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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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what's the plural of Mrs? Miseries, of course!
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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The only way to add herbs and spices is "to taste."
One of the goals in the restaurant business is to produce the same dish the same way on successive occasions. Given that different line cooks are tasked on different occasions to prepare the same dish, one way that a chef can be certain of getting the same product -- despite the varying personal tastes of the line cooks -- is to insist on the measurement of spices.
I didn't say that it is the best way, nor the way that is preferable in the home kitchen, but it is pretty common in the restaurant trade.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
The only way to add herbs and spices is "to taste."
One of the goals in the restaurant business is to produce the same dish the same way on successive occasions. Given that different line cooks are tasked on different occasions to prepare the same dish, one way that a chef can be certain of getting the same product -- despite the varying personal tastes of the line cooks -- is to insist on the measurement of spices.
I didn't say that it is the best way, nor the way that is preferable in the home kitchen, but it is pretty common in the restaurant trade.
Which would require a consistency in the herbs and spices that probably demands a uniform quality of middling, or?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I suspect that the use of butter in quantities akin to the size of an egg relates to the previous practice of storing butter in crocks rather than in sticks. The butter was probably removed with a spoon or a scoop, the way ice cream is currently, and so "the size of an egg" indicates how generous a scoop to take. Just a hunch.
I used to work in a restaurant where the chef, upon my asking how much of this or that went into a dish, would invariably answer "just enough but not too much."
Last edited by Alex Williams; 03/22/06 02:17 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The size of an egg is a legal measure in Jewish law, a "KaBetza." I think it's just something everyone is familiar with. Exactly what size egg? Just big enough, but not too big, I guess your chef would say.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Or perhaps, eggsactly big enough.
/hangs head in shame
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addict
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addict
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Not all the "unofficial" measuring units are so traditional, though. I've bought the same brand of hair conditioning cream at three different shops now, and on all three occasions the sellers have taken pains to explain to me that I should use an amount "the size of a two-euro coin"... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ah, I've had a couple of hairdresser use that currency type of measurement when saying how much product to use, i.e. the size of a dime or a quarter.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Which probably means that half that amount will work. I was in my favorite local restaurant Monday, chatting with the chef while she prepared a key lime pie according to a recipe I'd given her. I noticed she only used half as much key lime juice as I had specified, so I asked her. She handed me a spoon and said taste the batter. I saw immediately she was right, my recipe called for too much juice. Of course, that was the amount the producer of the juice recommended on line, so they could sell more key lime juice.
Bet it's pretty much the same with your conditioner.
TEd
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Aside: bottled lime juice is an abomination. One ought properly use fresh-squeezed lime juice or cook something else entirely.
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