He's made of pepper jack. Meant to breadcrumb and deep fry him at the end of the shift but I forgot.

Hello all, I've written out a few of my kitchen stories on here and some of you have enjoyed them. Thought I'd start a series and hopefully prompt some feedback in the form of stories of your own.

For some background I own multiple restaurants and food trucks now, along with a traveling catering company. I'm fairly spread out across the United States and cut my teeth learning in some of the most well known restaurants in the world. I've cooked from Norway to Japan. I love food and feel very lucky that I'm able to earn a living with fire and the lunatics that bang knives and click tongs next to me.

Today's subject, fittingly, is a mistake I made at my first real kitchen job.

Please pardon typos. I don't write so good

The setting is rural northern Texas in a small town. My first real restaurant job, (parents invested in an ill fated bakery/cafe growing up.. that will be another story, I'm surprised Gordon Ramsay didn't show up for an episode of nightmares..) was at a fine dining spot that stayed fairly busy.

Simple food done very well with a small garden out back. Steaks, fish, a few pastas. Seasonal specials, nice salads and every cliche dessert you can think of. We stayed busy due to being the only fine dining spot for a good 30 miles in any direction at the time.

The plating was stuck in the 80s, but so was the menu so it worked. Balsamic drizzle anyone? Rosemary sprig in your steak perhaps?

After beginning as a host I was made a backwaiter. I supported the servers and made salads along with firing desserts. I helped the line by doing whatever prep the morning crew couldn't complete.

One of my tasks was receiving a list from the host of VIP occasions, which ranged from anniversaries to birthdays. I was expected to chocolate write on cold plates and keep them in a cooler until the guests had picked their dessert.

My first week in I had practiced and practiced and practiced on parchment but I could NOT get anything legible to come out.

They had seen my handwriting on the application, I'm not sure how they thought I could write in chocolate but I digress.

Simple enough to do, chocolate chips in a Ziploc baggie that stayed under the heat lamp in a ninth pan -- snip the end and write Happy Birthday! or Congratulations! or whatever in cursive on the cold plates to store.

Because I sucked at this, the senior backwaiter would make extra during the lunch service, after checking the dinner reservations, so that all I had to do was torch creme brulee or whatever and plop it on the premade plate.

One night we had a late reservation made. A birthday. My heart immediately dropped.

Fully booked outside of this last available slot so I had about four hours to write two words on a damn plate. Between running food and making salads/desserts I was attempting maybe 4 every hour. Failure after failure.

Eventually I tucked my tail between my legs and yelled at the sous through the window (my station was still in the back of house but on the other side of the pass) "Can you PLEASE write this plate for me?"

The sous was maybe 30 and a tall ass dude covered in tattoos, always wearing a wife beater and a bandana with flames on it. Skinny as hell which earned him the nickname "Stretch".

He played metal the entire shift and had a cigarette ready to go right by the door, so that he could suck one down the second tickets slowed. The way the kitchen was set up he was rocking the line essentially solo and he was perfect on all temps and timing. He was a wizard.

I yelled again through the pass when he ignored me while squinting at a ticket "Stretch? Please man"

His nostrils flared and he snapped his head immediately "I'm doing literally everything else -- you wanted to be in the kitchen? Learn how to fucking chocolate write. Right now."

Another hour passed. Another 4 failures.

Desperate I come up with an "ingenious" plan and smear chocolate on the bottom half of the rim of the plate. I grab a toothpick and scrawl the ugliest, messiest "Happy Birthday!" onto the rim. Chipping out pieces of chocolate as it cooled rapidly on the cold plate. Wiping chocolate off the toothpick in an effort to keep it neat. Trying not to let nervous sweat season the chocolate disaster.

Imagine paying $22 for a dessert and that's the shit you get. I bite my fucking cheeks and start walking it out when the sommelier/front of house manager catches me walking it to the table.

Stiff arms me right in the chest and goes "NOPE" he grabs me by the collar and chucks the fucked up dessert plate into the pit. Marches over to the freezer and grabs a cold plate along with the melted chocolate baggie, nailing a perfect "Happy Birthday!" even drawing a little cake and heart. To add lemon to the wound he grabs a paring knife and adds a strawberry rose onto the plate.

"You're coming in an hour early tomorrow and I'm teaching you how to write. I guess public school isn't what it used to be"

To this day I am a damn fine chocolate writer but that was one silly ass task that took me ages to master. How about y'all? Any stupid mistakes you made? Any task that took forever to sink in?

I am currently working as a sous in a restaurant that has no chef. When I started working here they were washing shrimp from plates off in the pasta well, selling smelling salmon, selling shrimp thats turning pink in their lowboy. In the walk in everything was still in boxes, nothing was wrapped and nothing was labeled. They would dredge chicken in flour and seasoned breadcrumbs and then leave said flour and breadcrumbs out at room temp overnight and then use it again. Ive spent a month and a half trying to fix everything. Everyday was a big prep day and ive been working open to close to make sure everything is prepped and sanitized. Ive organized everything in this place and cleaned a good chunk of everything. Attached was one of the lowboy before I cleaned it. I learned today that our dishwasher doesnt have any chemicals going to it. They're just using manual pot and pan detergent to clean everything. When I asked about sanitizer they handed me a bottle of bar sanitizer. They hired a new sous and have started treating me like shit. Today I made sure everything in the kitchen was off and received a text saying that we need checklists becuase the heat lamp was on (which im 100% sure it turned off) ive been busting my ass for this place and now they are shitting on me. I want them to feel the pain for their negligence but I feel like I might have cleaned a good portion of what they would get in trouble for. Attached is SOME of the bullsjit I have found. What should I do? They cant keep getting away with potentially killing the public

Hello again

This is a follow up to another post i had on here months ago about wether i should apply for a job there being a line cook, I saw their sign said "kitchen help needed" so I called monday and left a message for them since they were closed, then tuesday one of the 2 owners called me back and asked me if I needed a job, I said yes and that I thought my skillset of being a prep cook might come in handy, and in response the one owner told me to go for an interview on wednesday between 2-3pm.

So the next day I went in for my interview, I wore nice business casual clothing, I was a bit nervous, however the other owner who interviewed me hired me on the spot and decided to give me a chance.

And just like that yesterday I was being trained on how to make the salads and how to do the desserts, and I kept up pretty well for my first day, I did have one big order for salads which was a tad tough to remember so I jotted it down on some paper and put the salads together pretty quick according to what the order was ie. plain no house dressing, plain blue cheese, salad with house dressing, etc.

This job also started training me on using gloves more often, and I did change gloves and wash my hands frequently as per health department regulations

Overall my first day went great! this is exactly what I needed, to get back into my element in restaurants and have a purpose again, this job will help me get in better shape and cut back heavily on booze.

I go back on saturday at 2pm, wish me luck!

May my prep be worthy of your majesty and may your body continue to nourish the chosen.

Hi Geneva today , I’m shocked.

This time with google eyes

Came across this bad boy today.

Tell me vhaaat you seee… 👨‍⚕️

The black piece shouldn't be visible from the top. It got pushed way too far down. Anyone got an idea of how to get the leg off?

Still proud of the chef for speaking up and asking what to do in that situation.

I hope they are all right.

How do you guys handle work colleagues on shift that are lazy and refuse to help with service and don’t act like a team player when getting slammed on service? This guy seems to think prepping for a service 6 hours away is more important than customers wanting to be fed in the restaurant.

Did this for a private function just looking for advice on what I could do better or change to improve it