Easter

[Susan G]

I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a coconut cream pie (this month's Cook's Illustrated) and a lemon merringue pie. My lemon custard wept - but everything else turned out well.

[dumpling]

"Easter Pie" - Ricotta Pie, lovely and light, with a sprinkling of chocolate chips through it. Nice crust.

[ComeUndone]

These are what I made for Easter:

individual chocolate mousse cake dome

individual mango bavarois

mango marble cheesecake

strawberry marble cheesecake

macarons (green tea and raspberry)

financier

kugelhopf with black currants (awesome with pear jam)

foccacia

This is non-pastry related but I'm really glad to discover how my dessert-making skills transfer to cooking. I made hollandaise sauce for the first time (in front of a bunch of guest too!) to great success. It was really quite similar to making lemon curd.

[dumpling]

Easter Dinner

Assorted Springrolls with red leaf lettuce and fish sauce

-Shrimp cha gio

-Shepard's Purse

tomato basket garnish with flowering greens

Roast Leg of Lamb covered with mustard garlic rosemary and evoo paste, with garlic and rosemary studded in the roast. Served surrounded by roasted potatoes and garnished with lemons and fresh thyme.

Curried Biryani with red peppers, onions, peas and raisins

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Shallots and Beetroot in a coconut and ginger paste

Mashed Cauliflower with garlic

Tofu and scallion with Thai red chili sauce(for the vegetarian who doesn't want

lamb)

"Easter Pie" - Ricotta Pie

Strawberries

[Larry]

Traditional Ukrainian Orthodox Easter Lunch for us was the following, including some non traditional add ins:

Plain Paska with golden rasins (slightly sweet egg bread)

Whole Wheat Paska (we've been expermimenting and this one actually came out quite nicely)

Rye Bread

Various homemade sausages, kielbassa (heavy on the garlic)

Whole baked ham

Liverwurst

Bresaola/Capicollo

Wild smoked salmon and lox

Smoked Bacon

Devilled Eggs

Avocado, Tomato and Red Onion Salad

Baby Potato Salad with Lemon and Dill

Regular Potato Salad with homemade mayo

Mixed Greens dressed with lemon and evoo

Half Sour Pickles

Plain homemade Horseradish

Red horseradish (with chunks of beet of course)

Flourless Walnut Torte

Orange Ricotta Cheesecake

Almond Biscottis

Almond Shortbread crecsents

Babka (an even sweeter egg bread, similar to baba au rum minus the rum)

Platter of fresh fruit

Lots of chocolate eggs for my sister and just bars of 85% for me....they don't make eggs that dark

I also just realized this was supposed to only be pastry and baking, oops

[Ling]

I made chocolate cream pie (made with a liter of heavy cream) and blueberry pie. Both pies are gone, largely because of me. I am so full.

[nightscotsman]

Well, we had a really "interesting" Easter at the Bellagio. At about 1:00 am Sunday morning the entire building lost power. When I arrived for my usual shift at 4:00 am the kitchen was on backup generators, so we got started thinking that power would be restored any minute. Just as we were about to start putting the racks of creme brulee in the oven at about 7:00 am, the generator failed and we only had a few emergency lights left to work by. So we did what we could - finished fruit tarts, glazed eclairs, etc - until they told us we couldn't use any water in the sinks, which completely shut us down since the health department would not allow us to work without any water to wash with.

They sent us home at about 10:30 and a few of us offered to come back to help out if the power came back on. Well they called me at 11:30, but not because we had electricity - they had the entire kitchen staff moving everything out of all the freezers and coolers (6 big walk-ins) to the central warehouse where apparently they still had generated power.

So I'm about to go in this morning to work, but as I look out my window (I have a view of the Bellagio from my balcony) I see that the building has no lights, so I assume still no power.

What a mess!

[nightscotsman]

So I just called and still no power at the Bellagio. They said they are sending everyone home and I shouldn't come in. I made sure they had my phone number so they could call if they needed me, but they said "probably not today".

Somebody is losing a LOT of money.

[Wendy DeBord]

Wow! I've had that experience several times at the small places I've worked at, but I never imagined that happens at the huge hotels. Soooooooooo did they attempt any food service at all on Easter or did they turn back everyone, including room service?

I bet some poor insurance company is groaning and some lawyers are smiling today. When your back-up generators fail-you got issues!

[nightscotsman]

As of yesterday all Bellagio guests (I think there were a couple thousand at the time) were relocated to other MGM/Mirage hotels and given major comps and free hotel stay vouchers, so all the restaurants, food service outlets, buffet, and room service operations are shut down. I think they tried partial service at a couple service counters yesterday, but quickly closed when they couldn't use water any more. It's a terrible situation to be in, but I think they tried their best to do right by their guests.

Latest word is they'll have power back tonight. Thank God I have the next two days off - it's not going to be pretty getting back up and running. Although I suppose they might call me to come in to help anyway.

[Wendy DeBord]

So here are some of the photos I took of my Easter buffet. I made 4 of each cake or tray of mini's, plus mulitple trays worth of the flower suckers, brownies, blondies, marshmellows. I was disappointed in my final look.........the white picket fence was suppose to go behind the entire buffet (all the way behind the egg). But that responsiblity was in someone elses hands and they didn't come thru for me. But over all I was pleased given the situation available to me.

P.S. ......also I didn't edit/crop any of my photos, sorry........it took me so long just to figure how to downsize them I ran out of patience to do more.

I did this easter egg for last years buffet. The inside is painted with chocolate (the first time I tried that) but someone removed the chocolate bunny that was standing next to my fence, oh well.

Heres the inside view of this cake

The tulips are Neils recipe for sb marshmellows.

This should be a photo of the inside of the banana cake

Edited April 17, 2004 by Sinclair (log)

[kthull]

Wow, Wendy. You really go all out on your buffets. Would you say this spread is a typical one for you? Looks great and I'd bet the guests have never eaten so well! Your cakes set me drooling.

Thanks for the pics!

[nightscotsman]

Very nice stuff, Wendy . And a LOT of work, too. How long did it take you to make everything? Did you have any assistance? Which items turned out to be most popular?

By the way, you may have heard that we do have power back at the Bellagio. The day it came back on was completely insane - There were twice as many people as normal in the pastry kitchen all trying to use the same equipment. So I worked until about 9:30 pm Wednesday and had to come back in for my normal shift at 4:00 am. That's right, after four hours sleep. Luckily all of the restaurants weren't open yet, so we had a lighter work load for a couple days. The good news is we'll all get paid for the time missed during the outage.

[mjc]

Hey Wendy, that looks really GREAT. Thanks for sharing.

[Wendy DeBord]

Neil. I had to laugh....one of the morning news shows did an article on the B. being in the dark.........it hit national news! What a total nightmare, been there....but you were luck cause they didn't loose product right?

Thanks. I had 1 week and no help. Plus I chase around before I begin working at the club and buy the props I need and fax detailed grocery lists, etc...-that time adds up (I do bill them for it). The NY Cheesecake ran out the quickest on both seatings, I could have made 4 for each seating and ran short........oh, it was almost 600 people total.

It's complicated working at this club........at times extremely frustrating (chef is not able to speak), but this Easter went as smooth as I've ever experienced there....they have a new sous chef who really made a difference in the organization. Everything gets wet with humity in their coolers over night, that makes things more complicated! If you look closely, you'll see paper towel imprints on the cakes from me trying to absorb up the moisture. The first seating started at 9:00 a.m. so I couldn't leave much for the last minute.

This is typically what I do as far as sweet tables. This L shape is different, usually I have an island where they serve from all sides or 1 long table the v/L hurts traffic flow.

For this event almost 50% of the guests were young children so I really try to please them (a couple of them were really thrilled and couldn't believe they we allowed to eat the flowers-that makes everything worth while). In the past I've always run out of suckers (they eat them there and then take home a handful of goodies)..........so this time I finally didn't run out by adding other items on sticks. I used 700 sucker sticks.

Edited April 17, 2004 by Sinclair (log)

[tan319]

Wendy,

Your stuff looks great!!!

Really swell.

And if that's you standing behind the spread in the 1st pic, you look so much like I pictured you!

To do what you did, all by yourself, all I can say is Bravo!

You have a lot of love for what you do.

That has always been evident in your post's but really, really comes thru in these pix of your work.

Thanks for blasting them over the wire for us

PS: to Neil: was feeling for you with news of the blackout!

Glad you didn't lose any product or hours!

Can I have an employer like that???

BTW, is it a union shop?

[Wendy DeBord]

Thank-you Ted........I was a little nervous including a photo with me in it. I liked the fact that Neil had his picture on his school site, both Cheffette and Steve have been in photos (also at their site). SOooooo it's you and everyone elses turn to unveil what you look like-hint, hint!

P.S. I just got my hair colored and it's not really that light (I'm getting used to it myself), it was in a ponytail-I'm not bald, HA!

[tan319]

I posted a link to a pic awhile ago on an ancho chile thread when some Texans were calling me a 'SSB'(Smug Scientific Bastard?)

I had to show proof that I kind of fit the bill

This is on a google page.

http://images.google.com/images?q=ted+nice...G=Google+Search

[Joni]

Unbelievable!! Thanks so much for posting! What is the dessert with the little chicks on top of the eyeshaped molds?

[nightscotsman]

PS: to Neil: was feeling for you with news of the blackout!

Glad you didn't lose any product or hours!

Can I have an employer like that???

BTW, is it a union shop?

Actually we lost TONS of product - not to mention it was Easter and none of the stuff that the kitchen made special for the holiday could be served, so it ended up in the employee dining room. We make almost everything fresh everyday. In the restaurant team where I'm at, we had almost our whole order filled before the power went out for good: several kinds of fruit tarts, petits fours, eclairs, about 150 creme brulees of various flavors, tuiles, cheesecakes, mousse cakes, opera cake, napoleons, tiramisu, cannoli, etc - it all went in the trash. Then when the power came back we had to bust our asses that night making all new bases, sauces, and mixes to be ready to make stuff for guests the next day.

Yes, we are a union shop, which is really, really nice. 8 hour work days, time and a half for overtime, paid vacation, 401k, a pension (!), full medical and dental, free meals, free classes and training - in general, employees get treated very well. Of course we work hard for the money, but I'm not complaining.

[tan319]

That's a nice gig, Neil!

[Wendy DeBord]

Ted, I'm soooo glad to see you....actually I had you pictured much differently in my head. I like the reality version best!!! P.S. could you make those photos any smaller-jeeze I need a magnifying glass?

Joni- that item was a pain in the butt!!! I bought those darn production molds (I never use and now reconfirm why I don't) and forced myself to use them. It was a joconde sponge, coconut daqiose bottom, filled with a coconut and pineapple mousse. They look bigger then they were, the chicks were about the size of my thumb nail (o.k. I do have large hands cause I'm tall).

I actually I wanted to write a thread on those darn production molds. I find using them so time consuming that I refuse to use them.....and they weren't cheap! Maybe I will.........

Neil-just yesterday I was really hot for unions for our industry. My hubby has a construction job going where they worked all weekend.....and I went with to watch. The construction union in Chi town is amazing! It makes me sooooo jealous I can barely stand it, really! So here I'm watching a construction job site (and my hubby thinks this is hard work/they weren't even mulit-tasking or breaking a sweat) where theres a dozen people making double time on Sunday. According to Scott the cheapest person working was making $70.00 per-hour that day!

Hell, I work on holdiays and don't get one cent more!

I really don't understand why we don't have unions wide spread. They make for a pain for the employeer, but they've gotten well used to it and the benefits (not literally meant in this sentence) are HUGE for the workers! They've also greatly increased the safety in his industry.

really, why don't we have unions across the whole country?

oops........maybe this should be a seperate thread too..........I'll start one.

[tan319]

It will be interesting to see what people post about unions...

Employers hate them ( I think).