gfron1

You're right about the pro cyclists, but we get all categories, so while we may not get cat 1, we can expect all the others who are looking for affordable and high volume eats. Each year we house a cat 2 team at our house. And then yes, the support teams and the multitudes.

Well that title caught your attention didn't it! Its almost accurate. Word on the street is that Lance Armstrong and his team are coming to our little town of 10,000 for our big bike race in two weeks. Official word is expected in a few days. Apparently when he comes to a small town, an average 100,000 people follow - a combination of other racers, media, fans, etc. This being a sort of come back for him and the primary training race before the Tour de France, a very large crowd is expected. Okay, so I'm just a little 20-50 cover cafè. My food is time intensive because its fresh, mostly organic, most locally sourced. Not grab and go. That said, I sell more brownies and rice krispie treats than I can count (the rice krispie treats are house puffed hand-harvested Minnesota wild rice, Turkish unsulfurated apricots, pistachios, kumquat syrup, etc, not just rice krispie treats). I operate on a home ceramic top stove - not gas. I have one bitty oven. I'm not a mass production facility. I think I need to get going right now in preparing and freezing foods that are: 1. Performance athlete friendly 2. Grab-n-Go 3. Easy to prepare in advance 4. Damn good to not compromise my reputation So, what do you think? Any bikers out there that can tell me what they would eat if they were racing in a major multi-day race? The race is in less than 2 weeks.

Here we go...I'm a bit fatigued still, but yesterday was a very good day for our business. I had neglected to mention (because it wasn't that much labor on my part) that we had a fundraising cater from 4:30-7 yesterday for the Rotary Club. This was our first chance to be at the event since we opened the cafè, and so I had to make sure we had the best stuff. Everyone else did the same ol same ol - enchiladas, ribs, ice cream, cream puffs, etc. I did a variation on Alinea's sous vide cooked pork belly with a smoked paprika and cayenne sugar coating over savory chocolate soil. A lot of the cowboys passed and then came back later regretting after the word got out, but alas, we were the first to sell out - so no pork belly for you cowboy! Then I took off to the kitchen for final prep on the desserts. They were essentially finished except for on-site assembly. Here's the cake in assembly mode: filled with a snow white geleè Now, I stop in the story to say that the couple had a friend who did a monogram that they used on all of their invites and such. That's also the monogram that we had custom printed on chocolate. The bride said, "Sure, we'll just have our friend pipe the monogram on the cake." "Sure" is all I heard and thought, "I better have my backup plan." Well, "Sure" enough, friend chickened out at the last minute...literally. So I tossed some fresh raspberries on and a bit of edible silver. The cake was almond biscuit, vanilla bavarois, biscuit (soaked with raspberry syrup and campari) and surrounded by raspberry mousse. I piped some whipped cream stars around the outside at the last second when friend chickened out. My cake didn't fully thaw and I saw that when they did the cut. They were in love and didn't care. But I definitely noted it for the future. Here's the couple doing the cut: Like I said in the previous post, the highlight was the bride taking a bite, kissing the husband and then looking for me to give me the thumbs up. With the ceremonial cutting done it was time for the masses That's our own PatrickA in the back having just done one final count, just in case (as if there would be anything I could do at that point if we were short.) The most important less I learned was that even though I see every little flaw, the guests don't. That doesn't mean that flaws are acceptable, but it helps me not to dwell. I re-learned the need to keep my mousse loose when I pipe it in to a mold (v. over whipped), and to keep my tip buried to be sure to fill in the whole mold. And after all of this, here is the final product: Thanks to everyone who helped me on this. Now my next adventure, processing 50 pounds of kumquats!

whew...I'm ready to go home and crash. Did I mention that I had a 300 person cater from 5-7 and then the cake was to be delivered at 7:30. More on that later, but the only moment that matters - the absolutely stunning bride opened her mouth to accept the cake from her hubby, took a bite, she smiled, kissed hubby, looked at me and gave me a glowing thumbs up with a big grin. That's what its all about.

Okay, I woke up with a mild panic. "Freeze overnight" is a relative term I guess. And sure enough, while my large cake is frozen, its not frozen hard yet. I put the spraying on my schedule for 9 am so it has a couple more hours and my freezer is pretty hard core. And I'm going to do one final final final count of the pastries to make sure I have more than enough.

and this my friends is why I don't do wedding cakes. Here is it just past midnight, I have to head back in 5 hours to start my lunch prep. Wedding cakes are just too damn important to screw up or have flaws. Whining over. I have 87 of the individuals and the one large. Everything is exactly as I want it. Almost anyway - I wanted to fill the large with something else, but I settled on more mousse with a good soaking of the cake and a layer of jam. Everything is freezing up right now. I'll spray them mid-morning, and do my final geleè on the large cake just after that. I'll get pics tomorrow and update on Sun or Mon. Zzzzzzzzz

Maybe its because I haven't ordered from them in a while.

I received my El Rey and they included two cases of bars for me...nice lil' surprise.

I'd say about 8 inches when whole. About 4-5 inches once processed.

After talking to more folks it sounds like I didn't cook them enough. My friends have said that they should have been almost crispy and fried between two grill screens. Mine were soft and wet.

Clearly I missed something. I just posted my sojourn into fresh sardines on my blog, titled Worst Meal Ever. All of your oozing enthusiasm was what led me down this path. All I got was a mouth full of scales and bones and couldn't get past the third bite. That's about $12 a mouthful. I followed all of the steps above for grilled sardines. What did I do wrong?

Its complicated because we are a retail store that has become a food service. So right now I'm moving a lot of money into the retail side which I had leaned up when the economy soured. I'm up 50% right now (consistently daily for the past 5 weeks) and have had some peak days at 70% over our average...so yes, its been very good. But, as any other business owner knows, that doesn't necessarily mean you see any of that money So my comment has to do with a salary which I hope to provide myself if this trend continues.

Its to see how much I can learn and do, and do well. The comments of my customers are fuel that keeps it going however. I wish it were the money.

During prep I have on NPR which normally means I tune out any stories about war or finances until they play some human interest story that makes me tear up. Once the morning news cycles once I shift to top 40 for the same reason - tuning out. And then some sucky way over played song comes on that makes me sing out loud - really loud...since no one else is there with me. I guess I do that since I'm alone in the kitchen from 6:30-10:30. But as others have said, once the doors open, I am the vision of stoic professionalism...no music.

I was thinking the same thing, or you could use some MG ingredients to make it flexible which would allow you to form it into a pretzel, knot, etc. I'm also thinking it might be how your present it. A tube lying on the plate looks like a dookie. A tube skewered on something sticking out the plate with say a fruit crisp on the end might be a bit more dookie glitz!

uhhh...are you all ready for this? She came in today making a big point to tell me that her husband thought that she should charge me for the recipe but that she wanted to support the comradery of the kitchen. She made me swear I wouldn't sell her recipe. I won't sell it, but HERE it is. If anyone wants to pay me for it, feel free. The printout she gave me actually had the food network logo on it!

Are you looking for us to reply publicly or through PM?

no walk-in at the event - its an art gallery. And I'm not game for plating that many thawed pastries.

Thanks Serj. When I came in this morning I saw that I forgot to wash the dishes from the tasting last night. On one of the plates there was some of the mousse which hadn't melted away, so if it can stand up to a room temp sink all night, then I think it can handle a couple of hours in a walk-in. But that does mean I'll be plating in my shop and not on site.

If you look at the size of the chickpeas you'll get perspective on the size of the dish. With that said, then, I would guess that they took a fork, dipped it in water or oil, then dipped it in paprika and pressed it into the hummus.

Welcome and thanks. I know there are NM food fans here - especially chiles, so I think over time this will be a nice resource. I tend to modernize/hypermodernize all of my traditional dishes. HERE is the topic on NM chiles. HERE is my tuturial/memories of processing a sack of chiles. HERE is my posole.

Thanks Larry - this will all make a difference as to where I start clearing out space - freezer or walk-in.

I don't sell the RoT version, but I do sell the Bodum ones and no, you shouldn't microwave. They do now have the double wall glass versions which are microwavable but are less travellable.

Did the tasting tonight. Hubby-to-be was not feeling well, but his wife was ready. The pastries came out beautifully! They needed a bit more thaw time so I've noted that for Saturday. I sprayed violet tinted cocoa butter on the pink mousse which gave it a color very close to the orchids which are the theme. My only problem was that there was a bit of weeping - not much, but enough that I noticed it. I may up my gelatin by a sheet - that's the remedy right? Now I'm thinking about timing. Dinner is 7-8, the dessert is at 8:30. The site doesn't have cold storage so we'll be going freezer to room temp which is expected to be around 60F on Saturday. That makes me even more nervous about weeping. 90 minutes in the walk-in was enough to give it a good thaw, but at room temp, I'm thinking 45 minutes. Let me add that I have a fundraising cater from 5-7 which has every notable restaurant in town - so of course I need to put on my best face. Soooo...I'm thinking, I'll have all of the pastries sprayed and frozen before Saturday. I'll do my cater from 5-6ish and turn it over to a staff member to finish and clean. I'll come back to the shop to plate and freeze (worrying about condensation on the plates), then at 7:30, I'll transport the desserts (5 minute drive); add the raspberry, the chocolate disk and set up the ceremonial cake. I'll be done by 8:15, watch them cut and head home for a good night's sleep. Too tight? Not enough thaw time?

I'm appreciating the reminders to do a trial run right now - nothing major happened, but... Yesterday I made my vanilla bavaroise plugs - note, not white chocolate, just vanilla. Today I made an almond biscuit and cut them into 3" discs that were perfect for the mold. I made a few decisions today that I'll run by the bride tomorrow at a tasting. First I added a fresh raspberry inside the dessert - I was worried that it might be too creamy and needed some textural variation. I then made my raspberry mousse which was very good, but I now know that I need much more puree. I filled my molds about 2/3 with the raspberry, shoved a berry in the center, pushed that down with the vanilla plug, which I trimmed because they were too long, and finally more mousse and squished with a chambord syrup soaked biscuit. They're in the freezer now and it all feels right. In the morning I'll pull one out to see if it looks okay, then spray them with the colored cocoa butter, and finally I want to do the thaw test. I'll let one thaw 1 hour, one for 2 hours and see what happens. The tasting is after dinner tomorrow night.