gfron1

I needed some space from my recipes so I haven't looked at them in about a week. This morning I did consistency checks on my grams and cups for some of the oddball ingredients like acorns and amaranth. Good thing. Found and fixed many inconsistencies. I got 1/4 of the manuscript back from my friend and he is editing hard - really good, significant fixes. This morning I heard from my preferred publisher who was open to receiving a submission. This whole business scares me. It feels as if you get one chance and if you blow it, you're done for. Up until now I haven't communicated with my preferred publisher, but this is the one. They've handled comparable books, they're big enough to get the word out, and small enough to have some flexibility. I'm going to sit on my response for the weekend and hone it a bit more. What I really want is for them to just ask for the whole manuscript because I think its in good enough shape now to be seen by a publisher. The good news is that he wanted to see the photos - those will get his attention I'm sure. I'm also still working on an agent. I've decided that an agent is the way I want to go because I want to keep my designer. If I go directly to a publisher they will push to use their own designer. I believe (possibly erroneously) that an agent can have a deeper conversation with the publisher about how they will make better money if my guy can do his job right, and they don't have to pay their guy. We'll see. Final photoshoot scheduled for Monday.

I've always bought Cortas brand because its available but surely there's better...go!

Remember that a gift is as much about the giver as the receiver. When I screw up, I comp; and often I overcomp. Its because I feel bad, recognize my mistake, and want to make sure there is no confusion that the mistake was unacceptable. Simply say, "I really don't want anything comped - just making sure you know that things aren't normal tonight." And if its a night off for the chef, tell the chef via email so s/he can fix it. Regulars pay me back nightly by filling my seats and referring more customers. That's all I need from them.

I've had 3 proof readers go over the manuscript and they're finding less and less. I just sent off to a hard editor (friend), and once he's done I'll send to a professional content development editor. Getting closer and closer.

Good question, and one I'm learning about quickly. Amy Gentry, the author, has no rights anymore. Even if she re-wrote she would have to get permission. Gastronomica (U of CA Press) holds the rights. Best Food Writing licensed the rights, so they don't hold ownership - they just did what I'm trying to do. Assuming UCP gives me rights, then the next question will be - can I use the name Best Food Writing 2014 in the marketing of my book. Its all very interesting stuff. The author just wants me to have it and use it, but she has no say in the matter.

Just sent in my formal request for rights to use the Gastronomica/Best Food Writing 2014 story about me in the cookbook. The author offered to do a re-work on it if necessary for content (there were a small handful of factual errors). Yay!

I forgot to mention Iuzzini's Sugar Rush which I think is really good.

Two of my latest: North: Iceland cuisine - love it a lot; not as inaccessible as I expected, but fun voice. Dabbous - too skimpy for what you get...really!? a recipe for peach in its own juices.

We know that we don't want a DJ. The cover is being designed to stand alone.

Proof reader just sent back the manuscript, and man o man, was that useful. He caught so many small errors! I can see how another proof reader or two would be helpful as well.

I got to pick the wood. Its actually the reason I bought another knife - I really didn't need one - but when I bought my last knife (photo upthread) I immediately had buyers remorse because I didn't pick this specific piece of wood, and then there was the "sale," and it had to happen.

For my dry method I never have washed the sides - the sputtering and color coincide.

I do it in a pot and because you add gradually, it melts faster, so its no slower than wet. Grab a pot and a cup of sugar right now and go try - you'll see - super easy and fool proof. And before you ask, its just a regular old stainless pot...nothing fancy - sometimes there's even crud stuck in the corners.

Side stepping the question because I don't have issues with dry caramel...When I do my dry, I sprinkle a little in until its melted, sprinkle a little more until its melted and so on - maybe 5 additions for a small batch. With that method I never have issues. I do stir fairly aggressively using that method to make sure its all melted. Once its all melted I take it to my desired color.

My latest - Konosuke Fujiyama White #1 Kiri/Gyuto 240 with custom handle from ChefKnivesToGo.com. Beautiful work as always and love the extra length on this one. My only negative comment is that I bought it on their Closeout page only to find it back on their regular page two weeks later at the same price.

My designer and I have been struggling with the back cover. We both want it classy designed - simple and elegant. It has to have the ISBN and bar code, but the rest is superfluous...or is it? There's great marketing stuff on the cover - quotes, photos, brief description, but is that necessary? Latest stats I've found show that 50% of books are purchased online - back cover isn't important there, but that means 50% are bookstores - and we all read the covers when we're browsing. Up until today we were leaning toward nothing on the back except a design and isbn, but today I got a copy of Dabbous (which is beautiful btw) and they had a printed sheet inserted into the cello wrap for the back cover. Perfect solution. Marketing info is there but one you've bought the book then you can get rid of it and have a beautiful cover.

yes, but the Southern half of the state is very different than the northern half. With the exception of the balsamic, we're pretty barren down here.

I'm visiting Helsinki in a few weeks and going to 4 different Michelin starred restaurants. I want to take gifts for the chefs. The gifts need to be high quality, but also something that will have some frame of reference. I'm already planning on taking them a bottle of our world-class organic balsamic, but I'd like to take some other stuff - maybe things available up in the northern part of the state that I'm not familiar with. What would you give a Michelin starred chef(s) that's from New Mexico?

Just sent my designer a gazillion photos of Fluidita and Too Many Chiefs. Both are high design books, the latter moreso. Not sure if I can post any here with copyright issues - if I can please PM me so I can show these design ideas. Both have a photo Index which is a neat idea - showing the dish with description and page number. I think this in combination with a regular text index could be fun. Too Many also has a seasonality chart to go with its dishes - love that, but not sure if it works since some of my dishes are year round. If you get a chance to put your hands on Too Many, do. The box, the cover stock, the paper...its all so beautiful.

As of 1:45 pm MST I finished writing. Then I headed into a massive weekend at the restaurant, so its just this morning that I am feeling some of the months of stress fall away. Feels good to relax for a while. I've hired a local baker to do a consistency check on my recipes - making sure that every time I give a measure for oil it is the same. 1 C = 220 g and not 224 g. I had to do this because early on I was measuring for every recipe, and here at the end I was pulling old recipes from my blog and file and they had slight inaccuracies. I also was approached by a recipe tester who wants to charge me $50-80 per recipe. I can't afford that - around $3000. But she said that other books she's worked on the publisher has fronted that money to make sure it happens. I have a lot of trust in my consistency checker so I may ask him to do the recipe testing since he would do it for free or cheap, but he's a baker so he's accuracy driven. Tomorrow I'll do another round of cleanup on the whole document, and figure out what we still need for pics, line up another photo shoot or two, and then we just wait for the editor to do her job before I go at it again.

Thanks guys. Ruth, I'm trying to recreate JMA's system which was to leave it at 34º non-stop, but I can't get it to melt that low. I just checked (9 hrs) and at 40º I am melted and have dropped it to 32º, but that's not how I understood that they did it. Why wouldn't the CB just melt given enough time at 32º?

There's a lot of info about using dehydrators in the various chocolate threads, but I'm running into recurring issues so I thought I'd focus the topic a bit. I bought a new Cabella's large dehydrator with digital control and glass door. Seems perfect except for it is in Fahrenheit only and can't be switched to Celsius. This is the second time I've used it in preparation for spraying my molds. I turned it on last night at 32ºC and ran it for 12 hours. The cocoa butter was rock hard - all of my bottles and custom mixes. So I turned it up to 40º and its been running 6 hours, and they are half melted. I thought I just needed to go long enough at 32 to have it be perfect and ready for spraying. I have tested the temperature with my infrared and the temp is reading as accurate. Am I doing something wrong? I don't want to have to re-temper my CB every time.

you can buy candied petals. In fact, Fresh Origins I know makes them. Just poke around

no, most extracts are water based. you want an essential oil that's food soluable. That said, many of us have found rose to be too perfumey to use in chocolate. I still think the candied petals are the way to go.

you can work water into chocolate in the right proportions for ganache, but you'll lose that rose flavor so fast that its not worth it IMO. Consider using a rose oil or candied roses for bark. I think candied rose petal is the way to go since you're going to have things in the bark anyway.