Tri2Cook

I mostly agree and I really don't care if people choose to eat or drink or smoke whatever they want and as much of it as they want but if/when it catches up with them, suck it up. Don't blame the person selling the poutines because you (in the general sense) chose to eat 5 of them everyday and don't force me to help cover the costs of those choices by making me pay higher taxes or higher health insurance rates depending on where I live. Since the reality is that I do have to help cover those costs, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with trying to find ways to reduce them. That's a bit hypocritical on my part because, as a rule, I'm all for government keeping it's nose out of people's private business.

I cook chicken wing tips until really well browned, toss in a bunch of butter and cook it until the butter browns then sieve out the chicken pieces.

I've done a variation on Heston Blumenthal's roast chicken (brine, air dry, roast) and the skin is always crispy and stays that way for quite a while. It's a variation because he blanches his before drying and he roasts it at a much lower temperature than I do then sears it off to brown the skin. His goal was the ultimate in moist, my goal is moist but I want that browning and crisp skin that his method doesn't really deliver. I just brine it for a few hours, rinse it in a couple changes of water, lay it out on racks on trays and toss it in the cooler uncovered for at least 8 hours, then roast at 350 f. until it's up to temp. The skin is always puffed away from the meat and very crispy. I then inject chicken butter and serve.

My favorite food gift is the tin of cookies I got from my mom at christmas every year. I don't get them anymore since mom is gone but they'll still always be my favorite food gift. I'd force myself to dole them out carefully so they weren't gone too fast. I miss those cookies... not as much as I miss mom, but I do miss them.

Looks tasty and sounds like you had fun with it... what more point need there be? Everything doesn't have to be about customers. Some of my favorite projects were done way late in the night in the empty restaurant and never seen by anyone else unless I happened to post about it here.

Well, I've only been Canadian for about 9 years. Before that I was Ohio-an, then Californian, then Alabamian, so I do remember all of those things (Although I'm not sure what Canadian has to do with it. Recess, gym and the food pyramid exist here too... or do Canadians just generally have bad memories? ). Anyway, you're right that it was taught but I'll disagree that "it worked" in any meaningful way. Many of those kids from the 80's that were taught those things are now part of the overweight, non-exercising, health problem having group that is causing all of the concern. That's a possibility, if the whole thing is about education and not regulation then I'm completely fine with it. That's a whole different subject. I said in a perfect world the government should keep its snoot completely out of the way people choose to eat. People may choose to eat fatty or high sodium foods even if they know it's not healthy, they won't choose to eat botulism. Telling a food manufacturer or restaurant it has to handle and prepare food safely is not the same as telling someone they should eat less fat and sodium even if they'd prefer not to.

In a perfect world I would argue that the government should keep it's snoot completely out of how people choose to eat. However, being in a world where personal responsibility no longer exists and everything is somebody elses fault, I can somewhat understand the reasoning behind it. Nobody is hefty because they ate 4 jumbosize burger combos for lunch every day while completely failing to exercise in any way, they're hefty because the government allows those 4 combos to contain too much fat. Nobody takes in too much sodium because they blindly live on fast and convenience foods, they take in too much sodium because the government doesn't make it impossible for them to do so by restricting the sodium in those foods. Of course once the government does restrict it, it won't taste the same. So most of those same people will dump half the salt shaker on it... until the government regulates the sale of home salt shakers or doles out salt by prescription.

I'll wait for your report Rob. Sounds interesting but I'm so backed up on books I've bought and not worked with now that by the time I'm current I'll be way behind.

They're sugar, they'll melt along with the rest of the sugar under the torch. I seriously doubt the coated ones would survive being baked in a custard, the cocoa butter would melt as soon as they were warm and... that's all folks. I think your best bet for using them with creme brulee is to sprinkle them on top of the sugar post-torch after it cools for a few seconds and don't worry about hiding them. If the sugar has cooled a little but is still sticky they might stick to it and become part of it the sugar crust as it hardens which would disguise them a little. You could go with a non-traditional creme brulee cooked on the stove then mix in coated pop rocks after it cools and before chilling but even that wouldn't work with the uncoated rocks. Edit: Something that I just thought of. What if you were to mix pop rocks with white chocolate, spread it thin, let it crystallize and break it up into small pieces then mix them in to a cooled, stovetop custard. Then you could spoon it into whatever you serve your brulees in, chill them, sugar and torch them.

Hadn't seen that. Thanks!

I've never had it be an issue. You will hear the sound of some of the rocks popping when you stir them in but most of them seem to survive. I've never had the rice crispies go soggy. I've left a piece in the cooler for 5 days just for testing purposes and they're still crispy on day 5. I've done it without bothering to caramelize the rice crispies and still been fine after 3 or 4 days. I don't usually need more than a day hold time for what I do so it's never been a problem but they seem to hold up pretty well.

I don't know, hadn't heard about it. I'll have to check it out.

They will definitely dissolve in a custard if not coated. I like to use a combination of the pop rocks and caramelized rice crispies. The rice crispies provide a nice crunch and then there's the surprise when things start popping in the mouth. Chocolate, caramelized rice crispies, pop rocks and whatever flavor component seems appropriate at the time. Butter, peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, nutella, praline paste, hazelnut paste, pistachio paste, caramel... you get the point. Mix the flavor component with melted chocolate, stir in the crispies then the pop rocks. Makes a nice base layer for dessert items.

I don't really have anything to add except best of luck. A similar concept is what I would have as my dream place. Not tasting menu based but a pastry shop in the front, dessert (or, maybe, apps and desserts) restaurant in the back. Most of the points already raised are why I haven't worked at taking it past the "wish" stage. I just don't think the local market would allow it to be a viable business. I think the concept is definitely doable, just not where I live. I could probably do well late may through early october (tourist season) but the rest of the year would be extremely sketchy unless I could contract desserts to some of the local restaurants. That isn't a likely option though, most of them use pre-portioned frozen Sysco stuff that they can pull as needed and the local market majority is fine with that. Fresh from the freezer Rolo cake is unashamedly the height of pastry for many of the local diners. There is a core market that does appreciate fresh, well made pastry and desserts but it is not a large percentage of the already small market in this area. So the dream continues to be just a dream for me.

Yep. There's a similar technique used to paint guitars (and other things) called "swirling". You mix water and borax (which gets rid of the waters surface tension allowing paints to spread and flow rather than bead on the surface) in a deep container, float your (oil-based) colors on top, swirl as desired, plunge your primed, ready-to-paint item through the paint until completely below the surface, use something to brush the floating paint to the sides of the container, then pull the item back out of the water with swirled finish intact. It produces some really cool results and was the subject of my experiments when I was searching for a food safe way to replace the borax a while back. I wanted to be able to dip components that way to get some wild looking colors going on. The main problem at this point is that the only color medium I've found that will work for the technique is oil based candy colors and I'm not sure coating the entire outside of an item with those would be a good thing to serve people. Even if it didn't mess with the taste, it would leave them with colorful teeth and tongues... so I've put that one on the back burner for now.

Just give it a try. I don't remember there being anything scientific about the way I did it. I just dumped ~1/2 lb. of cocoa nibs in a quart jar, filled it with vodka and tucked it away in a dark cupboard for a couple months or so then filtered it through cheesecloth and then a coffee filter. After a taste, I added 50 brix simple syrup to taste and gave most of it to a friend who is a cocktail maniac. She seemed to be happy with it. I've read about a technique where you suspend chopped chocolate in a cheesecloth pouch just above the surface of the booze in a closed container and leave it alone for 6 months or so and, supposedly, the volatile aromatics are leeched into the alcohol but I've never tried it so I have no idea if it actually works all that well. I keep meaning to get back to that because I can picture some interesting things to do with that technique if it works.

I don't usually get much of a velvet effect if the item I'm spraying isn't frozen or very cold. A light touch with the sprayer on a room-ish temp item and a warm spray that is thinned with more cocoa butter than I use for velvet sprays (I don't usually go anywhere near 50/50 for velvet, more like 70/30) gives me a nice matte finish. Disclaimer: I haven't sprayed anything without the intent of getting the velvet effect in quite a while so I can't really remember exactly how smooth the result is but it's definitely not the fuzzy velvet thing.

It's not worth digging for. I didn't go into any specifics or followups, I just mentioned in the thread that I was giving it a try.

I did that one. I think I mentioned it in the "make your own vanilla extract" thread. I don't remember the time and quantity specifics (I've got notes somewhere) but it worked pretty well. For my purposes (as a non-cocktail person who only uses it for flavoring desserts, etc.) it's easier to just buy a bottle but it's worth playing around with for the do-it-yourselfer.

Sysco has a tiered system for ranking their customers based primarily on how much money they're making off of you and it effects not only pricing but, in some cases, quality. There is a pecking order for produce and such when their stock forces them to choose who gets the good stuff. I was told this by a rep so if it's incorrect it's not because I just made it up. Sysco will do price locks, at least in Canada. Not across the board but they'll lock on a high volume item or two if you're doing large and/or consistent orders with them and you're pushy enough. The rep may have some sneaky way he gets it through the company, I don't know or care. All I know is that the items that were locked for us have remained so despite a couple of nasty increases in that area of the market.

As far as I know, I did. I've never heard/read it before but I have a solid track record of finding every "original" idea I have already done by 1000 other people when I search them on google so who knows.

Since reality isn't a requirement, I'd like to have a pastry mullet. Pastry shop in the front, dessert-only (or maybe apps and desserts) restaurant in the back. Having a business like that isn't outside the realm of reality, making enough money for it to survive is what puts it in the fantasy category.

Thanks Kerry!

Does anybody happen to know if Robin Hood Best For Blending Flour is basically the same critter as Wondra? The R.H. website describes it as "Best For Blending Flour is milled using a special process to provide you with a granular flour that blends easier into wet or dry ingredients with less dusting or clumping than regular flours. It can be used in any recipe that calls for all purpose flour and is an ideal thickening agent for sauces and gravies". Sounds pretty much the same to me.

Protein and carbs at night to help with recovery and a little carb preloading for the next day, easily digested carbs in the morning to fuel them up. Pasta is always popular at the century rides I attend. So is white rice. Fats are generally avoided or minimized. Your basic high carb, med. protein, low fat menu covers it pretty well. Some people like pre-ride protein, some don't. I do better without it but I see people with hard or soft boiled eggs at pre-ride. My gut doesn't like too much on it during the ride. I usually go with rice and fruit for breakfast and depend on liquid nutrition (Infinit) and water during the ride... then I eat the house down after.