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February 2017

Catering

Essential Items to Have When Hosting a Big Event

If you are planning a major event such as a family reunion or dinner party, you want to be sure that everything goes as planned. If you do not have the right amount of supplies available or enough food for all your guests, your party of the year could turn into a major disaster. Don’t allow all your planning to go to waste just because you forgot to order enough paper cups or disposable cutlery. Here are a few tips that can help you host the most memorable event of the season.

Always Expect More Guests to Arrive

Even if you sent out RSVPs and had a strict guest list and even if you only allow people inside with an invitation, you could still end up with more guests at your party than you realised. If you are not the type of host who wants to turn anyone away, you could run into a problem once the food and drinks are served. Be sure to add a few more supplies to your list for additional guests. If you don’t use them, you may be able to send them back or keep them around for your next big get-together.

Look for Wholesale Options When Ordering Supplies

Don’t spend your entire planning budget on catering supplies when you don’t have to. There are many ways to get the disposable forks, spoons, knives, and napkins that you need without paying the full retail price. Look online for wholesale supplies or visit wholesale locations where businesses such as restaurants and hotels purchase their supplies in bulk. You should be able to drastically reduce your costs by doing so.

Ask Friends to Help

If you would love to host the biggest dinner party of the year but don’t want to pay for attendants to serve the food, you can always ask your friends for help. Many people enjoy taking on this type of responsibility, especially if it is for a special event such as a wedding. Ask anyone on your friends list if they would like to volunteer, or you could present them with a thank you gift in the form of cash or a gift voucher.

Compare Prices to Get the Best Deal

If you are hiring a DJ or catering service, be sure to compare the prices of these services before you hire them. You could end up paying out much more than you anticipated and going over budget if you don’t. Always request to try out samples of the food you wish to have prepared to ensure that the food quality meets your standards and be sure to remember any diet restrictions or allergies that your party guests may have in order to prevent any issues once the food is served.

Have a Good Time

The one thing that any good party host should always remember is to take the time to enjoy himself or herself. After all, you are the one who did all the work and preparation for this big event; therefore, it is only fair that you get to enjoy the great food and good times with your closest friends and family members.

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Restaurants

The History of Molecular Mixology

Science and technology continues to improve the way we experience the world around us. Sure, the argument could be made that technology can sometimes remove us from nature, but the things we create can help to improve the way we use our senses to connect with the natural world.

There is, perhaps, no better example of this, than the culinary Jabs Bar trend known as molecular gastronomy.

What is Molecular Gastronomy?

Molecular gastronomy is a culinary niche, a subdiscipline of food sciences that analyzes the physical and chemical properties of food.  A term coined by the Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti and a French INRA chemist name Herve This, this trend takes a scientific approach to cooking that aims to make eating more a multi-sensory experience. Of course, eating is more than taste. We eat with our eyes and what we taste, as a matter of fact, is a combination of taste buds as well as what we can smell. And, also, food has textures.

More importantly, though, molecular gastronomy attempts to analyze and develop dishes that isolate and combine the three recognized components of food culture: artistic, technical, and social.

The fundamentals objectives of molecular gastronomy are:

  • investigate the culinary and digestive (gastronomical) proverbs
  • exploring and distilling recipes
  • introducing new tools and new ingredients
  • combining these tools and ingredients with new methodologies
  • inventing new dishes
  • encourage increased public understanding of the scientific-culinary contribution to society, as a whole

This investigates the tenets of molecular gastronomy by asking questions like:

  • How does varying the cooking methods alter ingredients?
  • How does varying the cooking methods improve or alter textures and flavors
  • How can we more effectively manipulate the senses to alter way we appreciate food?
  • How does aroma influence flavor?
  • How does the brain interpret signals from the sensory organs in order to inform what we call “flavor”?
  • How do seemingly unrelated exterior influences also affect the way we experience food?

What is Molecular Mixology?

With this fundamental understanding of molecular gastronomy it is easier to understand the new trend known as molecular mixology. Basically, molecular mixology  adopts many of the tenets and theories of molecular gastronomy and applies it to beverages; and, more intimately, alcoholic beverages.  This includes techniques like “spherification” which slightly solidifies a liquid so it resembles small spheres, like peas or caviar.

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Cooking Tips

Sous Vide what is it, and how do i get started?

Sous vide is French for under a vacuum, and this is a method cooking that requires you to sealed the item in question in a plastic pouch in order to be able to cook it, though the cooking method is usually a lot slower than normal cooking methods this usually takes around 7 hours or so but depending on the food and the recipe it can take but that means that the food stuff can cook in this method for more than forty eight hours because the food cooks for so long it is also cooked at much lower temperatures as well than used in normal cooking methods these things are achieved by placing the sealed food stuff in a container that is either circulating warm air usually one hundred and thirty one degrees Fahrenheit to one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit. The intent of this cooking method is to cook food evenly throughout without overcooking the outside and while making sure that the food stuff retains all of it’s natural moisture.

The reason why sous vide equipment is sought after at the berkel sales and service Inc. is because this cooking method is very low maintenance and with the marvel of modern technology there really isn’t much to do about the cooking once you put the meat in your sous vide machine because like i mentioned the cooking times are indeed quite lengthy. It’s not like you’re going to have to monitor and make sure that the meat isn’t going to burn or something of the like, these specialty sous vide cooking devices make sure that your food is cooking evenly and properly by making sure that the item is fully submerged in water and that the temperature is even throughout the entire cooking process however that may take.

Many people wonder if there are differences in sous vide cooking tools for the home and the ones for the restaurant and or deli business and the answer is yes. While the products themselves perform the same task it is necessary to note that the home cook will usually be satisfied with an immersion circulator which can be clipped to the side of a pot or some similar container and this will in turn be their sous vide cooking utensil, while at restaurants and delis where it is necessary to cook much larger quantities at once than anyone would at home, especially considering that the cooking method is such a lengthy one it is necessary to have much larger scale equipment such as water bath appliances these combine all the process into one item a large container with a water circulator and good temperature gauge giving you all the necessary tools for doing your sous vide cooking at a much larger scale giving you the opportunity to cook lots of stuff at the time.

So remember if you need to buy sous vide equipment you need not look any further than berkel sales and services Inc. they will have the product you need for the price you want.

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