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Topic: What's for dinner? (Read 9832 times) |
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chefjohn
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #50 on: May 22nd, 2008, 2:07pm » |
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Hey Mel,
I wish you were closer to me here in Connecticut, I could give you some lessions. Been cooking for almost 40 years and never took a class. Learned on my mothers coattails and I worked for a lot of good chefs. Learning temperature is one of the most impt aspects of cooking. Anyone can put food on the stove, you need to know when to take it off the stove. Also it is all preparation or as the French say Mis en Place. Have all your ingredients ready and know what you need to do before you start the dish. Learn what foods go with each other. Use the freshest ingredients available and lean some of the "tricks" of the kitchen. You don't need school for that. Perhaps you can work part time at a nice restaurant in your area...even in an internship role. Many great chefs have gone to France or other European countries and worked for room and board in their younger day. I would love to be able to do that myself but that is not possible for me now...I'm 50 not 22...and I'm sure that is not posible for you but maybe 1 or 2 days in a fine dining restaurant with a good chef could give you an oppurtunity to learn somecooking tips without the big investment of cooking school.
John
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Langa
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #51 on: May 22nd, 2008, 3:02pm » |
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I learned to cook from my mother and my older sister and by being creative sometimes.
Gordon said he always felt eating was a waste of time when he was a kid. And he only eats once a day now. He's crazy. I'd pass out by then. 
Langa
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Melissa
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #52 on: May 22nd, 2008, 3:54pm » |
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chefjohn- thank you so much for your input! I always wondered if one needed to go to school in order to open a diner (or restaurant). I wish you lived near me, I'm a sponge when it comes to learning anything to do with cooking!
Thanks for the tips!
 mel
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DON'T WORRY ABOUT NOTTIN - NOTTIN IS ALRIGHT
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Melissa
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #53 on: May 22nd, 2008, 4:13pm » |
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chefjohn- thank you so much for your input! I always wondered if one needed to go to school in order to open a diner (or restaurant). I wish you lived near me, I'm a sponge when it comes to learning anything to do with cooking!
Thanks for the tips!
mel
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DON'T WORRY ABOUT NOTTIN - NOTTIN IS ALRIGHT
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fubar
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #54 on: May 22nd, 2008, 4:26pm » |
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on May 22nd, 2008, 4:13pm, Melissa wrote:chefjohn- thank you so much for your input! I always wondered if one needed to go to school in order to open a diner (or restaurant). I wish you lived near me, I'm a sponge when it comes to learning anything to do with cooking!
Thanks for the tips!
mel |
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For anybody considering taking their cooking hobby to the next level, the most important thing has to be knowing how to operate a business with:
- tiny margins
- cash flowing in/out every day (makes criminals out of nuns and saints)
- cranky personalities (kitchen and staff)
- a fickle public (even good restaurants die by no fault of their own)
- rising costs that eat more of your tiny margin (tomatoes, up 300% this year, etc)
It's not about making great food, having a great venue, and a great presentation... it's about surviving in the most brutal of small businesses that you could choose.
Whatever you do... do not do it as a means of supporting your family. Sure, after a string of 5-10 years of good luck, you might be able to 'depend' on it, but that's rare. Restaurants are a labor of love best reserved for the independently wealthy who can afford the roller coaster.
-Shawn (who did it for over 20 years and is glad to be finished)
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"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Brew
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #55 on: May 22nd, 2008, 4:38pm » |
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Not to discourage you, but I read recently that around 80% of start-up restaurants go belly up in the first year. In order to be part of the 20% that survive, as Fu has pointed out, you need a sound business plan (which will probably include a chunk of cash to fall back on when the revenue just isn't there).
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fubar
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #56 on: May 22nd, 2008, 5:22pm » |
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Not only do you need a wad in the bank to get through the first couple of years (best to assume you won't make 1 dime 'profit' for at least 3 years), you need to know what a balance sheet and cash flow projection looks like, and you have to know when to pull the trigger on a BUSINESS decision. Restaurants, like I said, are a labor of love, but they don't love you back. People do irrational things when they mix their passion with the business. The business decisions require complete disassociation from the emotional aspect. 80% of the startups lack people who can do this, so they fail.
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"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Melissa
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #57 on: May 22nd, 2008, 5:27pm » |
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Maybe I should just cater...
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fubar
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #58 on: May 22nd, 2008, 5:48pm » |
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Now you're talking... I know people who make good money doing that, and they get to cook fantastic spreads.
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"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Jackie
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #59 on: May 22nd, 2008, 6:03pm » |
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Fubar....
You give great advice.....it's 100% correct.
Are you a business coach by trade or like me....years of doin' it..... 
Jacks 
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fubar
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #60 on: May 22nd, 2008, 6:14pm » |
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University of hard knocks, Jackie. 
The problem with good advice is only the people who don't need it will listen.
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"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Jackie
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #61 on: May 22nd, 2008, 6:28pm » |
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on May 22nd, 2008, 6:14pm, fubar wrote:University of hard knocks, Jackie.
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LMAO Fu....that's where I know you from. I graduated with honors...... 
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fubar
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #62 on: May 22nd, 2008, 6:46pm » |
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What did you use, a .22?
Seriously, though, what was that thing like to reel in?
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"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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chefjohn
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #63 on: May 23rd, 2008, 1:35am » |
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Anytime Melissa, glad I could be of some help. I was just talking about learning how to cook and not about opening a business. Fubar has some good advice about business, especially concerning food. Unless your a corporate entity with multiple locations who survive on a low profit rato and high volume it is very difficult to survive out there in the food industry. If you do want to open a business you must Own your building and not rent. The mortgage you can expense on your business books but the mortgage has to be considered a separate investment and not dependent on business income to pay it. Your most important expense to monitor is Labor. Its all Labor in this industry. Payroll can kill you. Hense the illegal immigrant situation in this country. Fubar will tell you that most successful food busineses have 2 sets of books, not exactly legal but a fact of life. Food costs are your next biggest expense. You have to know how to get the most out of the food you purchase. And of course none of this will matter without location. The mantra is location, location, location. After that you need to know what your customers want. You can have the best food in the world but if you don't have the customers then you don't have a business. A great chef once told me : " If your customers want hamburgers then give them hamburgers." Finally there are those "other" monthly bills which usually eat up the rest of the money like utilities, insurance, equipment, laundry, etc. In other words a lot of doom and gloom in this industry; however, if you still decide to get into this business after all this you have to be aware of the 80% failure rate but truely believe that you are part of that 20%. Good Luck.
John
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Melissa
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #64 on: May 23rd, 2008, 8:47am » |
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Maybe I could just combine my 2 loves and be a photographer of food. 
Seriously though, I don't think I'll get into the business end of food, but I do love to entertain and I love to cook, so I still want to learn techniques and terms.
John- can you recommend any good books or magazines for this?
Thanks!
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chefjohn
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #65 on: May 23rd, 2008, 10:54am » |
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I used to read Gourmet Magazine a lot and I liked that. Some people like Bon Appetit. They have both been around for a while but there are a lot more periodicals around today. A good reference book is Food Lovers Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst which is not a cookbook but more of a dictionary of food terms. A good comprehensive cookbook is The Joy of Cooking by Erma S Rombauer and the bible of cooking schools is Larousse Gastronomique which is old and can be very technical. Of course now-a-days the internet has a wealth of information on cooking but it wasn't available to me when I was learning how to cook. A funny thing about the internet or more specifically the personal computer is that back in the 70's people thought that the only practical reason for having a home computer was to have a place for the "housewife" to store her recipes. Oh how far we have come LOL. Anyway those three books are a good start for any cookbook library but by no means the only ones. There are a lot of garbage books out there too but you can learn at least a little something from any cookbook. Good Luck in your endeavors.
John
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Peppermint
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #66 on: May 23rd, 2008, 11:01am » |
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loving this stuff...
I found that there is a lot of handy info out there. There is a store named Whole Foods that carries a good number of food prep magazines. I will search around for this one in particular, it has technique, test feedback and is very good in terms of explaining what worked and didn't work in the testing of either recipes, or i.e. preparing meats, use of tools, etc.
I have used it over and over again, and the recipes and techniques are so good that you can modify what you do and create your own fabulous version. Also, for recipes with real feedback, try recipezaar.com
have fun,
Pepp
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chefjohn
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #67 on: May 23rd, 2008, 11:13am » |
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A good thing I like about Gourmet Magazine is that every month they focus on some place, usually a city, and write about the local cuisine and some places to visit. If you are a traveler you can usually find a back issue that will focus on an area you may be travelling to and can visit the places they wrote about.
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sandie99
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #69 on: May 23rd, 2008, 1:30pm » |
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Recipes... Timo's birthday is tomorrow and I'm making him a proper birthday cake this year. He loves chocolate, bananas and blueberries, so I'm using all of his faves. It's been a while since I made a cake with chocolate icing (frosting?), so looking at different recipes have made me little nuts! Aguess I'll be going what I usually do: improvise.
Sanna
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chefjohn
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Re: What's for dinner?
« Reply #70 on: May 23rd, 2008, 1:46pm » |
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Ingredients:
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 medium mashed banana
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 tablespoon milk
Try this one
Directions:
Melt and cool chocolate. Cream together butter and powdered sugar.
Add chocolate. Stir in banana. Add vanilla and enough milk to make frosting of spreading consistency
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