Edward J

Trussing take not even a minute to do. Rubbish! First you have to dig around in the giant wasteland of a kitchen drawer that holds the things suitable for trussing recalcitrant poultry. Once you find something to keep said poultry legs from flying out willy-nilly and destroying your self-delusional Martha psychosis you must disinfect and bandage the wounds sustained from random poky things found in said hell-dimension drawer. The trussing may begin at this point (making allowances for frustrated detanglements) but it is a well known fact that trussing anything other than a calf at a rodeo takes a period of time that can only be an exponential multiple of the time taken on an average cooking programme. Trussing complete, the aforementioned wounds must be re-disinfected and re-bandaged to prevent icky mess from festering in them. (optional extra time allowance for a desperate search for a clean tea towel). At this point you may bung the damn thing into oven, but will more likely drop it on the floor due to hands still being slippery from not having been dried on a clean tea towel, but hopefully shaken into the sink instead. Total time: apparently infinite. Never mind though, as you likely forgot to turn on the oven, so have plenty of time to rinse the damn thing and fend off marauding cats while waiting for it to heat up. Edited for grammar and 4-th dimension errors. All you need to truss a chicken is a knife. Back in the day, we used to spit roast 40-60 chickens every Sat night. The birds would get a spice rub, the wings folded behind the back, and two small slits made in the skin of the chest cavity. Grab a leg and stuff the first inch or so through the slit. Legs are now secured and don't flop all over the plae when the spit is rotated. Works well for regular Tue. night dinners at home too....

A Food professor spins at well over 800 rpm, whereas a mixer at under 100 rpm. A mixer can handle the thumping, a food processor might for a while but eventually either the motor, the housing, or the bearings will give out. A F.P. is designed to spin at high rpms with very little load, and doesn't have much to offer in the way of torque or gearing to handle the heavy load of mixing a stiff bread dough. I'm a firm believer that brad dough should be mixes as slowly and gently as possible, too fast and you beat in air and "bleach" the dough

If you want to slice cheese, you will need a minimum of 10" blade and 1/3 hp motor--anything else will just wimp out. For most meats, any kind of a slicer will do The better quality slicers will have a built-in sharpening attachment, a carriage that glides smoothly, and a thickness adjuster that adjusts easily and gradually with no "jumps" or sticky areas. You will find such units at restaurant equipment suppliers and places that sell cappucinno machines and pannini grills. It is important to stress that you should buy from a brick-and-mortar store, where you can return the unit if needed, and for repairs/warranty work, if needed. If buying via internet you will get dinged for all shipping costs.

Never heard that word before, but I have used the contraption many times. The pass-puree was--and is, still an attachment for many large (30 qt/lt and up) mixers. In Europe I used it for mashed pots and it's derivatives (croqettes, duchesse, etc) for straining soups and sauces, and for salt. My Chef had this thing about salt and would buy it wet in 50 kg sacks, we the apprentices had to dry it in the oven and then run it through the pass-puree. In N.America, Hobart makes an attchment like this for it's mixers (30 qt and up). Same uses as above, but the Hobart model uses nylon rollers instead of paddles to push stuff through the mesh. It also made some really nice seafood bisques. With the Hobart model the rollers could be exchanged for brushes, and this is used exclusively to remove seeds from strawbery and raspberry jam. With meat farces, heat and excessive friction are your enemy. If the farce gets too warm, the fat melts and separates from the meat. I personally find it best to run the partially frozen farce through progressibvly smaller dies in the meat grinder followed by a good "zing" in the food processor.

I'll admit I've tried some of the frozen herb pastes, the convienience of it looked great. Once opened and tried, I was reminded again about fools and their money. Garlic is cheap enough to buy whole, a head will last at least a week on the counter, and is very little effort to crack off a clove and cut or use a garlic press. I used to buy dill by the bunch, use a bit, let the rest go to waste in my fridge untill I smartened up. Now I buy a bunch, chop it all up, roll it into cling film "screws" and freeze it. No waste, no additiives, no wierd flavours. Next time I buy basil, I'll try the same, although it will probably go black, why don't I just make pesto?

Glue. It's an industrial glue used in aircraft mnfctring. It can separte with prolonged dry heating (no oil or liquid in the pan)and with harsh chemicals like oven cleaner getting on the seam. I have a separated pot doing duty as a plant pot.

31 years in commercial kitchens and I have never used ovem mitts yet. Dry towels, or oven pads, which are thick-ish terry cloth pads. The main reason is speed. You need to get one cookie tray out of the oven, I can get it out and on a cooling rack with pads or cloths loooong before you have mitts on.

My worst? Probably the restaurant that we bought. P.O.S. would be more accurate. We knew what we were getting into, of course. As soon as the purchase was done, we started to clean up the place. Mis-matched cutlery and china ware--in the dumpster, but the equipment!! I honestly don't know how the previous owner cooked. I brought in several used food eqpmt guys in, and begged them to just take anything they wanted, 4 refused. The 5th, "Lucky Dave's Used food equpt" got lucky. Poor old Dave, salivating over an ancient 3 door Kelvinator fridge, hardwired to a juction box. Ol Dave opens the box to disonnect and finds it crammed full of what appeared to be rice crispies. Nope, dehyrdated roaches. The cabinet fan in that fridge looked like something out of the "X files". Scary thing. Next was teh d/washer. An ancient MDM 500. Solid s/s mind you. The interior was corroded. Previous onwner stopped buying sanitizer by 1980 and used houshold bleach. With the d/washer and fridge safely in his truck, Dave tackles the Kwali range--two burner wok stove. All the insulation shot, woks rusted almost through. He pulls it away from the wall, wall is 6" square (once)white tiles, except there's a flattened oil can nailed to the wall. Curiosity got the better of me and I pulled the flattened can off. A huge big burn hole, tiles around the hole all crazed and falling off, studs in the wall almost half way charred though. Onto the range, 4 eye Garland with oven, 30" griddle and a salamander under the griddle. Oven completly rusted out-- I mean I see London, I see France peeking out of the side walls. Dave tries to pull if off the wall, it doesn't budge. Dave returns with a length of greasy 2x10, inserts it between the range and wall and levers it. No budge, 2x10 re-arranged for maximum leverage and the range moves with a sickening sucking sound. Greased into place.... Dishpit was last. Dave was reluctant to take that one, rally bad shape. Farmer-welded together from several components, and what wasn't welded was siliconed into place. Tables and chairs were loaded up, one last final sweep for any stray salvagable item,and Ol' Lucky Dave was gone, and I was on my way to tearing apart and rebuilding my kitchen.

Don't go too old school on famous (dead) people. Lots of live ones. When designing a crriculum, my key focus is practical, then self sufficent. Lets say a student graduates and lands a job in a "regular" commercial kitchen as pastry guy. Odds are he will have to fight for oven space/time in the p.o.s. convection or garland type oven, fight for fridge space, fight for counter space. Any special equipment or ingredients will be "put on hold". You can and should make your own marzipan, gianduja, candied citrus peel, crystalized ginger, chocoalte decorations, etc. The ex-student who makes these will not only get brownie points from the Chef, but earn his employer bragging rights for "house made". One thing I think evey pastry student should do in school is design his/her "dream shop". On pape design a dream store: what kind of space is needed, what kind of aproximate rent, what type of equipment, list of items to be sold, how to make the whole thing pay. Class exta-curricular activiies should include visits to restaurant/bakery equipment suppliers, ingredient suppliers, and visits to local pastry shops in the area. There's nothing like the look on the face when they find out that say, a 2 door upright fridge cost 3 grand, or a mixer upwards of 5 grand. But that's just me..........

Reservations are usually a pretty good indicator of how much to prepare for. Usually.... Good kitchens function on "par levels": So many veal medallions on hand, so many cleaned tenderloins on hand-ready to portion at a moment's notice, and so many uncleaned (untrimmed) tenderloins still in the vacuum pouch.

Whoa, loaded question. Everything counts. In a recession, it's places like Mickey D's that makes more money than in "good" times. Typically, thur, fri, and weekends tend to earn more money. But again, a lot of factors have to be considered. Typically, christmas season will earn more money, but if you are a Golf & cc, the only money you'll be making is for christmas parties--very little a'la carte

The key words are: Market directly. I'm not a farmer, but I produce artisan chocolates. Words to live by, market directly. I could use a distributer, he will charge 30%-40% to "handle" my line. The retailer needs to add ontop of that at least 35% markup. It would be suicidial to go that route, because with all that mark-up, the packaging would not reflect the price. I use the best possible quality ingredients, but if I change my packaging, it would cost almost twice as much as the ingredient cost. The ones who survive and flourish are the ones who do their own marketing......

Caramel. Care - a - mel. Three (3) syllables. NOT "carmuhl"

When I had my catering business, I'd get in 4-5 top rounds in at a time along with some prime rib fat. I would trim the whole round removing all silver skin and fat, take off the top muscle (deckel or lid) which runs cross-grain to the rest of the larger muscle, then tie on the prie rib fat cap, and truss up the whole thing and roast for roast beef sandwiches. The top muscle or deckel I would roll up and tie, and make pot roast or stews with.

Why is everyone so against basting? Yes, you pour pan juices over the roast. But what do those pan juices contain? Among other things, fat, natural salts and sugars, and natural gelatin. By basting you keep the meat moister by keeping the outside greased with natural fats. The natural gelatin and sugars caramilize on the surface promoting a crispier crust as well as an atrractive colour. "Barding" is to tie on thin sheets of fat over the surface of the roast. While this doesn't promote a better crust, it keeps the meat much more moist. Here's another "two chicken" experiment. Put one chicken in the oven straight out of the package. Rub another one with some vegetable oil, then toss in the oven. What's your choice? P.S. never, ever, believe what the top 5 turkey producers put on their packaging.............

Florentines. Make your own peel, I've been doing this for a couple of years now. Flavour and texture between home made and commercial is like night and day

I see..... Well, If all wishes came true, then you would be managing a cute little 50 seater Italian place. I'm not talking about the 1% of the really top dining places, but the kind of places that charge a decent $30-$40 per meal. One of the hardest things in the world is getting customer's rear-ends into your dining room chairs. And most reservations are usually made a good 3 days to a week in advance.

These are all good points, but I want to go bck to my kid's orthodontist: A $20 late fee and a $50 no-show. These were the terms when I signed on the dotted line for my kid's smile. Judging by the practice hours (Tue to Fri. mornings) and the golf and expensive vacation and home decorating magazines in the waiting room, the good doctor doesn't need the money fom charging for no-shows. So why does he do it? To get the idea across that no-shows put a wrench the in system. Building a small charge into the menu price that would cover for no-shows does nothing to educate the guest or to "remind" him that no-shows really throws a wrench into the restaurant's operations.

Yes, that's true. However 99% of restaurant patrons kow that shoplifting is illegal, and about 75% of them figure that making a reservation and then doing a no-show is just changing thier mind. Charging for no-shows does kind of re-inforce the idea that a no-show wreaks a bit of havoc on the whole restaurant. I do like the idea of gift certificates with the no-show fee. A carrot AND a stick....

I dunno about this.... The cynical/realistic/business side of me tells me that IF customers were aware that a percentage of no-shows were aaccounted and budgeted for in menu pricing, the abuse of this policy would much, much greater. Thoughts?

Saucier Rotissieur (sp?) Poissioniere (sp?) Garde Manger Entremetier Patissiere Tournant Chef du garde (sp?) But thats only 8

All depends on how long you want to stay in business, I guess..... A good owner or host/ess will call up the day before to reconfirm, but they always explain the policy of charging.

Scoop,if it's "busloads" of tourists, then there's a tour operator somewhere that needs a good talking to. Sometimes it's rooms division that "forgets" to negoatiate group tips for bus tours. D.A.M.H.I.K.T.......

Ah Custom, that's the word I was looking for. One of my favorite books in the "throne room" is a reprint of a 1904 catalouge, "Hotel and saloon supplies". Among other things, it has an enormous choice of spittoons and cuspidors, from plain tin to silver plated with ornate handles and removable liners. Given the plethora of choices of such devices, I am forced to assume that it was socially acceptable, or a "custom" to use such devices in public, at least until the 1940's. Then again not so long ago, it was socially acceptable not only in the US, but in Europe as well to ban women from voting. What I'm trying to say, is that the custom of giving one person 20%-25% of the entire dining experience in lieu of a salary--or partly compensating his/her salary, is a custom whose time has come to change. Not only do those visiting the US find this custom unfair, so do many of the other employees in the industry. Of course, I can never now look at a sliver plated punchbowl without really wondering......... Pastry girl, It's only the Hotels who are unionized--but hang on, many of the "institutions"--hospitals, assisted living homes, schools and some corporate caterers (Office cafeterias etc) are. It is quite an enormous piece of the hospitality industry. And while we can quibble about the word "garnishee" the fact remains that employee's paycheck has Union dues removed long before the employee receives it. This is quite a sum of money, and while in my 30-odd year career in the hospitality industry I have never seen an audited financial statement from the Unions (which they are required to provide to their members by Canadian law). I have never seen any attempt by anyone other than Federal and Provincial Gov'ts to establish a series of benchmarks or standards for the respective trades (ie Cook 1, 2, and Red Seal cook 3;, with Baker 1,2, and 3 coming on line in B.C. and Alta. probably in 2013

Many of the doctors and my kid's orthodontist charge for now-shows or lates. I have to charge reservations, or I'd be bankrupt. Not only for dining, but for custom cake orders. There's only so many times that you make a custom cake with the inscription "Lordy, Lordy, Gordy's 40" on it, and then wait like an eejit for the one who ordred it to never pick it up an pay for it.e