tan319

Shouldn't there be a switch from F to C? Those machines are sold worldwide... Good Luck.

Savour magazine did an article a few years ago on "authentic gelato" which according to them is made with cornstarch, milk, no cream i think. I thought it froze wayyyyy too hard and in general just wasn't very interesting. Once again, for me, inless using a paco jet or something, you have to take measures to compensatae for all of the water of otherwise eat it right out of the machine, maybe set it up for 30 minutes? My two cents.

What did you cap the ends with?

I agree with Artisan Baker and I would also think it would behoove you to get them in & out, lest your bottom line bulge. I was just at an establishment that baked their their own brioche, burger-ish buns, etc. for a fairly large volume,250+ a day, most biz at lunch, and it is a hard road to hoe. Should the breads be a separate department for P&L purposes? "Sold" to the main store? Our bread came out of the pastry department and we would get questioned a lot about costs, mainly labor. If the acct set it up so they were buying the bread FROM us they would have seen their savings sooner. Do you have a sheeter? Without a sheeter it can get involve a lot of labor fast, especially if say, your croissants start to fly out the door. Not trying to be a naysayer, just that I've seen the movie before and it can screw heads up fast. My two cents.

Yes

I think pastry chef central is probably the better deal. I just used metal depots calculator for 2 stainless steel rods at 1 & 1/2 inches X 1ft and it came to 172.$ and some change

Thanks Nicole! It looked like you were having a great time!!!

Hi everyone. I read an article with Pastry Chef / '05 Coupe de Monde de Patisserie winner Christophe Michalak about a class he taught there and was wondering if (it indeed exists) if it is a FCI or ICE offered course. Del Poste Pastry Chef Nicole Kaplan was a participant, maybe she could shed some light? Any info greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thanks Katie, for everything!

All too true....

Mesa Grill has two stars from the NYT, so does Bouley Upstairs. Better call the Times, they got the wrong wavelength again. The other places have three stars. But you are not asking the question of what I think are comprable restaurants to Mesa Grill, you aksed for ones that I like, to establish a frame of reference. ← I don't think so.... I worked at a Latin NYT two star ( was on the team that got them) and while I thought a lot of our food was sublime, exquisite even, it still didn't compare to your list. My chef/owner would have agreed with me. We got two stars because we were great at what we did, no one else was really doing it, it was a sexy, fun place to go. We were 'bringin sexy back! Mesa probably got reviewed by Riechel, maybe Grimes, in the heat of the Bobby Flay fervor. He's a solid guy, a great chef, I think he deserves 2 stars in providing his clients with a good atmosphere, dependable and above average on most counts food & drink.

I agree. Brunch, drinks, drinks are always good.

With all due respect to Mr. Flay., I don't think even he would argue that the restaurants you just listed and the 'Grill are on the same wave length. C'mon...

I don't know, I used to eat there quite a bit between '94 and '98, 2K, as well as Bolo, and I never thought anything was that wistful. But then again, I rarely eat salad out or fish. Maybe the grouper was farm raised? What are some of your favorite restaurants? Maybe that would give us an idea of what you consider the standard to bear?

In flavor, seasoning?

???

I should amend a statement I made above. I don't think there's any questioning about their "quality" most of the time. I also agree that the chef or executive chef will set the tone for ordering. If they don't want to deal with 3 or 4 sources because of time, whatever, then Sysco fills their needs.

At another place that I was at a few years ago, our rep was fantastic, would really go the mile to get things we needed or they knew we would maybe have an interest in. Their "corporate chef" in town sampled us some fennel pollen, I had a dessert using it in 24 hours. She got us some TV stuff too. This was in 2003, I think. Since then, and I believe Sysco got a new CEO or something, everything has seemingly changed to sell it all to them, one stop, etc. When I'm making ice cream & sorbets for my stuff and I find a bunch of samples of some ice cream SYSCO bought in for the owners and exec to taste? Well. besides pissing me off, I've been known to slowly sample all of it to my staff, the dishwashers, servers, etc. As a consultant in Miami doing R&D I found SYSCO not real willing to go out of their way. I've liked US foods at the places I've worked where they purvey. Being the only game in town sucks for people.

Harold is doing some pretty modern/complicated stuff, I might just be more overt about it. Idealy we'd lie everything to flow together homogenously. I'm sure I'll be making some adjustments as we go along that reflect that. ← Nice one Seth!!! Maybe soon? Good Luck!!!

Hi Abra, my pastry background is pretty... empty. I've never worked in a pastry shop, never took classes. I'm just passionate about pastry. As a second year student of a french ingenieur school I have to do a 10 week internship. Most students work for chambres d'agriculture or do research in labs... Being the stubborn person I am I decided I didn't want to do something I don't like so when Pierre Hermé sent me an email in response to one of the articles i had posted on my blog i jumped on the occasion and asked if i could be an intern at in pastry shop. And he said yes from tan319: "That above is probably my favorite part of the story. Well, except for every other thing!!!" Can't wait for more! PS: Enjoy Harry Potter!!!

Great Subject, especially with these guys. I've seen it happen a few times, most recently during the last gig I was working. It went from everything "fresh " to bag upon bag of precut/presliced/pre pre everything. The powers above were endlessly screwing with pastry ( a much higher profit center and comparatively, higher selling profit center) but these guys with their pre cut radishes( I s^%t you not, bland of flavour, probably gmo-ed to hell & back) , they still needed 5 people + a chef, not including line guys. They spend so much money on this stuff, no one they hire learns jack about knife skills and to be sure, kickbacks and vacas?

I bought it , enjoyed most of it but find Ramseys book overall a better read. I love 'White Heat' but in general think Ramsey showed a bit more balls by actually throwing himself into the fray by going to France and getting his butt kicked. I think of this phase of MPWs life as a chef, etc., as a 4th rate Bourdain

I'm also a fan of your blog, Fanny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I made the Emotion Vanille you posted and just like the writing overall. Outstanding piece so far, can't wait for the future installments! Thanks so much for throwing us this and I hope you continue to enjoy!

Chef Ong, in the Times, says that "very few order dessert at P*ong...just like a typical restaurant." ← If you read the article you took the sentence out of context from, you would find Ong was making an ironic statement.

Probably not. If you're talking whipped cream use an ISI? For wedding cakes there's many bakers who could suggest what and where you can get it. Good luck!