Tri2Cook

I am following them... I just don't know where to find the stories I suppose. Social media beyond forums really isn't my strong point. I kinda have Facebook down now but I was pretty late even to that one.

Yeah, I saw that. I assumed I had 24 hours from when Rob posted about it. That was probably a silly thing to assume, it may have already been available for hours before that.

I gave up. I'm a social media dummy... I can't find it.

Man, that's some serious hair-trigger there. You read a whole lot more into what Rob posted than I managed to. I bothered my mom about a recipe from a restaurant she worked at for years. She wouldn't give it to me even after she stopped working there because the restaurant didn't want it given out and she respected that. But I still asked every so often just in case. I felt 0% guilt over asking. I didn't twist her arm or guilt-trip her or badger her, just asked. And she would laugh and say "maybe someday". As it turned out, when I was going through her things after she passed away, I found a little notebook and it turned out to be her notes from when she worked there. The recipe was in those notes. And to this day, I've never given that recipe to anyone else. And there are people who have asked and continue to ask. I don't feel uncomfortable because they ask and I don't feel they owe me an apology for asking. I'm so far removed from the time and place that recipe originated now that I may even give it up at some point so it's probably in their best interest to keep asking.

Yeah, they probably would... but I like them just as they are. I like chocolates that have that fancy design look but are still in the range of colors generally associated with chocolate.

All of it looks awesome but I really like these.

Then I think it's time for me to sell all of my chocolate equipment and invest in a kazoo or something instead.

Probably not. It's not much more exciting than it sounds. When I make it myself, I use my homemade breakfast sausage for the meat part and spice it to compliment the sausage so it's not particularly traditional in taste but it is less boring.

It was supposed to do that here all weekend. Instead it all divided and passed by us to the north and the south but never actually hit us. So instead I got to spend the entire weekend with the pounding sinus headache I usually get to forecast incoming weather that generally gets relieved when the rain or snow arrives. Only the rain never arrived. I'll refrain from adding goetta to the mix other than to say my grandfather loved it and I like it well enough but not enough to make it very often.

I use a processor. I didn't pre-grind at all for my first batch and it did fine but I later read somewhere that it's better for the machines to pre-grind a bit. Don't know if it's true or not but it seemed like cheap insurance so I now do it.

I wanted to boo that for being a little too pun-ny… but I couldn't, it's actually kinda clever.

I always like when people who like something I don't like try to find a way to make me like it. "Well if you cook it until it's black and crunchy, melt half a pound of cheese on it, douse it in lots of mustard and hot sauce, wrap it in six layers of swiss chard and tuck it in a well toasted pita, it's actually not bad."

Pricing is another thing I wrestle with. Heck, might as well be honest and say I wrestle with almost every aspect of the business end of it. But I only wrestle with it in my mind at this point so that's not so bad. I've recently been wrestling with ideas for a name just so I can start putting together an online presence and even that is a struggle.

I suppose one must have standards...

I think the reason I never jumped into it is I was merely interested, not obsessed. Not enough to buy specific molds anyway... and the idea of just using something I already have never occurred to me until Kerry pointed it out. Also, how to package them so they don't get damaged seemed like a potential difficulty if I decided I liked doing them. That's probably where I saw it as well. I don't follow him on Instagram but that doesn't necessarily mean I didn't see it. If he posted it here in the forums, I very well may have watched it and filed it away in my head... which isn't always a reliably safe place for me to store information.

I think that may be the biggest challenge for me when I'm feeling ready to step things up. I very much prefer to remain the Igor in his dungeon putting his monsters together and remaining hidden from the villagers. But my stint in catering taught me that as a general rule, the villagers don't like that when you're wanting them to spend their money.

I feel kinda dumb for not trying that. I had the CW1847 Button mold bookmarked on chocolat-chocolat but, as I said, hadn't convinced myself to take the leap yet. Guess I'll look at what I have and see what I think might work. For holding them while pouring, I was just going to stick golf tees in a block of Styrofoam or something.

Nice! I've wanted to give those a try but I haven't yet been able to convince myself to buy the molds. I can't envision using them for anything else besides those so if I'm not happy doing them, the molds become dust collectors.

Funny story about that. A co-worker was in the Ottawa area a few weeks ago for his kid's college graduation and they ate breakfast at some little place that was touting it's house made this and artisanal that which was the appeal that got him in the door. A little tray of house-made jellies and jams was placed on the table. He opted for the strawberry jam on his toast... which turned out to be house-made ketchup. He didn't seem to share your enthusiasm for the combination.

I like that! In a rare stroke of genius, I figured out a new (to me) trick (that everybody else will probably say "duh, you just figured that out") for molding bars. I put the mold on my scale, tare it and pour the weight each cavity holds in each cavity. No more scraping or dirty molds. Not quite as fast at the filling end but not off by much now that I've got used to it and it seems to be faster overall by the time I factor scraping and cleanup.

I wouldn't say it's necessary to rest any food... but some things certainly benefit from it.

I keep an empty 16 liter oil container in my shed and dump used oil in it until it's full then take it to work where it gets picked up by the people who pick up waste oil from all of the local restaurants. If you're going to next ask me what they do with it, I'll save you some trouble... I've never asked them.

If it starts to get a little funky before the end, I toss it and buy another. Rarely happens and when it does, there's never much left. I usually do a couple of changes in my deep fryer during the time a container lasts which knocks a good dent in it. Plus, I share. If my older girl needs cooking oil, she just comes over with a container and grabs some.

I like calling my stuff candy. "Talk about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the dishes..."