Edward J

There are usually one or two auction houses in your general area who specialize in restaurant equipment. They are listed in the yellow pages, and you will find them with standing advertisements in the daily papers: "wanting to buy restaurant equipment". Auctions are a miserable place. The small used food equipment guys fall over each other to buy up the stuff so they can mark it up. These guys make Honest Ed's used cars look like a saint. They've out-bid me at auctions and I've seen the same units in their showrooms with as much as 400% mark up--with a 10 day warranty! STAY AWAY from any mechanical equipment, and this means refrigeration--unless you purposley want to buy a refr. display case to display dry only. or your brother has his refrigeration ticket. It ain't worth it. Hobarts (mixers) are usually a safe bet, and if 2nd or 3rd is shot, it isn't hard to find someone to repair it. Small wares are also a good bet, and the small used food eqpt guys don't usually go for that stuff.

I have seen the "anti Griddle" on various websites but have not used it. From descriptions, it is used for a'la carte sauces, novelty stuff, etc. A blast freezer is designed to bring down temperature rapidly. I have used many such freezers, from shoving in a deep hotel pan of stew sizes to walk-in types where a rotating oven rack, fully loaded with baked goods, taken literally seconds from the oven, and the items are frozen solid within 15 minutes. Shove in a hot hotel pan of something into a normal fridge or freezer and you will have some extreme humidty. The steam condenses and sticks on to the evaporator coil where it ices up, the temperature gets warmer, and the auto-shut off switch on the compressor kicks in. This happens frequently with eejits in a commercial kitchen, who wheel in 60 qts of piping hot chicken stock and wonder why the Chef calls them at home--just hours after they did the deed, demanding them to commit ritual sucicide, or at the very least--to get back into work on their own time, and hose down the coil with warm water (commonly refered to as an "enema") to remove the ice from the coil, and save the rest of the inventory in the fridge from spoiling. I don't know the exact mechanics of a blast freezer, but they are far more expensive than a regular freezer and shoud NOT be used as a regular freezer--used to maintain freezing temperatures. I do know that they have some very powerfull fans, as it is air current that is most effective in cooling down an item.

M & P = Mom and Pop "The smallest action is far suprior to the grandest intention" This applies to bowflex as well as baking.....

abooja, take the M & P if you can get it. Experience is what you want, and you will get it. Granted, it won't be artisinal, but it still is experience. There are on-line bakery courses, short 1 and 2 day ourses at local schools, and many, many books to read Farmer's markets are great, but you must fit the criteria. For a successful bakery you will need contracts or at least some good relationships with stores, cafe's, restaurants, caterers, and hotels. Walk-in customers are great but won't pay all of the bills.

Ahhh... the ol'-cheap-NSF-stamped-bread-knife-with-a-wicked-curved-belly-so-you don't-scrape-your-knuckles-knife! Every line cook should have and use one, sure makes cutting club-houses a breeze, even crispy bacon gets sliced cleanly. In my last gig (o/o a catering biz for 10 years) we would do on average 3-400 sandwiches a day, on freshly baked and sliced bread. Kept buying my staff those cheap curved belly sandwich knives. Indespensible. Don't sneer at low-priced knives. Sure you can riducle the Ginzos, but those are hacksaw blades set into plastic handles. A low-priced knife does the job very well, and when it goes missing, takes a nose-dive into the garbage, or a noobie uses it for purposes it wan't intended for--all hell DOESN'T break loose. Let me elaborate a bit.... Regarding personal expensive knives getting lost in commercial kitchens, I have seen in my 25-odd years in the kitchen: Fist fights, locker break-ins, dumpster diving expeditions, co-erced dumpster diviig expeditions, threats of amputation/castration, and some broken frienships. All becasue of expensive knives brought into th workplace. 7 times out of 10 the missing knife was found in the garbage, but by then the words were already said and damage done. In one particular case the missing knife ( a Gold-hamster) was found--handle all melted--on the sheet pan in the oven where it's owner had put it; all those who were accused of theft demanded compensation in beer AND an apology. 3 times out of 10 it was outright theft--not an easy thing to deal with when the theft isn't company property and a right headache for the Chef/supervisor to deal with.

Techniques are a tool. If something better comes along, I'll try it (like microwaving fresh fruit to make jams and jellies, technique was OK, but the stuff had to be refrigerated--no shelf life) I'll give it a try and see if I can use it. As a cook, I was shown a technique of how to clean a griddle (flat top) with a grill brick and water. The technique made sense, water did a perfect job, the brick wouldn't clog up as fast, never skated, far fewer hot oil burns and splashes, and water is a lot cheaper then oil. I still use this technique, but in some kitchens I was ridiculed or out-right dis-obeyed when instructing to my staff. Whatever works, works. When shown by a crusty ancient Frenchman of microwaving couveture in a METAL bowl I was very hesitant--for 30 years I had never nuked anything in a metal container and reprimanded countless employees of doing so. Yet it does work and quite safely--PROVIDED the edges of the bowl don't touch the walls. The same man showed me how he uses a stick immersion blender in a 12 kg tub of couveture--no air bubbles whatso ever and very smooth couveture. This has alos become part of my daily routine. Whatever works, works.

Michael's has an extensive selection of Wilton pans. Don't forget to use your 40% off coupon from the paper. ←

I've been hankering to make a maple syrup Pdf, but have no idea of how to go about it. Might just have to swallow my pride and start buying those wierd chemicals and start with the "spherification" of giant maple syrup "caviar" and then enrobe them in 70% dark. Did try the new Boiron recipies, was not amused. The apple juice is a hassle and waters down the flavour of the main fruit. Threw the printed recipies out and went back to the old style ones. This week I made a decent mandarin PDF (taking Boirons old recipie for bitter orange and upping the pectin by 7-8%) and also tried out my new "molds" for PDF..... I wanted a half-slice of mandarin PDF, so I took lengths of 11/2" PVC pipe and split it down the middle, taped on some end caps and lined it with silicone paper. Poured in my Mandarin PDF and within 3 hrs it was ready to slice. Sliced it on my cookie guitar--giving me cute little 3/8" thick half mooon slices which I enrobed in dark couveture. This time I had the foresight to take some pictures, but I am at a complete loss of how to post photos on this website. Kerry was asking me about the cookie guitar in anothe thread, so I could post her the photos privately

Been about 15 years since I was last in CH If you ever get the chance to go to Zug (30kms from ZH) Bakerie Speck makes a pretty darn good Kirschtorte--some say the original, and Luzern has some nice shops like Bachman and Heini--as well as the Richmond pastry school

Yup. And I'm not knocking any brand of knife here. Look, what's the diference between an axe and a surgeon's scalpel? Sure, wild and wierd metal formulas, but the bevel is really important. An axe has a bevel around 35-40 , so you can hack away at trees all day long and not worry about an edge crumbling or chipping. A surgeon's scalpel's bevel is probably around the 8-10 range, and as soon as it hits scar tissue or god forbid-a bone, the edge will crumble and fold over. The harder the metal, the more brittle it is. Anyone ever dropped a file on a cement floor? Breaks like glass. Yes the better and fancier knives have a core of softer steel and the edges of harder, but this edge, if it has and extreme bevel will chip very easily. So I agree and like fatguy's way of doing things: Get a decent knife--not too fancy or wild, and sharpen it when needed but don't fret about high bevel angles and abrasives. Then again, I've got one or two very old and nasty scars on my hands from when a regular knife slipped on hard bread crust and sliced into my knuckles. I tend to use a bread knife, unless I can't find one, and then the knife slips and I cut myself......

Paulrapheal was pretty darn right about bread dulling knives. It's an unexplained phenonoma (sp?!) and I've heard theories about gluten strands being tougher than steel. In any case cutting bread with my regular knives for a few days will dull them to the point where the edge resembles a dollar store screwdriver. A knife sharpened with coarser grits has quite a bit of "bite" to it and this helps in slicing foods like bread, tomatoes, peppers. However one of the laws of sharpening states that the coarser the finished edge, the shorter the edge will last, and I tend to use abrasives up to 8000-12000 grit range. My knives don't "bite" that well, but they do keep their edges for a decent length of time, needless to say I don't like using them on bread. Having spent some time with electric electric bread slicers--the kind that bakeries use, it is well known that the blades must be changed frequently, as they dull fairly quickly--in direct ratio with the volume being feed through the slicer. The blades are serrated, with rounded scallops, not sharp pointed ones. The machine is basically two frames of blades, both moving up and down, just like an electric knife. No manufacturer has seen it worthwhile to change this aspect of the machine. Also as Paulrapheal states, there are many types of serrated knives. My favorite is a Forschner, the scallops are rounded, not pointed/peaked. While this knife performs flawlessly with breads and especially cakes, it works well with fibrous vegetables like ginger and celery too. It is not aggresive, and can cut freshly baked bread without tearing it, and cut crusty breads without shattering the whole crust.

Thanks! According to Grewling, there's quite a learnng curve to panning. I'll post again when I've recieved the attachment (via D& R Montreal)

So, the powers that be have decided that I will make chocoale coated espresso beans. I have ordered a panning attachment for a K.A. mixer as shown in Grewling's "Chocolates", and have read the brief information and caveats he gives in the book. But I've never panned anything yet. The attachment will come in a week or so. According to Grewling I need to tumble my centers with starch before the first coat of un-tempered couveture is added. What kind of starch and how much? Anyone ever done this before? Any wise words of wisdom? Anyone know where I can get Gum Arabica?

It's all very subjective, I guess. Ther are thousands of different types of wheat, and certain varities grow best in certain climates. What grows well in the praries (long harsh winters, short summers, intense August) would probably not grow very well in Utah. Dairy can also be very regional as well. Here in Vancouver I have the choice between the mega-dairys (carangeen gum, cellulose gel, cellulose gum, 33% mf in whipping cream) or cream from a small, local organic dairy containing only cream, 35% mf. (come in a real glass bottle with foil cap and a 10 cent rufund) Both are available at most grocers, price difference is about 35% more for the smaller organic dairy's stuff. I hate salted butter with a passion and don't know what the maximum amount allowed is, I'm guessing around 2-3% by weight. I have found, going through recipies, that the further south the recipies come from, the more sugar is in there. Any recipie I try out for the first time--and I don't care which magazine it comes from or which cookbook, however famous, I automatially cut back by 10-15% on the sugar.

Dave's comments are spot -on. Commercial electric convection ovens have the elements situated around the squirrel cage fan, the fan blows hot air around, commercial gas conv. ovens suck up heat from the flame box and blow it around. Residential conv. ovens usually just have a fan at the back that kinda/sorta blows the air around. Most of these ovens are identical to cheaper ranges just without the convection fan I'm reluctant to use a commercial conv. oven for roasting meats--unless it's a Rational type oven, as most regular conv. ovens tend to dry out meat and result in much higher shrinkage and weight loss. I'm also reluctant to use conv. ovens for most types of pastry--I have no control over top heat or bottom heat--I can get better results for quiches and pies(crispy bottoms and just-done tops) with a regular Garland-type oven than a Conv. oven. Muffins and cakes tend to have crooked lopsided tops, and small items (cookies, petit fours, etc) placed on parchment paper MUST be weighted down or else the fan will pick up the paper and blow it around, or pick up the corners of the paper and shove all the pastries into the middle where they bake into one lump. But Conv. ovens are pretty good for breads/buns, many puff pastry items, roasting stock bones and mirepoix, anything covered, like stews, lasagnas, roasted vegetables, etc. After cooking and baking for over 20 years--around the world--I am convinced that there is no such thing as a perfect oven....

Try this one: www.ravensbergen.com They're just out of Vancouver, Canada, but I'm sure they'll gladly take your money. On-line catalouge shows just about every model, but he does move inventory fast. Been dealing with them for allmost 10 years now.

Please, please, pretty please do NOT put FOGS (fats, oils, greases) down the drain. True, you might succesfully flush it out of your home's plumbing system, but it will clog up the city's/municipality's main sewer system. These boys do not like this, and sewer maintenence/repair (huge list of demands from the Worker's Comp board about who and how many go down there, what type of equipment is to be worn, how many to stand by in case of emergency/pass out) is very costly. It is fairly easy to see which home's line that the FOGS comes from, and they will send a "snake" or cable equipped with a video camera head to inspect lines. Then they fine.... Best thing, according to many city officials--from health to plumbing to enviromental--is to pour the FOGS into a container and place it into the garbage. Alternatively you can find a used oil dumpster behind many restaurants and dump it in there where it willbe recycled.

I don't know that I buy any of that... could you explain? I can't see how it is any of those things. After all, it requires more motion. To me, that seems less efficient and less accurate. And cleaner? I just don't follow... I know that the microserrations that remain on a very sharp blade act like a small-scale serrated knife when you draw the blade across your food, but I come back to slicing vegetables for mirepoix (probably my most common slicing task): I don't see how slicing is going to buy you anything versus chopping (I'm sure I have a slight forward motion as I chop, but nothing like when I am actually slicing). Keep your knife sharp, that's the real key, as far as I can tell. ← JimH almost got it, going straight down is like driving a wedge(or an axe). But when you slice you expose quite a bit of length of the blade to the item being cut, you are drawing your knife along, unlike "Chopping" where you only expose a small section of the blade to the food item. As you slice, you pull your blade along and down, with the sharp edge physicaly cutting the item; when chopping you use a wedging action, and this action tends to split the item rather than cut it. Slice a carrot and then then "chop" a carrot, and then examine the cut edges. The sliced carrot will have clean sharp edges. For something different yet very similiar try cutting a block of cheese on a meat slicer--with the motor off. Slices can be cut this way but requires incredible force and results in torn slices and rough edges. Turn the motor on and you get perfect slices.... Driving a wedge/axe requires more force

I really hate the word "chop", it suggest that the person is holding a sharp instrument fairly far away from the item intended to be cut (ie firewood, trees), and really, the further away you hold the knife from the item you intend to cut, the less control you have over the knife and your intended cut. For meats I tend to "pull" my knife backwards as I cut, for most vegetables and fruits I bring the knife down fairly vertically, for breads and pastries I use a "sawing" motion--using a serrted knife. Don't think that bringing a knife down vertically harms the edge, unless excessive force is used or the cutting surface is too hard

WTF (and I don't mean "Welcome to France") abortion, gay marriage? Whatever... Clearly, the solution is to put BOTH volume AND weight measures. I've seen it in some cookbooks and seems like everyone would get what they want. Why not lobby for that. ←

Exactly. I think there are only 3 writers on staff plus the editor. IMHO It's the magazine's job to write the article and the featured Chef's job to supply the recipie. I am sure the magazine has criteria and one of them should be that the ingredients should be given in weight. This does should not cost the magazine anything time wise, as it is the featured Chef who supplies the recipie. Am I making a moutain out of mole-hill? Probably. Yet, new pastry magazines are a rarity, and while looking at the pastry-porn and articles, I had hopes of at least ONE magazine trying to do something about the state of N.American media's attitutudes towards food editing. A while back I had the opportunity to meet D & C Duby in a very relaxed atmoshpere. I really enjoyed their book "wild sweets" but wanted to know why the ingredients were given in a back-azzwards hodgepodge of weights and volume. Dominique laughed and told me the only way a N. American publisher would accept the book for non-professional sales (huge market compared to professional sales ) was to have flour and chocolate given in weight and the rest of the ingredients in volume. I mentally kicked myself in the head, I should have realized this back-azzwards standard--it is the same standard used in most cooking magazines. I particularily enjoy "Cook's Illustrated" and "Fine cooking", my collections go back to the late 90's. The obviously well researched and well written articles in these two magazines are very interesting and helpful. Yet both of these magazines refuse to acknowledge the use of a scale, both give caveats at the back of the magazine acknowleging that scaling flour will give consistant and accurate results. "Fine cooking" has, from time to time, sold advertising of digital scales in it's pages. To the best of my knowledge, no N. American cooking or baking magazine has ever spoke up about this issue. It's like a taboo or something. Editors and owners, please, this isn't an issue like abortion or gay mariages. The N. American has been purchasing virtually all of their foods (other than liquids) by weight, uses weights at the post office, and many uses weights in their line of work. Why will no media decision maker acknowledge the use of a scale in the kitchen?

Yes, got the first two isues from Qzina too. There is some very valuable information in there and some very good reading. I beg to diifer with the "N. America" schtick though, N. America includes Mexico and Canada. True, Volume 2 Issue 1 did feature an article--or rather a excerpt and photo from D & C' Duby's "Wild sweets" (Great book, and have had the opportunity to meet Dominique and Cindy,who are fantastic people). By Volume two, issue two for the "Regional showcase" there was only American and one Japanese chef/business featured. Mind you there was no Canadian or Mexican business or Chef featured in "Regional Showcase for the first edition either. NOt having any newer editions I hope this has been corrected. My other beef with the Magazine is the hodge-podge of imperial and metric weights as well as volume measurements for recipies. Perhaps this has changed for the newer editions, I hope so, for it makes my blood boil to see a "professional" magazine give the measurements for a recipie in volume.

Uhh.... I've been making the PdF for over 2 years now and casting them in silicone molds. I usually enrobe within 2 hours of casting. Have never let them air dry, and have never had any problems. Every few weeks I put aside a plate of 15 or 20 varieities, date it, and stash it away for 4 or 5 mths. for "quality control" purposes. Been doing this now since I started--2 years ago. No problems with the PdF--no mold or off flavours, but after 6 mths I do get some flavour fade and shrinking, but no problems otherwise. There are quite a few instrument supply places here in Vancouver, so I'll probably check them out. Have never--and will never buy anything off of flea-bay. I ain't a gonna out bid some guy, or get some anti-snipe software to ensure favourable odds of winning an auction. Besides many of the sellers are located in the US and are very--very reluctant (refuse) to sell outside of the "lower 49".

Just finished reading all 7 pages of this thread, wow.... I have been making only 1 variety of PdF on a weekly basis for over two years now--raspberry. I cook this to 106 C and then pour into silicone molds--aprox 8 gram cavities. I can pop them out and enrobe in chocolate within 2 hours. Problem is, I just follow the recipie I have with no knowledge as to how or why the recipie works. From following the Boiron site's recipies and even using Boiron purees and apple pectin, none of the other varieites have worked for me: Lychee, mango, pineapple, etc.. That is to say, after 24-36 hrs I can't get them out of the silicone molds, it's just a mess. From studying the Boiron chart, I see there are quite a few variables with the PdF formula , not just Brix. For instance the rhubarb recipie, rhubarb has a brix of 5, I believe, yet only requires 20 grams of pectin per batch, while other recipies with higher Brix levels require more pectin. Since I have had consistant luck with raspberry, I am assuming that the fibre content and/or viscosity has a huge impact on the final product. Very grateful to Kerry for highlighting the acid, about adding acid at the begining for a more pourable consistancy, or adding it at the end for a firm consistancy. Two things are certain for now, I will never completly master the formula untill I know how and why it works, and I better get myself a refractometer. LV only sells the one that goes toa around 60 brix...

Amen to that. Multi tasking is a way of life in the kitchen, as is economy of movement. IMHO the difference between a newbie and a good cook is the state of the station.