Edward J

No, the size difference between the two is quite a bit. Gum arabic comes in powder form, is soluable in water and is added to the roasted beans in the panning drum when rotating. This is done cold. Nuts can be caramelized with the addition of butter in a cooking pot, then separated when cold and further processed. Hope this helps

Yup, do it with coffee beans and whole nuts. First you have to "seal" your centers. Coffee and nuts contain oil, which will migrate and cause fat bloom. I use gum arabic solution, but you can also use carmelized sugar. You also need a panning device, basically a rotating drum. There are smaller versions that use a KitchenAid mixer as the power source which work quite well. Hope this helps

I've been resurfacing nylon cutting boards for about 10 years now. DO NOT SAND I use a woodworker's electric thickness planer which removes about 1/32 of an inch per pass. Someties it takes 2 or 3 passes to remove the deepest scars. This works perfectly and is in no way harmful to the equipment, nor does it produce dust--shavings are too big to go up your nose. Most hobby woodworkers have this piece of equipment, and certainly most highschool wood shops have them as well. Hand planes will also work but there is a learning curve to using these fantastic tools.

The good about IR thermometers: -You never have to clean them, or sanitize them. -You never have to get too close to what you want to measure The bad about IR thermometers -Many don't give accuate readings with reflective surfaces -Many don't give accurate readings with black or dark surfaces -Only gives the surface temperature, not the core temp. -You get what you pay for, the cheaper ones can fluctuate by as much as 3 degrees +or- -They do tend to eat up batteries

Dutch Girl, Schokolade Over the moon Chocolate Arts Tas (Abbotsford, but a Location in Granville Island) Daniel Chocoalte Belge

Jaz, You can use any thickeness you want. This technique is, from my experience, the fastest, cleanest, and easiest method. Like I said, you are using gravity to your advantage with this method--gravity always pulls down. With all the other methods you are fighting gravity, and you will almost always loose--gravity always pulls down.

Here's my solution, and I've trained many others to use it: Use disposable aluminum pans. Line the pan as per normal. Place another pan ontop of it, "sandwiching" the pastry inbetween Place this "unit" upside down on a baking sheet, if making more, place them all on a baking sheet. Lay another sheet pan on top of the upside down shells. If using a convection, this will prevent the foil pans from blowing around, and prevents "puffing" or swelling of the dough. Bake as per normal It's all about the law, the law of gravity. Instead of fighting it, use it to your advantage. Hope this helps

No, no, no. You've got me all wrong. The service animal has a job to do. Fair enough, that's not the issue. Look, someone, or some organization a loong time ago did a bang-up job educating the public on seeing-eye dogs. The dogs are accepted and respected in just about every facet of daily life. But look at the comments from posters on this forum. Upset that dogs are in supermarkets, cafes, etc. If the dogs in question had a seeing-eye harness, there would be no complaints. From my point of view, I face a $110 fine for allowing non service animals in my establishment, and great anger, verbal abuse, and other threats when I do my due diligenece in requesting to see the license of the animals. The service dogs have a job to do, fair enough. If you want the public to accept this, you'd better do some PR work. Fines and threats are one thing, but when dealing with the public, a carrot is far better than a stick.

Thank you for that Darcie. The key phrase you used is "The public is not well educated on this topic". Most of the resistance I meet is from the general public simply because they are not educted on this subject. This is a duty--a privilage really--that falls squarely on the training kennels and the dog owners. Can they go to schools and shopping centers and educate? Can they go through media to educate? But seriously, when a regular customer leaves my establishment visibly upset becasue I allow service dogs and the customer can't understand why, it affects me greatly. Educating the general public about service dogs is not the food establishment owner's responsiblity

Big topic. I posted about my experiences as a cafe owner regarding service dogs on another thread, and got a snootfullof responses. My situation was a well behaved service dog--a puppy with appropriate doggie jacket and a cafe full of curious and somewht miffed customers. Up until that time, I had not heard of service dogs. The fine for allowing non-service dogs in a food establishment in Vancouver, B.C. is $110.00. The dog owner does not get this fine, instead the fine goes to the food establishment owner. I took up correspondance with the Health dept. Tier response was that I had every right to demand to see the proper "service dog" license for the animal, but in the case of bone-fida license, must respect it. I have had two cases of service animals in my cafe in the last 10 months, and I wish to make my perspective clear: I have no issues with service dogs themselves. If the health dept. O.k.'s them,then it's fine by me. However, and let me stress this very clearly: No one, not the service dog owner, nor the kennels that train these animals have made any worthwhile attemtp to educate the general public on the validity of their animals. In other words, no one knows that they are allowed in food service establsihments, and the geral public reacts in a negative way towards the mangement of the food establisment. I.E.: complaints, threats, and taking up the owner's time and patience. It's not up to the food service owner to educate the public about these animals. I belive the O.P. illustrated this very clearly this in her opening post. Then again, the reason I'm not popular with the two dog owners is because of circumstance: I operate a artisan chocolate and pastry shop with a Cafe element. When I explain to the dog owners that I have 28 varieties of chocolate available, with customers purchasing it in-store, and many of them consuming in-store, they (dog owners)get bored and say "So What" Well, I explain with an Grinch-like grin, Chocolate, even in small quantities, can kill or seriously injure many breeds of dogs. And I can not guarantee that their animal will come into contact with chocolate in my chocolate shop. That gets them mad...........

Here's another point of view: The other day I made a batch of orange marmalade. From one case of Valencias I got 60 1/2 pint bottles that I will sell for $5.95 ea. I paid $24.oo for the oranges. Sugar another 8 bucks and jars costed me $40.00 Oe hour labour to peel the oranges, about 30 minutes total time to blanch the peel three times. About 30 minutes to process the fruit. About 25 minutes total time involved with cooking the marmalade. Since I can only process in small batches, 8 jars at a time, and each batch takes me 10 minutes to process, the canning time is almost an hour and half, during which I can't do much else. Labels are 8 cents each and about an hour to label the works. As a bonus, I can keep about half of the peel, which I will candy and use in pastry and confection.

Don't know much about oil based ganaches, but I do make a lot of butter ganaches. Usually in the range of 1/3 couverture, 1/3 butter, 1/3 jam/flavouring/fruit puree/etc.

Don't put too much emphasis on "dutch process". All this is, is tha the beans are treated with alkali solution prior to proccessing. The beans are then roasted and ground. This resulting paste, called "cocoa mass" or "cocoa liquor" is then pumped into hydraulic presses and squeezed. Cocoa beans naturally contain over 50 % cocoa butter. Most mnfctrs usually get about 40% of the butter our and leave the remaing 10% in. What's left is a huge big brown cake which is then ground up into cocoa powder. Dutch process is darker and milder. Unprocessed cooca powder has a much lighter colour.

Cocoa powder is a vegetable fiber with anywhere from %5-%20 cocoa butter content. It IS gritty, becasue it is, essentially, sawdust. If you boil cocoa powder with a liquid, it will swell and soften somewhat. Hope this helps

Yeah-but Max, These are newspaper critics, I'm talking about bloggers. Here in the Vancouver area there are over 100 food blogs in English, and I don't know how many in other ethnic languages.

Yelp is only one of very many websites that "review" dining . Now, f'rinstance, I have been "love bombed" by another website called "Yummy Canada", but frankly, I haven't even bothered to look at the site. But my "spidey senses" are tingling by the very fact that "canada" is attachted to the name,(any "yummy" hasn't been a word I use since my kids got out of diapers...) and that they are love bombing business owners for a customer review type website. It is the bloggers--or a certain type of blogger, that I have a beef with, and I have found a way to deal with them, uh..."diplomatically". Anyone who wants to come in and eat at my place and tell anyone about it, is a "customer", those who don't want to pay for it are not.

An interesting subject, as always weineoo. As a business owner, here are my thoughts on it. 1) The websites are a business. Granted,most of them don't pay for the reviews, those are free, but the reviews are what attract the readers. And the readers are what brings in the advertising. A-ha! Enter the business owner... On several occasions I have had very impressed customers who later contacted me to read their great reviews on certain (not to be named) websites. The reviews are usually taken down immediately. Why? Because I don't advertise with them. On other sites where I have a consistant 4-5-5 star rating,I am contacted and asked to advertise, if I don't--which is always the case-- my ratings are gone, or I take a nose-dive. So, really, why should a website contribute to my success if I don't help them? 2) Bloggers/raters. I have been pestered in the past by these. I have worked hard to getonto "traditional" media--radio, TV, and ethnic TV. After a show airs, I get hit with bloggers. And they want to be comped. It took me a while to learn how to deal with this situation, here's what I do: -I study their blogs. Not once have I seen a caveat or word about "sponsored" blogs, the impression is that all these blogs are written without any compensation. So I write back to the blogger and say I would be delighted to have them in my place. However, as I am compensating a free meal, I must insist on having a caveat in their blog/rating that this blog was partialy sponsored by "X", the name of my establishment. No one has taken me up on this offer.............

Now there's a horse I've been flogging since I came on board E-gullet. Q: How do you effectively judge, say a pie or cake contest, if there are no rules or criteria that applies to the contestants? O.k. say the service in a restaurant does suck. What is a waiter/ess? For places $10-$30 per entree, it is a college or university student, it's just a job to get them through school. $30 and up per entree, a failed business owner, a single parent, semi retired, you name it. Itsut a job that pays the bills-and maybe staff meals.(what?!!!Reheated prime rib again!!!!) What I'm trying to say here folks, is that there is no criteria to judge a waiter/ess on, because there are no standards or qualifications, no dilomas or certificates for the service industry. The amount of service knowledge a waitron has in one establishment--that enables them to be "top of the class", wouldn't get them pass busboy stage in another restaurant. So why should an owner pay a salary and acknowledge that the waitron will get %20-%30 of gross sales and then train them up? Then again, why should a waiter want to be a waiter? In many of your States, there is an artificial, lower-than-minimum wage that only applies to waiters/ess. Thoughts?

There are two types of commerical d/washers: low-temp, which sanitizes via sanitizer Hi-temp, which sanitizes via hot water. A very basic hi-temp under counter model will set you back around 3-4 grand If using hi-temp you will need a "booster hater" which boosts your residential hot water to the 80 C requred to sanitize. There are many configurations for this booster ehater, from 110 - 220 3 ph, and even higher voltages. Lower voltages will suck up more amperage though. As with residential d/washers, the commerical ones have a tank as well, and this requires hot water to fill up in order to operate--good for multiple loads, very impractical for one-time loads. Both types--or rather all types of commerical d/washers, operate with the 19" x 19" square washing racks. Some have "teeth" in which to slot plates in, some have pockets especially for glassware, and some are plain flat, for cutlery and large objects. You need to design a pre-rinse area that can accomodate these racks while you fill them, you need to design an after-wash table for them when they exit the d/washer, and you need to allow for storage space for the racks when not in use. For residential use, I think you're getting alot more trouble than bargaining for, with commercial d/washers.

Try East Van bakery, 2500 Block of E. Hastings, nice stuff Terra breads at Granville Island is nice, eco il panne is nice too, although none of this stuff is wood fired oven baked....

Yes the N 50 is bomb proof, and my 30 qt is rated at 3/4 hp, which allows me to knead almost 20 kgs of bread dough. But K.A. isn't the first to use this stupid hp rating, it is very common with power tools (routers, cheap-o table-top table saws, etc.) Bear in mind all of thse motors are motors with brushes, or universal motors, and the ones on Hobart machines and better quality appliances are induction motors, or brushless motors. Big difference in terms of power, torque, and, of course, noise.

dcarch, Hey, I know that saw blade!!!! It's a circa 80's sears Craptsman "kromedge" plywood blade! Many's the time I cleaned off that blade with Easy-Off! so it wouldn't smoke when I cut a half sheet of ply with it. I got another one and a matching dado stack, if you're interested.... Nice work! I like the brass "ferrule", hydraulic coupling?

Most pro knife sharpeners do use a belt sander. It is quick, grits can be changed quicly, leather strops exchanged for belts, etc. But it takes a bit of experience to use one. But a backing, or platten on the belt sharpener is important. If you don't have a platten, the belt does not run at a perfect 90 degree vertical line anymore when you put slight pressure on it--it bows inward, and then your bevel geometry is all wonky, or teh possibility of grindig a "hollow" along the edge is far greater. Been in my fair share of butcher shops. Most of the guys I know are mercyless when grinding knives-- a good knife might last a few weeks before it's too narrow and has to be tossed. Most of the guys buy all kinds of knives at flea markets/garage sales and re-grind the profile to a boning knife, and then it lasts a week or two. In short, a knife is jut a tool, a hunk of steel with a sharp edge to get your work done.

A second here for Matfer. The thrmometer is in a s/s tube, which can sit undisturbed in a pot, or it can be hung on a piece of wire, or you can hang it fom a dedicagted (albeit expensive) hanger that clips onto teh sdide of the pot. I use it daily, even use it to stir a big pot of caramel. No probes to wear out, no batteries to replace.

Oh there are other types of abrasives out there, and each type has it's pros an cons. While waterstones cut quickly, they dish out vry fast too and wear much faster than oil stones. Oilstones, on the other hand don't wear very fast, and don't dish much, but are slow cutting--especially on harder steels. Not such a big deal with softer steels though. Sandpaper is messy, and it can get very expensive when you start to add up the individual sheets over a year or two period. Diamond stones are nice, but very pricey. With motorized equipment, remember this fact: Abrasives remove metal--fast. Motorized abrasives even faster, and your knives will "shrink". Also to remember with motorized abrasives: You must keep the "belly" of the knife convex, or you won't be able to cut anything properly, as well as to respect and maintain the bevels of your edge. Motorized equipment will still take a bit of a learning curve in ordr to keep your convex shape.