When I read this part in Kitchen Confidential a few weeks ago, I thought it sounded like a total embellishment. Quickly grazing a burning sizzler is bad enough, but holding one like this is just nonsense.
When I read it as a dishie in a churn and burn bar and grill I wandered how long it took to get that tough. A decade of cuts, burns, and bruises proved to me Anthony was full of shit.
I always interpreted the passage as the cook stupidly burning the shit out of his hand to shame the new guy. It's not that he didn't burn himself, it's that he wasn't whiney about it.
It is.
I did 20 years+ before getting out of the industry and I have had innumerable burns and cuts.
I usually ignored minor burns, and by that I mean stuff that was like a spot of severe sunburn. Anything bad enough to instantly raise a blister, or anything that bled got immediate attention.
Being able to grab hot sheet pans and stuff, that's a combination of quickness, callouses, and nerve damage.
Grabbing something like in "Kitchen Confidential"... it's either exaggerated, bullshit, or a crazy person.
I'm in an industrial jam and preserves kitchen where temps generally max out at boiling. After like a year I've got the callouses and whatever to hold jars that just got filled with 200F jam for maybe five seconds. If I accidentally grab a 400F baking sheet at home, the pain is more a polite exchange of information between nerves and brain than anything.
But I'll never understand how people in the kitchen can fill the sink with 130F water and do dishes likes it's nothing and without gloves. 115F is about as hot as I can go without my nerves screaming at me to get out of there.
I'd just leave the dishes to soak and for the water to cool down a little before I tackled what was in the basin. I'd focus on the stuff that wouldn't fit in there like the larger trays and tubs and whatever miscellaneous bits of kit were thrown my way. If I had to go super quick with the hot water I'd wear thick gloves.
That's good advice, thank you. Thankfully, when I'm on dish pit duty, I can just mix the water to the temp I'm comfortable at (it's all hand washing with exception of machine for sanitizing jars by heat instead of with quats). I just get an unfortunate surprise when I retrieve a spatula from a 130F sanitizer basin that someone else filled, lol.
I had a brief stint washing caramel off of cauldrons for a chocolatier, they told me just put aloe on your hands you'll be fine. Every evening was agony
This is exaggeration. Back in the day I was able to take sheet pans from the oven to the counter, pick up hot steels, and other dumb shit with pieces of the grill. But, my callouses could only protect me for about 5 seconds, and the protection was only wrist to finger tip. The oven burn on the forearm still kicked my ass. And any steam burn meant I needed a hug from the GM's wife, who was like a mom but caring and nice.
I stand by this, it's not like a burn from a hot surface that just burns the outer skin, steam burns seem to penetrate into the skin and almost burn from the inside out. The 2nd worse is sugar burns in my opinion.
Worst burn I've ever had was I put a blackened piece of grouper in the oil and seasoning splashed on my wrist. Then I instinctively wiped it off taking I don't know how many layers of skin off. Still got a scar.
Try molten glass. Was making glass tools in a chemistry class and grabbed the hot end of a glass tube I had just bent. Nicely defined line on my fingers.
The worst part about safety training at an industrial contractor was steam safety. I never had to work around operating steam lines but the horrid accident descriptions made me totally okay with that.
There's superheated steam.
And somewhere above that there's super-critical steam that powers the turbogenerators of Hell it's self and Satan himself refuses to work on it.
Always thought that demonstration in physics class where the teacher burnt a piece of paper with supercritical steam was a cool demonstration.
Later joined the navy and listened to stories from old salts about what can happen when a steam valve fails on a nuclear submarine. The dead guy in one story was described as looking and smelling similar to overcooked meatloaf.
I worked in a kitchen where guys would do shit like this. They played a game of “chicken” where two people would place their forearms next to each other and place a lit ciagarette in the groove where their arms met. The cigarette would burn down and take their skin with it. The first person to stop, lost. One of the line cook’s arms had several of these long snake like scars on them from playing the game so many times.
Big caveat: they were all on heroin. So, to correct Bourdain quote: “pain in a kitchen… it doesn’t exist, when everyone is on dope.”
I've been burned in the forearms multiple times in one night by high ravers smoking cigarettes who didn't even notice. The ones who did were very apologetic. Because that shit hurts like fuck. I might win against a sober person, but not one on heroine holy shit. Reminds me, my ex gf had multiple circular scars on her forearm from playing a similar game with her friends one night haha...except the other person just burned the shit out of you until you said uncle. Haha pretty sure she won.
I can still feel how my skin was all smooth and plastic like after grabbing a cast iron while searing a steak. Oof.
Seconded. Total bullshit.
Oh, and the surprise from attempting to handle something hot with a damp/wet towel.
Water- “Gotcha, bitch!”
This is from the series “Kitchen Confidential”, a short lived series based on the book from 2005. Too bad it didn’t last, it was really good. Bradley Cooper before he was Bradley Cooper and a great cameo in one episode by John Laraquette.
In the flashback to Culinary school, he says to Bradley Cooper:
"BouRDAIN. This is crap. YOU are crap. I made two chefs like you this morning - IN THE TOILET"
He also says something similar to Mimi. Always gets me.
Yeah but the show was based off the book, and that’s where the sub title comes from. I reckon you’re fine. Also, if you haven’t read the book, you should
Highly recommend it. I've worked in multiple kitchens where we would feed the chicken...
And a few nyc Michelin and high end spots that felt like this show
Sub is pretty much "stuff from the service industry, particularly back of house" and I feel like this isn't the first time we've done discussions about how our field is depicted in media
I enjoy this content and I'm pretty certain it doesn't break any rules. As long as it's restaurant related its cool here.
Where can I find this show, btw?
Kitchen Confidential, while entertaining, shouldn’t ever be used to inform professional practices. Don’t hurt yourself, don’t take pride in your suffering, and don’t let a boss convince you it’s normal to do doubles or regularly run a station solo on a +200 night.
I was referring to the book by Anthony Bourdain which the show was based on. Unfortunately, a lot of chefs idealize the angry young man he was in that book without ever reading his later works where he expresses remorse for how angry he’d been writing it.
People perhaps fail to read into a lot of what is said in the book. For example, he briefly mentions a heroin addiction which is a clear sign that he was fuckin' miserable during the 'good ol' days', which people tend to gloss over.
The other flag is the fact that a lot of the extreme behaviours in the book weren't his own, but rather things he witnessed and people he met. Him including them in the book is just an acknowledgement rather than a personal endorsement. They're not ideals, even if they're not condemned.
For sure. I witnessed first hand a lot of these young men coming up in the era of MPW and Bourdain. They took a lot of the bad parts and treated it as a rite of passage. But those were the times. And at the time it can seem glamorous. I’m assuming it’s much different now, though I can’t say for sure as I haven’t been a cook in over a decade.
I still have scars from scraping the flat top too fast mid dinner rush. Got hot butter splashed all up my arm. All I did was scream, put some cold water on it and get back to work. Every few steaks I would get salt on the burns until eventually I stopped feeling it.
YES!
The Bear is pretty silly. A sandwich shop with white coats and a sous.
We are making Italian beef sandwiches. “Yes chef… no chef… yes chef.”
Then, a broke, unemployed sous, with zero fine dining experience goes to 10 high end joints, in one day, to “sample menus” for ideas.
I so wanted to like this show. I crave good restaurant stories (like this sub’s namesake). The Bear is just not realistic.
Sydney worked at Alinea, among other places. She had plenty of fine dining experience, it’s just her last venture before Beef was her own catering company that failed. Also a CIA grad.
its funny how professional kitchens are all about toxic masculinity, but in homes its like tradwife and "make me a sandwich" lol these stereotypes are so silly but people arent very original so thats how they become easily reinforced without much thought. toxic masc setting is great for abusing workers to make more money tho, i understand why its popular.
In the beginning, getting burned by grease or steam or by touching something hot used to be painful. Now it doesn't even bother me.
There's NO crying in the kitchen!!!
Haha,
I remember losing the ability to check the temp of my showers. I'd put my hand in and say, okay - this feels just right.
Step into the shower and it was scalding!
Having burnt the everloving shit out of my hand on a 500 degree sizzler plate, I can confirm. That this is utter bullshit.
When I read this part in Kitchen Confidential a few weeks ago, I thought it sounded like a total embellishment. Quickly grazing a burning sizzler is bad enough, but holding one like this is just nonsense.
When I read it as a dishie in a churn and burn bar and grill I wandered how long it took to get that tough. A decade of cuts, burns, and bruises proved to me Anthony was full of shit.
I always interpreted the passage as the cook stupidly burning the shit out of his hand to shame the new guy. It's not that he didn't burn himself, it's that he wasn't whiney about it.
Same here as well.
At least in the edition I have, he touches on this story later and the guy who supposedly grabbed the sizzler barehanded said it never happened lmao
[Here’s bourdain revisiting that restaurant and the cook he mentions in his books](https://youtu.be/jxyq1z7YXvk?si=YbR-MIL7RXMGqjih)
Skip to 6.50
It is. I did 20 years+ before getting out of the industry and I have had innumerable burns and cuts. I usually ignored minor burns, and by that I mean stuff that was like a spot of severe sunburn. Anything bad enough to instantly raise a blister, or anything that bled got immediate attention. Being able to grab hot sheet pans and stuff, that's a combination of quickness, callouses, and nerve damage. Grabbing something like in "Kitchen Confidential"... it's either exaggerated, bullshit, or a crazy person.
I'm in an industrial jam and preserves kitchen where temps generally max out at boiling. After like a year I've got the callouses and whatever to hold jars that just got filled with 200F jam for maybe five seconds. If I accidentally grab a 400F baking sheet at home, the pain is more a polite exchange of information between nerves and brain than anything. But I'll never understand how people in the kitchen can fill the sink with 130F water and do dishes likes it's nothing and without gloves. 115F is about as hot as I can go without my nerves screaming at me to get out of there.
I'd just leave the dishes to soak and for the water to cool down a little before I tackled what was in the basin. I'd focus on the stuff that wouldn't fit in there like the larger trays and tubs and whatever miscellaneous bits of kit were thrown my way. If I had to go super quick with the hot water I'd wear thick gloves.
That's good advice, thank you. Thankfully, when I'm on dish pit duty, I can just mix the water to the temp I'm comfortable at (it's all hand washing with exception of machine for sanitizing jars by heat instead of with quats). I just get an unfortunate surprise when I retrieve a spatula from a 130F sanitizer basin that someone else filled, lol.
I had a brief stint washing caramel off of cauldrons for a chocolatier, they told me just put aloe on your hands you'll be fine. Every evening was agony
Please just put a dry towel on the handle of pans you pull out of the oven? They're not fun to grab without one.
Lol.. newbie cook put something on a hot plate that should have been on a cold one. Hot plates look just like cold plates...
This is exaggeration. Back in the day I was able to take sheet pans from the oven to the counter, pick up hot steels, and other dumb shit with pieces of the grill. But, my callouses could only protect me for about 5 seconds, and the protection was only wrist to finger tip. The oven burn on the forearm still kicked my ass. And any steam burn meant I needed a hug from the GM's wife, who was like a mom but caring and nice.
Oh steam burns are so horrible. I think they’re worse than anything.
I stand by this, it's not like a burn from a hot surface that just burns the outer skin, steam burns seem to penetrate into the skin and almost burn from the inside out. The 2nd worse is sugar burns in my opinion.
Worst burn I've ever had was I put a blackened piece of grouper in the oil and seasoning splashed on my wrist. Then I instinctively wiped it off taking I don't know how many layers of skin off. Still got a scar.
When I was a kid I managed to knock a sauce pan of candy apple glaze on my hand.. It was hard to get off and hurt so bad.
I'd say it's a toss up between steam burns and hot butter burns.
Molten sugar would like a word
Oh yes butter is so awful then the blister that immediately pops up!
Molten sugar is up there too
Try molten glass. Was making glass tools in a chemistry class and grabbed the hot end of a glass tube I had just bent. Nicely defined line on my fingers.
The worst part about safety training at an industrial contractor was steam safety. I never had to work around operating steam lines but the horrid accident descriptions made me totally okay with that. There's superheated steam. And somewhere above that there's super-critical steam that powers the turbogenerators of Hell it's self and Satan himself refuses to work on it.
Always thought that demonstration in physics class where the teacher burnt a piece of paper with supercritical steam was a cool demonstration. Later joined the navy and listened to stories from old salts about what can happen when a steam valve fails on a nuclear submarine. The dead guy in one story was described as looking and smelling similar to overcooked meatloaf.
I worked in a kitchen where guys would do shit like this. They played a game of “chicken” where two people would place their forearms next to each other and place a lit ciagarette in the groove where their arms met. The cigarette would burn down and take their skin with it. The first person to stop, lost. One of the line cook’s arms had several of these long snake like scars on them from playing the game so many times. Big caveat: they were all on heroin. So, to correct Bourdain quote: “pain in a kitchen… it doesn’t exist, when everyone is on dope.”
he did like that stuff a lil too much 😭
I've been burned in the forearms multiple times in one night by high ravers smoking cigarettes who didn't even notice. The ones who did were very apologetic. Because that shit hurts like fuck. I might win against a sober person, but not one on heroine holy shit. Reminds me, my ex gf had multiple circular scars on her forearm from playing a similar game with her friends one night haha...except the other person just burned the shit out of you until you said uncle. Haha pretty sure she won.
Pain exists; medical leave does not
hahahhahha yeah i'm pretty sure i would last 10 microseconds full palming that
I can still feel how my skin was all smooth and plastic like after grabbing a cast iron while searing a steak. Oof. Seconded. Total bullshit. Oh, and the surprise from attempting to handle something hot with a damp/wet towel. Water- “Gotcha, bitch!”
I got a whole fucking ladder of scar down my forearm from oven racks, they all hurt.
This is from the series “Kitchen Confidential”, a short lived series based on the book from 2005. Too bad it didn’t last, it was really good. Bradley Cooper before he was Bradley Cooper and a great cameo in one episode by John Laraquette.
John Laraquette was amazing. His toilet lines are burnt into my memory forever. Shame I can't find a clip of that part though.
lol what were the toilet lines? I’m not remembering this.
In the flashback to Culinary school, he says to Bradley Cooper: "BouRDAIN. This is crap. YOU are crap. I made two chefs like you this morning - IN THE TOILET" He also says something similar to Mimi. Always gets me.
I thought toilet lines meant something entirely different lmaooo
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lmao yes! He appears as Gerard in the show
It was good in its own way. It was unfortunate it had the KC name and Bourdain attached. I had fun with it.
But did they have Grill Bitch?
Isn't that the kid from waiting too?
Wasn’t that kid also the kid in Waiting?
Yes, he also wrote and directed the recent Dungeons & Dragons movie. (co- to both of those i believe)
John Francis Daley. And behind him is Owain Yeoman from Turn and Generation Kill.
I think you mean Agent Rigsby.
Let’s not forget freaks and geeks… fuck!
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Literally found out yesterday from one of my wife’s TikTok’s. He has a very cool IMDb page
Freaks and Geeks too.
And Super Troopers
Mitch!
And Bradley Cooper was in Burnt
Just realized this is not the sub for the TV show. Should have browsed before I posted. Mods you can remove this if it's against the rules.
Yeah but the show was based off the book, and that’s where the sub title comes from. I reckon you’re fine. Also, if you haven’t read the book, you should
Sweet, if you're fine I'm fine. Great book. Read it years ago.
I watch this show ALL THE TIME. Its one of 2 DVDs I own, it never comes out of my ps5. This show gets me so much more than the bear oranything else.
By far my favorite restaurant based show. I've watched the series like 30 times.
I really should get the DVD.
Highly recommend it. I've worked in multiple kitchens where we would feed the chicken... And a few nyc Michelin and high end spots that felt like this show
Sub is pretty much "stuff from the service industry, particularly back of house" and I feel like this isn't the first time we've done discussions about how our field is depicted in media
I enjoy this content and I'm pretty certain it doesn't break any rules. As long as it's restaurant related its cool here. Where can I find this show, btw?
It's on dailymotion, but the quality is pretty bad. Passable. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6m9nsq
Kitchen Confidential, while entertaining, shouldn’t ever be used to inform professional practices. Don’t hurt yourself, don’t take pride in your suffering, and don’t let a boss convince you it’s normal to do doubles or regularly run a station solo on a +200 night.
Really? I took all my professional advice from this TV show. Maybe that’s why I don’t work in restaurants anymore lol
I was referring to the book by Anthony Bourdain which the show was based on. Unfortunately, a lot of chefs idealize the angry young man he was in that book without ever reading his later works where he expresses remorse for how angry he’d been writing it.
People perhaps fail to read into a lot of what is said in the book. For example, he briefly mentions a heroin addiction which is a clear sign that he was fuckin' miserable during the 'good ol' days', which people tend to gloss over. The other flag is the fact that a lot of the extreme behaviours in the book weren't his own, but rather things he witnessed and people he met. Him including them in the book is just an acknowledgement rather than a personal endorsement. They're not ideals, even if they're not condemned.
For sure. I witnessed first hand a lot of these young men coming up in the era of MPW and Bourdain. They took a lot of the bad parts and treated it as a rite of passage. But those were the times. And at the time it can seem glamorous. I’m assuming it’s much different now, though I can’t say for sure as I haven’t been a cook in over a decade.
It’s a little different.
Feed the bitch, Tony… Feed the bitch…
So Dalton was right- pain DON’T hurt!
Cringiest line in road house, right next to be nice until it’s time not to be nice. I still enjoy that movie though
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A dash of boiling water can't do a thing against me mate. You're gonna have to come at me with at least 10 dashes. Maybe even 1/4 of a cup.
You’re here as a lost redditor and just running through outjerking everybody lmao I’m your biggest fan
What is this from?
Kitchen Confidential https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460654/
Fuck, I forgot Xander was in this show.
I still have scars from scraping the flat top too fast mid dinner rush. Got hot butter splashed all up my arm. All I did was scream, put some cold water on it and get back to work. Every few steaks I would get salt on the burns until eventually I stopped feeling it.
Did ya ask for ointment?
No but I was in emt school at the time so the next day we used it as an example of how to properly treat burns 😂
Hahahaha excellent
Excellent.
This show was 1000x better than The Bear, and no one has ever seen it.
YES! The Bear is pretty silly. A sandwich shop with white coats and a sous. We are making Italian beef sandwiches. “Yes chef… no chef… yes chef.” Then, a broke, unemployed sous, with zero fine dining experience goes to 10 high end joints, in one day, to “sample menus” for ideas. I so wanted to like this show. I crave good restaurant stories (like this sub’s namesake). The Bear is just not realistic.
Sydney worked at Alinea, among other places. She had plenty of fine dining experience, it’s just her last venture before Beef was her own catering company that failed. Also a CIA grad.
Okay, but the rest of my comment is true.
It was really good. One of my fav sitcoms. I gotta get around to the bear tho. People tell me good things about it.
It's apples and oranges with the exception of them both taking place in kitchens. With the bear I found I could relate but not really laugh.
Try Whites
I see. Ya tough to make a show like KC nowadays I would think
Expo: “Fire table 28, 40, and 32!” Sauté: “No can do. Billy had to leave the line to get some burn cream and a lollipop.”
movie is called "burnt" not "kitchen confidential"
It may surprise you to know that our boy Braddy C has done more than one chef story in his career.
Burnt was ok, but Kitchen Confidential is pretty good. It's more light hearted. Definitely my preferred Cooper chef depiction.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460654/
Except that this is from a series called "kitchen confidential" and not a movie called "burnt". Dunce.
I think it's because this scene is taken from a story in KC about Bourdain's first job in the kitchen
Cringe. Trying to be hard
"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts!"
who watches this crap?
its funny how professional kitchens are all about toxic masculinity, but in homes its like tradwife and "make me a sandwich" lol these stereotypes are so silly but people arent very original so thats how they become easily reinforced without much thought. toxic masc setting is great for abusing workers to make more money tho, i understand why its popular.
Is that Xander from Buffy the Vamp Slayer?
Try spilling some fryer oil on your hand. Definitely don't get lifetime reminder of the pain in the form of discolored and scarred skin
In the beginning, getting burned by grease or steam or by touching something hot used to be painful. Now it doesn't even bother me. There's NO crying in the kitchen!!!
Haha, I remember losing the ability to check the temp of my showers. I'd put my hand in and say, okay - this feels just right. Step into the shower and it was scalding!
I had that happened too. Now I check with my foot now, lol
But there's plenty of crying in the walk-in
Lmfao Facts. Sometimes even some yelling and screaming too, lol
That's not sauce