KateW

at their website, you can enter in your zip code and the flavor you're looking for and it will tell you if it has been sold in your area recently, and where. Here is the address: Flavor locator

Went to a bookstore the other day just looking for something to pick up. I was browsing one table and ran my finger over the raised texture of a cover with a steak in the shape of a gun. Neat, I thought. Then I looked at the title. "Hey, it's bourdain's new book!" I exclaimed. I bought it, but I haven't started it yet.

The tuna diet: "They said I'd lose weight if I ate one scoop for breakfast, a tuna bar for lunch, and a sensible dinner..."

I thought "How to cook a tart" was pretty good, if a little twisted :) (I hope I'm thinking of the right book. It was a while ago) What did you think?

Escrow? Your landlord sounds like a jackass. If our toilet broke, my landlord would come in, start crying and waving her hands around, and we'd feel so guilty that we'd just piss in the catbox. Sorry to hijack this thread. Will now stop. *spills soup all over keyboard* Thank you, I haven't laughed like that since I was a little girl.

Thanks tan :)

LOL. Hmm not really, just fridge stuff.

Yup! I also hope I can get into more activities in school this year, like cooking for parents' weekend (you can volunteer to make all sorts of cool stuff like tempura and canapes) and going on field trips and stuff.

I think we watched some of those specials in Sanitation class! Hope I don't run into the things I had to watch!

Well, there are lots of reasons why I would not want to work in a more upscale place at this point. JWU did not influence me either way in where I wanted to work. 1, this is my first real experience in food outside of school. I don't want to go to some fancy place and screw everything up ;) I wanted to go somewhere where the food prep is below my level of skill just to kind of experience the whole atmosphere rather than worry about making the food right. 2, I want to get used to working fast paced, work on timing, things like that, and that is exactly what the manager said is their main focus when I went for the interview. After I get into the swing of timing and speed, I can worry about making fine food. Hmm, did I say lots of reasons? Well, those are the main ones. There are other smaller reasons, like the area I live in is not very affluent and doesn't have a lot of fine dining to offer, and I am not a confident driver at this point and don't want to travel much. (Whole lotta issues there for a different thread and possibly a different board ) Basically I aimed low to hopefully reduce the pressure on myself. I had thought about your question in the past, should I have aimed higher? Maybe. But it's done and I hope I'm happy with it.

My mom gave me a weird look when I said I wanted to try grinding my own beef for burgers and stuff. Why would you do that? she said. Well because my meatcutting chef said it was cheaper and tastes better. Is it?

That's right--it's Johnson and Wales University and I go to the one in Providence. From what I observed in the kitchen for a little while Saturday, it looked like there were about 8 people behind the line, all doing mostly hot food, and one or two people off to the side prepping salads and such. Not everything is made to order of course; a lot of things looked like they came out of the fridge and were heated up or whatever needed to be done. I saw a lot of chicken quesadillas, buffalo chicken fingers, and desserts being made. One of the cooks took a slice of cake out of the fridge, topped it with ice cream and butterscotch and whipped cream, turned to me and said "There! Just like school, right?" The orders come in through a machine, which is nice, very much unlike school where you took the ticket from a server and deciphered the handwriting. You take a slip from the machine and prepare whatever is on it and put it up to be taken. Everyone there seems nice and I hope that's true.

I posted basically this same post at cheftalkcafe and thought you guys would like to know too. I mentioned briefly in Zilla's post about work that I was looking for a job this summer and I wanted to follow up on where that led me. I finished my first year at JWU at the end of May and I'm well into summer now. I got my servesafe certification in the mail (passed with an 84) and got my academic grades (A's and B's). After school got out, I put in an application at Sid Wainer and Son, a well-known produce and speciality food distributor in the town I live in now, New Bedford Massachusetts. I never heard back from them. I finally let it go and went to the shopping mall a couple towns over and applied at Bertucci's (an Italian restaurant like Olive Garden but with a much bigger--and better I think--selection, and lots of pizza options), and Ruby Tuesday's, which is basically like most family restaurants; it has burgers, sandwiches, steak, pasta, salad bar, etc. Ruby Tuesday's asked me to come back later the same day for a second interview, and following that, they asked me to come back Saturday to observe the kitchen. That's when they offered me a job doing basically whatever they need me to do at the time; prep cook, cooking, dishwashing, bussing, etc. I start Tuesday at 4:30, and will probably get 2-4 shifts a week at least to start. I hope to keep it as a weekend job when I go back to school in September. So that's basically it. I'm looking forward to it! This is my first restaurant job and I'm pretty nervous, but excited.

Thanks--I'll look into it If you go there, you'll never come out. Ethnic Grocer is a vortex . . . I like vortexes (vorteces?) Whatever.

Well I only just recently learned how to debone a chicken and it hadn't occured to me to start buying it bone in. Thanks :)

Ah yes good old New Behfah. Your directions sound excellent. Thanks! I am near 140--perhaps you can refresh my memory on how to get to 195 from there? As for what I like to cook--I never get tired of pasta, boneless chicken breasts, steak if it's good, chili, and soups... That's just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe it's better to ask what I *don't* like--hmm, that's a pretty short list, so maybe not. I'm willing to try anything, but I guess I'm looking for more exotic dishes--Indian, Chinese, stuff like that. Stuff I can do, but lack the authentic ingredients.

Thanks--I'll look into it

Ehhh..maybe both. But I can think of a few things I would have done differently, if I'd had some things on hand. Chopped parsley, for one thing. Maybe less bread crumbs, more chopped mushrooms. There's always time to try again.

That's a great idea. What are some brands I should look for, and can I find them at ordinary grocery stores?

I had a similar lunch. Beef flavored ramen--I boil the noodles as directed and then stir fry them with some oil and the flavor packet and I scramble an egg in. I don't do the soup thing. cherry coke rocks!

Well, the mushrooms came out pretty well and the guacamole was great but that's no surprise, I had made it a few times before and it's really pretty hard to screw up. My uncle did not bring smoked salmon but he made his caesar salad and it was great. I helped make garlic bread when I got there, and there was store bought potato salad (very good). The only problem was the meat. There were no ribs with bones at the store, apparently, so mom's SO got boneless ribs and par boiled them, didn't marinate them in anything, and just put them on the grill and brushed them with barbecue sauce. They came out very dry. The chicken was, let's just say, way underdone. Remember what I said about the saying, you should never try cooking something new for company? Well, the poor guy is nice and all but he can't cook. Mom was a little pissed at learning from him at 11 in the morning that, in 4 hours, 9 more people would be showing up to her house. But in the end we all had a good time, I think. The recipe I ended up using for the mushrooms was a mix of the one I got on this thread and the one in JOC. I also had to do my own improvising a bit. Thanks everyone for the help!

Whatever it is, I'm jealous.

LOL no, but he thinks being healthy means drinking diet soda and cooking with margarine. I guess I can't really complain, because he's pretty skinny and eats the worst food imaginable.

Meanie

That stuffed mushroom recipe looks excellent and very close to the one in Joy of Cooking that I was going to use. The JOC one says to sprinkle the mushrooms with the cheese before baking instead of mixing the cheese in. The only problem is, I forgot to get cheese :( I was going to just use some of my mom's when I got there, because I was going to use the recipe that says sprinkle it on top. Mind if I alter your recipe a bit so I can do that? PS I am doing stuffed mushrooms and guacamole. (not together)