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Reefpimp

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Everything posted by Reefpimp

  1. If you live in an area with a substantial Muslim polulation, the local halaal butcher is an excellent source for lamb, goat, and bones for stocks, all at a reasonable price, in my experience. If you haven't had goat, I highly recommend it. It kind of splits the difference between white-tailed deer and lamb, leaning toward lamb. Not available everywhere but a total bargain in terms of bang for the buck.
  2. Tyler Florence wouldn't be where he is today if he'd started his career 3-1/2 feet tall and covered in warts. I am not impressed by his technique or his recipes, and quite frankly, his shilling for Applebees was the final nail in their respective coffins for me. I will no longer patronize either of those brands, as I can vote with my wallet.
  3. Oh man. I wish the pairings were the other way around, but you just KNOW that batali/deLaurentiis would kick the other two bloated gasbags straight into the gutters from whence their cuisine arises. I can't stand RR OR Flay. WHY WAS I NOT CONSULTED ON THIS?!?!
  4. I have used a Leaf Hog to REALLY get a charcoal grill up to speed in a hurry. Think outside the box, guys. It's amazing the culinary uses you can put common wodworking tools to. I use my low-angle Stanley block plane as a mandoline every so often.
  5. I feel like a slacker and not fit to post in this thread because all I did for lunch today was take one of those 8 oz Brie miniwheels and put it in between a couple of slices of rosemary ciabatta and eat the whole damned thing. Washed it down with a couple of ESBs too. Now when I sneeze or cough, my fingertips tingle. Is that bad?
  6. Dammit another contest i didn't know about until it was over. I was thinking Arabian Nights of frozen custard spiked with coffee, cardamom, cinnamon and mint.
  7. I've done the same presentation with sammich wraps, with scoops of rice covered in lettuce chiff on each side of it at one end, and sour cream strategically trailed down the other side of the plate.... Staff meals only, but oh what fun.
  8. Thought about that. But I used to bounce in nudie bars; and if you think you've got problems with your kitchen staff, let me assure you, it is NOTHING compared to the headaches of dealing with... that particular demographic. For instance, if there are drugs on board I could very easily lose the vessel under RICO seizure statutes. And there is no such thing as a strip club without cocaine. At least, though, I wouldn't have to worry about them eating me out of house (boat) and home.
  9. Feiullette--Just love how it falls, like little leaves. Chiffonade; aguillletes; saltimbocca; baccalao. Has anyone noticed how the Romance languages have the most melodious rhythms and usages when they're describing food?
  10. Deer bologna? No. Steaks and roasts as much as possible, but this year I have tags for 5 deer so at least one is going into my charcuterie projects. Those damned rats with antlers took out something like 30% of my uncle's corn crop this year, so it's smiting time. I'd have liked to have gone out mushrooming more this year, but things didn't work out as planned. But two years ago, on my land further north in Wisconsin, I cut down two dead elms and very carefully transplanted a half-dozen morels. I should be able to get a passel of them in the spring.
  11. Done that. And in a reversal of that theme, I've cleaned the mortar off my biggest trowel (used a disc grinder and a wire wheel) and used it as a fish spatula.Oh, and my brother-in-law built an attachment for his drill press so he can use it to stuff sausages. He's also got a forge and it's been known to be used for burgers on sunny afternoons. They cook in about 2 minutes flat.
  12. I'd grind them to a powder and toast them in a skillet for a bit before putting them in the oil. That should kill most anything, and if it doesn't... pray make it to the keyboard before you succumb.
  13. For a few years now I've wanted to combine my two trades into a business. You see, not only am I a pretty decent line cook (I sneer at 'chefs,' because I can out-drink most of them and because I need something to feel superior to) but I am also a merchant mariner; an able-bodied seaman with lifeboatman and tankerman endorsements, and am on my way to my 600-ton Master's and Unlimited Tonnage 3rd mates papers. My idea has been to buy a small ship, and put a restaurant on that. Waterfront location, obviously; and the interesting thing is, it falls under Admiralty law, not any particular set of codes. The vessel i'm looking at (and Vessel is to be the name of the establishment, because it has pleasant connotations and is a gentle pun) is a former USCG icebreaker, 180' long. Show me where in the United States one can buy waterfront land outright for $1685 a running foot, especially with a structure meeting applicable laws; I can, and will. But the more I look into it, the more disenheartened I am. I think I might revamp my business plan to run it as a "catering hall" that is occasionally open to the public. That would allow me to only need to run it 5 days a week, or less. Or perhaps as "time-share condos:" Investors purchase a stateroom for a week at a time, and I cook for them and maybe cruise around if I can find the sailors willing to work for cheap. Surely to God somebody wants to do that and eat Mediterranean Fusion three meals a day; I can think of a dozen guys right off the top of my head! Working vacation?? OKAY!! My point being that it is entirely possible (I'm speaking theoretically here) to look forward to making a bit of money if one is willing to think outside the box. Will I be dating strippers and driving Ferraris in two years? Probably not. But I'll have a great houseboat and maybe get to do some real good cooking while I'm at it. Hell, I'm not getting rich working for other people; I might as well not get rich working for myself.
  14. I'd like to do a saddle of venison--honest, Wisconsin, cornfield-robbin' venison that I shot myself, and butchered myself, and cooked myself--to a table of PETA-style vegtarians. I'd like to do the same for the great oudoor writers: Jack O'Connor, Pete Capstick et al. I'd like to cook Osama bin Ladin's last meal, whatever it might be. I'd drop everything to do that tomorrow.
  15. Kim Chee. I spent a year in Korea courtesy of the United States Army and I never did get it past my nose. If you could find me a reliable source for food-grade human, I would braise (say) Debby shanks every night for a month before I could eat kim chee. Oddly enough, I had dog (Kae go gi) more than once and wasn't grossed out; and I've been damned poor, poor enough to eat Alpo and be glad for the calories; but that concoction of pickled urine and hate is just a little to much for me.
  16. I remember being absolutely ruded out by it when I was maybe 12 or 13; if I'd only known....
  17. I keep Raw Power easy to access by never removing it from the CD turntable; it's been in slot #3 for 4 years now; seriously. I only have about 35 cookbooks, so nothing is that hard to find. Although I had a girlfriend break up with me, caused, in large part, by the fact that I kept Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal on the cookbook shelves. What?
  18. Who here has had to make a mad dash back to the prep kitchen to pee in a sink (or, better yet, an empty pickle bucket) during service b/c you were too weeded to actually take a break? Guilty, BTW.
  19. Mind you, even though the servers handle food, they don't have to restrain their hair at all. WTF is up with that? Nope. Can't agree that going without a hat is a 'perk' of being a "chef", unless you actually want your crew to think you're an effete snob and hate you. The rules apply equally or they don't apply at all.
  20. Agreed. The line cooks have enough resentments and issues without you actually creating more of a divide. By example is the ONLY way to lead; if one can't take over somebody's station during service and work it harder, faster, and cleaner than they do, one has absolutely no business calling oneself a chef. Personally I think floppy toques are okay, ball caps are not nearly effective enough, and hair nets are for hospital cafeterias. Do-rags are prolly the best at keeping hair contained and absorbing sweat. Plus they help your crew to look like scary hardasses, which is always a plus.
  21. I don't remember you working for me... Other stupid tricks: Actually smoking weed on the line Sleeping with the new waitress Making the French hostess so mad she'd forget her English Gang-pummelling the attitude right out of the maitre-d behind the Dumpster throwing hot sautee pans at each other pantsing each other while loading the order arranging the roasting chickens in risque situations so the easily-embarassed intern would blush when they came out of the oven ....Good times. Good times.
  22. Some of that is deliberate misdirection, and very useful it can be. I had a "friend" who came back thru JFK from Amsterdam with a wheel of Edam and a quarter-kilo brick of something that was not Edam. The cheese was confiscated and he went on his merry way.
  23. Which is much the same reason I kept Bad Religion's best stuff always ready to go: In a world where I was at the mercy of every little whiny d*****nozzle with a special order--and waitstaff who were hired more for their looks than their actual skyllz-- it was a welcome release. Sometimes there is an overwhelming need to start a mosh pit on the line. And yes, I am hipper-than-thou. My music proves it. Sorry you went and got boring, but it's an imperfect world..
  24. I've found that the music I play when cooking professionally (punk rock on the Epitaph label, mid-american indie-roots rock from the '90s) is markedly different from the music I play when cooking at home (Mathematical jazz and acid house). Although when the waitstaff were getting too annoying, some of that mid-70s Miles Davis heroin jazz would clear them out of my AO to let me do my thang in peace.
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