Cooking Disaster!! Calling all Cooks!!
bigbaby
12 years ago
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Jasdip
12 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
bigbaby
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Calling all 'vertically challenged' cooks...
Comments (20)We're mounting the Advantium at 35". I'm 5'4". Here are the reasons: I figured that I am not the only one using it. My mom (5'0") often comes over and cooks, the nanny cooks (5'2"), and the kids (7, 5, 1) use the microwave and sometimes the oven (supervised). Also, someday if I or my husband, or my mom, or my parents-in-law are in a wheelchair they would be able to reach. All of our bathrooms and doorways are designed to allow wheelchair access as well. I designed a location (currently a closet on main floor and closet upstairs) that could potentially be converted to an elevator if needed. We are definitely planning ahead just in case. -Debbie...See MoreCalling all serious cooks!
Comments (31)Wonderful post with so many great ideas that have worked for everyone. Planning seems to be the one thing that noone ever regrets doing too much of. 30" deep baking counter , soapstone on that counter. Wide shallow single soapstone sink. Movable island. Pullouts under cooktop not doors or closed drawers. Hanging utensil rack behind cooktop. GREAT ventilation !!! can't say enough about that !! Double ovens that do everything. Separate all fridge/all freezer so I can put full size baking sheets in with breads/bagels that proofing. They are aslo shallower so things never get lost in the back. Marble on my coffee island...wish I had more marble , I love the look , mine is salvage so I don't have to worry about the upkeep as it was already had LOTS of patina when I got it :) Can't think of anything else at the moment but will keep looking back as this is a great thread. c...See MoreCooking disasters: got one?
Comments (20)I grew up on a dairy farm and that was operated in the same manner as the Amish do today. Grandmother had an 8ft long coal stove in the kitchen and our idea of running water was whenever one of us boys entered the kitchen Grandma would hand us a 5gal pail and say, "Run out to the spring and get me some water." The next boy in the room got handed the coal bucket to fill, and the next boy had to take a couple 5gal buckets of vegetable timmings out to the hog lot and more often than not during the canning season one of the younger boys got detailed to stay at the house and assist Grandma in the kitchen. As a consequence I began learning how to cook when I was about 5 or 6 years old, and I don't regret a minute of that time. Dissassters? Wow, I could write a book about dissassters I have made in the kitchen but one will always stick out in my mind. At about 13yrs old my cousin & I got the silly idea to make some home made rootbeer. (In those days you could buy Hires Rootbeer Syrup in a tube like a huge toothpaste tube in the spice section of any grocery store for about $1). My cousin and I spent about 3 weeks rounding up empty soda bottles & washing them out, all the while saving our allowance money to get the rootbeer syrup. We finally had enough bottles washed out, got the syrup, set up the bottle capper and commenced to mixing our brew in a huge 5gal crock. First you add the water, then the syrup, then sugar and finally a cube of flieshmans yeast, mix it all up and let it set about 24 hours then you bottle it and let it age 14 days to make the fizz. When it was all done my cousin and I each took a bottle from the basment up to the kitchen to get a bottle opener. I snapped the opener on the bottle cap, started to lift it and WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM, the lid flew off and the rootbeer spurted up out of that bottle so high it hit the ceiling. Talk about a mess...LOL...My cousin tried opening his with exactly the same result. What went wrong we wondered? Then we got to recounting our mixing procedures. It seems that my cousin had not seen me put the yeast in, so without saying a word, he put another cake of yeast in. But as is true of teenagers everywhere, we weren't gonna let a little thing like atomic fizz prevent us from drinking our rootbeer. We just put a dishpan in the sink, then one of us would carefully open the bottle while the other one held a pot upside down over the bottle to catch the spray and let it go into the dishpan, which we then poured in our glasses and enjoyed out rootbeer, even though it did have a rather strong yeasty taste..LOL...See MoreCalling all cooks! Sell me on a wood top island (vs. marble)...
Comments (17)Samantha, the rules for catering differ from place to place. Where I live, rather than having confusing different rules, they pretty much don't allow home kitchens for any kind of cooking/baking that will be sold to the public. Anything more than maybe a small time bake sale or bid-a-basket has to be done in a commercial kitchen. Wood is a great surface for prep. Proper cleaning in a commercial establishment is different from a home kitchen, however. At the end of the day, in a commercial kitchen, all of the surfaces are cleaned with heavy duty cleansers, and during the day, after each task, they're supposed to be cleaned as well. The daily cleaning is top down, with the upper surfaces cleaned, the counters, the lower shelves and surfaces, then the floor. How many times have you heard horror stories about commercial kitchens where that didn't happen? I've done some catering in a shared commercial kitchen where there was a cleaning crew. Too many times, we'd come in and have to clean before we could start cooking, to meet standards. It wasn't any worse than many residential kitchens--probably why the crew thought it was okay--but we wouldn't work in that environment. So... Your gov't safety office or health dept. is trying to set standards for home catering. They can say, "wood counters must be scrubbed in XYZ manner and thoroughly dried before food prep can take place". And you're drying your counter and totally miss where the kids have put their boots on the counter and brushed off the evidence. Plastic cutting boards can be disinfected in the dishwasher. Wood cutting boards can be scrubbed down in the sink and left to dry vertically, away from said boots. They do have to be hard dry to keep the bacteria from growing. Most people can tolerate a lot of contamination. That's the whole point of the body's immune system. You don't know, when you're catering, who is going to eat your food. There could be someone with a compromised immune system, the very old and very young, who are more sensitive, etc. It's hard enough accounting for unknown allergies, and making sure to point out and label things appropriately. Standard food labelling rules don't require an ingredient to be listed if it is only a trace amount. That's why the newest rules require listing of common ingredients or contaminants (from shared equipment) that may cause allergies, even if they're only in trace amounts (e.g., "contains: milk") Being extra vigilant with food safety, however, is a must. As a professional, you have to control that which is in your power. It's also a good idea to have different color/composition cutting boards for each kind of food: meat, poultry, vegetables/fruits, and baked goods all have different requirements for storage and cleaning. Using the different boards really helps prevent cross contamination. In theory, an installed wood top could be used just for vegetables, but there's still the issue of accidental contamination. Like, what if you put the grocery bag down on the island and the chicken leaks? Or the boots. Or whatever. There really is no situation where a multi-use surface, like a home kitchen counter, should be used for commercial prep. OTOH, in a normal, healthy family, accidental contamination of the cutting surface, a missed spot on the scrub down, a cutting board run quickly under warm water and detergent and not dried, etc., is probably no problem at all, and, in fact, might provide the challenge that an immune system needs to continue to be healthy. Residential catering can be done safely, but it does take a certain level of diligence. BTW, this is a reason why "personal chefs" are popular here. Unlike make and take catering, personal chefs bring ingredients into the hosts' home and prepare the food there. My understanding is that a meal cooked in the home is considered home cooking for most purposes, unless there is an egregious violation on the part of the chef....See Morejannie
12 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
glenda_al
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoglenda_al
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoGeorgysmom
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agomamatoad
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agomary_c_gw
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agobigbaby
12 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
cynic
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoloslorraine
8 years agoLee
8 years ago
moonie_57 (8 NC)
8 years agomoonie_57 (8 NC)
8 years agoUser
8 years ago
Alisande
8 years agoJasdip
8 years agoAlisande
8 years ago
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moonie_57 (8 NC)