You'll have to fussy cut this, she said, showing me a bolt of fabric with random wine labels on a purple hawaiian background. I nodded, pretty sure, but not ABSOLUTELY sure what she meant.
I looked it up when I got home, it's a quilting term, meaning to target and cut a specific motif that's printed on fabric, rather than randomly cutting yardage as we normally do.
I was a little out of my element in the local fabric store, but I was looking for some inspiration to make new pot holders for Mary's Cupboard.
In the bakery and kitchen, we also have cool words and phrases. These are a few of my favorites (in no particular order):
- Dirty Ice, when you apply a thin coat of icing to a cake to contain all the crumbs, also called "crumb coating" or "base coating" a cake.
- Mise en Place, when you get all your ingredients for a recipe ready, and which sounds so much more professional than "prep."
- Macerate, when you soak fruit in alcohol (such as we do before we use dried fruit in fruit cake), say it really fast and you'll make someone blush.
- In the Weeds, when you are so far behind you can never catch up.
- On the Fly, when someone wants it NOW, normally used when an order is messed up and has to be re-done IMMEDIATELY.
- Skim the Scum, exactly what it sounds like, refers to the scum on a pot of stock, soup, sauce or jelly.
- Chinoise or China Cap, a conical strainer that looks like an upside-down chinese hat.
- Pate a Choux, (or choux paste - pronounced "shoe paste"), the dough used to make profiteroles (or cream puffs).
- Heavy Cream, whipping cream with 40% milk fat (compared to the usual 30-something).
- Ganache, equal parts chocolate and heavy cream, melted together.
What are your favorite phrases?
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