She won't eat meat and I had 5 mins to myself..

She won't eat meat and I had 5 mins to myself..

Do you just buy regular old farm raised salmon and just prep it by freezing it in house? Do you have a wholesale distributior that's only available at the commercial level?

It seems like If I can to an average sushi restaraunt it feels like the quality looks, and is near identical everywhere I go.

I'm curious about the logistics of it.

My dish has been going through a lot lately. I told them to take the next few nights off. Mental pain is the same as physical. Execs out there, take care of your staff and they'll take care of you.

Never posted here, but in the dead of night after a long double of cooking for hours upon hours, I'd lurk on here to feel a sense of comfort in knowing I'm not the only one.

I'm a female line cook and had no idea how much I would love this work until I got into it. Didnt know how to properly use a knife, so many times I sold the wrong things and was so scared of fucking up. over time I became quick, and I could shut my brain down and just sell that shit over and over like second nature. Blood, sweat and tears go into this work. I've gotten home and really wondered wtf I was doing with my life, to be so on edge and stressed just to get people their food. Whether getting gray hair from stress is a myth or not, I have definitely picked up a few from this line of work.

But its the reward when you can see the finish line, and all your cooks are laughing and exhausted, some moody and angry, the dishwasher is mumbling about how much shit he's gotta do to shut the tank down...but all got through that war together. There's a bond there that's unlike anything else.

I was dead set that when I left I'd never go back. Today I had an interview and said to myself what do I got to lose. I got hired making more than I have anywhere, and while I didn't expect my career to ever be this, I'm a cook and trying to be something else was not working... at least for now. wish me luck yall O7

In a week how often do you whetstone? I figure honing every day makes sense but how many times do you bring the actual stone out ?

As the title says, I’m a new hire (3 weeks as of today) at a casual dining French restaurant.

I used to work at a café that was just brunch, I could keep up with the fast pace but this new place is obviously very out of my depth. I’m trying to soak up as much as I can and not fuck anything up so obviously I have to slow down a fair bit.

The last few times where it’s just been this chef and I in our section, they’ve been tearing me apart telling me “I’m too slow” which is fine but it’s gotten to the point to where they’re commenting on every little thing that I do like taking too long to find something in the walk-in or how I crush walnuts for a garnish.

They are an incredible chef, I respect them and I’m very good at not taking anything personally, but after working with this person I get home absolutely exhausted and feel so…. small?

The other chefs that I work with don’t appear to have a problem with how I work just yet and I’m quite anxious that they’re all going to start feeling the same way.

One of our long time coworker's I've noticed who used to be very nice suddenly hasn't been acting nice ever since the new boss is in charge. Idk what her problem is.

(For context, she's been there since old narcissistic boss reigned. She looks like a granny.)

Anyways, I assume she hasn't taken the change well and is redirecting it into us cooks and grab and go. I'm 🤏 this close to spitting in her food in spite. But let's be realistic, I've told my boss (who actually takes these things very seriously) last time this occurred and it hasn't happened for two weeks. Until today as of typing this.

I stood up to her (I'm one that prefers no conflict, but due to past experiences, this didn't end well) and she was completely taken aback.

She's due to retire in the fall anyway. But I don't stand for bullying. Especially after what I had to endure from my past boss.

New boss is actually the exact opposite of old one. One month in.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Thank the gods the walk in is sound proof!

Hi there. Long time listener first time caller. I’ve never worked in the service industry but I’m a meticulous cook and I’ve consistently made dishes that I thought were better than any restaurant could make them. My question is; should I get a part time job in the service industry so I can get a better view of how it works? What position should I start in? I live in a smaller commercial town where restaurants seem to be the only business that does well so I’m not 100% worried about failing within the first five years.
Any extra info you think I should know would be appreciated.

Love being first in. Just finished up morning shift at the hotel - on my way to close up the pizza shop now.

Basically the title.

Our prep list isn't massive by any means and has been cut down somewhat since we opened. It's still quite a bit though, and even when I'm flying along with good speed, our Restaurant Manager will always be rushing us to leave early. It's getting to the point where the 'teasing' just feels like unneeded pressure and stress. None of us are trying to stay later than our scheduled times, but the list still has to get done and it feels like they are ignorant of the time it actually takes to clear the items, or how big a batch size really is. I very well could just be that slow, but we've already lost 4 other prep cooks because of the stress.

The prep list is usually along the lines of:

• About 12-18 brownies.
• 20 to 40lbs of chicken thighs cooked and shredded via pan lid.
• 50lbs of pastas to oil and salt after cooking.
• Oven baking 36 cups of rice, then portioning that into bags (don't have a portion bag holder/rack so have to open every bag by hand) with a broken ice cream scoop.
• Baking a 10lb meatloaf.
• Hand punching onion rings.
• Deli slicing roughly 40lbs of onions to pickle or fry.
• Deli slicing another 40lbs of prime rib and portioning into bags by weight.
• Cooking up to 9 whole piece prime ribs a few days of the week.
• Make and portion 2 gallons of bean salsa into 4oz cups.
• Core and dice 3 gallons of tomatoes.
• Make another 4 gallons of pico de gallo while we're at it.
• Throw together 8 separate items I consider one-two dones like sauces and quesos.
• Make another 3 separate sauces and marinades that have 7+ ingredients.
• Weigh and bag crab legs and marinate 40+ full rack ribs.
• Cut 30lbs of fish for frying.
• Slice 50lbs of vegetables to then also put into portion bags
• Slice 6lbs of broccoli down to needed sizes before throwing into portion bags.
• Weighing and molding burger patties, ranging between 80 to 200 burgers a day, not including kids burgers.
• Pound 20lbs of chicken breasts for frying.
• Hand cut tenders to weight specifics, usually 80lbs worth.

Other items of joy being that our immersion blender's shaft spins with the blade (it's a tiny hamilton beach from walmart, and they won't get us anything better 'because we can't even take care of those'), all scales in house are busted, including the single digital one, the dicer is effectively a slap-chop, and good luck hoping you can find proper lids and pans for what you need despite them apparently just ordering 15 new pans with lids of every size. There's usually 2 preps in the morning with a third that comes in halfway on the weekends. One of those preps isn't great either and will waste time being on their phone, sandbagging the clock, or just ruining our food costs with overly huge batches / wrongly prepped product (only 4 preps left, all other 3 have complained about that 1). When that 1 prep isn't there, the prep cooks will usually finish in about 6 to 8 hours total.

Maybe I'm insane for thinking getting all of the above done in close to 4 hours is asinine, but it was nice to watch this manager take 20min (they say 15min) to do 1/8th of the total portioning when I told him it will take an hour and a half minimum to portion everything. I also heard it took this same manager 3 hours to make the pico and it still had to be finished by another worker. Despite him doing some of the work and his time not adding up, he refuses to believe we can't get it done in the timeframes he demands. Currently they are considering having two managers show up 2 hours earlier then us just to get half of the prep done, and only thing I heard out of that was 'there goes my hours.' Pay isn't bad, but I'm already running a rice and bean budget while I clear overdue maintenance of my house and health.

I have already started cutting all veggies at once to save time later, only take a break to use the bathroom, and minimize as many movements as possible so that I'm not bouncing everywhere for items. I have to be missing something. If I ask the manager how am I suppose to be going faster at this point, they'll just respond with "it's a skill, can't be taught." Someone talk some sense into me please.

TL;DR: How tf do I get this done faster or get them to stfu?

So for the past 8 months I've been working as a line cook and my time is finally coming to an end. I'll be starting university this September and part of my prep for uni is going back home (Thailand I currently work in the Netherlands) and getting all my affairs in order and I'm going to need to hand in my notice.

This is the first ever proper job I've worked and I'm slightly clueless as to how I'm supposed to hand in my notice. Here in the Netherlands, if my last day were to be on the 1st of June I'll need to quit before the 1st of May but, ideally I'd also like to continue working until the 16th of June as that's the last working day before my flight and they're also pretty short-staffed until then.

I'm planning on telling my Head Chef tomorrow but, I'm not sure when to do so. Should I do it at the beginning of my shift or at the end? Should I inform in person or should I also have it down in writing just to be safe? And how would I go about asking if it's possible to continue working after my notice period is up? I know that I'm very much overthinking this but, any help would be much appreciated as I really don't want to fuck this up.

I know people freak out about hair in food and I understand that it's gross. That said, is it the fault of the kitchen or just an accident? Did the cook make the mistake, the expo, a mix, or no one?

Been rewatching Hell's Kitchen and seeing how much Ramsey flips out about it haha I know that's reality TV though.

Anyway, thoughts?

Also seen, "Fabuloso is legit".

Something like chefsteps, great british/italian chefs or seriouseats.

Premium memberships or other paywalls aren't dealbreakers.

From EU. I am potentially taking over a restaurant group in the south.

I am looking for general help with differences in running restaurants there as opposed to RoW.

Things like; what systems or software do you use or recommend for personally tracking and managing accounts, staffing, ideas, recipes, action plans etc

Any sources or books etc you can suggest too would be greatly appreciated.

Should point out I will be meeting with partners and lawyer etc, so will go over the serious stuff with them.

You can dm me to start a dialogue if you have a lot to share, happy to help you too if I can. Either way, thank you ever so much for the help. All the best 💪🏼

I work at a high school boarding school and have been given the opportunity to look into why students aren’t eating at the dining hall and opt to eat processed snacks from stop and shop. I’m looking for strategies to limit their food consumption from outside sources. Does anybody know of a good subreddit that might be helpful for this, or does anybody have any background in this area/ could pm me about it?

People working for catering companies, do you enjoy it? I recently got offered a catering position, with a company that mainly caters to office workers. So I can't imagine the food is to creative or inspired.

Honestly what's drawing me to it is, it's Monday- Friday weekends off with pay that is inline with what I'm getting now.

Tldr a couple weeks ago I got my first kitchen job and ignorantly asked for 12 an hour at starting pay and they accepted that. I am leaving and getting a new job that's starting me at 17. The GM being very weird with my schedule and then not communicating with me about it at all is what lead me to leave.

a couple weeks ago i made a post asking if i sold myself short asking for $12 when i applied to work at a restaurant and everyone told me yes. i asked my boss about it and he reminded me we get part of a tip pool. i still haven't received my first paycheck, that's supposed to direct deposit on the 25th, but i was waiting to see how much that is, but it doesn't matter now.

i don't know what the reason for it was, but this week my boss hasn't scheduled me for anything but thursday. i came in on monday like i have the previous two weeks in case it was an error and asked the GM's brother who also works there as a line and prep cook, and was scheduled to do prep alone (while i've been there, prep has needed two people bare minimum and it has always taken far longer to do all of a days prep than the schedule says) if he knows what's up and he called the GM for me and asked what's up. he said he forgot and will schedule stuff soon. i woke up this morning to no change in my schedule and no communication from him. while i was there monday morning i asked the brother if he was going to be ok doing prep alone and he shrugged and said he just has to and there's nothing we can do about it. the impression i got was that he also recognized that the schedule is nonsensical in practice but maybe that was me reading into it.

i know that the gm and his wife just barely had a baby last week so he could be very busy but maybe the people in charge just don't like me. i've been reliable and i even came in on an off day to fill a shift someone else missed but i could be not learning fast enough, making mistakes too often (i have messed up a few recipes but nothing huge, but i've been learning and not repeating those mistakes) and this is just his way of quiet firing me (like quiet quitting but in the other direction.)

anyways regardless of the reason, whether it's an accident or intentional passive aggression, i can't work somewhere that's treating me like this with hours. i have rent to pay, i can't just miss half a week or most of a week randomly. i applied at a different place today that seems to be an independently owned and run bakery and cafe rather than this other place that was a small scale but still corporate thing. at the interview the head cook asked what kind of pay i want and i said from what i've seen 16 is the bare minimum nowadays for kitchen work and he agreed. at the other place he asked me what i wanted and i ignorantly said 12 and he just went with it. when i pushed back and tried negotiating for better he just said that tips will cover the rest of what i wanted originally and i just left it at that at the time.

friday will be my first day at this new place and my first impression is already so much better. i asked for 16 and when the guy offered me a job over the phone he said they're starting me at $17 an hour so they're starting things off with open honesty and mutual respect.

i know i wrote a big dumb wall of text and i'm overly verbose but if anyone has any thoughts on what went on with the gm, it would be helpful. i don't know what to think and really feel like i intentionally got shafted but i like to not assume the worst about people and i feel like in giving him the benefit of the doubt that's what i'm impulsively doing here. i feel like i'm being naïve but i don't know what to think. the fact that the guy was willing to start me at 12 should tell me everything i need to know. i think if they want to fire me then why not fire me but having me leave of my own accord is probably beneficial to them somehow and has them coming out of it better off in some way than if they terminate someone. i know that if you quit, unless you have certain circumstances going on around it, you can't file for unemployment, but i don't see how that would affect them, isn't that just between the individual and the government? why would a business give a shit?

It’s honestly fire asf and I wanna come up with a house made recipe

This ticket came in last night … gross !!

Her's is on the right, head chef's is on the left. Which one works better?

So I've been the sous chef for the place I'm at for 6 months now. 2 months ago the executive chef was fired, I've been doing his job since. I applied for the position, and they keep pushing back my tasting. I'm starting to lose faith in them actually following through. Honestly, how long should I put up with this? I'm doing both jobs and I'm salary, so they don't seem to be in a rush about this. I'm making good money, and every place I've applied for wants me to take way less than what I'm making now. Idk what to do. I got a wife and kids, so I can't just quit, and I don't want to take that big of a pay cut, but I feel stuck. Any suggestions?

Hello! I need a description of duties for sous chef vs chef de cuisine vs executive. Things have gotten pretty out of hand here, and I'd like to start drawing boundaries. Or at least know how much of everyone else's jobs I'm doing. Think old school, haute cuisine. Thanks very much!

Yes, the plate is a home set. Meatballs were delicious tho.

Everyone so far that I’ve talked to about it says I can probably do it just fine. I have support which I’m thankful for. I have had one tell me that it is serious business and aggressive, it makes me nervous no lie. I really am wanting a super simple layout of food options as well which shouldn’t be hard.

But here’s the thing, it’s coffee. I’ve been working with coffee for over 5 years now, I know processes, I know how to make a damn good cup of coffee too. I also wanna make waffles so I thought that would be a fun combo. The issue is, I know how to make coffee and I know how to make waffles, I just don’t know a lot about running my own business. Maybe I’m overthinking it, to be fair I know how to order product, I know how to lead a team, and maintain standards when it comes to being clean. I guess I’m just nervous to make this decision because it’s a big decision.

On top of that, I think I’d be financially better off with a trailer compared to a truck.

Can anyone just tell me like it is? Ups and downs?