Edward J

Not familiar with the machine, but Kitchenaid is made by Whirlpool. Check your area for a Whirlpool repair center and ask them if they can fix it for you

Cheez whiz. Don't think I need to elaborate here.........

Have and use the panning attachment for the K.A (Got mine from D+R in Montreal)I pann chocolate coated hazelnuts with it, but you need cold air for this. One method I use in the summer is to stuff the entire K.A.--panning ball and all--into my reach-in fridge and pann that way, during the colder months I use the common (unheated) corridor outside of my suite to pan as well. The meat grinder works O.K. Plastic will crack though, and the dishwasher seem to accelerate this process. My grinder looks like Frankenstein's bride with various cracks glued back shut with J & B weld and s/s hose clamps for good measure...

Do not get a "SET". Knives are just a hunk of steel with a sharp edge, basically an extension of your hand, the magic is in your hands, not the knife. Because it's an extension of your hand it has to fit well, like shoes, it's very personal, and what works for one guy doesn't work for someone else. 99% of the work done in any professional kitchen is done with 3 or 4 knives: A 10" Chef's, a 5-6" petty or paring, a boning knife, and a serrated bread knife. Focus on the main knives and only pick up the "other ones" when you need them. If you get knives over $100 a piece, please, please, prety please leave them at home and get something more "workhorse" like Forschner or Mac for school or at work. Hope this helps

Yup, remote compressors. Most, if not all supermarkets have them, a lot of the larger restaurants and hotels do this, and a lot of the air conditioning units have remote compressors too. Been that way for quite some time now, but it's about time someone started to make a residential unit like this. My Dad worked for a large Western Cnaadian supermarket chain, he was in charge of fixtures and equipment. He came up with a scheme on paper that would utilize the heat from the compressors to heat the stores in winter. However, this was in the early 80's and the cost of natural gas was ridiculously low. The cost of HVAC upgrades would only be paid for in 5 years from the savings of natural gas. The store owners never went for it. Another method for cooling down the gasses and the compressors is to use water, and N.America has quite a few water cooled compressors. Since water is not metered in many municiplaities, it was thought of as "energy efficient" back inthe 70's and popular with bakeries and other industries where dust and flour meant much more maintainence to conventional refrigeration. In an "open loop" system this means that the heated water is dumped down the drain. The water is not potable, and many municipalities are banning the use of this system. Some of the more "Clever" hotels and institutions (prisons) use this water as pre-heated water entering water boilers exclusively for laundry. My mind boggles with the thought of utilizing the heat from, say a dairy plant or meat packing plant's compressors to heat green houses in the winter, or water cooled systems combined with geo-thermal technology to heat homes in the general area. This will only happen when the cost of natural gas and electricty become more and more expensive. But it's nice to see a residentail version of remote comperssors for home fridges.

Y'know, reading through this thread, I think a seat-of-the-pants test shouldn't be that hard to do. What we need is two identical refirgerators, preferably both new, and two power meters--these are becoming more and more common and cheaper now, I can get a "Black and Decker" device at my supermarket. Plug both friges into the meters, run one empty and one full of, say 2 lt pop bottles or milk jugs filled with water. Both fridges get opened twice a day, with the door wide open for 20 seconds. Test should go on for 7 consecutive days. I'd be very interested to know what kind of results would be given.

I've got the primary colours at work--that is the fat soluable powders. On the whole it is much cheaper tomake you own colours with the powders and cocoa butter. Melt the butter, stir in the powder, let it cool completely until hard, then warm up again. Some people I know insist you have to wait 12 hrs, but I have done this many times, and it always works. To colour the white chocoalte you can use the same technique or just add in the coloured cocoa butter. I've never bothered with the titanium what-sis-name, I brush in coloured cocoa butter in the mold, then when dry, brush on a thin layer of white, then my mold as usual with milk or white couverture.

Oven pads, basically an extra thick towel. Managed to rig up a hook on th side of the oven and there they are. Soooo much faster than stopping and getting the mitts on and off.

Thank you for your reply Dougal. Throughout my career I've been told by countless HVAC and refrigeration guys that a full fridge operates the best. Perhaps what they meant is that due to poor insulation and lousy seals and most of all frequent opening, it might be best if the fridge were full. In any commercial setting, it is a "given" that the fridge will be be open alot, and most fridges come with the defrost timer preset to defrost at 16:00, midnight, and 08:00. I do know that, with the exception of home-style chest freezers and gravity coil type "sushi" fridges, all refrigeration has a cabinet fan that circulates air. In my work abroad in Europe, S.E Asia, and here in N.America I have noticed that, without fail, the thermostat probe is located near or directly into the airstream of the cabinet fan. It is my understanding that there is always airflow in the cabinet and that shelving and shelving standards are designed to enourage airflow.

This is the point I was making in the above post, and fwiw, the very same advice I was given and have given. Like you, I'm waiting for an answer.........

No, it isn't. I've been working with commercial refrigerators in my job now for close to 27 years now. I do know that when a typical N. American compressor starts up it draws max amperage, and when it runs, the amperage goes down a bit. I also know that if a compressor runs continously for more than an hour, the thermal overload kicks in and it shuts down. I also know that dust and lint have quite an insulation value and can choke up inbetween the fins, the compressor has to work harder to compress. In most N.American municipalities water cooled refrigeration systems are banned, and the N. Americans are very slow to make closed loop water cooled systems available. The Euros and the Asians have got some very intelligent commercial eqpt that put the N. American commercial sytems to shame. If I had the extra cash and could reverse the decison I made 4 years ago, I would put my 5' and 3' display cases as well as my 2 door reach in coolers on one remote, closed loop system. For some reason, no wants to think that the heat a refrigerator produces is NOT waste, but rather a by product that can and should be utilized.... One of the worst things about leaving the fridge/freezer doors open or lousy seals on the doors is not the compressor working harder to compensate, but the warm humid air sticking to the coil and subsequently icing up the coil. Temp in the fridge goes up and up, then the compressor shuts down. One of the most frequent tasks I've done is de-icing the coil manually rather than unplug the unit and let it defrost gradually. In the last 10 or so years I have bought close to $80,000.00 worth of commercial refrigeration and repairs. I am by no means any expert on refigeration, but know enough to diagnose a problem and know when to call in a repair guy--at $75/ hr AND additional truck/travel fee, and when to "do it myself".

Dougal, Don't take my word for it. Please, Please, please consult a Hvac guy or a refrigeration mechanic. Who me, a refrigeration expert? Just a lowly cook who can hear when a compressor kicks in and kicks out, and knows a compressor under load consumes more power than just the case fan. A loaded fridge's compressor doesn't kick in and out as much as a empty one or a half full one. That much I know. Please consult a refrigeration expert.

A full refrigerator will consume less energy than a empty one or partially full one. I have no idea as to the % of energy saved, but it is true. It is much harder to refrigerate empty space than it is to refrigerate solid objects. Think about it... Say you crammed a fridge full of soda pop. It would take the fridge considerble energy to get the pop cold, but once cold, it is very easy to maintain that temperature. The refrigeration guys I talk to tell me if you want a fridge to run, but don't have anything to put into it, stuff in hunks of styrofoam--anything to soak up the space.

Buttermilk usually has a higher fat content--typically 3.5-4% vs the regualr 2% of gallon-jug milk.

Mmmmmm... ideas for a food column? My entire life is consumed with the food and hospitality industry, so I have only one general topic to suggest: Politics To the best of my knowledge no one writes about the politics of the hospitality industry, and I don't know why this is, and also don't know if it would "sell". But it is interesting... Here are a few ideas for various articles: 1) Industry benchmarks. What benchmarks are there there for cooks and waiters? For Chefs and Maitre D's? Are these National benchmarks or Provincial/State? 2) Hospitality Unions. What changes have they brought to the industry? What benchmarks or standards have they introduced? How closely do they operate with trade schools in designing culinary curriculum? 3) Culinary Schools. There are tremendous variations in the curriculums of every Culinary school, with some schools graduating students after 4 mths, and some after 2 or even 3 years. What benchmarks do these schools acknowledge when designing curriculums? How does one offer "degrees" in manual trades like cooking or baking? How aggresively do the schools recruit? 4) Social customs in N. America. Why is it a social custom to tip a percentage of the entire dining experience to only one employee in N. American restaurants? Is this changeable? 5) Biting the hand.....Why is it that all of N.American media (with emphasis on the publishing media) simply refuse to acknowledge the use of a scale in the private home? Is it that they feel the "typical" N. American can not adjust to such technology? Do they understand that virtually every N.American uses scales at work--from supermarket cashiers to lab techs to truckdrivers, from airport check-in staff to doctors? 6) Bakers. What benchmarks or standards are there for bakers? Do you forsee the dissapearance of small independant bakeries in the near future? Many, many more topics. All of them closely linked with future of the hospitality industry. Will it "sell" though? Or does everyone just want recipies, new wonder ingredients, and the restaurant scene's "openings and clsoings"?

Mmmmmm.... Ganache centers with a longer shelf life?............

The house we're in now came with a gas General Electric (Hecho Mexico) range. I believe the "main" burner put out a whopping 9000 btus. Finally got rid of it when the glass panel on the oven door exploded--all by iself-- at 3 in the morning. In the end we chose a "Sears Special". A bit better constructed, but not a whole lot better. Why did I choose gas again? Because the house didn't have a 220 v outlet for a range, and it would hae costed me at least $500 to put one in--assuming I could find an electrician who would stoop so low as to take on such a small job... I'd much rather have electric, but I'm too cheap.......

The other day I was browsing in a used bookstore. Not much to offer--the usual zillion microwave cookbooks, and... what's this? A Suzanne Sommer's cookbook? The clerk was watching me, seeing if I was gullable enough to crack it open. Strangely, the clerk's stare brought back a memory of when I was 18 and "shopping" for my first car: Peering through the windows of Chevelles and Dusters, checking out the mileage; and there, in the middle of the lot was an AMC Pacer, the car lot operator breathless, straining to see if I was gullable enough to peek through the window of that one............

From talking to quite a few refrigeration guys , I constantly hear that the whirlpool unit is not very robust or reliable. I have a small cafe where I do have a small ice maker--a Hoshizaki (made in Peachtree, GA. --go figure...)which is the same size as the Whirlpool, but after 3 years of commercial use, is perfectly fine. A commercial ice maker functions by having a constant spray of cold water over the ice plate. Once ice builds on the plate, the water sticks onto it and builds rapidly. Other than Kold Draft, most machines simply have an insulated bin, that fresh ice gets dumped into. While this may seem wastefull, it does kind of make sense: The ice at the very bottom of the bin is the oldest, and a bit stale, as it melts, it gets replaced by "fresher" ice.

Sharpening the blades is actually fairly easy--if you have the "right" equipment. Whatchya need is a wood turner's lathe OR a drill press, OR a drill fixed in a vice or somehow held stationary. Get a 3-4" bolt aprox 3/8 thick with two nuts. Sandwich the blade inbetween the head of the nut and snug up the bolts. Place this assembly in the Chuck of the drill/lathe, and start it on slow speed. Use a coarse then a fine abrasive material as the blade is rotating. Repeat with each wheel. If you read my post above, I have made two such cutting devices, each with an aprox cost of under CDN $40. True, I got the wheels at bakery supply store, sold as "replacement pizza cutting wheels". But no one said you couldn't buy a dozen pizza wheels at a dollar store and drill out the rivets to use, even the better quality ones are under $15.00.........

Is the device spring loaded? Most sharpening attachments I've used are spring loaded, and "sharpening" should only be done for about a 10 sec. blast. Springs (if there are any) might be plugged up with crud, frozen with rust, or who knows. Never worked with a slice frm that long ago.

Matfer (www.matfer.com) makes a similiar roller, which I've used in the past--veddy veddy expensive, but you get, I think, 24 discs which you can space to your liking. I have made my own rollers, one with 1" spacing, and one with 3/4" spacing. I got the s/s discs from a pastry equipment supplier for $2.00 each and got a length of threaded steel rod from the hardware store. Spacing was achieved by sandwiching the discs between nylon washers and I made my own handles from beech wood. A S/S acorn nut at either end locks in the entire assembly. My total cost was around $40 for the roller, and it isn't really all that hard to make. Depending on your caramel recipie, it might be a dream to cut with , or a nightmare. My caramel (Grewling's recipie) is quite sticky, and the caramel just climbs onto the roller. I use the roller to score the slab and then use a heavy Chef's knife to cut--no buttering is needed, just plenty of back-and-forth movement. One of the virtues of such a roller is that it can be heated. I keep mine in my top oven where it is warm, and this is ideal to cut slabs of ganache into squares for dipping. Waaay back when I worked for an employer who had 6 coffee houses and would supply each cup of coffee sold with a almond finger. These were cookies about 3/4" wide and maybe 1/1/4" long. I would sheet out kilo after kilo of the dough on the dough sheeter to the required thickness, use the Matfer cutter to cut into long strips, then then "Bicycle" or exapandable wheel cutter to cut to length. For doughs like this it is importnat to start in the middle of the dough and work to either end. If you start at one end the dough will climb onto the roller.

I do caramels on a weekly basis, but these are soft, about the same consistancy as a Kraft square. What I do is slab it, when cold score it, and then cut with a knife with lots of back-and forth movement. Just thinking out loud now... If you got a rubber/silicone mat with holes in it--similar to the ones used for chocolate making, laid it on a parchment paper, and poured the hot toffee over it, scraped it smooth, waited untill it got hard and then removed the rubber stencil, would it work?.....

Y'know, I just got the new Callebaut (Montreal)academy list of courses for this season, and I think it stinks.(professional courses starting on Feb. 14th, Anyone?!!!!) I've met Derrick and I think very highly of him. Put me down for a maybe. I gotta find a decent B&B or something, but the dates for me work out for now.