Where is Everybody?

Is it just too hot for you all, or too busy? I finally have a few minutes in the morning to catch up, and there is nobody here to harass. Even Spike is lying low these days. Have the touristas got you all moving too fast?

Hello, all is well, still no job, looking forward to sitting out on the beach at the lake for a few days. Hope you all are well.

Chèrie

By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 04:05 pm: Edit

I'm just laying low cause chef tim is dog'in me.
that and it seems like nobody here went through any old fashion training and I find myself out dated. At 47.
but thats ok, i don't need a bunch a gadgets to do my job. God help these people when they don't have these probes and readers, meters, and crap.
" Hey Chef we have a case and a half of eggs in the walkin, need one?"
HA!

By Dpconsu (Dpconsu) on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 05:28 pm: Edit

To Chefspike,
Do not be worried by those pansies who never had the old school training that we did. (I did a formal five year apprenceship with the Amsterdam Hilton starting at the age of fifteen.) I am fifty now and have had to call on those old style foundations of cuisine that the newer graduates from the culinary schools have not a clue of.

So keep up the good work and carry on training your crews in those foundations, for it is those foundations that make a chef a chef and not just a great cook. Any one should be able to follow a set recipe, but it takes a foundation knowledge of food chemistry and artistry and techniques that are only learned by learning from the past which allows the chef to expand his/her knowledge with clarity of the reasons why an ingredient will work or not work with another.

Thats my two cents worth.

Mike

By Chefmanny (Chefmanny) on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Excellently put Mike!!!!
And Spike...stop feeling sorry for your
sorry a#@ self, now start bashing!!!!
By the way how's Ellwood????
Manny

By Ladycake (Ladycake) on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 08:12 pm: Edit

Spike,

What happened to that school you were starting? Are you all recovered now?

I like gadgets, but don't really use them much. They facinate me, but would hate to have to rely on them. Baume meters are great though, I still have trouble sith champagne sorbet, I always want to put in too much alcohol (sigh), oh well.

It's good to hear from you.

By Flattop (Flattop) on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 11:53 pm: Edit

Job hunting myself last one fell through, I'm also putting together a cook book for a fund raiser for a friend. I'm also taking two classes the summer.

By Snuffaluff (Snuffaluff) on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 03:06 pm: Edit

well, my job fell through as well, but I plan on attending a community college culinary program in the Fall. Screw the name brand schools that make you pay40k. It's obsurd!!

I look at these forums at least once a day, and this is the most activity on them in awhile. wwwweeeeeeee

By Tortesrus (Tortesrus) on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 11:08 am: Edit

Spike- I agree with you on the use of tried and true methods-without the gadgets. It's cheaper, it's consistant. I'm 50-so I've been around the culinary scene awhile too...One of the first chefs that taught me back at school showed me how to use a metal skewer to test a rib roast by placing it in the middle of the roast for a minute- then touching the skewer under my bottom lip. I can tell the "doneness" to perfection on every roast I do- Had alot of young chefs laugh at me, but I got the last laugh when their metal thermometer's were off and they over cooked their roasts.

By Corey (Corey) on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 10:52 pm: Edit

when I worked in bars someone showed me the hand trick, making a fist three different ways is how the meat should be. i.e. full fist closed, meat is welldone. partial fist, medium, etc.

By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Mike, Tortesrus, Gentlemen, you are correct!
Ladycake, I had a place (old sizzler) and then a bank got it and now they lost it and now another bank might get it. But if they do end up with it, the owners will let me go in and gut the kitchen, fire system, hoods, motors, fans, ect. and then I'll throw that stuff in storage. I've cooled to the idea only because the infection in my eye keeps com'in back( 3 times so far) and on some days, 4 out of 7 the pain is pretty intence. I was getting no where fast with the PLAN. BUT, the ice arena is looking to put food in the upper middle part, over looking both rinks. So now I'm working on that. It will be much cheaper to start and controle for me right now. I'll prep all or most of the food at a 2nd location and van it over. I would have needed to have at least 250 g's for the school, for this, a lot less. And I can still run a lot of stuff out of both places, the prep kitch and the ice arena. They have about 3000 people go through there every week. And playing hockey for these kids is not cheap, the parents can spend near 2,000 a year on equip., lessons, stick time, pick up games, and sign up fees to play in a leaque. So its not like these people are broke. In the morning over there all you see is starbucks coffee cups.
So thats where I'm at now. I'm still coaching a hockey team (15 year olds) and doing the acting classes 3 times a week. Now if I could only get a women.............It's not that I don't like toys or gadgets in the kitchen, it's just that if no one teaches the old ways too we loose them, and none of these kids will learn them. That would be a shame. It would be a big lost from our history.
My 0.02. Hope all are well.

By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 11:58 pm: Edit

Let the bashing begin!