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gfron1

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by gfron1

  1. Next time one of your regulars come in - can you ask them to comment? ← I have a Scottish fellow that swears by it. I'll ask him next time he's in.
  2. Sorry, been kinda busy. I do cook in the sauce and I cook it for about 45 minutes (or until I remember). Using thighs, I don't have any of the problems mentioned above. Realize, my kitchen has become pretty nuts, so I've adapted most of my stuff to be idiot proof (meaning me). Thighs can hold their own in my opinion. One other caveat is that my molè has a bit (really not too much) of lard, which assists in the texture. If you're interested in the recipe I'll pass it along after this weekend.
  3. I bet the pastry forum regulars will find this shocking, but I wouldn't. I think that concept is doomed to bridal showers and birthdays and not "after a dinner." The possible exception is if it was truly unique, but even then, once or twice would probably be enough for me. Sorry. Of course, I love the idea...I just wouldn't do it myself.
  4. Yes, I'm exclusively thigh meat. The stuff I find in burritos tends to be breast however. It always reminds me of the canned chicken.
  5. Those are great! Here's to frozen leftover pastry components!
  6. My first thought was just settling, but now I wonder if whomever is mixing is not mixing well enough and your leavener is being left if pockets. Any chance your baking soda/powder has clumped?
  7. My molè chicken is what I think you're referring to. Its the same idea as Chris' except I cook low and slow in my molè sauce. The stuff you're getting in burritos is typically (in my area anyway) cooked in a broth with tomatoes. But either way, its just a low and slow.
  8. Missed opportunity. Today was a 80 mile (something like that) ride. I was prepping dinner for 4:30 but they all got back at 1:30 and were starving by 2:30. A coach just said that they'll be eating almost non-stop now through dinner time. I'll have something tomorrow for sure.
  9. Breakfast is started. A bit slow and again we have no idea how much prep to do...so to answer your question at this point of time, I'm counting on my prep speed more than my advance planning because we have no way of estimating. We're clearly gearing ourselves right now to the teams not spectators. Saturday's downtown race will be different. Breakfast is potato heavy, not-to-spicy burritos with egg, choice of meat, choice of cheese (goat or cheddar), avocado and salsa. That and an OJ for $5. Good deal. We also made oatmeal at their suggestion with choice of toppings. Being a gourmet store I can top it with pretty much anything they can think of. Also, smoothies of their choice - bring your own supplements.
  10. Never heard of it. It sounds like an Alinea thing...infuse vanilla into butter then work that into tapioca maltodextrin.
  11. Oh shit! Can I say that here? First, word is the Lance is in town, has jumped teams to allow him to be able to race. The buzz is buzzing. Now, my desserts aren't moving at all. Not surprising but I thought someone might bite. Lunch showed me how green I am in the biz. I ran through most of my Monday supplies already (I had planned on two orders this week, but I guess it will be three BIGS), so I placed another order for tomorrow. What was hot was my molè chicken sandwich and my green chile corn chowder. I didn't think the regional flair would go because of the spiciness. My vegetarian options also were hot - grilled veg sandwich and black bean burrito. We're wrapping up our dinners right now - huge pasta plate with an option for Italian sausage - very, very popular. The sauce was heavy on broccoli because as I remember it is a good muscle recovery veg. Served with side salad and for dessert a fruit salad with cardamom pistachio yogurt sauce.
  12. Boiron from Qzina (4/09) prices: Raspberry $6.85/lb Calamansi $6.65/lb Blood Orange $4.07/lb Morello Cherry $4.56/lb Looks like I'll give these guys a try. They don't deliver again to this area until July, so I'll report back then.
  13. Unfortunately I don't drink that style so I can't really comment. We just sell them. PG, Yorkshire (red and gold), Red Label & Taj Majal are the lines that we carry.
  14. This is no different than the 2 buck chuck winning wine blind tastings. Look TJs has great buyers. For the most part they put decent to good to great products on their shelf by finding a good product, cutting a helluva deal and getting it on the shelf. They must have done that here. My problem is more how magazines do these things with accessible products - but that's only because my store works hard to find the less accessible products that are great, not just good, so magazine reviews leave you thinking you've found the best when you haven't (are you listening Cooks Illustrated readers). So to answer Steven's question more directly, the study is for a mass audience, so cook it like a mass audience would OR exactly as the package indicates. If a certain brand likes to be al dente with only a razor lip female geen South Pacific clam with Australian butter sauce...too bad because the average home cook is going to dump that bottle of Prego on it. Its sort of like saying which computer is best. The reality is that 99% of the buyers are not going to use, nor will they need, all of the bells and whistles that make the computer the best. Same goes for all consumer products. NY magazine is not geared toward the eG crowd, nor the chef crowd...we are residual.
  15. I get my Brooke Bond products from my Indian distributor...and very cheaply!
  16. I was recently handed a catalog for Bithell Farms out of Oregon for their frozen fruit. Supposed to be great fruit. I'm not really interested in their whole fruit but their purees caught my eye since its not marketed to pastry shops and I thought it might be a good deal. Delivered to my door in 14# buckets: Marion blackberriesk, Boysenberries, Strawberries or Loganberries - $37 ($2.64/lb) Raspberries - $49 ($3.50/lb) Prices change based on where you are, and they don't deliver everywhere. I'm going to check against my prices from Qzina in the morning.
  17. I received my sample this morning. I plan on following the steeping guidelines at norbutea.com Any other guidance?
  18. I guess I would be inclined to try freezing the dessert, then spraying cocoa butter that has been tinted. If you must, add a bit of white choc - say 10-20%. what are you going for here - color or texture? And you can also buy the cans of spray from all of the pastry shops. Not the cheapest option but its aerosol so it would apply better.
  19. I'd like to see the ingredient labels on each of the top contenders just to see if we're comparing apples to apples. When they talk about taste difference there are so many factors, but I'd like to know that the TJ brand hasn't added something like "natural flavors."
  20. I've been running my cafè for about 9 months now and in the past month or so our business has doubled. This is attributed to us building a loyal clientele through the winter, then the switch to warm weather. As a result the food distributors are paying quite a bit of attention to me all of a sudden. There are a few things that have happened that are leading me to ask for some of your expertise. First, I just recently learned how much cheaper it is to buy my produce by the large box instead of small. For example, I was buying 10# of zucchini for around $10 and just recently learned that 28# is only $17. I was a bit perturbed that my rep didn't tell me, but in his defense I didn't need that much til recently. I've now upped all of my produce and sell my excess out of my retail op. Second, a friend who has a restaurant told me about P1 pricing. That's a Sysco term - one of the two distributors I use (you can read all of my anti-Sysco rantings in that other topic, but I've learned that they actually have a good mix of products). I mentioned P1 to my rep and he was clearly not happy that I knew the lil' secret. I still don't know if I have it. Third, I like to think that I run an ethical business and I watch how my reps take care of my credits...let's just say credits that aren't on the up n up. An example is that they shipped me paper product that I couldn't use (rep just got the wrong thing), so he offered me a deal to keep the product. The deal was good, so I did. The credit came through as bad cheese. My guess was that he doesn't lose his commission on bad cheese like he would with returned 'wrong item.' So that's where I am. I'm the only growing restaurant in town and I feel like now is the time to get them to listen to me. I'm still not the biggest in town, and I know neither company does price locks - they just don't do it, so what can I do to get the most out of these guys?
  21. Lance and Landis' participation hit the media yesterday so the craziness is confirmed. On a really fun note, the organizers have asked me to put together a welcome basket of French pastries for Lance so I'll be doing croissant and Paris-Brebis among other things...my question to them is - does he eat that kind of stuff?
  22. gfron1

    I'm on a puff binge!

    I finally made time to try T2C's method of puffing - also the technique found on the internet. To recap - Achatz's method is to just drop in the dry rice into hot oil. It works well and leaves you with a crunchy but edible rice. T2C's method is to boil, dry then fry. More time consuming but not that much. The volume is significantly greater with this method. It is not nearly as crunchy which is good or bad depending on what you're doing with it. I'll probably be switching over however.
  23. we have two local roasters which are both quite nice, which we sell, but Peet's is superior and is our preferred sample coffee.
  24. we do Peets for our coffee so we'll be good there. And I've been told that they won't announce his arrival until next week to minimize chaos. btw - lot's a lycra gliding around our streets already! Woo hoo!
  25. (beating dead horse into the ground) I think diet coke has become the norm and so it was just a clarification. That said, you said way early on that you weren't irate about this so... On my side of the fence, I can't tell you how many times I walked about with a mega sized plae of carcass and carbs in one hand and a dainty salad in the other, assuming that the "lil' lady" ordered the salad while Big Butch ordered the side of beef, only to find it was the other way around. You know what they say about assumptions...they make you into Jaymes' ex
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