Edward J

No, "garnishee" is a real word, a verb, meaning "to serve a person with a garnishement". Only two organizations can garnishee a paycheck, the Gov't, taking their taxes, and Unions, taking their fees. Visa/Amex can't, your bank can't, the power company or internet provider can't, your landlord can't. This is something the Unions fought long and hard for, laws were changed so that they could get their money. And they do, they get their share before you even get your pay check. Quite an acomplishment, don't you think? The newest thing now is for Hotels and other large employers to offer new staff a choice to be part of the Union or not, but irregardless of what the choice is, their paycheck will get garnisheed the Union dues. But the hospitality industry is one of the very few industries that doesn't have standards or benchmarks in place for their respective trades. With most of the other trades it is the Unions who establish benchmarks, set payscales according to the benchmarks, get the respective trade schools to design their curriculum to their benchmarks, and get municipalities to use their benchmarks i.e: Electrical code, plumbing code, etc. And in California there's a 40 million dollar class action against a chain of 16 culinary schools. Ex-students can't get jobs, employers won't recognize the diplomas, or if they do, pay bare minimm wages. No standards. But I digress, and I'd be a fool to pin any hopes on the Hospitality Unions to do anything about the current situation. They've had a loooong time to something,-- well anything, and the best they can come up with is tipping wages. Anyhow, we're on page 7 of a thread started by someone who felt he was entitled NOT to tip anything, on account of being seated next to a noisy airconditioner.'

I see. Laws can not be changed. Unions can not impliment a standard or benchmark for their members and for their trade. Unions keep on garnisheeing wages and it is unclear what they do with that money. The whole thing is kind of like the metric system. Every other country in the world (except I think, N. Korea) uses it. The U.S does not. Hey, it's your system, enjoy. But please don't try to find fault with vistors to your country, what comes around goes around. There are many commedians outside of the US and one very particular one by the name of Rick Mercer who has made his name, his TV show, and his fortune by uh,.."commenting" on non-Canadians.

I have a real problem with that statement. You have a minimum wage and the various States are thumbing their nose at it. Was there ever any opposition when "tipping wages" were introduced? Could it be, perhaps, that everyone (waiters, owners, Restaurant assc'ns, and politicians) are comfortable with this current system of dinging the diner for 25% of the entire dining experience? Either way, the customer pays, right? Could it be, perhaps that there might be a reason why there are no standards/benchmarks in place for restaurant owners, for waiters, for cooks, for bakers or butchers? No standards for culinary schools to base their curricula on? No standards for employers to base a pay scale on? One of these days the elephant in the room is going to let off a jungle-fart.

To whom have you been saying this to? Why has this issue never been addressed or even acknowledged? Why does the media not acknowledge this? Or are they only interested in Iron Chef? Why do so many States still thumb their noses at minium wages with the tiping wage? Why do the hospitality unions not acknowledge this? Why do the hospitality unions not fight tipping wages in State Courts? You do acknowledge that hospitality unions exist to garnishee salaries, but what have they acomplished otherwise? Can anyone answer these questions?

Don't forget the Canadians, one too many jokes about canoes and tipping in this thread.

No, no, no-no-no, NO! Don't get me wrong, I like beer, I like to have a drink after work, but not during work, and not after work in the kitchen I'm cleaning up. I've filed one too many WCB (worker's comp board) report about someone who french fried their feet while cleaning out the fryer, or slipped and burned their forearm while cleaning the grill. I don't need--nor does any employer need-- a Gov't worker "deducing" or assuming alcohol was a factor in a work place accident. Nor do I need the police or a lawyer "deducing" that an employee had consumed alcohol at the workplace before getting into his/her car and driving off.

In my humble experience, giving stuff way for free never works out. Flyers are pretty much a waste of money. Coupons and deals (2 for 1, 25% off on second purchase etc) attract coupon and deal hunters: Once they get their deal, they don't come back unless there's another deal. Remember this about human nature: Whatever is free, or grossly underpriced will be abused and treated with contempt. Think clean water, clean air, good manners, public libraries, etc.. It sounds like your main thing is quality, and you'r making me drool with aaa striploins and pulled pork. Sell quality. It takes much longer and much more effort to sell quality, but a customer who knows what quality is and is willing to pay for it, is a loyal customer. If you're looking for a shot in the arm without ruining your reputation, do catering. Sounds like you've got offices around the area interested. You are one step away from putting together bulk orders and delivering them.

One of the biggest problems with teflon, is getting the teflon to stick to the substrate......

Ummm---no. In many places it is illegal to ask/require a waiter to share tips, California being one such place. Ther are many arguements that a waiter has to protect his tips, the main one being that the money was given directly to him, with no written or oral obligations given by the guest to share. And as ScoopKW illustrates clearly, the cooks (boh, back of house) are not entitled to any tips even though many requests are asked from them from the wait staff to "enhance" the dining experience. What I'm trying to say is this: There is a social custom in N.America where a restaurant patron is expected to tip the waiter a percentage of the bill. This is enforced by media, movies, TV. etc. What is also enforced by the media is that the guest--after tipping the waiter--instructs the waiter to pass along a verbal compliment to "the boys in the back", dab his lips on a napkin, and walk out.

If I may, I woul like to point out the obvious elephant in the room: One tips a percentage of the bill, 20-25%. Lets not discuss if one should tip before or after taxes, O.K.? By doing so, the tipper acknowledges that the waiter/ess is soley responsible for the entire dining experience. The waiter/ess works vey hard, but then again, everyone in that restaurant is partly responsible for the dining experience. Why then, doesn't the diner acknowledge these people as well? Say hello to the elephant! Now, there are hospitality unions that represent waiters/esses, there are Restauarant associations, there are lobbyists, and there are politicians begging to get elected. So, how many people have actually fought against/lobbied the various State governments when a "tipping wage" was implimented? Has anyone actually tried to introduce standards of what a waiter/ess should know, be capable of? I look at California, which is NOT a "tipping wage" State, and it seems that they understand all too well that tips are part of the salary and are subject to taxes. So, the Plutonians can make fun of and stereotype the Martians, and the Martians can make fun of and stereotype the Plutonians, but the whole problem just spins round and round like bald tires in slushy snow.

Saw the link on the ceramic scraper. A card scrper and a cabinet scraper are different animals from a scraper with a knife-like edge. I do believe I mentioned this in my above post(s). The card and cabinet scrapers (and scraping planes) have a burr on them which can remove insanely thin layers of matierial--wispy feathery thin layers. It is the equivelant of using sandpaper but produces no dust, and gives a very smooth surface quickly without the need of going through several grits of paper. Please, beore anyone else suggests the use of a tool that is superior to a card or cabinet scraper, check out "using a card scraper" on you-tube, or try it out yourself. Microscope slides are pretty small, inch and a half, if I remember from highschool, and a cutting board is usually over 12" wide by anywhere from 10" - 24" long. They(microscope slides) will work--for people with a lot of time and an unlimited supply of band-aids.

Even on carbide, the burr won't last forever, and it is the burr that cuts feathery thin shavings. Getting a new burr on carbide isn't easy, and it is for this reason that scrapers are just plain steel with a rc hardness of around 45-50.

It's all a question of price. Local suppliers don't make boxes, but stock the most popular sizes. Most of the stuff is made overseas. Custom made is very possible but expect prices to be around 90 cents per box. Again as the volume increases, the price decreases, and most local companies are not interestred in "runs" of under 1000. We now have 3 sizes of custom made boxes printed with our specs, but these were made overseas and shipped directly. The sky is the limit on how much you want to spend on packaging. For some of the fancy retail chains, the cost of packaging exceeds the matierial cost of the chocolates. Packaging sells, there is no question about that.

Prior to the 1840's there was no sandpaper--it didn't exist, yet fine furniture with was made--and with perfectly smooth surfaces and finishes. A cabinet scraper is not a knife, and does not have a knife edge. It has a bur, and it is this bur that does all the cutting. The bur is created by getting two surfaces at a 90 egree angle, and then deforming, or mushrooming one surface so it rolls over creating a bur. Definitely not a knife. You pull this tool along, and the action is something like pulling butter curls off of a block of butter. I use this tool to keep all of my wood counter tops clean at work, and at home use it to scrape wood smooth prior to finishing. In many cases it is far superior to sandpaper

Sugar bloom looks similiar to fat bloom. Take some chocolate and put it in the fridge for a day or two. Take it out and leave it on the counter. A light waterfilm will form on it--as does on just about everything else going fom one temperature zone to another ("dew point") The chocolate doesn't absorb water, water forms on it, and dissolves the sugar. After a few hours the surface of the chocolate will feel sticky, and a few hours later, the sugar recystalizes and turns white on the surface of the chocoalte. Humidity from the air will do this to. Most books about chocolate will describe fat bloom and sugar bloom. Hope this helps

Walnut is fine, maple is great--probably the best, beech is fine, white oak so-so, and red oak a definite no-no. Stay away from teak, as this contains bits of silica, and as others have said, bamboo, which is he77 on knives. Blocks comprised of 1-2" end grain squares will hold up fine--provided that they do not sit in water. Should this happen, each individual block will swell and the glue joints will stress and invariably fail. The nice thing about end gain blocks is that they don't scar easy, the fibers just close up again. Maintainence is key to good looking cutting boards for catering. If you get a wood board, spend a few bucks on a very simple and ancient woodworking tool called a cabinet scraper. This is just a hunk of steel, about 3"x5" with perfectly square edges that have a burr rolled on them. Available from woodworker places like Lee Valley, Rockler, etc. This is the ideal tool, as you can scrape all debris and fats/moisture from the block. Very fast, very clean. Then sanitize and treat with mineral oil (available at drugstores, used as laxative in generous amounts). If and when the baord gets heavily scarred, take it to a woodworker's shop or a highschool shop and have them run it through a thickness planer. Thi will take about 1/16" off of each surface, giving you a "new" board, albiet a bit thinner. If you're macho, you can also do this with handplanes.....

Yolks freeze best with an addition of either salt or sugar. To sugar, add 10% sugar by weight. Freeze in samll packages.

Mjx, I work with chocolate 6 days a week, 12 hrs a day,a nd now that Christmas is around the corner, 7 days a week. This is how I earn my living and feed my family Standard procedure for me is to melt my couverture to 45-50 Celcius so it is out of temper, then turn off the melter. I can temper couverture with fat bloom with no problems, and have been doing so for many years now. Even with some dark couvertures heated to 55 Celcius, I have never had "an oily mess" or sludge. When moisture is introduced however, it's game over, and the whole lot goes into the brownie bowl. Try it out. Fat bloom just means that the cocoa butter crystals have morphed to another stage and they can easily be brought back to beta 5 stage. Sugar bloom, on the other hand, means that the sugar has been dissolved by moisture (there is no water in chocolate)and has re-crystalized on the surface. This is almost impossible to retemper

Pellets are fine, it's just that you have to use up the bag quickly, or seal it up very tightly. It's not the heat from the oven that's casuing your chocoalte to "sieze up" or go to sludge, it's moisture that's either on the pellets or in the air.

A heavy bloom on a thin slab can definitely affect the way it melts, and chocolate just doesn't absorb much moisture, although it can certainly accumulate on the surface. Especially if it was stored next to an oven, heat seems a more likely culprit than moisture. Uhh...No. At work I have a smaller 5 kg melter that I use exclusively for kids' parties. When I'm done, I crank it up to 45C and strain it, and pour it back into the melter. When it cools, it has a heavy grey fat bloom. When I need it again, I melt it at 45 C and temper it with new couverture. No problems, and have doing it this way for years. Chocolate will absorb moisture from the air, and the O.P. tells us that it is coins/pellets in an almost empty box. Coins/pellets are nice to work with but becasue they are small they have a much larger surface area than a slab (by weight) and can and do absorb more moisture. Chocofoodie, what you should get is a hygrometer or device that tells you the r/h (relative humidity) of the area you work in. The devices are very cheap and can be siple affairs or electronic devices. Don't work with chocolate when the r/h is above 65%, or you will get sludge in your melter. Need more data!

I really can't add anymore to ScoopKW's advice, it is spot-on. All I can say, is: Milk it baby, milk it for all it's worth! If you ever get the time, look up an old fight between Demel and Sacher on who had the orginal Sacher torte recipie

Fat bloom doesn't affect melting or tempering. I don't know what the realtive humidity is in the O.P.'s area, but if the packaging was unsealed it could have sucked up mositure from the air. The "sludge" is the key word here, as this will only happen if moisture was introduced into the couverture.

Make your eggs as per normal, forget all about the gold leaf. Un-mold. Gently apply the gold leaf to the finished piece with the finest brush you can find.

"resisting" melting sounds wierd. If it's just heavy sludge in the melter but the packaging says a true couverture, then moisture is your culprit. If the couverture was stored in a cold area and then warmed up, it will sieze or turn to slugde--same culprit: Moisture. Dark couverture usually has a shelf life of 2 years from the factory. However, I have used 3 and 4 yur old couverture with absolutely no issues. Miopk and white are usually guaranteed 9 and 6 mths, but only because the milk powder might go rancid. Hope this helps