Tom Gengo

Basil is sensitive to heat as the flavor compounds are volatile. In your recipe I would add the basil at the last moment rather than cooking off the volatile coupounds tastys.

I have never had a problem w/ the caramel sauce. The temperature of the sugar is about 250F (I believe that is the temp to kill the spores.) I do not even boil the caramel afterwards, just pour it in a jar, put a lid on the ball jar and the cooling sauce forms a vacuum. I have some that have been in the cabinet for a couple of years w/ no bulging lids. Verified, 250 F for 3 min's will kill the spores. REason a pressure cooker is needed for veggies/fruits that are not acidic enough.

Geez Chris, brought back memories for me. Stopped at the Friendly's in EP near Haynes Park when returning from fishing. Remember the "Awful, Awful" from Newport Creamery? Daydreaming, lol.

Dear Karen & Edward, Thank you so much for your invaluable comments. I treasure the input from someone who has ''walked the walk.'' Best of luck in all of your ventures.

The following is off the cuff, but if you want more depth, email or PM. I have some older books that go into this. Home-made flavoring extracts and syrups seem to've been popular in earlier times (maybe as an extension of home preservation of seasonal produce?) I remember an emphasis on fermenting fruit before extracting it, supposed to greatly intensify or extract the flavor. It may have been for syrups or tinctures or both. ← What are the names/authors of the books, please?

In my most recent employment I was a VP w/ one of the largest mortgage companies in the US. As such, I was at ground zero when the economic earthquake began and have really taken it on the chin. In some depraved way I see it as a positive since I am looking at what I really want to do w/ my life when I grow up, lol. I am 47. For background, I have a BS in Biology w/ Honors from Union College in Schenctady, NY and was a Graduate Fellow at the Medical College of VA doing cancer research about 25 years ago. Subsequently I moved into the business world and have been pretty happy. My family, friends, and basically anyone that knows me thinks that I should go into a culinary career and I am agreeable with that move. I made a decision that I would somehow find the money to go to the Italian Culinary Academy, sister school of of the French Culinary Inst. I spent a semester in college studying in Firenze and WAS fluent in Italian. My approach was to follow the Napoleon Hill (Think & Grow Rich) approach and everything will work out. Then I was thrown a curveball. I have been approached by dear friend that is well connected here in Charleston, SC about coming up w/ a business plan to venture into the cooking field. He is very supportive and encouraging of my desires and said, "with the right business plan I can find you all the investors needed." His son has shown an interest in cooking (college aged) and there was some discussion about coaching/mentoring. I would not mind that. His point and I have thought the same, is that if I can get an operation up and running, then I can later do the school thing. Money is a huge issue right now (dealing w/ serious financial issues, unemployed, etc.) I think catering/cooking classes/personnal chef is the direction to go. I have catered several parties and 2 wedding receptions (buffet) so I know what I am approaching. Also, I have about 6 mos experience in prep at a caterer and prior HS job working dish/prep/cooking. Looked at getting a job for experience, but experienced cooks in the 10-11 per hour range is not possible financially. So, with that said (there is more, but need feedback on the important points: 1. Assuming money is not an issue (hahaha), how did you get started in your culinary career? Business? 2. There are many talented caterers here in Chas, SC and I need a niche. Please share innovative, culinary operation in your area. 3. I have much experience w/ marketing from the mortgage industry, never advertised and managed a "referral only" business. Most of my business was in the Million and up homes. How did you build your business? 4. What are your thoughts on education? I know that it would be ideal to go culinary school first and then start 40K later. Emphasis on 40K 5. What mistakes have you made or seen others make that should be avoided at the outset? 6. If you have experiences w/ investors, please share your insights. Contracts, agreements, pitfalls, etc. Thank you so much for your professional contributions to my dream here. It is a totally new venture and "it takes a village to raise an idiot." or something like that statement from our Secretary of State. PS. The avatar is not my cat, it is a lime on the kitten's head and I do not look like anything like a cat, although he is a "Tom Cat" lol.

Snow Angel, The comment is so true regarding mint. I have mine in a pot and it "jumped out." Really, a runner touched down that I did not see and it is taking everything over. Found a 2" sprig of mint, dug down and started uprooting it. Found an underground stem that was over 3 feet long that was sprouting about 20 additional springs. I think I will have to resort to roundup to control things or else turn all my neighbors into mojito addicts, lol.

Reminds of a Holiday several years ago. I had just started dating a woman and told her that I would bring her personal favorite, bread pudding, to her home for a potluck. I went all out, homemade brioche dough, etc. Well, to serve everyone I doubled the recipe and then divided the dough in 1/2 to cook. I have no idea how the yeast did it, but everyone of them migrated to one loaf leaving the other abandoned of the "bread magic." I was left w/ brioche dough stuck all over the oven from one bread and a bacon press from the other. Oh, well. Without time to make the brioche again and be there on time, I made 2 apple galletes. In my ambition to make a great impression I somehow forgot to chill the dough prior to rolling. ERgo, the dough spread like an eagle's wings. Since I used a cookie sheet, there was apple/sugar/brioche dough ALL over my oven. I showed up in humility empty handed. Happens sometimes.

Cotto is cooked, crudo is raw. For example, terra cotta is cooked earth (the -a is femaie as in "mother earth.") I guess that makes the pig masculine, lol. No further comment necessary

I am right now looking at a can of La Valle DOP San Marzano pomodori pelati. Calcium chloride is not listed as an ingredient. Looking on the internet, I also do not find calcium chloride listed as an ingredient in cans of whole peeled tomatoes by Bel Aria, San Marzano tomatoes by Ciao, and others. ← Most standardly available grocery store "processed" tomatoes have CaCl2 added to maintain the form of the tomato. I was not attacking you w/ the comment. Perhaps rephrased, avoid tomatoes that have calcium chloride added because the tomatoes will not break down while cooking. As such, it eliminates the unnecessary step of milling the tomatoes, they cook down as they slowly simmer.

I agree for the most part. I was kind of looking for ideas from all over. I will admit, though, that even being Italian (well, Sicilian), I never really thought about butter in a tomato sauce That is expected. Butter is more from Northern Italian dishes while in the South of Italy Olive oil is the preferred fat.

All of them

What is disturbing here is that the researchers were able to a. get people to voluntarily eat the dog food after, I am hopeful, the victims signed a release stating they would be eating dog food. In this case you have to question if the "contestants" are truly representative of "normal" homo sapiens. or b. the "subjects" were not told for "data integrity" and they one has to question the "integrity" of the researchers. What is not accounted for is the baseline diet of the volunteers. For instance, if they were college students then maybe they were not able to tell the difference as a result of eating cafeteria "food" vs. a more refined palate- and less likely to agree to eat Fido's Alpo. What is most perplexing is who funded such a useless waste of time and resources. Maybe Tom Green has a Stupid Foundation.

Has anyone heard of dipping the chicken into boiling water for a min. or some short time? Don't know where I saw it. I think it was for cooking ducks so you can have crisp skin, but seems to make sense as it will eliminate much of the fat in the skin yet not affect the meat due to the short time in the water. Any thoughts?

What is Keller's method, please?

I make the same sauce: 2 med. onions, 1 28 oz. of crushed tomatoes- all other canned tomatoes have calcium choride which prevents the tomatoes from breaking down- and 2 oz. of butter for 2 lbs of pasta. Cook over low heat thicken, c. 1 hr. To enrich it for special meals I sometimes add 1/2 pint of heavy cream. Got the recipes from Marcella Hazan's son's pasta cookbook. My twist is to add 1 cup of the pasta water and then add the pasta- cook the pasta 2 min's short of the package directions- and cook until the sauce thickens and clings to the pasta. The sauce will actually cook into the pasta surface so it clings to it.

Butchering it and then freezing the joints for about a month wouldn't be a bad idea! And that would give you plenty time to source a temperature controller for your curing chamber. Enough wet salt and a small fan from a scrap computer (for occasional air circulation and uniformity) ought to take care of basic humidity control. ← Thanks...I read that freezing for awhile is a good cautionary action against trichinosis. I'll run down the computer fan and do my homework in the interim. ← The FDA guidlines for the different times/freezer tems is in Charcuterie.

Another, that began in a kitchen was retribution to a pledge to my fraternity in college. During an exceptionally cold spell in upstate NY Tony stole all my underwear, tshirts and socks and hid them. After 5 days of humor at my expense he sent me on a scavenger hunt that led me to a pillow case stuffed w/ my undergarments that had been repeatedly soaked in water... they were in the kitchen freezer. I got even one very hot Friday afternoon. I was walking through the kitchen and the chef asks if I want a fish. He unwraps a 5 lb. mackeral, ergo oily and smelly. The chef cut the fishes throat per my fabrication instructions and wraps it back up. I sneaked into Tony's room and he was very anal, bed was always made. I pulled back the covers, carefully unwrapped the fish and pulled the covers back into position. I laughed for an hour thinking of him climbing into bed after an evening of beer pong with a dead fish, sort of like the Godfather scene w/ the horse. This went awry b/c Tony left for the weekend and it was in the 80's w/ no A/C. The entire floor was gagging fromthe smell, roommate moved out and there were several calls to facilities about some unidentifiable, distinctly foul smell. When Tony returned on Monday night he found a 1/2 putrified fish that had seeped into the pillow and mattress... heard that facilites employees were threatening to kill whomever it was that pulled the stunt as they gagged their way down the hall with the mattress. Smell never left the building the rest of that year.

Many moons ago on my last night working at an Italian restaurant as a dishwasher- I was assigned to train the newbie, a very good friend of mine. It was his first job. Firstly, I was 17 and had been the subject of many, many jokes. It was pay it forward time. It was a Friday night and we were slammed, ergo lots of burned cheese on the plates. I made my apprentice wash every dish by hand while I "ran the dishwasher." Dishes were coming back faster than he was washing and drying them and I was bellowing at him that if he was going to make it he would have to work faster. The poor SOB was a blur and the dishwater looked like a cyclone. THEN, I decided to spice it up, demanded faster work and started throwing him plates to wash b/c we needed more plates. WEll ever try to catch plates with soapy water shriveled hands.... he was dropping more than he was catching. Another threat of job loss, more plates, etc. Finallly he asks me why we can't use the dishwasher for the plates, well DA, it is for the silverware only. However, the Chef heard the breaking plates, saw the plates coming out dripping wet and he had no more plate thereby throwing him in the weeds. He came back mad as a hornet. I calmly explained that the newbie had thought that he was supposed to do them by hand since his family was not able to afford anything like a dishwasher- a lie. Chef cussed, friend was really, really pissed w/ me when the chef told him to wash the dishes in the dishwasher, whole kitchen was in stitches. I think I permanently damaged the kid psychologically- he never sought another job, he is still working at the same restaurant. I guess he is afraid of the newbie training elsewhere, lmao 30 years later.

LMAO, that gives a whole new picture in my mind to the term, "Freezing one's A$$ off."

If you have a Whole Foods I have seen it in the local store here in SC

I have discovered the perfect chamber for fermenting and curing- my oven. It is sterile- just heat it to 300 the night before production, it will stay at 80F for fermentation by simply propping the door open w/ a thermometer and just shut the door and it stays at 65F. I have a convection, so once a day I turn it on for about 20 sec's and then open and shut the door a couple of times. It circulates the air over the sausage! Must admit that this is the first time doing it this way, but all is going very well 3 weeks into the Spanish Chorizo and 1 week into the Soppressata. To maintain humidity I use the utilitarian water in a pan w/ a pile of salt above the level of water.

Took a look at the Amazon sight and was a bit perplexed, see http://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-...37007747&sr=8-2. The description stated, "pie dough is 3-2-1 or three parts flour to two parts fart to one part water." My concern is it by weight or volume and more importantly how to measure a fart. That is on the Amazon sight, no kidding.

I just put up 60 grapefruits. I neighbor asked me to help him lay pinestraw for a woman that recently become a widow. Her husband loved grapefruits and she could not eat them, I guess Lipitor. The tree in her yard must have at least 400 grapefruit so she let me take a portion. I candied the peel. I found gfron's technique for peeling the zest after the fact, much to my chagrin. The candied peel is sitting in sugar to infuse it w/ the flavor for tea when guests want a twist. I juiced 6 quarts from about 20 of them and then the remainder became grapefruit marmalade. I mix 1/2 cup of the marmalade w/ 1/2 cup of mango chutney and add 1 Tbsp of curry powder and 2 tsp of sesame oil, heat it, immersion blend briefly so chunks remain and use that as a glaze on chicken or pork.

Hey Rebecca, Looks like I am not the only insomniac around here. My repiratory system is excommunicating the rest of my body so I can not sleep at night. Regarding the ginger ale, just make your own It is not terribly difficult, but do follow the directions or you could create a "ginger ale bomb" and cleaning up would be tedious. Check out this link: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Chees...ger_Ale_Ag0.htm