Edward J
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Posts posted by Edward J
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I wonder.....
What would happen if "natural" food colouring was used in the syrups--I.E. Beet juice?
Then it will taste like beets.
Ascorbic acid will prevents discoloration due to oxidization only. Color change due to heating is another issue and the ascorbic acid won't help.
I have never seen candied cherries that are red and don't contain food colors. Strawberries, which you also mentioned happen to stay red when cooked so they wouldn't be a problem...
EDIT: The amount of ascorbic acid you would need to prevent browning due to oxidization would be in the range of 0.4-0.8%, it is cold soluble and requires no shearing so it is pretty user friendly.
You're probably right. I was musing about this because a number of Swiss yoghurts (Toni and Emmi come to mind) list beet juice as an ingredient in thier stawberry and raspberry varities
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From your posts, I can see that math is one of your great loves.
I can understand your reasons for developing your formula, but I have a bigger issue with the whole N.American media scene insisting on using volume measurement in all of their recipies.
While your formula does make mathematical sense, it is a bit of work formatting a recipie. I would much rather see a mainstream cooking magazine or even cooking show indtroduce the lowly electronic scale to viewers/readers, and explain on how easy, fast, and accurate a scale is vs. volume mesurement.
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I wonder.....
What would happen if "natural" food colouring was used in the syrups--I.E. Beet juice?
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Mmmm....
After reading through this thread, I find it strange that everyone accepts "pasta" as just that,"pasta".
I'm not talking about the shapes, I'm talking about the ingredients and manufacturing methods. A "Good" pasta like Barillo or DeCecco is only made with semolina flour and water, and extruded through bronze dies. No manufacturer will tell us exactly HOW the pasta is dried prior packaging either.
There is of course, pasta made with eggs as well, and cheaper pasta made with different types of flour and extruded through nylon dies, leaving a very smooth surface texture which results in not much sticking on the pasta.
I imagine there'd be quite adifference in texture and taste using a "cold start, minimum water" method with a high quality pasta, and a House brand Supermarket-type of pasta..........
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Hold it for a sec.
If you want to make bread in quantity, do NOT, repeat, NOT buy a 20 qt, and I don't care if it's a brand new Hobart.
All new mixers, including Hobart, come with a caveat in their warranty: Making pizza dough will void the warranty. Think I'm kidding? Check with a kitchen eqpt supplier.
You can't make enough bread in a 20 qt to warrant the amount of time in scaling and mixing. A 30 qt is just squeaking by and a 40 qt is a lot better.
Very rarely do you sell your equipment for what you paid for it, or even with a 10% amoritiziation per year of use.
Now here's a secret. If you're really crafty--think James Garnder in "The Great Escape", you use your fingers to walk through the yellow pages to find "Baker's equipment-reglazing". Most large cities have a small plant where they re-glaze all kinds of sheetpans, bread pans, cake pans, etc. Most large commercial and in-store supermarket bakeries have two sets of bakeware, one is in use and one is either waiteing to be re-glazed or getting re-glazed. Depending on the use and the sugar content of the doughs, the glaze lasts 3-4 mths. During this time no greasing of the pans in needed and good release from the pan is expected. Most of these re-glazing plants have used-albeit re-glazed pans for sale. Check them out.
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I actually bought mine from Lee Valley (leevalley.com),100 grams capcity, accurate to 1/10 of a gram, think I paid $16 CDN for it.
Though I don't want to say it, and am definately NOT part of that scene, the small, accurate, and cheap scales can be found at uh...""alternative lifestyles" shops, I.e. shops that sell drug paraphanelia. Shouldn't cost you more than $20 or $30 for something decent, albeit a max capacity of under a kg.
Hope this helps
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1. I have no experience in an actual bakery outside of my internship. Not that there are many quality bakeries to learn from or bakery jobs to find...
2. I have no formulas of my own and lack the experience and knowledge to develop my own. I currently bake from what I find in cookbooks.
3. My wife is in law school and shows no desire to give up her career. In fact, she plans on us to move in 2+ years after she graduates. The potential for a bakery will be taken into consideration when choosing a place to move to.
4. I don't know if the synagogue's kitchen has enough equipment capacity to make this work. They currently have a Vulcan double convection oven, two 48" ranges and a 4 door True fridge.
5. My wife and I want to start a family. I do not know what the impact of the business will have on our family life. Once we have kids, they will come before any possible business.
6.With the economy as it is and our investments greatly depreciated, I just don't know if it is worth the financial risk.
I have expressed these concerns to LOML and am leaning towards not pursuing the business for a year or two and get more experience in a bakery for a year or two while I work out these issues. But my arm is being twisted more that I may be passing up on a good opportunity and not to chicken out.
What are your thoughts?
Dan
In regards to (1) Yes, you are right. You should be working in another bakery, F/T to get lots of on-hands expereience, as well as learning how to deal and interact with customers
(2) Don't worry about formulas. Most are based on volume, equipment, labour available, and avialable ingredients. What works in one place won't neccesarily work in another.
(3) It will be at least 18 mths from the time you open the doors of any bakery to the time where you actually feel comfortable taking a week off. If you plan to move in 2 years, I personaly wouldn't put alot of effort into a business I couldn't move with me.
(4) Equipment sounds O.K., but the mixer is missing......
(5) Children usually come when they want to, not when you plan on them. If you have financial reserves and one spouse can afford to take a year or two off, or have parents who are willing to look after kids, then you can probably swing it. We had neither, and it was very difficult to do, but we did.
(6) If you don't feel comfortable, then don't. By the time you have a few year's experience uder your belt, you'll feel a lot different.
I urge you to take a good look at a used restaurant eqpt. store. Not to ogle the equipment, but to see what happens when people jump to quickly into a business. It is very sobering....
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I've got a monster commercial maple rolling pin, with sealed bearnings and rubberized handle grips. It's still in the garage, collecting dust....
O.K. to be fair, I "cheat" quite a bit at work, by using a table-top dough sheeter, this does most of the gruntwork. I prefer using the baton style pin because I have much more contol over the pin, using my palms to move the pin. With the handle type I'm pushing down with my shoulders and moving it forward with my arms. I feel I have less control over the my work this way, and also feel I work too hard for the same results I can get with a baton style pin.
Curious to see how others feel about this
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There are differences.
Many of the cheap baton style pins use poorly seasoned wood, or softer wood. Cheap ones will obviously split or warp with strong humidty changes--which is not so uncommon in a kitchen. That being said, a $80.00 price tag is no guarantee of quality
Making your own rolling pin (baton style, without the handles or ball bearings) isn't rocket science and if you have access to a wood lathe it would only take you an hour or so to make. Many community colleges and night schools have classes on wood turning. Cost for the wood is under $10
I pointed out the above comments to a poster on another website a few years back who lamented that she could only find a $90.00 cone with handle--the type used to roll ice cream cones and the like, at restaurant supply stores. Obviously she couldn't justify the price with something so simple. The poster's spouse now dislikes me very much, I have her hooked on woodworking......
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So what are the stores to hit in town for your kitchen supplies. Not food products necessarily, but actually kitchen equipment. (But stuff for the home user)
Do you go to an industrial or restaraunt supply store, or do you have your local specialty store that you hit?
Thanks,
Depends. I like the commercial stuff and will get it at Russels, Dunlevy or Pacific. For pots and pans, and some kitchen stuff this is ideal. For gadgets and small stuff I like to hit Cookshop at the Citysquare, Gourmet warehouse and a few of the dollar stores as well as CDN Tire.
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My humble advice?
No dramatic changes, if you depend on the locals, don't scare them off. If you have to increase prices, do this very minimally and slowly. Sure you can jazz up the pizzas, jazz up the humus, find or make some nice wild and wonderful bread to go with it. Focus on the quality of the ingredients and the presentation.
Gradually introduce new items, do this via nightly specials, and if they are popular, they'll morph into weekly specials, and then on permanently to the menu.
Remember, if the place has earned a rep. for pseudo Med. stuff, then build on that, as it is far harder and far riskier to go "cold turkey" with a new theme and menu.
Suppliers... If they're the same ones for the last 20 years and are, uh.."comfortable", then you really need to do your homework: Start digging around finding new ones. Then comes the crunch, and you tell the old ones that their prices aren't competitive enough, delivery times sketchy, so you'll put them on a trial period for the next two deliveries. If they make it, great. If not, use the new ones. The owner has to back you up on this however
Refrigeration. The cheapest and kindest thing you can do to a car is change it's oil frequently, the cheapest and kindest thing you can do to a refrigerator is to keep the radiator fins free of dust--use a brush and vacuum for this. After that, it's best to get a refrigeration guy to look at it.
Hope this helps
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He can possibly identify the defendant via their email carrier. It's public information that can be obtained, probably with a fee.
Yes, he can. Assumming that the information would be correct, lets see what we have:
-Owner bears cost to identify mystery customer
-Owner bears cost to file in small claims court
-Owner bears cost to serve named defendant to appear in court
-Owner bears cost to supply defendant with all necesary paperwork, including how defendant's identity was discovered. Failure to do so, or the omission of any item may result in mistrial. A fact that many small claim defendant "regulars" take advantage of.
Now we have to tally up monetary costs, as well time costs
_____________________________________
Assuming a court date has been set within 6 mths and the defendant actually appears:
______________________________________
-Based on personal experience, as well as conversations with small claims clerks and Judges, it is highly probable that the owner will not be awarded 100% of the damages he seeks, most likely 75%. The owner did, after all process no less than 5 suspicious credit cards and still went ahead.
Asuming that the owner is awarded compensation:
__________________________________________
-The owner must bear any costs to retrieve his money.
Now tally up the monetary costs and the time costs.
The original bill was for under $2,000.
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I've had some as old as 3 years with no problems. Just keep cool and dry.
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If it's not too late already, definitely do something with the food rather than toss it.
Also file in small claims court. It's cheap and easy and not too hard to win a judgment if you have reasonable proof and come prepared. If you win and they don't pay, for another fee the sheriff will take their car or other possessions, which will be sold in order to pay you. Things don't always go smoothly, but it may be worthwhile to spend a few hundred dollars to win $1,000.
No guarantee, though, and whether or not you do it and if you end up losing money, consider the loss as "tuition".
After the small claims court filing fee is paid, what name should be listed under "defendant"?..........
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For me, brands don't really matter. They are cheap--usually $20.00. I use one almost exclusively in the pastry section: Cutting quiches, tortes, cakes, etc. Anything soft, squishy or contrasting crisp crusts and soft fillings, for this they can't be beat, but they stay far, far, far away from meats, vegetables or any other non-pastry items--with the exception of aspic terrines.
They do work fairly well for breads--but then so does as decent bread knife.
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In response to Florida's reply about what to do, maybe I wasn't clear enough: Learn and live
Look, you can play the game with all energy on offense, or on defense. With offense, you learn from your mistakes and focus all your energy on promoting your business, getting and retaining customers, and growing. With defense you focus all your energy on getting slime-balls to pay up.
With the small claims court advice you must factor in the costs for small-claims, the costs for serving the defendant. Justice is neither free nor swift. Even if your time is calculated at a bargain-basdement rate of $15.00/hr, by the time the case is heard and decision given, the costs have climbed far above the $2000.00 limit, which was the amount of damage.
Small claims can not and will not pay you money. Maybe the defendant does have property. It will cost you to find out.
Maybe you can slap a lien on said property. It will cost you to do this--and there's no guarantee that the lein will be removed anytime soon.
Walk away from this scenerio
As other posters have pointed out, and if you have read "inbetween the lines" of my previous posts, going through small-claims is a very stressfull, bitter, and energy-draining process. It will affect the way you think and conduct your business in the meantime.
Save your fighting energy for more immediate problems, like landlords who go back on leases, employees who know the labour and worker's comp rules better than the experts, and squeeze you good.
Walk away from this and focus your energy on building your business.
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Small claims.
If this person has any assets and you win against him, or he fails to show and you win by default, you might get a shot at reclaiming your losses. I don't know about where you live, but in NH, it pays to find out what it takes to actually be able to enforce a judgment. There are procedures you need to follow to put enforceable teeth in a judgment here.
Good luck with this.
Oh dear....
To make a claim--in Canada, anyway, you have to pay a fee, then the defendant must be served. Usually this responsibility falls on you. If this doesn't cost you in time, then it will cost you in money, as you will have to hire a bailiff to serve the papers. You must prove that the papers have been served, in most cases registered mail won't cut it, and scum-bags won't respond to registered mail anyhoo. It will cost in time and usually money. And there's no guarantee that the defendant will actually show up. Besides, the goods were never picked up, so you couldn't claim full damages, even though the food was given away to charity.
And I wouldn't bother calling the cops. They (Cops) make just as good enemies as they do customers--and I'd rather have them as customers. In most cases it would have been--how do you say in legal-ese--"prudent"? to inform the cops or FBI about splitting a $2000 invoice on 3 credit cards and all three of them are no good. Had you done this, the cops might be able to investigate the c. card #'s to see if they are hot. I don't know what the cops would say if you then told them that inspite of this you went ahead with two MORE credit cards-again both no good. Possibly an accesory to fraud had you gotten any money?
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I love to see C.A make it big, they've got a good product, and kick-a ambiance.
Oddly enough there was a great cafe chain called, I think (sp?) Torrefazione?, and I really liked the cafe they had in West Van. Then, all of a sudden they dissapeared. Stah-bucks bought them out and subsequently shut them down. I hope this is not what will happen to C.A. ......
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One of my favourite quote is "Change is the price of survival"....
However I don't 0/0 a restaurant anymore, I o/o an artisan chocoalte and pastry place.
The ones who can get a handle on the biggest expenses are the ones who have the best chance for survival.
We all know what they are: Rent. Labour. Foodcost.
The insane amount of energy (terms of gas/electricity, manpower, and capitol for equipment/infrastructure) needed to offer a say, 50 or 60 item A'la carte menu, is well, just insane. I truly think the a'la carte system menu will change, and the ones who do will succeed. There are many ways to do this.
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It's about +3 C here in Vancouver, many of us have problems with toilet tanks sweating alot, my cat just strts licking the condensation on the tank in the winter.
I did live in Singapore for 4 years, the water that came out of the taps there was jst about body temperature--all year round.....
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back to the kitchen, you're saying 100x1 = 25x4?
It's all the same. Cooking is just as much about timing as it is about ingredients or techniques. Same with pro sports, or just about any application you can think of.
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I guess I should have asked:
100 single diners vs 25 tables of 4
will the former be easier/cheap, by how much?
There's definately a cost.
That would put a lot more stress on the FOH. And single diners ain't a-gonna drink much either, and they won't go big on appies or desserts. Meh. Lousy profit.
On one of your previous posts you mentioned a 50% price reduction if the dishes wouldn't come to the table at the same time.
50%?!!
How much do you mark up the items in the first place?
How do you expect to keep the doors open if you throw away half of your sales?
100 singles vs 25 4 tops is cheaper IF you run a self serve deli however.....
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An ice water bath provides a great low-tech solution to cooling things quickly. It's especially good for cooling of posts of stock, etc. Give the stock a stir every few minutes and it will be cool very quickly (if you have enough ice water).
You can also make your very own "ice wand" to cool down liquids, combine this with an ice bath, and you can cool down liquids/semi liquids within 15 mins.
Now, you can buy ice wands at restaurant supply places. but if you're cheap (like me) save your milk jugs, wash them out, peel off the stickers, fill with water, place a piece of cling film over the top and screw on the cap firmly. Freeze. Drop into your liquid and stir the liquid every few minutes.
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These are considered to be the best not wooden cutting board, made of a dense rubber material and very kind to knives as well as being incredibly durable.
Usually sold through restaurant supply but I've tried all the usual suspects and no one carries them.
Hate to have to order one from the U.S. and pay shipping.
Thought that kitchen shop in Granville Island (Net loft) sells them or a clone of them
Restaurant Kitchen Design
in Restaurant Life
Posted
The HVAC is probably the most expensive and trickiest part of doing a kitchen.
Most, if not all municipalities require a Mechanical engineer's drawing for the hood system before the occupancy permit can be issued. The charcoal grills produce some very nasty and deathly gasses and must be removed as quickly as possible. Then the fire suppression system will cost too.
Best thing is to check with your municipality on what is required for commercial kitchens, Fire, plumbing, electrical HVAC, and health.