Edward J

Are you sure it's 30 C and not 30"B" or Baume? If it's Baume, then it's a certain percentage of sugar to water, can't recall offhand what it is, but something like 1 part water to 11/2 parts sugar

You forgot to factor in if the vendor stored the mycro in a warm place prior to sale, or if it got warm during transport, or if it is expired. I only do about 40 kg a day, but never have used mycro, just plain "seeding" with virgin couverture chips. My logic is that you need just as much effort to get the couverture to 34-35C as you do tp get it to 31-32 C.

Uhh......, you can't "seal against moisture". Steel pillar is cold from being in the fridge. Pole goes up past the seal and insulation, and due to steel's conductivity it is still cold. It meets warm air. condensation happens

You will need at least one person who dedicates at least 20 mins/hr to wiping down tables, refilling napkin dispensors, emptying garbages, and cleaning up after people who won't bus their own. Will beverages be served in disposable?

So food will be eaten off of disposable ware? Will you be running it "bar style" where a server takes the beverage order and have a f/t cashier selling bottled stuff (and growlers)?

JR, hold on to your money for a bit.... I have the book and I feel an alternative title for the book would be "You can't have your cake AND eat it too". As with all of Wybauw's books, it is very well written and full of top-notch information. Yet to get the shelf life you need to sacrifice something and use glycerin, sorbitol, and other "weird" sugars. I don't know about you, but I have to declare my ingredients on my lables, and I am not comfortable with stating glycerin or sugars that--if consumed in excess--will promote, uh..."loose bowels". My other beef with the book that all of the informtion could be printed on less than 80 pages, much of the book is full of glossy full page pics. Beautiful pics to be sure, but I am NOT in the market for another coffee table book and feel somewhat cheated with over 150 pages of pics. See if you can find a friend or a library/bookstore that has a copy, have a peek, and then decide if you want to buy it.

Interesting.

Haven't used a caramel cutter, but I have my own cutter, made of 4" dia s/s wheels spaced 1" apart. It will not cut caramel, but I use it to mark. I make about 3 batches of caramel per week, recipie unashamedly stolen from Grewling's book, so it is fairly soft. I use a regular Chef's knife to cut the caramel--no greasing or buttering or warming up with a torch, just the Chef's knife. What is important is HOW you use the knife, I get clean cuts with no sticking by moving my knife back and forth while cutting--mimicing an electric knife. If the knife does not move, it will stick.

Thank you for your candid and honest thoughts. I guess I am very "old school" about Chefs in the diing room. During my apprenticeship and the many years that followed, a Chef was never alowed into the dining room unles there was a dire emergency. I truly believe that the server should relay information to the kitchen because: a) the server "takes care" of the customer from the time they come in from the front door to the time they leave b) the server describes any item on the menu in detail to the guest, and can (or should) guage the customer's facial expressions/body langauge as each item is described before the item is ordered. c) the server has opportunity to observe how the dish is consumed--if it is merely prodded with a fork once and pushed to the side, or eaten, and how it is eaten. Any knowledgeable server will intervene if the dish is not well recieved and, d) the server is one who gets the tip, not the Chef.

Exactly, honest answers. No Chef or server can read minds, if they could, they'd play one poker game per month and be extremely wealthy. So, how should restaurants respond to criticism on a blog when it contradicts what the blogger said in person? Can this criticism be respected?

Fair enough, but my question still remains. How do you fix/address a problem when the customer won't tell you about the problem?

I dunno....... I've been thinking about this one for a bit and I'd like to play devil's advocate for a minute So, customer is not happy with one course, but does not bring this to server's attention. After the meal the customer decides to tell his "followers" about his meal and while he doesn't like that one course, he can not go into detail WHY ie: Presentation? Cooking style? Choice of ingredients? Price point/percieved value? What does he not like??????????? Now some might call this type opf behavior incongruent--saying yes when you mean no. And it might be true, but I call dishonest. And while I can not endorse the Chef's behavior--it is terrrible-- I do understand his anger and frustration: How can you fix a problem if the customer does not tell you one exists?

Currently, I buy in frzn whl egg (2 kg carton), frzn yolk (10% sugar) (2 kg carton), and liquid eggwhite (500 gr carton). I buy them for the convienience, the savings vs shell eggs, and "brownie points" from the health inspector. I will not go back to shell eggs unless there are significant savings--which there are not. I do have time issues using up a 2 kg carton of whl eggs in a "timely manner", a 1 kg packing would be much more practical. With the yolks, I "chop up" the carton into 4 chunks on the meat saw while frozen and put back in the freezer, a 500 gr chunk lasts me just the right time once thawed.

Now here I have to congratulate myself--either through stubborness, laziness, or maybe just living under a rock,-- I (and my business) don't have a twitter account--never did and never will, don't have a FB account, and I don't really follow any of the food blogs in my city. It's a mess, and the Chef should be cooking, not checking up on every blog.

Go to your drugstore, find a regular thermomter, the kind your Mom used to put under your tongue when you had a fever. Look, the melting temp and working temp of couverture is almost the same as human body temp (32 C vs 36/37 C). The "fever" thermometer is accuate within 10ths of a degree. It'll do, it'll do very well, and it's cheap and easily obtainable.

What I find best is to set the machine colder than normal, I can always "zap" it with a heat gun to warm it up, but takes much longer to re-temper. The best, cheapest machine I use to keep chocolate at a decent temp comes from a drugstore: It's a $30.00 electric heating blanket.

Ahhh.. but when they "educate" you on thier peculiar affliction/diet/choice of life/personal philosophy. That's when you have to exercise great control not to whop them one in the nose.....

You don't have to. You just have to cut in between the joints.

Sigh.............. I'll explain it again. Poultry has hollow bones, when you exert force on them they crack and fracture--just like an egg. Doesn't matter if you exert force with a sharp object or not, they will fracture The only two ways to cleanly cut poultry bones is with either a saw or cutting in between the joints. Bone fragments inbetween your teeth is a nuisance. Bone fragments inbetween your teeth and gums is very uncomfortable, Bone fragments down your throat is dangerous. I've experienced all three during my time in S'pore, and with the many vendors here in Vancouver. Thank you

Yup, typical method used at "hawker centers" and on the street. When you chop through the rib cage, you will get bone fragments.. When you chop through wing bones or leg bones you will get fragments. Bird's bones are purposely hollow,and when you put pressure on a hollow bone it will not cut cleanly, you will get fragmetns Look at the chopping block, it's littered with bones and bone fragments.

Ehhhh....NO! I've lived long enough in S'pore and worked there long enough to know that Hiananese chicken rice always contains bone fragments, as does roast duck, and Char siew shouldn't have any bone to it. You shouldn't have to cut across bones, as they will always splinter--they are hollow and filled with marrow, so you will never get a clean cut unless you use a saw. Nature has given us a way to portion meat without getting bone fragments mixed in: Cut bones where they join, and you'll always have a clean cut. Like I said, I squirm when I hear "chopping". After close to 30 years working in kitchens all around the world, I can tell you that the closer the knife (or cleaver) is to the cutting board, the more control you have over it. When you "chop", your knife is much higher, and you have much less control of where it lands --or how it lands.

I really squirm when I hear the word "Chop" used with cooking. For me, chopping is for firewood. I can cut up a chicken with a paring knife if I have too, usually I just use a regular Chef's knife. A cleaver will work fantasically. All you need to do is find the "sweet spot", where the bones join and get the knife in the cartlidge (sp?), It's like cuting through a mushroom, and you get a clean cut. If you chop down in the middle of a bone, say a leg bone, you are guaranteed to get bone splitters in the meat. For most poultry you would: -Run a knife down both sides of the breast bone following it's contours, then around the wishbone, cut through each shoulder joint and gently remove each breast intact with the wing. You can cut through the breast no problem as there is no bone. -Run a knife around the thigh, gently pull to remove the hip joint, cut through the cartlidge (sp?) and remove the whole leg. Cut through the thigh/knee joint again. Hope this helps........

I use pasteurized whole egg, yolk (with 10% sugar added) and whites. Why? Practicality -Uses up less space than shell eggs, and no damage -Product is frozen and can be stored up to 6 mths -much less chance of salmonella than with shell eggs (this does not go un-noticed by "ye olde health inspector" -No eggshells or yolk mixed in with whites -No "overflow" bins of eggwhites in the fridge. Cost is a bit cheaper than shell eggs I should mention that all of my recipies are in weight and metric. It is very easy and quick to weigh out liquid eggs. I use the eggs, yolk, and whites for everything--creams, sauces, doughs, custards, cakes, fillings, Italian nougat, everything. I do know that some hotel chains (Hyatt comes to mind) do not have shell eggs in their kitchens, other than for breakfast cooking.

I make about 25 varieties of filled bon-bons, so for me "ganache" is a pretty loose description. Basically, I use two methods The first is with the food processor, about 90% of my ganaches are done there. Ganaches with just cream and couverture, with fruit puree and cream, with tea flavoured cream, etc. The second method I use is "blocking", I make the ganache in a bowl, then dump it out on a marble slab. With my scraper (a 9" s/s drywall knife, actually) I push the ganache from one end to the other until it starts to crysatlize. For some reason, this method gives me a much better flavour with high fat content (butter) ganaches.

Usually a case, which is usually 10 kg. I'd suggest getting friendly with a local hotel or restaurant and buy a case from them wholesale. Some will, some won't, some will order for you on a separate invoice. If you have suppliers in the area, you might have luck picking up a case at their loading dock. As to the true price? Any supplier will keep the price they paid very close to their chest. As I said in my above post, volume is the name of the game--the larger the amount you order, the cheaper the price will be.