Tri2Cook

I tried various methods of freezing pizzas because we had people requesting it to take to their cabins. I thought it might work out as a good extra income source during tourist season if we advertised it. I never achieved a result I considered good enough. The veggies are particularly unpleasant, they turn to mush and release a ton of liquid during baking. Even the cheese texture just isn't right after freezing. The results were better than grocery store frozen pizzas but not even close to on par with the fresh pizzas.

And that is part of why Kerry is one of the coolest people I've never met! Rob: Through following your blog and discussions here I feel like I know a lot about your food philosophy and that's the reason I keep arguing my case in this thread. You want people to enjoy what you do but don't necessarily worry about whether or not they're completely comfy with it. You don't mind if they say "What the f#@k?" at the description as long as they smile after eating it. Flavor experimentation is one of my favorite things. I rarely get the opportunity to make use of it in my daily work but I get excited talking about it and look forward to seeing where you take this one.

Ok, I was a bit flippant with my reply. The point I'm trying to make is that there is foodsafe and edible clay available. It's used by a top level chef in a 2 michelin star restaurant that was number 4 on last years world top 50 list and diners are specifically instructed to eat the clay in the dish. The clay is baked, not served raw. It just doesn't really sound like a worthwhile risk for a business at that level if there was any serious chance of danger to the diner involved. I didn't mean to undermine people's concern, I just wanted to try to keep the facts in a row.

What's the risk? If he uses an edible/foodsafe clay as opposed to the potters or yard clays people keep using as a basis for their concern why would there be a risk involved? I'm going to take one for the team here. I'll obtain some kaolin and bentonite clay powders, bake some things in them, eat, rinse and repeat a few times and report on my health. Rob: if the forum never hears from me again, scrap the idea! Maybe the clay will neutralize the tonka beans and cherry pits I use to flavor things now and then.

This would be much easier if we knew exactly what you're trying to do. "A beverage with significant cocoa content that I want to change to vanilla" leaves us doing a lot of guessing. Is this a hot cocoa that you want to be vanilla, a milkshake, a cocktail of some sort?

I don't know Mark. I was trying to figure out if any other members were on the list but with screen names it's hard to know sometimes.

Congrats on the top 3 in Most Innovative Dessert Dean. Nice work.

Some specific types of clay powders are sold as food safe and edible. While this doesn't completely rule out the possibility of problems (nothing does), I don't think it's quite as dangerous as you seem to think. I'm pretty sure nobody is planning to dig up clay from the backyard or buy lumps of unknown origin clay to eat or cook with. edit: removed irrelevant fluff

Nice play on the chicken/waffle thing.

I've been going through a bit of brainstorming over the ganache thing lately trying to figure out what exactly defines it. I've done quite a bit of playing around with water-type ganaches using cocoa butter as the base instead of chocolate but I'm not entirely sure if that still technically counts as a ganache. It works nicely with fruit flavors but I haven't tried it with ice wine. I understand this is probably cost prohibitive to confectioners who have to do things in large quantities but it does allow for a clean flavor. Shelf life may very well be an issue though. Actually, I guess this is no help at all.

That sounds fun! Completely insane... but fun.

Shhhhhh. Food Network Canada might hear you!

And, since the edible clays seem to be most available as powders, you can flavor them in any way you want with the hydrating liquid and any other flavor agents that seems appropriate to the dish.

Chef Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz was featured on the northern Spain episode of No Reservations and was doing a dish of potatoes baked in edible clay. He served them in a dish of heated stones and Bourdain was instructed to eat clay and all. He didn't seem to find anything less than tasty about them. It didn't specifically name the clay but it inspired me to research the idea more. Bentonite clay has the same color as the stuff that was on the potatoes and is edible so I've been meaning to give it a shot one of these days. Edit: Apparently I didn't research hard enough the first time. I just found the recipe here and the clay he uses is called kaolin.

I'm not sure what technique you want to use but bentonite clay is edible. You could flavor the powder with a tasty liquid and some herbs or spices or something, do a thin shell of it on individual portions and just leave it on when you serve if you wanted.

Thanks! Now I gotta figure out how to call this one... I need my lead back.

I don't think we're getting Top Chef Masters until fall. I'm watching it by other means but I'm pretty sure someone posted in the topic on that show that it will be in Canada this fall on the food network. For some reason Bravo Canada doesn't carry it. Edit: Pam beat me to that one.

I'm having trouble finding information on who's up next. Anybody see it anywhere?

I sometimes watch Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. The host is annoying but I like seeing what people I may never know about otherwise are doing that has their local area going nuts over them.

That's a cool sounding recipe.

No accusation intended, at least not towards any individual. I'm always fascinated with seeing or reading about someone doing something in a new way or in a way that is generally considered incorrect and having good results. So it was a rooting-for-the-underdog thing that had me hoping she wouldn't disregard the idea just because it's not considered "the right way".

I've never subscribed to the "that's not how it's done so that's not how it should be done" thing so, if it were me, I'd try to set up a phone call or email bounce with Sebastian and see what he has to say on the cooling thing. It's never a bad thing to learn something new or different. Even if it turns out not to be the best option for your purposes at this time, you can just stick it on the knowledge shelf in case you ever need it. Nothing particularly helpful I guess, just my thoughts as a non-expert.

So I called that round just about as wrong as I could have called it. I went with Wylie as my pick for the win despite having a bit of difficulty calling him over Graham. I'm a fan of Elizabeth's work but didn't expect to see a dessert challenge so I couldn't put her at the top. I was completely unfamiliar with Suzanne's work so I had no basis with which to place her other than the obvious one, that she was good enough to be there in the first place. I lost my lead this week. Wylie didn't let me down though, he rocked the elimination challenge. Great job by all four chefs. Rob: It's not proprietary at all. If you don't already have it, you really should grab a copy of McGee's On Food and Cooking (and if you do already have it, you should set aside the time to read it ). It's a whole world of information (including the science behind that egg) in one handy book. I've read it cover to cover, read specific parts many times over the years and refer to it often. I still consider it the most valuable book in my collection by far.

Unless you happen to be in my kitchen, then please do not do that.

I have the attitude that the restaurant was under no obligation to help because the restaurant was under no obligation to help. Would it have been nice of them to try to help in some way? Yes. Would it have been smart in a business sense for them to try to help in some way without violating health codes and offending other customers? Yes. The things is, those are things that could have been done and probably (I say probably because we're only getting one side of the story here) should have been done but they're not things that anybody is obligated to do. I have no problem with his being unhappy over the situation and the decision to return or not is his to make. My problem is that he named the business, played up the we-were-singled-out-and-mistreated angle, asked for opinions and then, when most of them didn't support his opinion, he switched it over to a "I was only looking for a bit of tea and sympathy but I guess everybody hates me and my dog" thing.