Twyst

I'm currently a culinary arts student and am wondering what the best way for me to get my foot in the door of a fine dining restaurant is. I have significant experience in the front of the house, but have zero back of the house experience. Im more than willing to stage and work for free, but what types of places should I be looking for for my first experiences, and how should I approach trying to earn an internship? Should I be aiming high and trying to offer my services to well known restaurants or should I just try to volunteer anywhere in order to at least get a little kitchen experience before I try to stage in more wel known kitchens?

Heck, pot lids are a gimmick Im not sure Ive ever seen pot lids in a restaurant kitchen.

Salting is the hardest thing to do correctly IMHO. You keep adding adding adding and the food just keeps getting better, then you hit the tipping point and the food is ruined. Its like "playing chicken" with flavor. You want to get as much salt into a dish as possible without letting the salt taste be pronounced, but its such a fine line that it takes a very skilled cook to really salt properly.

It is rather disappointing considering the price we payed for the set to not be able to get an updated manual considering the amount of errata and the amount of precision needed in many of the recipes. I also see how it would be troubling to the publisher to make the kitchen manual available independently of the set. If they truly dont want to offer the books individually, I hope that one day we can at least mail in our first edition kitchen manual and have it replaced by the revised edition at cost. That way the kitchen manual never hits the open market alone, and early adopters arent left with a mistake laden tome.

Is reduced heavy whipping cream not an acceptable substitute?

Im definitely on board with those who suggested Pho, although sometimes Xochitl Soup makes a nice alternative.

I picked up Ruhlman's 20 today to see what all the hype was about. I avoided it earlier because as much as people raved about ratio and as much as I liked the idea behind the book I didnt think it was that great. I was expecting to be underwhelmed by 20, but I was dead wrong. The book is fantastic and teaches the foundations for learning how to cook. It teaches and explains all the basics, has clear instructions with pictures etc. Its like ruhlman took the first 2 months of culinary school and put them into an easy to follow, beautiful book. I cant recommend this one enough for new cooks or experienced home cooks. Unfortunately it is sold out almost everywhere on the internet with no copies available for a few weeks, but I found a copy at my local B&N

I have made the momofuku recipe several times and learned on the first attempt that 60 is too high for my personal tastes. I dropped the temp down to 56 and was much happier with the results. This is what they looked like at 60 and That was a little over for me.

While in college, I worked the front of the house in several famous restaurants in a city that ends with Orleans, and despite the name of the city, its actually a very old place, especially the french quarter. You could have a crew of exterminators on staff working 24/7 and you would still see cockroaches and mice/rats far more often than you should in an eatery. I understand hurricane Katrina kind of cleared out the problem, but back in my day there would be a mouse running through a busy dining room at least once a week, and if you were the last person in the place at night you were sure to make some "friends"

Paul Qui came and gave a demo at my culinary school last week. Tried to ply some info on how things shake out on top vhef from him but had no luck Hes a very nice guy and his restaurant is amazing so I will be cheering him on for the remainder of his time there.

Well, now that the end of the year is here I guess we can list our favorites for the year! For me its 1. Modernist Cuisine (obviously) 2. Heston at Home 3. EMP 4. Volt Ink

Gorgeous pictures in this one. Between this and Volt Ink (picked up both last week) I have a couple of books with a pretty ridiculous level of difficulty to keep me busy for quite some time.

Got my book today from amazon UK and have to say it's by far the best book Ive gotten since modernist cuisine arrived, and I buy a lot of cookbooks. Like the above posters, I prefer books with somewhat complicated recipes. I read cookbooks to learn new techniques and flavor combinations so I dont care for the "easy recipes for the home cook" books much at all. Highly recommend this book to people who get joy from spending hours in the kitchen to churn out a meal and view cooking as a labor of love.

I made the Daube Provencale (lamb stew page 162) last night. I added some fresh corn I had to the recipe and it turned out very well. Its something I will definitely cook again, but I will only use the zest of half an orange next time as the zest from a whole orange is a bit too much and makes it too well pronounced in the dish.

I'm going through the same thing actually. I started with a sous vide supreme, but I feel my ambitions are quickly outgrowing the unit. Im planning on moving towards a svm/fmm + icechest setup before thanksgiving.

haha yes, this thread has made me reconsider my decision to not get this book and a quick trip to amazon to order this and ruhlman's charcuterie was quickly in order.

I usually keep some duck confit tucked away for surprise visitors I really like. Quickly cook some potatoes in duck fat, brown the duck leg and you have a fantastic and quick meal.

Finally going to try my hand at the mac and cheese today. Been hearing rave reviews about it forever and know I should have done this sooner! I have a question regarding the wheat beer. Is there some ingredient in the wheat beer that affects the process or can I sub in a stout or some other kind of craft beer if I so choose? I have a few different types of craft beers in the fridge but no wheat beer, and am feeling to lazy to go to the store and am wondering if I can sub for it.

Definitely going to use this site for that, Ive been looking and looking for somewhere to get it in smaller amounts. Ive been really happy with willpowder.com up until now, but they only sell activa by the kilo.

On the topic of cold oil spherification mentioned earlier in this thread, I have heard that it allows spherification of very acidic liquids. Can this process be used to spherify things like lemon juice? Does anyone here have experience with this method? I know almost nothing about it.

From the pictures Ive seen here Id have to disagree with that, you plate as well as anyone Ive seen.

Hence the thread title "Deep frying in a pressure cooker I hear it is the bomb!" :laugh:

Going to go this route, thanks!

Pie.

You've obviously been eating well percyn. I miss crab boils so much after moving out of louisiana. That steak and bottle of heitz was also just amazing Im sure!