ScoopKW
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Posts posted by ScoopKW
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OK, so add a vidalia festival in Macon, GA -- and may as well throw in the Gilroy, CA garlic festival.
But I think the "Endless Food Summer" should basically include venues where it is generally agreed that one finds the absolute best of the best -- Hatch chilis, Alba truffles, Key West pink shrimp, Champagne, etc. And it doesn't have to be the most expensive best of the best. I'm down for a Cornwall pastie festival, if one exists.
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Storing it in the refrig has no effect on flavor, ....... so what you have is fresh fruit juice in a bottle, treat it as such. Minimize conact with light, heat and oxygen.
Well, that squares with my experience. Living in the desert, ambient temperature in my pantry is well above 90 for much of the year. Olive oil goes south quickly at such temperatures -- as do spices, which I also keep refrigerated.
It is FAR less expensive for me to run an extra 'fridge than to try and keep the house below 80f when it's 110f outside. Metal container (no light), 'fridge (low heat), don't open it often (minimize oxidation).
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Reading the topic about soft-shell crabs got me thinking about "The Endless Summer." Two surfers globetrot trying to avoid winter and see the best possible waves the world has to offer.
Sooooo.... how about a checklist for the discerning globetrotter. (If this takes off, I reserve the movie rights :-)
Late August, Hatch NM for the chilis
September, the Chesapeake Bay for the crabs
What would you add -- winter truffle harvest? Le beaujolais nouveau est arrivé! Oktoberfest? Napa cab release? Thanksgiving in Plymouth, England?
Could be a fun topic...
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Nope, never in the service. I was specifically advised against it. "Son, you don't take orders well. Hell, you don't take orders AT ALL. DON'T JOIN THE NAVY."
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Olive oil slowly solidifies in the fridge (via a "blobby" stage). However, when returned to room temperature, it is fully liquid again. If the oil is in a glass bottle, this can take some time (unless you use a hot water bath or some other method of heating).
This is one reason I try to only buy oil in 4-liter tins.
I'd like to find a local source for tins of Moroccan olive oil. But I think that's asking too much of the Las Vegas food scene.
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I believe that until quite recently is was even illegal to sell or import cheese made from unpasteurized milk.
I was unaware they changed the rules. Got a link?
(And Pilgrim's stopped making Old Speckled Hen cheese. Damn!)
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Has any one heard the saying "hot pan, cold grease, food won't stick" ....I heard that years ago somewhere. I think it is a stir fry thing...back in the day when stir-fry was the in thing (as opposd to sautéing).
Works for sauté, and any other application involving a hot pan/griddle/flattop/French top and oil. I had to sear off 500 portions of halibut today -- hot flattop, cold oil, beautiful fish. How do you think cooks made omelettes before Teflon?
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This is how I do it at home. I think it has a noticeable effect on quality -- considering it takes me awhile to go through 4 liters at home.
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tanstaafl2 -- you live in America. Your friend is buying liquor in London. If your friend comes back with ANYTHING besides Havana Club rum, you should be very, very, VERY upset.
Yeah, that has been considered. They are traveling on government business using an official passport and on the off chance somebody checks and cares I was just concerned it might be embarrassing (or worse) for them. I just don't know how big a deal it would be. If it were me traveling I could take the gamble myself.
Never been truly convinced that Cuban products are as good anymore as the hype and mystic that surrounds them because they are such taboo these days. I think that has been the case for cigars for a long time now. While they may still make good ones few of those see export and other countries now make ones that are as good or better for the same or less money. At least that was my impression of the few very expensive ones I have had in the past ten years or so. All show and no go!
Maybe rum is different. Will have to give it some thought. And although I enjoy rum since I am not a big rum drinker wouldn't know which one to tell them to look for! If I am going to go that route would probably prefer a decent sipper than one for mixing. 7yo? Anejo Especial? Anejo Reserva? The 15yo is probably a little too much to spend on something that might not make it home!
It could be a VERY big deal, depending on what your friend does for the government.
But me, I don't care about the embargo. I've lived 90 miles away from Cuba for most of my adult life. The Cuban people are not my enemy. And you haven't lived until you've mixed a daiquiri with HC Blanco Añejo.
Have your friend sneak in some Romeo y Juliettas or Montecristos as well. Cuban rum and cigars are on par with parma ham and Napa cabs.
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Thanks, kaszeta. That's exactly what I'm looking for.
When you say transit is closed, does that include the Underground? That would REALLY throw a wrench in my plans. It's the only way I've ever gotten around town. I won't have a phone, so ringing Addison Lee might be impossible, without relying on the kindness of strangers.
Google is your friend - it really is easy.
I wouldn't have THOUGHT to check Google for something as basic and essential as public transportation had I not asked here. Google is excellent for specific questions that you know to ask. For general advice where you don't know AND you don't know WHAT you don't know, it's a lot easier to ask a local. I answer similar questions about Las Vegas often. These questions could easily be Googled. But I don't mind taking a couple seconds out of my day to answer visitor's question about my town.
You know what else really is easy? Courtesy.
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I do at least 400 orders in the span of two hours, and by the end of the night, I feel nauseous from the sheer amount of fat I've been working with. Paula Deen herself, if here, would likely take a bite and say, "Dear Lordy, that's rich!" We decided that a 2-ounce potion had around 800 calories.
Sadly, as impressive as this sounds, a 2oz portion of pure fat only contains 500 calories.
Two ounces, volume. This was nothin' but fried carbs. While I don't doubt you, this made me sick just cooking it.
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tanstaafl2 -- you live in America. Your friend is buying liquor in London. If your friend comes back with ANYTHING besides Havana Club rum, you should be very, very, VERY upset.
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Shalom, Daniel. You will be missed.
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Read the recipe all the way through before you start. Measure everything out before you start cooking. Have all the cookware and utensils out and nearby. Most common mistake I think is trying to cook something in a skillet over too high heat. Some of the best cooks in the world don't use scales to measure, but know how much is the right amount from long experience and by tasting as they go.
Agreed, mise is EVERYTHING. Mise is the difference between an "easy money" day and "dans la merde." Mise is more than just having a stack of towels and some bowls at the ready. It is a mindset -- a zen yoga jedi kung-fu mindset.
Before work, I show up one hour early. I drink coffee. And I visualize how my day is going to go. Even if I don't exactly know what I'm doing that day, I know what kitchen I'm in, so I know basically what's going to happen. I visualize the entire day's events, while chugging coffee. And then I get up, put my game face on, go to work, and rock 'n' roll. And when I'm cooking at home, same thing. I don't care if I'm cooking for 1 or 5,000. There's no difference.
Mise is the paddle that keeps you out of sh-- creek.
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I use my Gray Kunz plating spoon for this task. In fact, it's become one of the most reached-for objects in my kit.
But now that I've seen dcarch's trick, I am SO using that next time I need to break down mangoes. Bet none of the chefs at work have seen THAT.
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My experience with laser IR thermometers is that if you give one to a bunch of cooks, they will point it at everyone's ass to see who's is hottest.
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Andie, it sounds like Postum, but I'm not sure that's made anymore.
If you find a sealed jar, there are people who will buy it on eBay for $100-200.
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Thanks, kaszeta. That's exactly what I'm looking for.
When you say transit is closed, does that include the Underground? That would REALLY throw a wrench in my plans. It's the only way I've ever gotten around town. I won't have a phone, so ringing Addison Lee might be impossible, without relying on the kindness of strangers.
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People get out of church and stuff, and start to walk around, and a surprisingly large amount of stuff is open.
Care to elaborate what kind of "stuff?"
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[All names have been changed to protect, well, me mostly.]
So, today I walk in and Jimmy is walking quickstep with a 400-pan of SOMETHING. He's obviously in a hurry. Chef calls out to him, "What are you doing?"
Without missing a step, Jimmy shouts out, "I'm doing NOTHING, chef. Could you please not bother me while I'm trying to do nothing?"
The chef in question has an excellent sense of humor. This is par for the course around here. That same day, we're searing some color on a lot of marinated chicken breasts. How much is a lot? About five bird baths and a few more trash cans full. A "bird bath" is a giant bowl on wheels -- looks like a birdbath designed by the folks at NASA. And since it's primary use is for seasoning and marinating 100-pounds of chicken, it's called a bird bath. Nice double entendre. Once seared, they go into 200 pans on speedracks to be finished off in the ovens.
We've got five bird baths, plus the white trash cans that are only used for food storage near the flattop. It's 4:30 p.m.. Three people are busy seasoning and searing the chicken. Probably 1,200 pounds of breasts all day.
Chef calls out, "I need all this done by five o'clock."
Of course, there is NO WAY IN HELL this job is going to be done by five. Not if the flattop was 200 feet long, and we had 50 cooks assigned to searing them, and a working time machine. Jackie, who is on the grill today says, "No problems, chef. 5 o'clock heard."
I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, right, Jackie. You and what army?"
He starts shaking his butt from side-to-side. "Chef, can you please get me a broom, so I can shove it up my ass and sweep the floor while I finish this chicken by five? I like to multitask."
The five o'clock deadline was due to the fact we all have to dress up and be "eye candy" for a convention. We suit up and hit the convention area, where we have our stations. Sometimes we're carving steamships of beef, other times, we make omelettes to order. Today, I'm frying high-dollar mac-and-cheese. There are a lot of other assignments. But I'm on mac-and-cheese duty. I've got three portable burners, six non-stick pans. The stewards bring me 200-pan after 200-pan of pre-made macaroni in a three-cheese bechamel. My job is to sweat shallots and onions, then add chopped lobster meat, then add cream, and bacon bits. Then I add the mac-and-cheese, and fold in some minced black truffles. Finally, I add white truffle oil and serve two-ounce portions to the crowd.
I do at least 400 orders in the span of two hours, and by the end of the night, I feel nauseous from the sheer amount of fat I've been working with. Paula Deen herself, if here, would likely take a bite and say, "Dear Lordy, that's rich!" We decided that a 2-ounce potion had around 800 calories.
Of course, the special requests come in -- no bacon, I'm a vegetarian. No lobster. No lobster and no bacon. No garlic. I've got three pans going at all times, so that isn't too big a deal.
One moron asks if I'll fire just the lobster for him. Yeah, right, buddy. I've got a half-pan of lobster all day, and you want me to make you a truffle lobster salad. No dice. As it is, I run out of lobster 2/3 of the way in, and I finally run out of black truffles near the end of the party. The leftover oil will go back to the kitchen.
We used it the next day for truffle-parmesan-fries. This was a back-to-back front of the house day. I did chicken satay on a portable teppanyaki grill for the first half of my day, then I was on fry the rest of the day.
The satay was fun. We were serving a convention of fast-food franchisees. The kind of franchise I don't eat at. One of the franchisees walked up, looked at the 100 satays I'm doing and says, "Quite an operation you have here. But I'm in the restaurant business, so I know how it is."
I say, "That's GREAT!" (thumbs up). But what I'm thinking is, "Lady, this place serves thousands of people at once. We're running on electricity we make in our own freakin' power plant, which alone employs twice as many people as your hamburger joint. We buy olive oil by the SHIPPING CONTAINER. How the hell do you 'know how it is?'"
Finally, I was on fry for another party. We were slammed the first two hours -- we had like eight Vulcans going non-stop. Then it just died, and we got to stand around and talk about other kitchens we've worked in. (That's the main topic of conversation. Previous kitchens. Often with three-minute stories of sadistic chefs who thankfully bear no resemblance to our chefs.)
There's the usual banter, but it's goofier than what Tony Bourdain describes in his books. Sure, we get the usual "Animal House" type stuff. But the other day, it was nothing but bird calls. Bird calls! Sounded like peacocks in the kitchen, and two guys are having a running conversation in pigeon. Sounded like a Three Stooges convention was in town, and everyone wanted to be Curly Howard.
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Besides according to "On Food and Cooking," from a milk fat angle, the best female for the job is a minke whale. How does one milk a whale, anyway? (I'm lookin' at YOU, Harold McGee.)
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There are no "secret" cooking tips. But there are lots of "secret recipes."
You'll find that people are usually generous in their advice on how to cook. Less so on the exact items and quantities used. (Although I don't subscribe to the that idea. You're not going to make a dish like me. Simply because we're different people, with different equipment and different philosophies on what makes for "yummy.")
What is it that's giving you problems? I guarantee you'll have 10 good tips by day's end.
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Gray's Papaya.
Most of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.
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Could anyone from London please give me an idea what to expect on Dec. 25? That's my last day in town, and I fly home on Boxing Day. Is pretty much everything closed?
Are there any "you absolutely must go here and try this" restaurants that do special menus for Christmas Day? I won't even hold out hope for a table at the Fat Duck. I've never been able to get one in the past. Why should this year be any different? Probably closed that day anyway. (EDIT -- Closed, seeing as Dec. 25 is a Sunday, and they're closed Sundays. Maybe I'll try for Saturday. Yeah, right, a Christmas Eve table. Fat chance for the Fat Duck.)
Also, if it isn't too much of a bother -- is there anything "touristy" open that day? It's basically a free day for us, and we'll be bringing my mother in law (who has never been to England). We've seen it all, but mom hasn't. If, for instance, the Eye, the Tower or the Globe theater is open, that would be an efficient use of our time. Worst-case scenario, I assume they change the guard at the palace every day, rain or shine.
As a last resort, I'm sure there are Chinese/Indian takeouts that are open? They're all open here in America on Dec. 25.
EDIT -- All I'm really looking for is some general direction. I'll gladly do the online legwork.
The Endless Summer
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted · Edited by ScoopKW (log)
OK, here's what we have so far
early-March, Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival, Fort Myers, FL
late-April, Vidalia Onion festival, Vidalia, GA
late-April, Port Royal Soft Shell Crab Festival, Port Royal, SC
early-May, Salón del Jamón Ibérico, Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain
late-June/early July, Aÿ Champagne Festival, Aÿ (near Reims), France (biannual event, even years)
late-July, Gilroy Garlic festival, Gilroy, CA
late-August, Tomatina, Valencia, Spain
early-September, Hatch Valley Chile Festival, Hatch NM
mid-September, Festival del Prosciutto di Parma, Langhirano, Italy
mid-to-late September, Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany
November, Alba International White Truffle Festival, Alba, Italy
Keep 'em coming, even if they overlap. Someone might be allergic to shellfish, after all.
EDIT -- added the Salón del Jamón Ibérico de Jerez de los Caballeros for tanstaafl2