Tri2Cook

Restaurants do that too but at some point you have to decide on a sweet spot as far as hours go (unless you're going to be a 24/7 place) and stick with it. I find that customers get more annoyed finding you closed when you should be open than not finding you open on a day you're normally closed just because it's a special occasion. That's the problem with the "open the holiday Monday and close Tuesday instead" scenario. A few people will be happy they didn't have to cook their own meal on the holiday, a lot of people will be unhappy when they arrive for lunch on Tuesday and we're closed. Consistency is important in a restaurant... and not just with the food.

Most definitely that. I haven't taken vacation time in over 12 years or a sick day since I was forced to for an emergency appendectomy ~8 years ago. Holidays are my vacation days that help me recharge and get me out of that "it's always time to go to sleep or time to go to work" feeling that can build up over time.

The fast, flippant answer would be "because they don't want to" but there's more to it than that. Opening on a day you're normally closed involves more than just telling the staff they have to work. You have to be sure that enough people who normally expect you to be closed will discover that you're open to cover the expenses involved and make it profitable. So you either cross your fingers or pay to advertise it in advance and hope people notice. Bringing in a non-salaried staff with the additional hourly pay for working on a holiday and nobody showing up because they think you're closed can make a large dent in the numbers. The fact that you're in a touristy destination area would help lower that risk substantially but maybe not enough that the management feel it's worth doing. The restaurant where I work is normally open on Mondays but we're closed today. Mondays aren't generally the busiest day for us to begin with so opening on a holiday when a lot of people will assume we're closed just isn't worth it.

That would probably be tasty. I made a Thai curry sweet potato ice cream that I fully expected to find disgusting and it was surprisingly good so I can see the sweet curry thing working with coconut in a chocolate. I've been meaning to play around with a raspberry lambic ganache. I think it would work well in white chocolate but haven't actually tried it. It was one of the flavors I had planned for my experiments with using cocoa butter as a ganache base to greatly reduce/eliminate the chocolate impact without losing the ganache texture. I already did a few experiments with veggie flavored cocoa butter ganaches but hadn't reached a point where I was completely happy with them. I keep telling myself I need to get back to it... but it'd be a bit costly for retail chocolates use.

That's exactly the reason I like a pot pie baked in a full shell, with pastry lining the pan. That bottom crust that baked in contact with the filling is a thing of beauty. I know you get that where the top contacts the filling as well... but you don't get as much.

I'm guilty of leaving out a massive amount of detail when sharing a recipe. I get mildly annoyed reading a recipe that holds my hand and walks me through every single little step. I forget sometimes that there was a time when I needed that hand holding and that it's easier for me to skim over stuff I already know than for someone who doesn't know to figure it out on their own. Fortunately, I don't put recipes on cooking sites.

Yeah, a week or so is asking a lot. I've never done chocolate but I once (back when I had actual ambition ) stored some made with raspberry puree, part done with agar, part done with regular spherification and part done with reverse spherification, just for the purpose of seeing how long they'd hold up and which held best. The agar version did best but still lost a fair amount of liquid over a few days. None of them came close to going a week without significant syneresis problems. I agree with pastrygirl that agar is probably your best option if storage time is essential but at a week or more there's going to be a definite "usable" vs. "optimal" dividing line.

Yeah, what he said. I kept adding the used vanilla pods to a container of sugar over the course of almost a year with the goal to use the sugar for Christmas cookies I was going to make. The sugar was used in the dough and the cookies were rolled in the sugar before baking. The level of vanilla flavor present was disappointing. I could have just added vanilla to the cookies and rolled them in plain sugar and got a much better result. The aroma of vanilla in the sugar when you open the container is very nice, the amount of flavor and aroma you get in the finished product is very subtle. I still toss the used pods in a container of sugar because there are some uses for it where a very subtle hint of vanilla is nice and it seems better than just tossing the pods in the trash but as a baking/dessert ingredient, I find it a bit underwhelming.

I've never had trouble with using homemade marshmallow in rice krispie treats. I've done it both ways, just mixing the cereal in while the marshmallow is still hot if that was the plan from the start or remelting them if I'm just using up marshmallows that aren't disappearing. I generally don't use egg white in my marshmallow but I have no idea if that makes a difference with rice krispie treats. If by "stale" they mean the cereal gets more soggy than with store bought marshmallow, I haven't found that to be an issue... at least not within the day or two before they all disappear.

If you just want to use the pan, Lisa gave you your answer. If you're concerned about it being pretty and shiny, elbow grease or one of the suggested products will help. Keep in mind that you're going to spend as much or more on the stuff being suggested to clean it as you'd spend on a new pan (yes, I know... you didn't ask how much it would cost to clean it).

Those sound positively evil to me... I'd probably eat myself into a sugar coma. I've never had that cereal but I'm a bit of a peanut butter fiend and peanut butter gianduja is a thing of beauty.

I'd just ask. Ask your contact person about any dress code specifics and at the same time ask about any special tools outside of the usual suspects that you should bring. If I was, for whatever reason, unwilling to ask, based on the fact that you've encountered problems with it in the past, I'd probably err on the side of caution and assume it wasn't okay until I knew for sure. Why get off to a negative start over something as simple as wearing a different pair of shoes for a day?

In general, I like the red hat ladies. I know most of the local group, they're good customers where I work and we appreciate it, but their monthly meeting of the hats is never looked forward to. A huge group of them arrives ~30 - 35 minutes before lunch rush, which would be great, plenty of time to get their food out before the rush hits, but they sit there and talk until the lunch crowd starts filling the place. As soon as people start coming in the door, they suddenly become business like and all order quickly... and I'm thrown in the hole right off the hop for the lunch rush. I still like them but that tends to get a grumble or three out of me. I've had the waitresses try to politely guide them into ordering sooner but they'll have none of it.

I know of the existence of the chickens of which you speak, they just don't exist anywhere near where I live. There's only one kind of chicken in the grocery store where I live. They're just marked "chicken" with no other special designation. There are no specialty or ethnic markets in the area. Mini chickens (cornish hens) and water chickens (duck) make an occasional appearance... but they're not always there.

Looks good. I don't think I can help you with your quest to make candy with less sugar though. That just seems a bit like trying to make a steak with less meat to me. Candy is pretty much sugar with assorted textures and flavors. Sugar is it's base unit of existence.

Agreed but I'm generally not a big fan of thick burgers to begin with... though I have met a few exceptions over the years. My gf won't eat a burger if she sees pink inside no matter how you go about explaining that it's okay so I feel like SV would be a waste of effort for her. I still intend to play around with it for myself though.

Looking at what's in those pictures, I'd say you got it pretty right.

I keep telling myself I'm going to try that custardy apple recipe... but so far it has failed to happen. I once ate pretty much all of the peels from about 10 - 12 granny smith apples while peeling them for use in an apple crisp. I don't know if it was fiber overload or what but I had the most interestingly intense pain in my lower abdominal area later that day. Bordering on unpleasant to stand up straight and move around. Since that little event, I allow myself to munch some of the peel when working with apples but I also allow myself to toss a fair amount of it into the trashcan.

:biggrin: I'm sure he appreciated that. It's just not the same when you have to polish them yourself.