tan319

Thanks for the info, Lesley. I currently reside in the SW USA. I'm jonesing to read your Jodi story!

Lesley, were you @ the restaurant or someplace else when you asked? BTW, I've never seen the choc that you were talking about in your earlier post(DCF?). Do you have a source for it? Thanks!

Steve, can you describe the flavor of Ocumare, comparing it to some other type? Michael, I dig their site too.

Dude! Tony may look a little older but he's young at heart. Certainly because he's doing what he like's. He's surely NOT a poseur. You can be 46 ( or 48,as I am) and still like rock n roll , act like a kid, etc.. Take it easy, guy!

Has anyone tried 'Chocovic' chocolate? The Spanish chocolate. I would be interested to hear how the flavors are, etc. Steve? Michael?

The show was great, it was fun watching the people 'kick' and 'punch' you because you pick on Emeril. I hope you have a ball doing these shows, you can't please all the people all the time. One request. PLEASE film an episode at El Bulli!!!

Ouch. Is that your wholesale price? Tan, you're paying too much! You shouldn't be paying any more than $7 a pound for this. I get the 3kg block for under $45. Please, shop around!!

Jeez, LMAO!!!!!!!! Nice one!

I'll recheck my price's, Michael. I was using 'Manjari' for a Chocolate marquise, I thought the "dryness" was like red wine. Have you seen any price increase's overall due to Ivory coast turmoil? PS: I've been trying to find the 'Cuba' Origine also! I'm a Cuba freak!

I have two. One i STILL do ( although not for awhile now) , The other an observation as an apprentice. I'm a pastry guy and the most STUPID thing I've done and repeated more then once is when I get a caramel burn ( it's like napalm, I'm sure) I'll stick my finger in my mouth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dumb enough for you? Ok, the apprentice story. About 3 months into an insane apprenticeship in a very popular French place, right outside of Wash,. DC. Friday night, crazy busy (easy 250 covers, 2 seatings) Souffle station, 3rd night of doing it w/o any supervision, 1st BUSY night. As you know, souffles are ordered at the beginning of the meal, when orders are put in. This was 11 years ago (GAWD) before I ever saw a MICROS. All written. !st seating did 80 souffles!!!!!!! Running low on egg whites. We didn't anticipate selling so many. Kept asking sous chef if we had more whites, seeing that the 2nd seating wouldn't probably be much slower. He tells me not to sweat it, "we'll" be ok. 2nd seating comes, before I know it, about another 75 on my board. Still asking for more white's, he finally comes with cartons of frozen ones! I starting breaking eggs for the whites. Keep in mind, I'm just out of cooking school, a basic course, 9 months, this is my very 1st gig. I'm sinking, getting weeded, the exec chef steps in, saying "get out of the way, you stoopid sheet", laughing at me. He makes mix for about 10 Grand Marnier souffles, reaching into one of the bins underneath the pastry/souffle table, there was white stuff in it. The one thing I always did, even then, was taste ANYTHING that was in a bin. He didn't. Next thing I know, THE CHEF, the main man, comes to me with a platter of Grand Marnier souffles, asking me to taste. I do. Saltiest Grand Marnier souffles I've ever tasted. I had to take all the blame, for the whites AND the salt, knowing if I ratted the sous and the exec, life would be miserable for me. One of my fondest memorys, for some perverse reason :-)

If I were you and you would really like to make excellent chocolates, I would look up professional wholesalers of pastry supplys in your area. Bypass the choc. in whole foods and wild oats and such. Get a product list and buy a block or even better, the 'pistoles' , which are small discs of choc. Less waste and easier to use. You can get, say, 'Cocoa Noel', which is pretty good and cheap (about $29.00 for 11 lb. a box of pistoles) in a variety of strengths (cocoa %). If you can really get Valrohna for $5.00 a lb. by all means buy it. I have to add though, the only Valrhona I really love and which I think is woth the money ( $67.00 for about 7 lb.) is the grand cru, 'Manjari'. The 'Noir Gastronomique' I thought was kind of flat. Anyone else out there have any thoughts on this?

Ditto. I would look, in particular, for any classes taught by Norman Love. His generosity and passion for chocolate runs deep, and he can be just plain exciting to be around. Though you might make some cheesy showpieces (the techniques used, admittedly, are the basic building blocks of more complex artistic showpieces), his coverage of ganaches, candies, and garnishes can be very useful. As for PCB, the website is useful as an introduction, but you don't really get a sense for their products until you have a catalog in your hands. Try to navigate your way to the catalog request form. It's free. They release a new one twice a year, in the spring and fall. I think they now even publish an English edition. There is a lot to sift through, but you'll find the cocoa butters, tons of chablons, the very cool textured acetates, and though I don't really use transfer sheets, their designs are the most inventive out there. Several MOFs, and even Jacquy Pfeifer and Sebastien Canone, consult on new products for them. However conservative this group may be, they are forcing a lot of the other companies to play catch-up. I'm not sure how much distribution they have in the US now, but European Imports in Chicago carries the cocoa butters, some of the transfer sheets, guitar sheets, and edible lustre dusts- last time I checked. PVC... do you mean the plastic tubing- Poly(vinyl chloride)- used in plumbing? Or do you mean acetate, or plastic sheeting? PVC, available at hardware stores, comes in a multitude of sizes and is easily cut down into molds. The acetate products I use most are 2 to 2 1/2" wide rolls (firm, yet easy to manipulate) and the PCB guitar sheets I mentioned above, which I use for many purposes, not just chocolate work. I don't know what might be available in art supply stores, but as always, make sure what you are using is food-safe. Cold spray, keyboard cleaner, chewing gum remover... it's all the same... well, yes and no. There are some that are safe to ingest and others that contain chemicals you wouldn't want to. The spray is used in assembling and affixing chocolate showpieces. Steve is no doubt the authority on this. Sorry, I did mean the acetate sheets, to spread tempered choc on. Thank you! And I thank everyone for the suggestions. Much appreciated! Edit: Fixed quote codes. ML

None yet, I was looking at the 'Masa' chapter last night, and this morning decided to try to satisfy my curiousity. Thanks, as always!

Question on ingredients. Is 'impulsor' in recipes in 'Los Postre's...' baking powder? Thanks!

Michael or Steve, is there a short course at a school you would recommend for chocolate work? I never really have worked with tempered choc and things of that nature. Also, PVC. You can get that at an art store, correct?

Michael, can you actually click on to products to see what they are? I went to the site and only got the pictures. I'm intrigued by the 'cooling spray'... also, the cocoa butters?

Great stuff to read, Michael. One thing I would like to make clear. I'm a fan of food, and of the people who create food that interests me. Just as I'm a fan of music and the people who help create it (producers, who are much like chefs or even movie directors) Since my love of cooking and eating is what led me to get into this line of work, I have to try tastes, concepts, and recipes, for my own pleasure. And hopefully I hit things that will lead me to something that I think the public must try!. And the great thing about being a chef is that I'm in places where ingredients are rarely obstacles. Michael, I rested my croquant mix for around 18 hours,8 of that non-chilled to "absorb the humidity" as described. Thanks for the tip!

Re: Translation: Los Postres, etc... I'm concentrating on the recipes now. Or rather, the intros to the techniques involved. I had never worked with pulled sugar before, which is what the caramelo nuetro is, I suppose. It seemed like it when I experimented. BTW, do you think that Alberts book is covered in the new El Bulli book and CD rom? I REALLY want the Oriol Balaguer book, english edition. Too bad it's on the expensive side, not that that will stop me:-) Just have to wait a bit. In what ways are you rethinking texture and temperature contrast within a plated dessert? What techniques are you utilizing? I am doing the desserts in two restaurants here and in both I have to stay aware of how much plating I can handle, or rather, the restaurant crew can. I don't do service @ the moment. There are only so many hours in my day... I am trying to think outside the box more. Using foams rather then coulis. Flavouring caramels for sauces, mounting them with a bit of gelatine for body. Ditto syrups. Gelees are being accepted with open arms. I've been doing them ever since I read the article in Pastry Art & Design about Adria and one of the recipes was for the campari gelee. I was inspired to do a Chambord gelee for a p-nut butter and banana chocolate cake type thing a chef of mine had designed and that led to a grand marnier gelee /spiced panna cotta and now to an orange juice based gelee for a 'catalan' styled one. Also a raspberry one for a heavily creamed and vanilla infused PC. I want to experiment with the croquant liquido type cookie strings and pulled sugar things. Are you looking at 'old' concepts in a new way, deconstructing them, and giving them a new spin? They're giving me some ideas on tiramisu, that's for sure,LOL! Anything to make that type of thing more interesting. To me and to chefs who run the restaurants. Because people ALWAYS want to eat them! Moving in new directions and exploring new ideas... what has and hasn't been well received by guests/clients? I don't think soups are ever that well received, here or even in NYC, where I used to be. Cheese in desserts are usually turn offs as far as I can see Rhubarb, unless in a crisp or Betty type thing, doesn't usually sell. I worked with a chef who worked and worked on a frangipane based /strawberry/rhubarb gelee tart that just wouldn't sell! And this was in a pretty well heeled, world recognized destination spot. I think figs are the kind of things that chefs love but most diners don't want to know about, unless it's a fig newton. Really! But, I would love to try that confited type of fig dessert that is in AA's book. I also try new stuff out as specials, just to see what servers think and of course how customers react. I think things like beets, eggplants,etc., would probably be pretty hard to get people to try in desserts but I want to try them for myself. That's how these guys get to me. With the obvious language barriers, what concepts/techniques/recipes are you finding hard to decipher or fully understand? It seems like most of these techniques are based on fundamentals. I'm still trying hard to understand how to boil sugar "without hardly movement" @ 158c but I'll get there. One thing that stumped me was the phrase "Vaso Americano". Thought and thought and then one day i looked at a picture and realized I was looking at an industrial type of blender!!! Other phrases that have stumped me HAVE been documented on these very pages, :_) Another thing is the croquant liquidos. Would you put the pulverized cake or other product in the blender and add the simple syrup, then the glucose? Or heat the SS and the glucose up and add? My first run I did the latter and I thought it was too runny. It didn't bake amazing so the next time I'll try the former. Maybe some of the recipes weren't tested real well, like a lot of cookbooks? The sabor site is so cool but a lot of those types of desserts are going to be outside my realm of reality, due to plating, mise en place involved and sheer labor involved. But, they have me constantly thinking and getting excited about new possibilities!!!

Congrats, BPG!!!

BPG : when I translate the site, I have 2 windows open. One w/ freetranslation.com, one w/ the site. I click on the recipe I want to translate, cut and paste the http of that page into the web address window of the translator (web page translator window) and voila! Hope it helps.

I have to tell you something cool. I was using free tranlation.com this evening when I saw the web feature. I used it to translate the site, i think I did the oriol recipe. It worked like a charm! Only weirdness was the usual "leave to be the same temperature as enviorment" type stuff.

Wow! 50!(although I'm getting very close to it myself) when I still lived in NYC a few years ago, I saw her walking across W23rd st. to go into the Burritoville there and I thought she was 25 or something! To me she is supercute, a really good cook and I loved watching her 'cooking live' show mainly because of the guests she would have.

thank you folks for the suggestions. Today we did them in the convection oven in hotel pans @225, load off. They got raves last night, skin or not, :-). Have to tell you though, there's some weird ovens in this place. I wasn't digging this convection oven for this flourless choc cake I was doing so I put them in a regular oven upstairs, and found out it basically has no temp unless you put it on @ 500!!! My assistant had put them in so I found them and threw them into the convection oven and they turned out ok. I don't like it because it makes them rise unevenly, usually. I'm also in a higher altitude so i'm sure it probably affects it.