chefette

Quite a while ago I was taken to dinner at a nice local place and had a very tasty filet mignon with some sort of raspberry Beurre Blanc but since they seemed to be serving really gigantic pieces of meat could not eat even half. Requested the remainder for later, waited a really long time but it never showed up - somehow they tossed it out I guess. When I inquired about it they actually brought me a fresh piece of meat (raw) wrapped up in a cold pack to cook at home. I thought that was interesting.

Had the chance to eat at Ducasse, could not possibly finish the really fine steak, asked to take the remainder home. They gave me a sack that had a container in it, I kept it cold, until it was time to feast on the remainder of the steak. They packed me a bunch of stooooopid macaroons. arghhhh!!! Then I read something on etiquette from someplace and they stated that it was not appropriate to ask to take home your leftovers. Now I feel uncoth that the waitstaff determined on my behalf that I clearly was well mannered enough not to dersire my leftovers. Oh well. sigh.

I picked up the Cabernet, the Chardonay, and the Sauvignon Blanc last week. So far we have tried the Cab and the Sauvignon Blanc. The Cab seemed acceptable (a bit bland and kool aidy, but just as good as what I had at happy hour the other day). I thought the Sauvignon Blanc was pretty good. And for $3.49 it is hard to complain.

Michael, this was my first use of sucanat. I had it around for a while waiting for something to try it with. It isn't moist or fine grained like brown sugars. It is dry and fairly coarse. It might actually work out if you ground it up more finely in a food processor. The flavor was very assertive. I am not sure what I would use it for. Not sure it was ideal for this use. Night... In the Bras recipe he dries bananas then mashes them up with water to make banana butter, The banana butter is used to make a banana sable. The banana sable is ground up into the nougatine. My reaction to all of this was that it was a ridiculous waste of time. This leads me to believe that he was rummaging around in the pastry kitchen one evening just robbing the poor pastry chef of all sorts of things to toss into his misguided dessert. Looking over all this I thought - so, you wanted a banana nougatine - let's just make that then and skip all this other crapola. And yes, the whole, make the hot caramel and spred it out and roll it between two silpats thing has never ever worked that well for me. I have to say that I would really be interested in seeing someone actually do that and actually produce nice paper thin pieces of nougatine as pictured on page 186. I did try it the rolling out way and had some moderate success, but really thought it was way more work that it was worth. Seems like a good job to save to punish someone with.

Thanks Night. I actually owe this thread some info myself. I did make the Banana Nougatine napoleon (well, some version of it anyway) finally. As I mentioned earlier, looking over the recipe carefully I thought that it was way too complicated. I made banana Brazilnut nougatine sheets. Toast 4 oz brazilnuts in the oven and allow to cool Grind with 1 container Just Bananas (2oz?) try to maintain a non-paste consistency Caramelize 500g sugar in a heavy pan and add 2 oz butter pour out the caramel onto a large silpat to cool break up the caramel and grind it toi a powder sprinkle a layer of caramel powder onto a silpat and then sprinkle with the banana nut mixture, and top with a dusting of the caramel powder score with the bak of a knife into rectangles place in a 325 degree oven until the caramel melts (just a minute or two) allow to cool slightly and peel off the silpat I also made the sugar macaroons using Sucanat (a natural cane sugar) I stuck pretty much to the recipe from the Bras book on that. You then are supposed to gring these macaroons up and use them as the base of the yogurt cream filling. I was not that keen on the filling or the macaroons. I really liked the nougatine though.

Have you tried rubbing in the butter or shortening by hand instead of using a mixer?

To achieve the moister, denser, darker coffee cake, I would try 1- using brown sugar instead of regular sugar, 2- stick with the butter or replace it with 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 3- cut out the Baking powder and just use the baking soda If that still does not work out more moist and dense, try adding another 1/2 cup sour cream. Another thing to consider is using a flavoured coffee soaking syrup after the cake is baked, poke a few holes in it with a skewer and pour a bit of coffee flavored syrup over it then cover it and let it soak for a bit.

I bought some Peeps last year with the intent of making a sort of Easter Peep Torte for my 4 year old niece. I never did get around to it, but my plan was: Almond sucre tarte base - blind baked Filled with a layer of hazelnut cream, topped with a silky dark chocolate ganache filling then a ring of peeps around the top so each wedge cut would have a cute marshmellow Peep. Now I am rethinking my plan and this easter I will do it with bananas, ganache and purple marshmellow Peeps. I am absolutely certain this will be the absolute best ever use of Peeps which otherwise seem inedible.

I was in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California this past weekend visiting family and came across a fascinating wine phenomenon - Two Buck Chuck - Charles Shaw wines selling at Trader Joes for the absolutely unbelievable price of $1.99 a bottle. Some of this was pressed upon me that very evening and I was afraid - very afraid. Fortunately the wine was warm and everyone acquiessed to drinking a nice chilled Spanish white that I had selected. But I am curious. Very curious. An article from the LA Times says: "Since it was introduced in February, Charles Shaw wine has gained a cult-like following in Southern California, with wine drinkers backing their cars up to the loading dock of the Los Angeles-based discounter to lay in a supply of the Trader Joe's exclusive." http://www.epinions.com/content_3002638468 Charles Shaw Wines selling for $1.99 a bottle at Trader Joes in Southern California (L.A. Suburbs). The urban legend is that it is available so cheaply because airlines have returned their stock of it since they can no longer use cork screws to open it (because everyone knows what a dangerous weapon a corkscrew can be in the wrong hands...). Apparently this urban legend regarding Charles Shaw wines is not true. Apparently Charles Shaw wines are among the top 20 most popular wines in the US and it is merely a victim of the current wine glut in the US right now. Until last week I had never heard of it. Now That I have read some articles on it, I am almost sorry that I did not try it myself. http://www.snopes.com/business/market/shawwine.htm In another article I see that it has actually ranked well in taste tests. "Despite their low cost, Charles Shaw wines have established a solid reputation, reflecting the California wine industry's widespread investment in state-of-the-art winemaking equipment. Charles Shaw's 2000 Chardonnay in a blind taste test by trade magazine Wine & Vine beat out a $67 rival." http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/021230/bizfeature_wine_1.html So, is this $2 Charles Shaw wine any good? Is there really a wine glut? Is something like this a benefit to the wine industry in the US?

Yes, I believe that what Steve Klc is saying is that Cooking schools such as the CIA, FCI, ICE, NECI, etc, etc who are charging upwards of $20K per year to teach you culinary skills are rapaciously hoodwinking an astoundingly poorly informed and willing public (see how you all refuse to believe these salaries?) into thinking that they can follow their dreams, they can realize their passion for cooking, be a professional chef and make as much take home pay (if not more) as they do in their unfulfilling professional lives. They have to charge you alot because they have nice buildings and offices and fill them up with nice cooking equipment (which is not cheap) and they need to pay dividends to a luminous board of grand chefs that we all recognize. This does not leave that much to pay the instructors (again, we are back to the $30-$40K a year jobs). But naturally in the 6 months or so that they have you they might as well show you all the bells and whistles and fun cool stuff. Can't exactly leave you peeling potatoes in the walk in all that time and stirring chicken stock. So, yes, you arrive out in this big bad world jammed full of skills that you will rarely if ever get to use. Guess its just like tsking geometry and advanced placement physics in High school.

Not meaning to be socially unacceptable here, but the people who are taking these jobs are primarily hispanic, or Vietnamese, or other recent immigrant waves. And yes, they are taking the jobs, and they are taking them at rock bottom wages and doing them well. Not good for anyone involved but the capitalist (oops there I go again) owners. Like I said, we do not have kitchen spanish because kitchen workers thought they needed linguistics. And yes, it is fun to cook for your friends when you feel like it, isn't it?

It is very tough to get out from under the student loan debt on $30K a year But working 12-14 hours a day you don't really have alot of clothing or other costs.

Well, the information I put out about salaries is based on my own experience. I did a quick search and found the following great jobs Landsdown Resort Cook position Wage $8.65 - $12.65 per hour Sous Chef Benchmark Properties Racine, Wisc Wage $10.00 - $15.00 per hour Relief Baker, Chaminade, Santa Cruz, CA Wage $11.00 - $14.08 per hour Shift Day Hours Part Time PM Display Chef Chaminade, Santa Cruz, CA Wage $12.00 per hour EXECUTIVE CHEF, SOUS CHEF Loie, 128 S. 19th St., Philadelphia PA 19103. Salary: $35-85K/yr. Cooks Maison Culinaire Inc., 12220 Quorn Ln., Reston VA 20191. Salary: $10-15/hr. PASTRY CHEF Charlotte’s Bake Shoppe, 6246 Pleasant Valley Rd., El Dorado CA 95623 Salary: $10/hr. PREP COOK Hotel Sofitel San Francisco Bay, 223 Twin Dolphin Dr., Redwood City CA 94065 Salary: $10.90. SOUS CHEF, BROILER COOK La Casa del Zorro Desert Resort, 3845 Yaqui Pass Rd., Borrego Springs CA 92004. Salary: Sous Chef: $45K/yr; Broiler Cook: $15. EXECUTIVE CHEF Rock Bottom Brewery, 9627 E. County Line Rd., Englewood CO 80112. Days & Hours: 55-60 hours/wk. Salary: $45-50K/yr to start. PASTRY CHEF Max Downtown, 185 Asylum St., Hartford CT 06103. Salary: $32-45K/yr. BAKER Bridge Café Bakery, 7 Riverside Ave., Westport CT 06880. Salary: $9-10/hr. SUSHI CHEF The Graycliff, 122 Moonachie Ave., Moonachie NJ 07074. Salary: $8.50-10.00+. HEAD BAKER Rats Restaurant, Badger Bread Company, 16 Fairgrounds Rd., Hamilton NJ 08619. Salary: $30K/yr. WORKING CHEF Gipsy Trail Club, Carmel NY. Mail: 33 W. 67th St., New York NY 10023. Salary: $25K/yr. SOUS CHEF Doma Café and Gallery, 17 Perry St., New York NY 10014. Salary: $10-12/hr LINE COOK (GRILL/SAUTE), SOUS CHEF Blue Grotto Restaurant, 1576 Third Ave., New York NY 10128. Salary: $25-40K/yr. PRODUCTION SAUCIER/TOURNANT, BANQUET COOK The Pierre – A Four Seasons Hotel, 2 E. 61st St., New York NY 10021. Salary: $14-19. Kinda makes you think twice about eating out. Where is Tony Bourdain on all of this????? Care to add a little anecdotal evidence of your own to this thread? Or do all the chefs and cooks you know command $75K and more a year?

Suzanne F, on December 29 you posted in another thread the follwing "I really loved the line about graduates only making $30,000 a year: do you realize that's $15 per hour? Puh-leeze. How about half that? " So you know this....

This is also why the people who are working in kitchens are so welcoming and happy when upper middle class yuppies bored with their careers in medicine, law, and IT decide to join them. Please note that I am being as sarcastic as I can be here. These people do not like you, they HATE you, they will do everything they can to help you (help you OUT the door that is). They do not have the option to cook because they love it--it's how they get by, how they can survive and feed their family. The notion that this is news that cannot possibly be believed on this board is astonishing.

Allow me to assure you this is not a figment of my imagination. Resaurants and hotels are offering $30-$40K for Pastry Chef (lead person), $6-$15 per hour for pastry cooks and this is in DC and NYC. $12-$15/hour is considered pretty amazing pay. Receiving benefits is considered really really nice. Hotels pay more than restaurants ($12-$15 as opposed to $6-$8) and tend to give you benefits (usually after 6 months to 1 year on the job). And we are not talking lame nothing puny restaurants either. This is Citronelle, Four Seasons, the nicest top of the market places in an elite food city. My issue here is the difficulty of sustaining a skilled and talented workforce when fair compensation is not forthcoming. I am sure you are familiar with the plight of Elizabeth 11 - hard time even finding someone to pay her $6 an hour after working for free for several weeks (in Chicago.) This is not unusual, it is not a reflection of her training or longevity in cooking. This is about the economy of the food industry. This is why restaurants are moving to commissary systems this is why they outsource and purchase parcooked, vacuum sealed foods. This allows them to dramatically cut and control food costs as well as kitchen labor costs. People who slice and drop and who drop a baggie in boiling water, or cut open a baggie and finish a chop on the grill before slipping it onto your plate allow them to stick with wages of less than $9 an hour. Go into any kitchen anywhere - why do you think that you need to speak Spanish to work in the food industry? Because people are so smart and bored they thought it would be fun and challenging to spice things up conversationally by trying a multi-lingual approach? Why do you think the INS is the biggest hazard kitchens face? Come ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! People are just not getting PAID! (ohmygod i sound like Karl Marx or Lenin or something - yikles! still, I have a point)

hmmmm, so many interesting points... Several of you alluded to the difference between cooking as a job (ack what can I do except hack up tomatoes and thaw burgers?) and a love fest/obsession. This might be true for maybe a week - but as they say love don't pay the rent. You might put in a little time at one of the best places in the known universe at a net loss, but where do you go from there? and the fact is that you are still faced with the good ole $6.50-$8 an hour. Work for a year and then maybe you will get benefits. The Cheesecake Factory $75K plus BMW plus profit sharing thing is also an issue. Talented hardworking people (even those full of love for their craft) have to pay the bills and attractive opportunities like this do not exactly enhance perfecting that craft. All over the eGullet Board people talk about food and cooking and the chefs that create the recipes and the food - do you ever think about the fact that most of the people who are making these meals possible are making less--and often much less-- than $40K a year? Yet you demand that they display skill, dedication and superior levels of cleanliness with the preparation and presentation of your food. Exactly where do you see the future in this type of business model? Suzanne, I obtained some figures on payscale from: http://www.payscale.com/research/vid-5293 and the other numbers come from cooking school propaganda (oops, I mean pamphlets)

Really nice - no, this has nothing whatsoever to do with comparing Denny's to anything. The POINT is that regardless of your skill levels, the quality of ingredients you work with, the cost to patrons of the plates you produce, the responsibility you have etc there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE in how much money you are paid. This is very very sad. This is not conducive to improving the state of the art in the US.

The Food service salary median is $35-$42K per year, long hours, few benefits, work weekends and holidays. The average hourly salary for entry level people is $6.50 to $8 an hour. Cooking schools will give you this dire information in the FAQs on their data sheets and web sites but they go on to add that the more expert you are, the higher your starting wage will be (which is questionable and is not frequently proven out). They say that wages/pay scales depend on the place of employment (benefits offered), and the education of the applicant (you might interpret this to mean that since you graduated from high school, college, and possibly hold a graduate degree and have other job and life experience you might make more, but you would be really really lucky to find that it did). They also usually try to highlight that an Executive Chef can expect to make approximately $40,000 to $75,000 per year and that Experienced Executive Chefs working a large or famous hotels and resorts around the United States can make from one to two hundred thousand dollars per year. My question is WHY? Why is there almost no difference between what you make working at Denny’s slicing up cheesecake and what you make at the finest restaurants in New York City? I understand that the food costs and space costs and decorating and all that is more expensive at a top restaurant, but the prices paid by the consumer are much greater. I think that the profit margin is higher in a fine dining establishment than it is at a Denny’s. How can this possibly be justified?

The savory portion of the program was not at all connected to eGullet. Steve Klc, one of the moderators here coordinated the entire pastry program for the Societe and the IHMRS so that is why he asked us to make the pastry components available here.

There has been some discussion on the site about foams and gelees. I think that the excitement or huff about them centers around the whole Adria innovation using the iSi Profi whipper to create light tasty foams. I think we should talk about them, but to insinuate that foams and gelees are trendy and can be shrugged off is very short-sighted since foams and gelees have been with us since before recipes were transcribed. Gelees - jello (to Americans), jellies, gelled fruits, pate de fruit, gum drops are timeless, enjoyed by people of all ages everywhere in many guises. Foams: mousses, fruit fools, bavarians, parfaits, emulsions, need I go on? Seems people have been whipping things and adding whipped things to other things since they could figure out the whole whipping process. I am thinking that people everywhere like foams no matter how they come to be foamed. Any opinions out there? Thoughts?

It sounds as though you are looking for something specific. What is it? Or are you just making a collection?

It sounds like there just wasn't enough moisture. Are you sure you weren't supposed to add the whole egg? did you try adding just a tsp or so of water?

This snippet is not actually about the $50,000 Pastry Challeng, but the World Cup Pastry Competition where the US WON!!!!!!! http://www.frolicanddetour.com/writings/ar...ves/000035.html "But the Pastry Cup is particularly tense and stressful. I've already seen Greece's ice sculpture collapse right on top of its climactic dessert. Oops. Holland had the same problem. Most surprisingly, the United States actually won. First our surprisingly non-sucky World Cup showing, and now this! (Which is not to say this is necessarily recent, but everything on the Food Network is timeless.) It does appear that the US team was made up in part of ringers -- they work in the US, but two out of three are French. The INS will probably come and grab them now that they've served their purpose." Read more... I think this is my favorite paragraph and really tells it like it is IMHO "You don't get to watch them stirring and whipping and pushing perfectly formed ovals of sponge cake into twee little molds. No, what the audience sees is primarily the sneering and the eating -- the judging portion of the competition. They see the chefs bring out the three-foot-tall chocolate cake with its majestic red blown-sugar flourish on top and parade it in front of the judges, who make faces like it smells like feet. Some of the judges take pictures. They take little bites. They never make that "Ohgodohgodohgod" face that I make when I eat a really good chocolate cake, either. They look unimpressed. "Good, but not as good as what I fed to the Empress last Wednesday."

Quote Suzanne F: "why do we thrill at pastry and sugar work set pieces yet turn up our noses at those aspic-imprisoned formerly-savory displays " I think it is because the pastry set pieces are fantasy impossible art things made of food and we react with wowness. The aspic things are just sort of gussied up food things looking like we are somehow supposed to eat them and we are scared. Also maybe because it is very far out of our culture at this point.