Edward J

Sugar concentration in the syrups might be too high. Try subbing some of the sugar (10%) with corn syrup or honey.

Uh, ScoopKW I do apologize, the above post was referring to Sigma's post. I am having difficulties with using the quote buttons. In regards to benefits, I haven't seen any in a CDN Union enviroment, Firstly no CDN hospitality Union offers benefits, they offer Union negotiated benefits, but the Unions don't pay this out, the employers do. Secondly no one is entitled to benefits until after the probation period--typically 3 mths but can be as long as 9 mths. Union dues are still subtracted from the paycheck during this period. I do know that in the large hotels in Vegas new hires are given the optioon of not joining the Union, but whatever choice they make, they still have Union dues deducted from their payckecks ,

Take a look at trades like plumbers, electricians, gas fitters, auto mechanics, etc., and see what they have done. Go to Europe and see how the respective trades there determine a sustainable wage. THEN come back and ask open ended questions...........

Benefits? What benefits? As far as I know the only benefits in the hospitality industry are free meals, or meals at a "staff discount", and that opinion is formed after working close to 3o years in this industry--in three continents. The only way out of this mess is have qualifications and benchmarks for the respective trades within the hospitality industry. And that can't even begin to happen until employees acknowledge it.

I don't buy that. Unions don't want to, yes. Powerless to do so, no. Fact is, not many people--Americans or non-Americans, know about the "tipping wage". Paying far below minimum wage is pretty stinky, but lobbying and getting your way to ake it so is even stinkier.

This has been my experience as well. (Well, I'm back of the house, so I just hear the horror stories.) I have lived my entire adult life in tourist towns. I've watched this unfold for the past 25 years. I think the ignorance excuse is becoming anachronistic. Most of the ignorance I see these days is willful ignorance. "How you do things does not square with my reality. So I think you are lying to me and I'm going to do what I please." While they don't come out and say that exactly, that's what I infer from what they do say. And yet if we don't kowtow to all their silly cultural idiosyncrasies when we visit their country, we're "ugly Americans who really should know better." Our tipping practices is a silly cultural idiosyncrasy -- so when in Rome, NY, or Athens, GA, do as the New Yorkers and Georgians do. I just don't comprehend... Perhaps George Thorogood, in his song "one bourbon, one scotch..." explains it best: "So Whatchyou want?!!!" On the one hand, the tipping system doesn't work when servers complain bitterly that they regularily get stiffed on tips. On the other hand, we should use this system because it's what the Romans and Athenians use. Cheating employees out of wages is pretty serious business, yet no one wants to address this abuse--not the Unions, not the local or regional Tourisim boards, not any form of Gov't. The legal minimum wage is ignored and a loophole is put in place, no one will adress this abuse. And yet we should all follow this tipping system........

Lets get this discretionary thing settled first. When an employer offers an employee a commission or bonus, the employer is obliged to honour his offer if the employee achieves the goal asked of him/her. The compensation offered by the employer is not discretionary, it was negotiated or at least acknowledged by both parties. In the event of non-payment, the employee has several options to get the compensation promised A tip is not negotiated nor is it acknowledged prior to the diner sitting down. The diner pays the employer for services and goods rendered, and pays the server an additional sum of money. The employer has no say regarding to the sum of money given to the employee. In the event of non-tipping, the employee has no legal options to get what they believe are owed. And even so, there can't be a specific dollar amount to chase after, seeing as how "the average" tip is 17%, but it is unclear if this refers to high-end dining only, or includes casual dining, or even chain restaurant dining. But you're right, I don't understand the (tipping) "structure in place". I don't see how a server can expect a percentage of the cost of the entire dining experience as partial compensation, when s/he was not entirely responsible for the entire dining experience.

Tips are tips, they are discretionary. Consider this: In order for a sales person to work at a new job, both they and the employer have to acknowledge the terms of the commission. Once the sale has been processed, the salesperson has every right to expect the acknowledged commission, the employer has to honour the terms. Tips are discretionary. A server can ring in $2,000 worth of sales at the end of their shift and might pocket $100, $200, or $300 in tips, they might pocket nothing, or might pocket $400. The employer has no part in this matter. Here's another way of looking at the tipping situation: My city has an abnormally high fare structure for public transport. This is mainly due to illegal (non paying) riders abusing the system. If everyone paid the required amount, the fares would be lower--for everyone. Servers can't survive on $2.13/ hr or even $6.00/ hr, they need to rely on tips as well. There is no guarantee that everyone will tip 10% or 20%. Those who tip 20% are compensating for those who tip less. Sooner or later something will give

Ehh.... No. Servers get paid exactly what their paychecks state, and if it states $2.13/ hr x "X" hours, then that's what they get paid. Tipping is discretionary, it's not guaranteed, Pay rates are.

How? Same way you bring down any entity, find the dirt, expose it, and watch them scramble. Paying someone $2.13/hr is pretty stinky, lobbying and creating a loophole to make this legal is even stinkier. Yet most people have no idea about this.

If you really look at it, the whole issue is a fair salary, right? There are only two ways that I know of to make an employer pay more. The first is to strike (rise up with pitchforks?), and the second is to establish a series of benchmarks particular to that trade or profession, and then set a scale of salaries to match the benchmarks. Most trades choose the second option, and usually in a series of 3 benchmarks or qualifications (Plumber's ticket 1, 2, and 3 etc.) The trade union is key in coordinating with the technical/schooling aspects of the trade--including the curriculum and entrance qualifications, as well as setting salaries to the level of qualification. Most of the standards or benchmarks for these trades are adopted by municipalities and written into respective codes--ie. plumbing code, electrical code, etc. But there are no qualifications or benchmarks for servers. Most of Europe has a two year apprenticeship as a benchmark for servers, but not N. America. So in order to have a fair salary for all servers, you would need a series of 3 benchmarks: The first for basic service, the second for service with limited alcohol, and the third for high end houses. As with most of the trades, each benchmark would build on the last, and each benchmark would command it's own salary range. The server could choose to climb to a higher benchmark with a higher salary whenever s/he chooses to do so. But there is no infrastructure in place to support this model. Again, using the trades model, the Union would be involved in establishing this infrastructure. So, for the last oh... I dunno, 80 years or so, what exactly have the Hospt. Unions been doing? There is nothing in place, only a National Rest. Association with some extremely powerful and successful lobbying efforts that has done nothing to establish any kind of benchmark or qualification. So really, the only group or organization with a mandate to "look after" it's members are the Hospt. Unions, and they haven't. The best way to get the scene going is to light a fire under the Hospt.Union's butts, and the best way to do this is to have some kind of control over how much they can fleece from their members.

It's probably the best way, even if it is impossible. The amount of money the Hospt. Unions recieve from the institutional services and Hotels is huge. If you light a fire under their rears and try and get them (Hospt. Unions) to be accountable with what they have done with this money, it'll be like lining up all the noodles end -to -end in a bowl of chicken soup--they'll just keep on squirming and changing and lobbying, and you will never get them to be accountable. Working on a farm for a few summers I very quickly observed that if you cut off a food source from an animal, it will do crazy and dangerous things to protect it's food source (Rats in a grain silo jumping 30 feet at a human intruder...) Cut the Hospt. Unions off from their only source of income, and they just might actually do something for it's members and the industry in general. Hey, getting women the vote/holding public office was once considered impossible. It just took a huge amount of effort to change this.

Hey, if old man Heshey can get a bill passed that states that milk chocoalte must contain a minimum of 10" coca conten, "sweet" chocolate a minimum of 10%, and semi and bittersweet a miimum of 35% cocoa content, then the hospitality industry should be able to get one leeetle bill passed. All you need is to make it illegal for anyone other than the Gov't to garnishee from paychecks. Joe Schmo gets his paycheck with out any deductions other than taxes. This basically would put the Hospt. Unions in the postition of standing infront of the staff lunch room ratttling an empty coffee can asking for Union dues. It is no secret that the Hosp. Unions have non nothing--nada, niente, diddly-squat for it's employees. It would then be time to get "bargaining" done. Yes, I know virtually no restaurant is unionized. Many hotels are though, but the bulk of Hospt. Union dues comes from hospitals, "institutions", corporate catering chains, and large food production plants. It is a lot of money, and money talks.

Yelp IMHO, places more emphasis on the reviewer's "credibility", than on actual truth. Should a restaurant get a good review by a yelper with little or no previous history, that review will be pulled down, but should it get a poor review from an established yelper that didn't even eat there, that review will stay for years. Logic being, that a yelper with a history is to be believed, never mind that the content of that review was terrible. This system (Yelp) can not be compared to Zagat or even Google

And with this, the great "apartheit" begins. Sales will always earn more than production, always has, always will. Thing is, the tip is a percentage of the entire dining experience, and although the server works very hard, they are not responsible for the entire dinining experience. True, the $80 tip may be split between the server, the host, the sommelier, busboy, and bar tender. But wait a minute, who else is providing for the dining experience? Why is it that in the media, patrons are always depicted leaving the server a fat tip and instructing the server to "give my compliments to the Chef"? Currently the tip is a percentage of the entire dining experience. That should change.

22 -23 Celcius is "Do able" for dipping, but the real devil is humidity. If humidity goes up to 70%, your couverture behaves like cement, and it is sheer (deleted) to work.

Last resort: Nougat laquer, aka choco-lac. Comes in a spray can, made of lac (aka laquer, aka bug guts and secretions with the body parts and twigs filtered out, dissolved in alcohol). Will disqualify you from any competition you enter in, and it tastes nasty. But it is edible. Woodworkers have been using the same thing, albeit with denatured alcohol (poison added to pure alcohol) for a couple of hundred years now

In my above post I described using a 1/4 insert with a bar, (and covered with a piece of garden hose) Glepore describes using a 1/6 pan.

I usually make a recipie, slab it, and note if it fills a 12 x 12 frame. If it does, how much is left over? I calculate how much of a percentage this is and next batch I adjust accordingly. 5-7% excess is acceptable

I use both. Silicone paper: Lining out cake pans, brownie pans, and loaf pans, for rolling out dough (dough sandwiched inbetween) for cornets, for caramel slabs, and for freezing ready-rolled out and pre-cut dough discs in the freezeer. Silpat: For cookies, sugar work, nasty sticky stuff like Italian nougat, and marshmallows

Ehh, No. In my last post I said that mycro is cocoa butter, but cocoa butter is NOT mycro. Mycro is hot cocoa butter sprayed/atomized onto a frozen marble roller and scraped off, in a cold room. It is pure beta 6 crystals. Regular cocoa butter may or not be tempered properly. When I get a 3 kg pail of cocoa butter I melt the whole thing and puir into small molds or onto parchment lined pans. When cold I break it up and keep it back into the pail--makes it much esier to use. This is no way, shape, or form, a replacement for Mycro, just a lot easier than stabbing a rock of cocoa butter in a plastic pail with a knife trying to get a 50 gram chunk..

PSmith, I don't understand your comment about "sugar going solid". Can you elaborate?

I prefer the microwave, and I melt between 2-20 kgs per day with the nuker. With the double boiler method, the opportunity to get water into the chocolate is very high. Also, many people make the mistake of simmering the water--when this happens, steam escapes from under the bowl and condenses above the melted chocolate, and you get brown cement....

1/4 size shallow insert (the kind you see in salad bars, but s/s) with a 1/2" dia. steel bar bolted into either end and this is covered with a length of garden hose. The insert sits in a heavy box I made with leftover Beech wood scraps from the counter tops. I should post a pic, but I have trouble posting pics with this site.

-Fill your mold with wine, leaving a 2 mm gap between the surface of the liquid and the rim of the mold. -Get a piece of silicone paper or acetate the same size as your mold -Spread a thin layer of tempered couverture on the paper, say 1-11/2 mm thick. -Lay the paper over the filled mold, trowel smooth. -When set, remove paper. The booze will only last a few days at the most. The liquid will attack the sugar in the couverture and dissolve it. Might have some luck lining the mold with cocoa butter after coating it with cuverture, dunno, never tried that, always made sure they were consumed within 24 hrs.