Edward J

Hi Jim. You've been getting an earfull of advice, and it's all good, although I don't know if you want to make your own cabinets like ScoopW. Me, I'd probably go with bleached soft maple and raised panels on the tablesaw with only half-blind dovetails on the drawer fronts and the backs dadoed in. (Hate routers, only use them for laminate trimming and round-overs....) Start poking around at the library and get some books on kitchen design. Do you want an island, or a galley type? How large is your existing kitchen? Do you want it larger, the same size, smaller? Do the windows need to be changed out? New floor? Or is the existing one still good? These are all questions that a designer will ask you.... Cheap, DIY way to go, is to trott down to RONA or Home Despot and get replacement drawer and door fronts of the cabinets. You use the same cabinets but have new fronts of your choice; a new countertop and sink, maybe lighting fixtures, and appliances of your choice and you're good to go for another 10-15 years. This is pretty basic stuff, and can be done on weekends with a minimum of tools or experience. When you start fooling around with walls, windows, floors, new electrical service, gas service, stronger ventilation hoods, etc, it starts to add up VERY quickly. And then there is no limit on how much you want to spend on appliances..... Slow down for a minute and start to look at other people's places, what you like and don't, what You need and what you think you'll need, and how much do you want to spend.

I've got a few "quibbles" with the Mol d'art, most of which have to do with design, the actual performance is good. 1) The "on/off" button is AT THE BACK OF THE MACHINE. This is a rocker switch and can be accidently switched off. The thermostat dial is at the front as is the thermostat light, thus if the machine is up against a wall and is accidentaly turned off, you have no way of knowing other than to quickly raise the thermostat knob to see if the light comes on, or to move the machine bck and havbe a peek at the behind. Why they can't have the on/off switch at the front, or combined with the thermostat is beyond my comprehension. 2) The material of the machine is made of plastic, polystyrine, I think, and is screwed on to the base. No matter how gentle you are, you will develop stress cracks in the housing, especially around the screws and in the inside corners of the cavity. I guess this doesn't make a big difference in the performance of the machine, but when you fork out $800 and the thing deveops cracks after 6 mths, it kinda ticks you off a bit. 3) The machine is European, which is good, but the Europeans use "euro-norm" hotel pans, and the N.Americans use "gastro-norm". The differences are slight, with Euro-norm have more radiused corners, but Gastro-norm will not fitin these machines. Most people like to keep several hotel pans of couveture warm and untempered, and then have one pan of, say, white, work with it, then, and you drop in a new pan of hot, untempered milk, temper it off, work with it, then go on to dark. To order additonal pans from the Mnfctr is quite expensive, and the N.American ones won't fit, and you only get blank stares when you want to order Euro-norm pans from a local restaurant supplier. As I stated above, the quibbles about "Mol d'art" melters only deal with design, the performance is quite good. Still, it's a lot of money for a melter and these issues should be dealt with by the Mnfctr.

The electric juicers are the cat's meow for volume juicing, i.e. lots of orange/grapefruit juice. They are also loud, and messy. For a'la carte drinks, the manual juicer makes a lot of sense, they are very fast, make no noise, and take up very little counter space.

Another vote for simplehuman, have two of them in my shop, and in a commercial setting they are holding up just fine after 3 years and hundreds of kids stepping on the pedal and screaming, "Hey, cool!". The regualr Glad bags seem to fit with some fussing. The "Leifheit" cans look good, but they are tapered. IN spit of th flared base, I wonder if they are prone to tipping, is the bottom weighted? Here's a Janitor's trick for you for whatever can you use: Get a long cardboard tube, the kind christmas paper comes in, cut in half lengthwise and tape it inside the can so it runs vertical. When the garbage bags get filled up, they conform to the shape of the can's interior, and when you try to remove the bag, you get a vacuum, making removal difficult, and if you have a cheap or weak bag, disasteous.

This is what I do: Get twice the amount of individualforms that you need. The alum. disposable ones are fine. With steel forms without a lip I like to line up the forms on the bench, lay a sheet of dough over it, "scrunch" the forms together, and with the dough all loose, get a wad of dough and press the sheet of dough into the forms, then roll a pin across the forms cutting them out. With the disposable kind of forms you have to stamp out discs of dough and hand fit them in each one Put a second form into the lined first one, so you have a "sandwich". Now put them upside down on a tray and put a second tray on top of this. Bake. When you bake upside down you aren't fighting gravity anymore, you're making gravity work for you, as it will pull the dough down while it bakes. The second tray adds a bit of wieght, so the bottoms don't puff up. Absolutely hate the pre-fab shells, and when I read the ingredients on the package, I know why.......

In most commercial kitchens anything is used for terrines, Pate en croute molds (the collapsible ones) do work well if they are lined with cling film. I can attest to this as I have done it many times. That being said I have worked with the enamel-clad cast iron ones, and they are a luxury to work with, no need for cling film liners, no leaky seams, and they hold up very well to years of use and abuse. Most "presses" are invariably a piece of wood wrapped in foil or cling and weighted down with a couple of un-opened tin cans. My favorite and best "press" was a hunk of nylon cutting board that I recut to a size to fit terrine molds--dish washer safe and robust to boot! But-tum... correct me if I'm wrong about the terminology. A "terrine" is a meat item baked/poached in an earthen-ware form, No? Hence the word "Terrine" related to Terre, or earth? A "pate" is a meat paste, and a "pate en croute" is a meat paste baked in a crust, hence the need for a metal form?

Packaging is probably one of the hardest things about the chocolate business. Odds are, if you are in business you have your logo and your colours already picked out. Next is finding the most popular size, and getting this size in siginificant quantities. True, you can get decent pricing on closeouts (Yes, I use/d Nashville and Chocolat-Chocolat too, but once that item is gone, it's gone. If you can get stuff in significant quantities (3-4000 pcs. and up) the price goes down dramatically. With your most popular box, you can dress it up for Christmas/V-day, etc. with assorted ribbons, sleeves, or stickers. Most packaging sellers get their stuff from China, although there are a few who still make thier own stuff in N. America. When you start doing serious volume, it only makes sense to deal direct with China. If you don't you'llstart to shake your head when you realize that you're paying just s much or even more for packaing on a box of 24 assorted than the cost of materials and labour for the actual chocoaltes....

Teaching by far is the best option, followed by: Sales rep for food purveyors, Sales rep for food equipment

No, I don't think I missunderstood you, in your first post you stated that you were on a fixed income and wanted to save money where possible. My advice, and others has been to buy a good quality disc bottomed pot, and use this pot for stock making, as well as all the other uses a good pot can offer you. The typical design of a stock pot--tall and narrow-- has nothing to do with making stock, but rather with real estate: A narrow pot uses much less space on a stove top, and most of the kitchens in Europe have "french tops"-- gas fired solid steel tops (no individual burners) or electric solid tops. The stock pot also does double duty in the bain-marie holding hot sauces and soups, and again, the smaller footprint is adventagous. As many others have posted, it is worth your while to buy from restaurant supply stores for cookware. Unless you can get brand name cookware at a discounted price, or as a gift, the money spent for brand name could be better spent elsewhere. For most s/s cookware, they are produced in Asia that makes lines for many other companies, and most of the cookware starts off the same. The differences may be a thicker guage for the high end stuff, but the major dfference between brand name and restaurant quality is the finish: High end has a mirror finish, whereas restaurant quality has a brushed finish. This has no effect on cooking, and the mirror finish needs more maintainence than a brushed finish Aluminum cookware is still produced in N.America, but the disadvantages of untreated (non-anodized) aluminum far outwiegh the advantages. The advantages are price, weight, and heat conductivity. The disadvantages are warping, pitting, leaky rivets, reactions to acidic ingredients, and the constant oxidization that leaves that nice icky black/grey film on your contertops, shelves, stove, hands, skin, and clothing. Hope this helps

Never understod the concept of single guage pots. They develop hot spots, and are prone to warping and dings. A "sandwich botom" pot does not warp and provides even heating, although it takes a bit longer to heat up. The cheapest option is also the most expensive--buy a good quality sandwich bottom pot. You can use this to make stocks, but also soups, stew, canning, etc. It makes no sense to buy a cheap stock pot and have it sit in a closet for weeks at a time. The more use you get out of a single item, the better use you have of your money.

Meh.....nothing new. That kind of stuff has been going on for as long as man has been buying or bartering food. Spices cut with dirt, brick dust in cocoa and saffron, coffee adultarated, gawd knows what in the booze, water mixed into butter, etc.

When the Whirlpool repair center was still in town, I bought K.A mixers as well attachments for it from "refurbished" stock. Never had any problems. What the guy at Whirlpool told me, was that more than 3/4 of the "refurbished" stuff was stuff returned from Costco and other dept. stores, and almost always because the "colour was wrong", very few warranty issues.

Picked it up at an auction, minus the strings. One continious string goes through the whole assembly, tensioned by one (1!) key which is very similiar to a musical guitar key. Gives me 3/8" thick slices. This contraption was made for cookies, but I use it for butter ganache,PdF etc. as well.

Lets see if I can load up a pic of my "poor man's guitar".....

When we purchased ours, the sales guy asked what kind of a business we had: "I've got chairs that are comfortable for a half hour, for two hours, and for all day. How long do you want your customer to spend in your place?" We chose the two hour ones...... I remember working at the last place before opening up our our own, nice little 50 seat French Bistro. Staff bathroom was crammedwith broken chairs and parts. The owner had bought his chairs at Ikea, and painted them to match the decor. Cute, looked nice, but the chairs only cost $49.00 and were made of softwood, Pine, I think, and fatigued usually after a year. Either the wood fatigued, cracked, or split, the glued joints failed, or the mechanical fastners loosened up and then failed. Every Saturday the owner would fix 4 or 5 chairs from the parts of 5 or 6 older un-repairable ones, and once every few months he would buy new chairs to replace the broken ones. Expensive habit..... A good chair that goes into a dining room where, say you and your partner would spend over $200 per meal, should cost at least $2-300. Yes it is expensive, but your guest's butts don't hurt, and you don't have to constantly repair/replace them, they should last for a good 15 -20 years. A chair withstands more abuse and use than any other piece of furniture, and you really get what you pay for. Many owners fool themselves into thinking they can get away with cheap chairs--like my previous employer.

Interesting thread... I have 4 varieities of slabbed bon-bons and no guidtar. I cut them with a home made device-- a series of 4" high s/s "pizza wheels" threaded onto a handle with 15/16" spacers between each wheel. This contraption is tossed into an oven and warmed, then rolled over the slab brushed with couverture lengthwise, then crosswise. If I can "steer" the wheel straight, I get pefect 1" squares. I make Grewling's caramels about once a week. Afer resting overnight, I "score" the slab with the same contraption. To cut, I use an old 12" Henckel's Chef's knife. By using light pressure and lots of back and forth movement, I can get clean slices very quickly with no sticking and no greasing of the knife. It is a bit of work, as I can only cut 3 or 4 pieces at a time, but I don't have any other way of cutting caramels at the moment. D&R products...... 5 mths after I opened up my shop, my "mol D'art melter", umm... melted. I had it on overnight, ans when I came in the morning it stank of burnt chocolate and burnt plastic. This was purchaed from a local supplier who complained tht he had similiar "incidents an he did repalce it for me with a new model. The stench of burnt choc.doesn't go away quickly, and the melter sits in a closet to this day. I finally put my money where my mouth was and bought the full size "bain-marie" style of choc. melter from D & R. Best money I ever spent, no complaints there. After an another year I bought a second, identical melter, and a few months later I bought the panning device from them, as well as some assorted small-wares. No complaints, and am very happy with thier stuff and service. Just before Christmas I bought the wheel attachment for the melter. When I first started it up, it was very loud. I phoned up Montreal, ran the machine on the phone for them to hear, and they right away told me the wheel should not make so much noise. True, I had to pay S & H for the wheel to go back to Montreal, BUT the wheel was brought back to me in Vancouver personally, repaired with the warranty still in full effect, in under a week, by a D & R rep( O.K., family member...) who had combined this with a business/pleasure trip to Vancouver. So, while I haven't seen or used their guitar, on the whole I have had very good success with their other products and their service. Other than being happy with their products and service I have no affiliations or connections with D & R. Regards, Edward

Have you tried cling film over vinyl "crocodile skin" or over plastic sheets used as lenses for lighting fixtres?

I was under the impression that Pont Neuf were the largest of the turned potoates?

Dehydrated coconut powder in those little 50 gr (2 oz) envelopes............... My logic is twofold: 1)With all of the canned products, I am paying for water. With the powder, I can add it to whatever liquid I choose, thus boosting the flavour. I work with chocolates mostly, so the poser alos me quite a bit of creativity with ganaches. 2) The shelf life of this stuff is long, and storage is minimal, as a box of envelopes doesn't take up much space.

Wood is a living thing, it absorbs moisture when the enviroment is humid, and shrinks when the enviroment is dry. The age of the wood plays no role in this, I've worked with 1o0 yr old oak timbers reclaimed from a frmhouse and they still move in accordance with the seasons and humidity. If you "steam" the block, the wood will expand and will stress out the glue lines, fatigueing usually occurs beside the glue line, not on it. All that being said, check out my favorite hardware store: Lee Valley (www.leevalley.com) There you will find magnetic bars faced with wood, and knife blocks filled with thousands of plastic rods about the size of very fine spaghetti--you slide the knife inbeteen the plastic rods, the knives never touch and the whole assembly of plastic rods comes out in one piece and can be washed. But no one ever said you couldn't do the same with a cannister filled with bamboo skewers......

Thanks. looks like I'll get some Ikea cabinets to mount on the wall. I've got about 60 molds, including the seasonal ones.

Got a niggling problem--I can't find a decent way to store my molds. In my shop I have a small (6' x 8") chocoalte room. I have a picture window for everyone to look in, and marble topped tables and melting units with wheels, but the molds just look plain messy. Granted, I only wash them maybe twice a year, but they look messy. The best solution I've found so far was to scrounge up an old baker's tray trolley and chop it in half, bolt the two halves togther, and slice this contraption under one of my tables. The molds are on sheet pans, but they still slide around and fall off, and there's chocolate crumbs every where to clean up. Another solution would be wall mounted cupboards. What's everyone else using?

Uhhh....That would be Superstore, a Loblaws brand I think. It pays to check out the CDC website (Cdn Dairy Commision) as tey usually have two price hikes per year, one is usualy before christmas in early November. A week before the price hike you stock up on butter to cushion yourself a bit. Never was comfortable with Amex, and not many independant merchants will accept it here.

Costco..... As a business owner I used it on a weekly basis for the first 7 or 8 years. Pop and dairy mostly, some dry goods, produce is ifffy but the cheeses and cold cuts are decent. Cleaning produts are good, as are some appliances (kitchenaid, food savers etc). The small but annoying bad points started to add up, one of the major ones being no credit cards allowed, and the final clinker was persisant harrasment by staff to customers in the line up trying to "upsell" memberships. Stoopid store has dairy prices on-par with Costco, but they are doing funny things with their meat: Some stores here in Vncvr are only selling "flavour enhanced" pork,(read: 17% salt/soya protein pump), produce is iffy as well, and they do tend to be very creative with their pricing--bulk foods are usually more expensive then bagged foods. It doesn't hurt to have a membership at Costco, if you hit it once a month or so for dairy and bulk items you should get your money's worth for the membership.

Budrichard; I'm sorry to confuse you, that remark was a bit tongue in cheek. You, I, and other posters have offered a considerable wealth of information on how to slice salmon with such a knife, and yet for all our efforts other readers were motivated to find another alternative--any alternative---, as long as it wasn't a Western style knife. I openly accept any information on using a Japanese style knife for cutting smoked salmon based on personal experience, yet no one has offered any yet. David: I humbly accept your research and am richer in knowldege for it.