The Age of The Slider - By Staff Member "Silas Merriweather"

There is a magic to small food. Do not ask me how it works because I don't know. But there is something that happens when you take a regular sized piece of food and make it small.

You've experienced this magic. Ever found yourself inexplicably drawn to the word sliders on a menu. The half pound hamburger, ho hum. But oh how those sliders call to you. They beckon with their tiny little buns and, if you're lucky, that single slice of pickle. It's as though you are being offered nothing but the unencumbered center of the burger. Each bite is going to be perfect; no edges to get cold, no middle to navigate and get your cheeks dirty. White Castle built a small empire on the back of this phenomenon.

Growing up in New York I have fond memories of rolling into White Castle at 3 a.m. excited to order a sack of burgers. But the HGC slider exists in a whole other plane. Our sliders backpacked through Europe before enrolling at Johnson and Wales. I think they're the king of our tiny food.

We like to joke that Hugh is rather fond of the word tiny. In the super secret HGC recipe vault you can count 19 recipes that begin with the word tiny: tiny cupcakes, tiny chocolate cakes, tiny tacos, tiny meringues (those are so good), tiny tarts, tiny pot de cremes, tiny creme brulees. But right above all those tiny's in our alphabetical menu comes "The Ultimate Sliders." I think part of the delight is you can eat a "whole one" without feeling like you did. Or maybe it's because they're just so darn cute.

Whatever the reason now is the time of the ascension of the slider. Of all the tiny food we make here nothing causes such gasps of joy. Nothing causes so many guests to stake out the door to the kitchen keeping a sharp eye for their appearance. And no matter how fancy the party nothing so tiny has ever been met with such delight at two in the morning. Hugh always steals the last tray of sliders and passes them out; soaking up all the love. We all hate him a little bit for that.

The Zen of Caramel - By Staff Member "Silas Merriweather"

Caramel, just the word can make your mouth water. But making caramel can be a bit more daunting. Caramel adheres to Malcolm Gladwell's meme of a tipping point. You want to heat the sugar until it just caramelizes, but not so much that it tips and burns. That's it - in essence. In practice everyone has their system.

Here at HGC we make a caramel pot de creme that is, in a word, fantabulous. But how to make it, ah, that is the question. The first few times I tackled / was forced at gunpoint to make the caramel there was no end to the advice given.

"Don't stir it with a spoon. Swirl it by moving the pan."
"Don't swirl it, you'll get too much up on the sides of the pan."
"Whatever you do, don't scrape down the sides of the pan."
"Scrape down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush."
"Use low heat and bring it up slowly."
"Crank the heat and blast it."

The one thing I was sure of was that I wanted to use a candy thermometer. At 250 degrees it would be ready.
The one thing everyone agreed on saying to me was "What are you doing with that thermometer?"

Not only does caramel have a very fine tipping point but I was supposed to know where it was by feel, by sight, by smell, by sheer primal cooking instinct. That's how it goes sometimes in a professional kitchen, you make your bones by being so immersed in the context of your food you just know.

Needless to say my first attempt ended in a dark brown melted disaster. That was two years ago. I am still trying to clean the pan.

The next time our pastry chef extraordinaire David came over. He watched me watching the light gold bubbles rising and popping. Then, at the critical moment, he shoved me into the wall and took over. With a towel in his hand he grabbed the handle of the pan and shook it and swirled it and tilted it to get a look at what was going on at the bottom. The man had no fear. He spun it around. He smelled it. He gave it a good long squint.

He was moving with the flow of the sugar. In technical terms it moved from soft ball to hard ball to hard crack. But we were experiencing it from light brown into deep golden brown, from a light sweetness to a rich sweetness. With one last look David pulled the pot from the stove.

There, at the bottom, was a beautiful golden caramel. David had me pour in the cream. It foamed and roared then settled down. Now we had ourselves a caramel sauce. I added some milk and then we tempered in the eggs and we just like that we had moved our way to our pot de cremes.

You can't really learn to make caramel. You have to live it.

Never Open Your Mouth While Cutting An Onion - By Staff Member "Silas Merriweather"

The most dreaded task in nearly any kitchen is the cutting of the onion. Oh the tears. Great bucketfuls of them. It was such a guarantee that when I was 16 and Sarah Goldberger wouldn't speak to me I went into the kitchen to chop an onion so I could cry without shame.

It's the sulfur that gets you. When you cut the onion you release sulphur. That gets up into your eyes and mixes with water to become sulfuric acid. Your eyes produce tears to wash away the acid.

Everyone seems to have their own method for avoiding the tears. I was told to never open my mouth while cutting an onion. The movie "Like Water For Chocolate," famously had everyone putting a half a raw onion on their head to stop the tears. Others will tell you to run the onion under water. While this works it also dilutes the flavor of the onion. You could just not use onions but honestly, who wants to live in a world like that?

The simplest, easiest, and most effective solution we have found in the kitchen is the use of a lowly and humble fan. Just set up a fan by your cutting board and the wind carries the sulphur away. It never reaches your eyes. Never becomes sulfuric acid. And you never cry.

Genius, you say. Well yes it is.

How We Roll - By Staff Member "Silas Merriweather"

Hugh’s vegetarian summer rolls are a favorite amongst our clients; so much so that some days we’ve been known to roll upwards of 400 of them. Scaling to such numbers is not a big deal in our kitchen. Working with Vietnamese rice papers – that comes with difficulties.

Galettes De Riz as it says on the package, made in an industrial park in Vietnam (who knew?), are thin, round, stiff and brittle. In order to work with them you have to place them in hot water. That’s one thing we can all agree on around here.

How long should the papers sit in the water? Well, for that we all have our different strategies. The trick is to rehydrate the rice paper enough to be flexible but not so much that it tears when you’re rolling.

Some believe a good long soak is the key. Others say drop it in and pull it right out. And still others find a short soak, say about 5 seconds, is the magic point. I am a believer in this third way, the Goldilocks solution as the astrophysicists might say.

The following are directions for how to conquer the elusive rice paper.

First, fill a bowl or hotel pan with your hottest tap water. Next, cover a table with plastic wrap. This is key; not only will it keep the papers from sticking to the table, but the plastic does not absorb the water leaving it for the papers to continue softening.

Then, and this is very important, put on the song “Rawhide” by Frankie Lane which begins, “Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep them doggies rolling. Rolling, rolling, rolling, Rawhide.” This will help you find your rhythm.

Drop a rice paper into the water. Let it sit for 3 to 5 seconds. Give it a tap with your hand so you feel like you’re doing something. Pull it out. It should still be rather stiff. You might think it’s too soon. But lay the wet paper down on the plastic wrap and it will keep absorbing water.

After you’ve repeated this process 10 or 15 times your papers should be reaching a perfect consistency.

And that’s how we role here at Hugh Groman Catering. All 400 rolls sometimes.