Tri2Cook

Nice cupcakes Kim. Thanks for the kind words too. To caramelize corn flakes (or rice krispies or puffed wheat or whatever sounds good to you) just wet some sugar (120 grams for each 100 grams cereal) with enough water to get a wet sand texture and cook on medium heat until the water evaporates (big, slow bubbles) but hasn't begun to color. Toss in whatever you're coating and stir and toss around continuously but gently (I use a silicon spatula but that's not important) until the sugar crystallizes and everything seems dry. Continue cooking and stirring until the sugar melts again and coats everything evenly. Takes a few minutes (or a lot of minutes with large batches). Stir in a small amount (around 5 grams to each 100 grams cereal) of diced room temp butter. Pour it on a silpat or clean pan (I usually dump large batches on a very well cleaned stainless table) and toss, stir and separate the pieces (I use my fingers, if you don't like the idea of hot sugar and your fingers wear latex gloves or use whatever tool makes you happy). It only takes a couple minutes of moving them around until they cool enough to stop sticking together in clumps. Then just let them cool completely and store them in something airtight.

You can use either of those calcium sources for the bath. It will work just fine. If you forget to rinse them thoroughly, you'll be glad you used one of those instead of calcium chloride. Shear the gluconate or lactate into simmering water at 2% by weight, chill and go to it.

Besides, she can't be a "sell-out" for promoting a Hardee's burger unless she actually doesn't like a Hardee's burger. Can anyone here say for a fact that she doesn't like them? 'Cause I don't mind the occasional fast food (and I'm betting a lot of people in this thread don't either). I don't really see how that compromises my ability to enjoy other types of food. Maybe it's not better than dinner at Alinea but at that exact moment when I'm hungry and in a hurry, it's pretty tasty.

I'm with Tan on this one. A small batch test run always leaves me feeling much more comfy about appearance, taste and procedure when doing large events. Especially a wedding. I think I'd rather face a school of piranhas while wearing pork chop underwear than an unhappy bride (or mother-of-the-bride for that matter).

I'm somewhat partial to a thick slice of freshly baked flax bread drizzled with flax oil and honey but I'd really hate to have to make the decision for that to be the only bread I could have for the rest of my life. Tough question.

cereal milk sherbet - caramelized corn flakes - strawberry fluid gel - fresh strawberry

Cool Kerry. Thanks for the information.

Nice Chris! Why is it when everyone else is complaining about their dipping, they still look better than mine on a good day? I actually had that recipe (along with the habanos and a couple others) bookmarked to try but hadn't got around to it yet. Maybe I'll just mix up a small batch of the ganache first and make sure I don't fall on the "yuck" side of the fence.

It never stops being fun, having a flavor/texture in your head and then finding a way to make it happen, does it?

Why do you feel it's something less? I think discussing the potential impact on the business from a server confronting a customer over the size of the tip is part and parcel to the topic. The point is that there is more at stake than the server feeling better by getting it off his/her chest. It's not as simple as "I felt stiffed so I asked". If I tell servers "well if you think the tip is too small, go confront the customer" and the customer is offended and never comes back, it's business as usual for the server but (at least) one less customer for the business. I support my servers completely when it comes to inappropriate or abusive behavior from customers and I don't completely subscribe to "the customer is always right", their money doesn't buy them a license to be an ass, but I'm not going to lose customers because a server expected more money than they got on a tip and wants to try to embarrass the customer into giving more. It's completely relevant to the discussion.

Nice one Rob. Sounds like you found what you were looking for.

I don't have a before picture or a solo picture of after but this is barley I puffed combined with melted soy marshmallow and toasted sesame seeds to form a somewhat savory twist on rice krispie treats. This is the same puffed barley/soy marshmallow base rolled into thin sheets and brushed with barley malt syrup to wrap salmon that was cooked sous vide at 104 f. And this is puffed barley combined with caramelized sugar to form a tuile. It's between cajeta ice cream and cebada con leche.

I've puffed wild rice, jasmine rice and barley. I usually precook the things I puff. I cook the grain in a large quantity of water until it's completely swollen and essentially overcooked but not turning to complete mush, drain, dehydrate at 150 f. until dry and flash in 425 f. oil.

Dejaq's white mirror glaze from the demo with a shot or three of titanium dioxide (I would imagine the coloring you want to use would work just fine, I'm not familiar with it.) is white, shiny, tasty and easy to work with.

I got the email too. Have no idea what the magazine is like. If you can order a single issue for $10, I might check it out. If I have to commit to a subscription at $10 an issue without having seen it... no thanks.

Yep, there really are none. Your group was happy to have a mistake corrected, you could just as easily have been offended. A large group who corrected a mistake says "oops" and that's the end of it. It's over. A large group of offended people can do a lot of word-of-mouth damage.

Sundae Gathering basil chocolate ice cream - pine nut brownie - olive oil pudding - olive oil - sea salt For the ice cream I used Michael Laiskonis' chocolate ice cream and cold-infused the milk overnight with blanched fresh basil. For the brownie I used Pierre Herme's brownie and subbed in pine nuts for the pecans. For the olive oil pudding I used Grant Achatz' recipe straight out of the Alinea book.

I don't know what the general consensus would be, but I use dry. Then again, I'm not a bread artist. I just make a lot of burger buns and pizza dough (white and whole wheat).

chocoera: Thanks for the kind words. The cake is sprayed with chocolate and topped with dark mirror glaze. Rendee: We have that here as well, and thanks to Rob's (gfron1) hard work, you can find them here. alanamoana: Thanks for the additional information. It's march tournament week here, there are about 30 hockey teams plus spectators in town, so we'll be slammed at work from start to stop all week. That means I probably won't get a chance to give the technique a try until early next week but I'm definitely going to check it out.

Didn't think you were criticizing at all, just added my 1 cent (can't go 2 with this economy ) on the subject because I thought you raised a good point.

Yeah, I suppose that's a potential problem. I'm not interested in tricking people into thinking they're eating less sugar though. I just want to trick them into tasting less of it. I want them to perceive less sweetness without losing the essence of what I've altered to my purposes. I don't do low fat, low sugar, low carb, etc. unless a particular item just happens to fit one of those categories naturally so I'm not concerned with any ethical issues. I figure people looking for any justification to do what they want to do are going to do it regardless. Not my job to police them.

That sounds interesting. I'm comfy with glazing things. I did a search after reading your reply and found a thread on it. I'm going to do a test run with it and see what I think. Thanks everybody and keep the ideas coming, I can use all the help I can get with this one.

Sounds interesting. I've bounced a couple emails with Chad from the chadzilla blog on some ideas I've been working on for converting certain traditionally sweet items to savory. Turns out he was already a few steps ahead of me on the same track but we are both dealing with the same difficulties. This may be a step in the right direction. I've already contacted Domino with some questions about what I'm trying to do so I'll see what they have to say. Thanks for the link.

I don't think it has to detract from the food, I think it just requires a great deal of thought and planning to be able to integrate things in a manner that won't detract. Little technological entertainment/information sets between courses and integrated into service pieces and things of that nature could enhance rather than detract if done well. I've followed Rob's previous dinners. If he doesn't think he can integrate it in a way that will enhance the experience, I have no doubt the idea will be out faster than a fat kid playing dodgeball.

Cool site. The local chapter of the Lion's Club does the fireworks display every year for Canada day, kinda as a thank you to the community for their support, and they sell a lot of light-y, glow-y stuff at the event to offset some of the expense. I'm not a member (they keep asking, I keep resisting) but I'll pass that link on to one of them. Rob, sounds interesting. Maybe you can borrow a class 4 laser from your friendly neighborhood laser surgeon and vaporize things ala Moto!