Celebrity Chefs

3 Tricks to Use When Cleaning Your Grill

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With summer winding down, it’s time to clean all your summertime toys and get everything ready for the cooler months where you won’t use them as much or at all. This includes your charcoal, propane or natural gas grill. Hopefully you got a lot of use from it this summer. And if you have, it likely needs a good cleaning before you start using it more sporadically. To help make this a simple and easy job, here are three helpful tricks to use when cleaning your outdoor grill.

Using the Heat

After months of repeated use, your grill probably looks a long way from the sparkling chrome you brought home from the store. And while you may have scrubbed it briefly after it had cooled from each use, there is probably still quite a build up left over at the end of the summer. One way to make this cleaning easier, according to Lauren DeCarlo, a contributor to RealSimple.com, is to use the heat to your advantage. By turning on the grill on high for a few minutes and letting the heat seep into the dirt and stains, it will make the job of cleaning them away a lot easier. The heat will help to burn off residue left over and help to loosen up previously hard to remove spots. Just make sure it’s cool enough for you to touch before you dive in with your rags and scrub brush.

Tin Foil

With all the rubbing and scrubbing you’re doing to get your grill clean, there’s going to be a lot of flying debris going all over your cooking space. While it’s easy enough to use your hose to spray off your deck or patio, you can’t very well do that to your grill. To protect your heating elements and other fragile grill parts from falling and flying debris, Hadyn Lazarow, a contributor to DIYNetwork.com, recommends placing a large sheet of tin foil over the heating elements to help catch any ash, debris or grease from falling where you don’t want it to be. This also makes it easy to keep your cleaning from getting too messy in the process.

Buckets, Buckets and Buckets

Grill components can get very dirty with repeated use. While you can take the removable parts into the kitchen to clean, you run the risk of getting other areas of your home dirty in the process. So to help keep your grease contained, Jeremy Anderberg, a contributor to the Art of Manliness, suggests using three buckets to get this cleaning done quick and easy. One bucket will be for soapy water, one bucket will be of clean water to rinse off the soap, and one bucket will be to catch any debris you need to get rid of. Then once the cleaning is done, just rinse out all your buckets and set them aside for your next deep grill cleaning.

The food you can make using your outdoor grill is the epitome of delicious home cooking. Use the tips mentioned above to make sure your grill stays clean and in good working condition for years to come.

Things to Have in Your Building if You Run a Restaurant

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restaurant kitchen

The restaurant world is a world that is uncomparable to any other. It’s high energy, high stress, high reward when things are going well, and highly disappointing the moment things start backing up in the kitchen and tempers as well as sharp objects are flying. On a good day, things are amazing and it’s the reason that so many people stay in the restaurant business all of their lives.

No matter what is going on in life, people have to eat. It’s often the way they escape the pressures and or monotony of everyday life. People will always go to restaurants, so it’s up to you to be that restaurant that everybody wants to visit no matter the change in their pocketbook, no matter the weather, and no matter how good or bad their day was prior to showing up. [Read more…]

3 Interesting Ways to Add Artistic Flare to Your Restaurant

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With the amount of options consumers have for eating choices, many restaurants struggle with what they can do to set themselves apart from the competition and encourage more patrons to visit their establishment. To make your eatery more appealing, one thing you may consider improving is the atmosphere of your space by pumping up the artistic flare you bring into your restaurant. So for restaurant owners looks to add something special to their space, here are three interesting ways you can add artistic flare to your restaurant.

awesome-restaurant-design

Decor Choices

When setting the mood for your restaurant, so much depends upon the concept and theme you’ve chosen for your eatery. However, once you have this in place, deciding on meaningful and intentional decor pieces can help bring your artistic flare to the next level.

According to Ion Nicolae, a contributor to DesignLike.com, finding distinctive pieces for walls, artwork and furnishings that bring together the theme of your restaurant is a great way to add your own artistic flare to the space. To do this, consider getting all your pieces from unique and original distributors, like Park West Gallery, in order to ensure that your restaurant decor choices are unlike those that can be found anywhere else.

Tints, Tones and Shades

One of the most impactful and easiest ways to add interest to your restaurant space is with color. DesignBuildIdeas.eu reminds restauranteurs that the colors you choose to include in your space can have a massive impact on the way patrons view, feel and interact with your establishment. In fact, certain colors have even been known to encourage hunger, making those likely choices for many food services. For this reason, be sure you consider the type of mood, type of food, and type of customers you plan to work with in your restaurant when deciding on colors for each and every element.

Functional Design Elements

Even functional aspects of your restaurant can bring in elements that boost the artistic flare of your space. From furniture and layout to music and lighting, anything you intentionally choose for an artistic purpose can help to make your space more unique to you.

For a great way to add art to your restaurant, Rebecca Creger, a contributor to 99Designs.com, recommends for restaurant owners to create menus that double as pieces of art. To accomplish this, Creger suggests paying attention to elements like typography, illustrations, photos, layout and more to create a truly stunning work of art out of your menu—something each patron will take the time to see and appreciate.

By implementing pieces into your restaurant that enhance the artistic characteristics of your space, you can create a truly unique establishment that can help set your restaurant apart from any of your competitors. Use the tips mentioned above to bring in interesting artistic elements to your restaurant today.

Safe Commercial Kitchen Installation

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Whether you’re entirely new to the restaurant business or you’re a seasoned veteran opening your tenth restaurant, there are certain safety precautions and features to keep in mind as you set up a commercial kitchen. Following are a few ideas of what to keep in mind as you go about outfitting the hub of your new restaurant: the kitchen.

Cabinets

It’s crucial that any cabinets or shelves be firmly attached to the walls. A collapsing shelf can result in a whole lot of broken dishes—not to mention potential injury to anyone unlucky enough to have been standing beneath the offending structure. Double check the cabinets’ installation instructions and make sure you or your contractor follow them to the letter.

Gas connection

If your kitchen installation will include a gas stove—and most commercial kitchens do—it’s crucial to make sure the gas lines are hooked up properly. Gas is obviously a highly combustible substance that must be dealt with carefully, so make sure the installation—and any future service calls—are done by a qualified installer, service agency or by the gas company itself. This way, you can be sure that every part of the gas connection—from the unseen underground gas fittings to the stove itself—is hooked up properly and remains in good working order.

Automatic pilot lights

On a similar note, purchasing a gas stove with an automatic pilot light can go a long way toward fire safety in your restaurant’s kitchen. In such an appliance, the pilot light is ignited electronically, and an automatic shutoff valve prevents the main burner from working when the pilot light isn’t lit or is otherwise malfunctioning. Most newer stoves offer this feature, so keep an eye out for it when shopping for both used and new models.

Walk-in freezers

Most commercial kitchens contain a walk-in freezer or combination refrigerator/freezer to store the large amounts of produce, dairy and other refrigerated foods necessary in a restaurant environment. When shopping for such an appliance, it’s imperative to look for one that has an inside door release to prevent employees from becoming trapped inside. If you’re buying a used model, test this feature multiple times before buying the unit to make sure it works properly.

Other bits and bobs

Besides the aforementioned items, there are other, smaller safety considerations that can make a significant impact on employee safety over time. Make sure all knives are kept sharpened; it might seem counterintuitive, but dull knives carry a far higher risk for cuts than sharp ones. Install an eyewash station and make sure employees know it’s there; this can be tremendously helpful in the event that an employee gets, say, ghost pepper juice in his eyes. And make sure the whole space is properly ventilated and meets all state and federal guidelines for safety and cleanliness.

Setting up commercial kitchen equipment requires planning and forethought, so be sure to make decisions carefully and always with an eye toward employee safety. Doing so will ensure better overall success. Good luck to you in the opening of your new restaurant!

 

Tips for Creating a Functional Kitchen

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Having a great kitchen is the dream of many couples and single people who love to cook. For them, the kitchen is the star of the house and they make it as functional as possible.

Indeed, this particular area in the house where you prepare and cook food can serve many purposes. It can also be a place to dine and enjoy conversation with family members and can even serve as a study area for the kids.

While not all families can have their dream kitchen, it’s still possible to create one that best suits your lifestyle by doing some renovation work. For those building a new home, however, it’s always best to plan well the layout of the room to ensure you have enough space where you can prepare, cook and serve up meals to your loved ones.

Basically, the most important sections of a kitchen are the cooking area, storage area and the cleanup area. Many of today’s modern kitchens follow a work triangle layout to make it easier for the cook or head of the family to go back and forth between these areas. The triangle needs to have just enough space and not too big or too small. [Read more…]