This gives really good info on the pitching process.

This week was spent revising the proposal. My designer actually designed the proposal since we're trying to pitch his services. The final product looks really good. I'll post some when the book is signed. Now we're waiting for the agent to say its 100% complete and then its in her hands for a while. I think its funny that at one point I wanted this book released in October of 15. We're already looking at spring of 16 or later.

A pic from Cyalexa's kitchen visit

Of course I'm making King Cakes today!

My spouse who worked as a Project Manager for Wiley Books for years told me recently that once the book is published, "NEVER READ IT!" I understand why. Five readers have gone through the manuscript and yet we're still finding basic, critical errors. Who knows if we will ever get them all, but I still have a professional editor from the publisher to work it over. Today I worked on manuscript formatting–preparing it for a designer (removing extra spaces, proper tabbing, page breaks, etc). I like that level of detail work. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. As I did that work these extra steps came up: 1. Add "see resources, p #" to any ingredient listed in the resource section 2. Add serving size and prep time...I've been dragging my feet on this one for some reason 3. Write an essay on things that you can easily grow yourself for garnish 4. I need to explain cooking oil choices...it keeps coming up. 5. Reconcile all revisions with the Table of Contents - all titles are identical I still need to go through my photographer's latest upload of pics...we have hundreds and hundreds to sort through. ugh. I'll post some when I get to that. In the meantime, here's one from my photographer for a recent Valentine's chocolate photo shoot. The theme was a chocolate wedding.

I interpret Modern to be more about technique and flavor combinations than calendar year, and I hear you loud and clear on the crazy equipment, so here are some of my favorites. North - may be too regional, but still a really good useable book Chapter One - my current favorite; Irish; modern, unique Volt Ink. - go old school Coi - classic Manressa - classic Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef - a bit techno Marque - a bit too techno, but great Dabbous - avoid Fluidita - if you have the bankroll Too Many Chiefs Only one Indian - love this book, but very expensive

Absolutely. In my case, I know my servers appreciate the time off, but that has more to do with the fact that we keep a very tight staff, so they work long hard hours too. But to answer your question, no. I'm not interested in opening more. I'm about at my limit and haven't had success over the past 7 years in bringing someone else into the kitchen to do my job. It has always ended in bad reviews and complaints. I don't want that ill will.

No theme - just white, early stage thinking.

I fit that model that you're talking about and we're normally closed on Mondays and surely am today. First, because we're non-chain, we need days off too, so even if we can fill the house, I've gotta get some rest. Second, as T2C mentioned, opening on a normally closed day means gearing up the kitchen a day early. In my case, I go in on Mondays to be ready to open on Tuesday. If I open special on Monday, that means I go in on Sunday...remember that day off thing? So in the end, even if I could make a little more money, I've got to keep the balance (which I'm already not doing at 60-70 hour weeks). All that said, this past year I opened on Memorial Day Monday which I had never done and we were full, and I i'll do it again this year, but only because the week following sucks for business so I"m going to close and go hunting.

I've been working on a concept since I never make white chocolate shelled bonbons. I already have a "Black Series" that features single malts, but now I want to make a "White series" where all of the shells are bright white with maybe a toothpick dot of color to signify the filling. And who better to have fun with ideas the you all. Here are some candidates so far. You'll see some of these haven't been teased out at all. -Doritos and Cuervo -"Black as night" black cocoa and black pepper -something about salt that's not salted caramel -Coconut - needs a twist -Powdered donuts -Vanilla ice cream -PBJ on white bread -Rice -Sourdough and brie

I'm Gfron or Rob Connoley on FB. Honkman - I have really struggled with Twitter. And I know most of my struggles are related to the lack of tagging, which is why I mentioned it above. Lately I've been reading some of my favorite accounts more for the technical aspect of how they tweet.

Thought of the day. If you have any interest at all in publishing a cookbook, get your social media in order today. The more followers/fans/views you have the more money a publisher will give you. I thought my 800 Facebook friends/followers was good, but I've been told they talk thousands, not hundreds. Pictures, tags, consistency, and its never too late.

Ideal conditions - thaws overnight in fridge. What I typically have to do is thaw 90 minutes to 3 hours before service, but it all depends on the size of the mold. Sounds like fun weekend homework for you.

With these comments we're done with our proposal. My design guy is laying it out as I type. Designing a proposal is atypical, but we're trying to sell him as part of the package, so it makes sense. The evolution from my original proposal to the agent-influenced one isn't radically different, but there are certainly more numbers included in this version. The more numbers she can show, the more potential sales she can argue for, the higher the advance and percentage. Go agents! And thanks for the comments above. I've said it many times, but this book was written with an eGullet mindset, so I hope you'll all be proud of it.

Question. I'm wrapping up the proposal and we're listing what the book has to offer. Since I'm so deep in, I may be missing obvious things. Based on everything I've written over the past months, what is it about this book that may have sparked your interest enough that you may buy it? Certainly no wrong answers here, but hopefully I'll see things that I haven't thought of since you, my peers, really are my target audience.

Most of the recipes I've made have not wept, but you know you can buy stabilizers to help with that. Chocolate mousses never weep for me. Fruit mousses need the stabilizer for the thaw. My go-to mousse is Hermé's from Chocolate Desserts. No weep with that one at all.

My focus would be more on the pan. And I like gfweb's advice of a water bath or we almost always bake everything on a doubled sheet pan for insulation.

Thanks Deryn. One of the things that my agent keeps emphasizing in our conversations is that the book is accessible and has all the substitutions you would ever need. That's a big part of why she's excited to start selling it to publishers. I have plenty of peanut butter pies, and chocolate chip cookies, but just a small number of elk's blood bonbons. I think its a good mix. One odd reality is that, naturally, these recipes are all me 1-3 years ago. I did a big dinner last night that was 10 brand new courses and none are in the book. I immediately wanted to put some in, but I think its more prudent to document them and save them IN CASE I do a second...god help my relationship if I do decide to do a second

Yesterday my agent said, "Most publishers expect books to be either award winners or sell well. I think you have the opportunity to do both." How cool is that! So today, I'm resting (big dinner last night, another on Tuesday and the VD). But, tomorrow I'm cranking through proposal edits again, and hopefully taking a stab at Smithy's edits.

Met with the kids today. Two little girls who are exceptionally smart. Both around 9 or 10 I'm guessing - they came up to my belly button. Both got to choose their country - one because she has family heritage in Greece, and the other because she thinks France is beautiful. I talked them through a brief overview of both country's cuisines and let them decide. The Greece girl wanted to do a Greek King's Day Cake - her words. I googled and am not sure if she's not had some cultural confusion with the Hispanic version, and actually means vasilopita. That's her research to do, however. For France, the other girl decided to a mousse and cake. I'll teach her the Pierre Hermé chocolate mousse because its exceptional and pretty darn easy to make. We do a rehearsal in a few weeks as they do more academic research, then in May they have to feed the class.

Again getting there. Nice thin shell - maybe too thin but I try to get mine that thin as well. I know when to dump by jiggling the mold...eventually you learn how much jiggle is the right amount. And if it makes you feel any better, I had issues today and I knew it was because my temper was off. I saw the little unmelted chunk and ignored it...don't know why, but I did.

Congrats! You're getting there. A couple of comments. Yes, the shells are uneven. It could just be the lighting but that doesn't even look like white chocolate to me. What brand are you using? Be more patient as you dump the excess. I normally rap with my scraper a few times, scrape the surface, rap a second round, scrape, then look; sometimes I'll see that there's still plenty and will even do a third more aggressive rapping. Second, that's a big air pocket above the ganache. Be sure you're letting it set up 8 hours or more. Why do you think that gap formed?