Edward J

Mmmm, I daresay you'll be hearing from the lawyers and doctors who are members here on e-gullet shortly.

mskerr, Relax, Just remember to omit the word "all" when making a blanket statement, O.K.?

I dunno about that. If I had a dollar for every gay waiter I've worked with, I'd be very rich. I think throughout my entire career I've only worked with maybe a half-dozen men who would openly admit to being gay. The last 15 years of my career are here in Vancouver. There are a lot of alcoholics I've worked with, "Beer farts" I'd call them, the Druggies never lasted long, they were always on the way down. But not EVERY cook I know abused drugs or booze. I get kinda uncomfortable when people make blanket statements about my career, one that I've been in for over 30 years..........

Please, do a little more research, in particular "Yelp' and how it reviews. Reviews--if favorable are taken down if the reviewer has fewer than 10 posts. This is only fair, and I understand the logic. But Wait!!! There's more!!! If the review is negative, it stays, irregardless of the reviewer's track record. Some of the negative reviews go all over the place, have nothing to do with the restaurant or food, and can be personal attacks on employees or owners. . IMHO, you get what you pay for. If the review costs nothing, it is worth nothing.

Mskerr, do not tar me with the same brush as yourself. No, I'm not an alcoholic, never was, nor do I use "recreational" drugs". I have issues with your post however. Say I buy a bottle of wine, and after the first sip discover it is bad---vinegar bad. Should I continue to drink another three glasses and complain the whole time, or just throw the bottle out? You applied for a cook's job, showed up, and was told that you would be doing housekeeping. Most people-including myself, would thank the woman, tell her she just wasted 2 hours of my time, and that would be it. You seem to have spent some serious time digging up dirt on her, and even more time writing about it. There are psychotic employers just as there are psychotic employees. I can go into greater detail about my one-day-wonder waitress who stole the delivery van keys out of my desk drawer, drove off with my delivery van and moved her apartment over the lunch delivery period, the cook who broke one valve on a six burner bbq, then proceeded to break another, than another, and another, before he finally decided to call me up to find out how to light it. The gr. 11 p/t dishwasher who ran 4 baskets of strawberries though my high-temp dishwasher, the cook who wanted to strain 350 degree fryer oil into a plastic bucket, or the cook who claimed he had no medical conditions on his application and a week later freaked everyone out with an epilectic grand-mal siezure. Then again, I've had employers who left out "Wednesday" on the weekly schedule.....

Glad we got that off our chest. We won't be looking at craig's list for any more jobs, now will we?

5%??? Last year I was pestered--no, downright harrassed by at least 4 such companies, some demanding discounts as low as 35% and as high as 50%. This year these companies have seem to have dissapeared--for which I am very gratefull. No, it is not advertising. Say you buy your mother a bouquet of flowers, you include your card with the flowers. Whom does your mother associate with the flowers--you, or the person who made the bouquet and delivered it? You have to understand the mentality of Groupon. They exist because they offer 50% discounts. Groupon is not making a loss, they are not compensating the merchant for a 50% loss, but are demanding the merchant take a loss in order to advertise with them. They make thier money from your discount, this is their reason for being--for existing, to offer discounts, not theirs, mind you, someone else's. On top of this they till take their cut-- a percentage of what ever is left over. They have access to this money, not you, as I said before you are a third party to the trnasaction, but provide the product. At this price it is impossible to make any money, every sale is a loss, and what's more, it will take at least 5 or six meals at normal prices to make up for the loss of one Groupon "sale". I repeat, every restauranteur I have spoken to on this subject tells me that 95% of the customers are only there for the discount, they don't return, and what's more, many are reluctant to splurge on beverages or to tip the waitstaff. It's a shell game. Good luck finding a restaurant that doesn't offer Burrittos and a Coke for Groupon discounts.....

As one of the few restaurant owners on this forum, I beg you to see things the way I see them on my side of the cash register, and the only question I ask of you is : Why on earth would I do somehting so stupid? Now, it is my undestanding that the folowing is the way Groupon works: Restaurant offes a special on a meal, offer is advertised in lots of 500 or 1,000. Groupon insists that restaurant MUST discount the meal at 50%. Customer pays groupon via VISA, Groupon takes thier 25% cut of this sum, restaurant provides the product and service. In other words, restaurant is sole provider of product, but is 3rd party to the business transaction. Fitrstly, WHY should a restaurant take a 50% cut on it's product? The three most expensive items on a restaurant's list is: Overhead, Labour, Foodcost. None of these items are discounted, yet the final product must be discounted by a whopping 50%. Conclusion: No sane, reasonably intelligent operator will use Groupon. Those that have, have quickly found out that the people who did purchse Groupon are only there for the discount, less than 5% returned a second time customers. Groupon might work with last year's electronic devices, or a boat-load of 1970's era Soviet swimwear, but it doesn't work well with fresh food, live labour, and demanding landlords............

I don't quite follow you. You want to use organic chicken, O.K., fair enough. But-tum----eh....uh, well, what does the ingredient label on the "better than bouillone" say? "made with organic chicken"? or does it say: "Yeast extracts, modified starches and carmelized sugar for colouring"???

I know very little on nutrition and rad very little on slat and BP connections. What I DO know, though, is what every bartender the world over knows... Salt is an appetite and thirst stimulant.

You have never had the luxuury of growing up in Saskatchewan in the '70's..... Although my parents weren't big drinkers, they did like wine, but alas! only the following drexck was avaialble in Gov't liquor stores at the time: -Moody blue -Lonesome Charlie -Baby Duck and -Schloss Laderheim -Black tower Now, I did sepearate the first group from the second, as the first group is in a category of it's own.....

Mmmm.. Playing the devil's advocate (I am a big fan of everything in moderation) I'd say that a couple of hours of make-up, fancy dresses, and a shot at 10 ft away as compared to the close-up will make anyone look good.... I get lectures too. I get lectures on organic chocolate and fair trade chocolate. I took a gamble and tried it for a few months. Spent a small fortune importing f/t couverture in. Huge price difference. My conclusion? Customers won't put thier money where their mouth is. Same conclusion that 90% of other chocolate makers came to, and had I been paying attention, I could have saved myself some money and anguish. IMHO people lecture becasue they think it gives them power--"educating" the great unwashed. I've survived the era of butter labled as evil and margerine good--backed by scientific facts. Same with eggs, red meats, you name it. I see my body as a piggy bank: Garbage in, garbage out, good stuff in, good stuff out. Don't exercise the bank, and it bloats .

A big "Amen!" to that observation! A good breadn'butter idea is to sell coffee and donuts to offices in the area....

How did you calculate rent and renovations? Savory donuts sound like a great idea.

Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure! You will need a ventilation hood and Ansul (fire supression system) for the frying the donuts no matter which way you slice it. Cheapest option is to find an old restaurant rather than starting from scratch. You will need a lot of refrigeration for the gelato. Normal refrigeration for the raw ingredints and finished mixes, the icecream freezer itself, storage freezer for bulk, and a serving/dipping case. All this equipment puts out serious heat, especially in the summer, anticipate and plan for it.

A lot of the local wineries are going screw cap here, as are many Aussie and Euro wines. Then again, ther are a a lot of "artifical" corks being used too. Don't know what the success rate is with those. Here is a bit of non-wine realated (But it is cork related) trivia for you: When you mix ground cork with linseed (flax) oil and apply heat and pressure, what do you get? Linoleum.....

A large Caveat Emporium on the "steam feature" on most commercial convection ovens. What is put into your oven is NOT steam, but rather water, generally a jet of water is aimed at the squirrel cage fan in your oven. Yes, the water comes from a plumbed in line and is controlled via a solenoid valve, but that's it. The fan flings droplets of water all over the oven's cavity. The oven walls and floor being hot, convert this water into steam. Converting water into steam needs energy, and the enerrgy comes from the residual heat in your oven. In other words it cools your oven down--dramatically. Some ovens, like the Rational brand have a genuine steam generator built in. In other words, steam--not water is pumped inot your oven, so it doesn't cool down your oven so much. The fancy deck ovens in large bread bakeries have this as well, but it is very expensive. Stone decks are a nice feature in ovens, but remember, there is no direct heat source under the stone deck in an electric convection oven--unlike a deck oven where heating elements are directly under the stone. A true convection oven has the heating elements wrapped around the squirrel cage fan, a gas convection has the burners in an air box under the floor. What this means is that in an electric convection, the stone deck will take a looong time to get hot and give a nice crust/colour to the item being baked on top of it. Hope this helps.

I'll second the freezing. I have a lot of it growing in my garden, well over 15 lbs of the stuff. I end up giving it away to local restaurants and my favorite, a local bakery who uses is in foccacia

Depending on the pastry cream itself, you may or may not need the gelatine to "hold" the whipped cream. Also, it depends on what you want to do with the Diplomat, if you need a firm or stiff diplomat for napoleon slices, or a loose one to fill into say, choux paste swans.

I've permanently clouded the lid of my robot-coupe when processing a ganache with pure cinnamon oil. I'm 99% sure it was the cinnamon oil that etched the plastic. Plastic blender jugs have three good points: Cheap, won't break into (sharp) slivers, and light weight. That being said, they crack, scar very easy, and cloud up very easy. They can also absorb odours and stains much easier than glass . "Selected" family members have also managed to melt the jug, although they haven't 'fessed up as to how. S/S is a very good option, although you can't see through it, but it is virtually bomb-proof.

Processors don't usually inject water. If you're gonna cheat, then cheat big time. What many processors and even neighborhood butchers do, is vacuum tumble. Meat is put into a drum. "liquid" is put into drum. Drum is vacuum packed, drum is tumbled. Out comes meat anywhere from 10% to a whopping 50% larger and heavier and no liquid. Granted, the 50% stuff is gross, found in "insitutions", but most supermarkets will deal with stuff in the 10-18% range. Virtualy all frozen meat products have 10-15% junk added. As others have noted, all meat processed this way MUST be labled as such, and the ingredients--usually some kind of soy-protein-- must be stated.

Probably...... I don't claim to be a scientist--never made past Gr. 12 chemistry, never read Alton Brown, and never even stayed in a Holiday Inn, but .... I apply what I do know, to cooking and baking. Now, take for instance gravity: I've never seen an apple drop from a tree, or thrown stuff off the tower of Pizza, but I know gravity. In baking-- for instance, baking a blind 9" single crust shell, I can either fight gravity, or use it to my advantage. To fight it, I can line out a 9" pie pan with dough, place a coffee filter in it, and load it up with beans or weights and hope for the best. Gravity will pull the dough down to the hieght of the beans, or even lower, so I have to compensate with higher wall pie pans or more beans. To use gravity to my advantage, I take the same lined 9" tin, stick an other tin on top of it (so the dough is "sandwiched" between the two tins), invert the assembly on a tray, and bake it. I let gravity do it's thing and pull the crust down.while baking. When cool, I flip over the assembly, remove the first one, and get a perfect baked crust with minimal--if any--shrinkage. Thus endeth my flirtation with gravity. With flavour, I use the same techniques. I know fat is a flavour (and colour, and odour) absorber. l use this to my advantage. Now, I do know that some vitamins are water soluable and some are fat soluable. I know some chemicals are water soluable, some alcohol soluable, some Ether soluable, etc. I know that every recipie for vanilla icecream or vanilla custard, vanilla sacue, etc. tells me to "ripen" the mix ovenight. I know that vanilla custard contains milk and cream, both of which contain milk fat. I know that egg yolks contain fat. I know that the vanilla bean's flavour is both fat souable and alcohol suluable. I know that, according to Escoffier, the best fat for sauting/sweating soup vegetables is "boullion fat", or the fat that is skimmed off stocks. I know for a fact that this fat carries a lot of flavour from it's ingredients. I know that many "ethnic" recipies include the use of Schmaltz or rendered down animal fat, which carries a tremedous amount of flavour. I know that many Chefs store their truffles in a tighlty sealed jar with cubed butter, (see J. Peterson, "Sauces") I know for a fact that this butter, after a minimum of 12 hours, positively reeks of truffle. I know that compound butters (Cafe de Paris, Maitre D', etc) have much more flavour if allowed to rest at least 12 hours. I know that butter contains at least 822% milk fat. I know that when making ganaches and flavoured chocolate, if I infuse, say, spices, with warm cocoa butter overnight and fliter out the spices (theoritically it's sawdust) my cocoa butter is intensly flavoured and can be combined with couverture, giving my chocolate a strong flvour with no "contaimation" of foreign matter. I know that if I peel an orange, or lemon, or grapefruit and spray myself, what I have sprayed myself with is not juice, but the volatile oils from directly under the skin of the fruit, and very hard to remove from my skin. I smell like oranges for the whole day.... I know that many food manufactures use distilled oils rather than compounds or flavourings in quality foods. I.E. peppermint oil, citrus oils, or, in the case of Coca-cola, numeg oil. But what I don't have is scientific mumbo-jumbo to say the same thing, other than, Fats absorb flavours,

Sure, but over what timescale (and temperature) does this occur? Are there significantly more fat soluble molecules dissolved in the fats after overnight resting, and what about the same for the water component? If it really is the reason for improved flavour then can the effect be reproduced by simmering for longer? At what point do you reach equilibrium? No real tempertaure zone. Surely you must have noticed that when you put a block of unwrapped butter in the fridge next to a raw onion, it takes on odours?. Don't understand about fat soluable molecules dissolved in..whatever. There is fat in the meat, there is fat in the sacue (roux, other oils or fats). The fats take on the flavours and odours of the surrounding ingredients. Kind of like a fruitcake, tastes better after a week or so; the butter and eggs have taken in the surrounding flavours. Don't think simmering will reproduce this effect--just time. Well, O.K. you can simmer for a great length of time,but at a certain point you will destroy the texture of the ingredients and flat-line the sauce.

I'll repeat myself: Fats absorb odours, as well as flavours. If there is fats or oils in the sauce and/or meat, they will take on the surrounding flavour .

I think everyone here has made the mistake of putting a raw onion next to a block of butter in the fridge, or next to eggs, or mild cheese. Heck I had an Aunt who would send us chocolates that had a distinct aroma of "Chanel #5", she must have kept the chocoaltes in a drawer next to her perfume Eveyone knows that the fat from the stocks has a lot of flavour What I'm striving to say is that fats absorb odours and flavours. We can use this to our advantage--using the fat from stocks to sweat our soup vegies with, "marinating" butter with aromatics a day or two before hand before making, say fruit cake, storing truffles in a jar with butter cubes.... Well, that's my version of "Science"....