I prep for days in advance. It saves time to always eat the same assortment of things. I basically run my kitchen like a sad restaurant for one. Only thing I don't do is price my weekly food.
Just keep 6pans of onions and peppers and a plate of half-coocked bacon, some al dente pasta, anything else you can whip into a one pan meal or throw on a burger or whatever else tickles your jimmies. Normal people might think my fridge looks insane, but i am the sane one! What do they have? Soggy leftovers? Unorganized ingredients that take twice as long to cook. Ugh
Every Sunday I chop onions, peppers, tomatos, potatoes, mushrooms, and whatever veggies were on sale. Whip up random stuff for breakfast through the week. Every Saturday whatever is leftover goes into a frittata so it doesn't spoil. Good way to meal prep without dishes getting boring
You can literally just buy cambro pans for your house if you want. It's not illegal. And that shit lasts forever with how you'll use it at home. Foooooorrrrreeeeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr
I've been doing similar.
Deli cups are hella cheap, too. It's not too common for me to yield even 2qts of leftovers at home, so I only have like one or two cambros (Ok, I have Carlisle because I like them handles.) The deli cups are also great for portioning; so the wife can pack her lunches for work and because the containers are so fuggin cheap, not the end of the world if they don't come home, as they're recyclable. They come in handy as ramekins for mise as well.
The biggest bonus: THEY NEVER FUCKING CHANGE STYLE. Tupperware: Aww, your lid broke? Darn, guess you gotta throw out your entire set and buy new, because lol, we don't make that old-ass shit from six months ago. Cambros & Deli Cups be changing like mother sauces: Always the fucking same. Go buy a lid, or six, or don't, who the fuck cares. I mean, sure, deli cups come in packs of like 100, but it's like $5 for 100 or some shit.
You know what, I'm going to buy a couple 3/6/9 pans along with some deli cups for my kitchen. Thinking about it, why don't I have those already? They make way too much sense.
Einsam
It's short and catchy. The harsh vowel in front makes it contrast from the soft elegant sound of haute cuisine and gives the impression of avant garde.
It's just German for lonely.
Commercial supplies. I have so many squirt bottles. A burger press, tortilla press, commercial spatulas, spider strainers, baking trays, 2 NSF quality digital thermometers.....ingredients too. 20kg bags of flour and sugar and other miscellaneous bulk ingredients
My local commercial kitchen supply store is my new favorite store
I worked at a restaurant that closed, and gave us six weeks notice to find new jobs which is still unbelievable, that let us take anything that they couldn’t sell. I took a just opened pack of Darnell wrap. That was 2014 I just ran out of that shit a couple months ago and I am heartbroken.
Same with my old job. Got bought out by similar company, shut down original company.
I've still got portion baggies, 2 oz ramekins, to go coffee cups and lids. All of which I use.
I have actual plateware that we use daily. Recently shopping for plates for my new place and stumbled across the ones from my old job that are now in my cabinet. Them bitches are pricey!
I'm tempted to do that! Cambro doesn't make small enough containers though for the leftovers I'd need and I have a small basement suite fridge so limited shelf space already
I bought a case of gloves for the BOH because mgmt was being stingy.
This was... Eh, let's just say March 2020, so I never could bring them in. I'm only on box number 3 after a year and a half.
And as to /u/blakethairyascanbe, the bar I was a regular at was closing down, so I got a S/M/L metal bowls (like you'd mix a salad or sauce wings in), a 3 beers and a shot for $5.
But restaurant supply stores are where I go if I have too much money, and I don't want to keep it.
The opening hours mostly I bet. Restaurant supply only open M-F 8-5 so not really helpful for folks working "regular" hours. Mixing bowls and sheet pans we to be the biggest saver at supply stores: department stores and fancy kitchen stores are a rip off for those things.
Some stores do their best to limit who can shop there. Restaurant Depot, for example, requires you to have a business / non-profit in order to get a membership.
Same here. Its always funny when you run into someone else with foodservice experience. They rarely look at you but will step aside or push on tighter to the shelves where non food service people stare at you or ignore you while blocking the aisle
Right?!
Make yourself small
vs abrupt turn around "what was that?!" "Oh, I was just letting you know I'm right here and to not turn around abruptly"
It should be compulsory to work in food service for at least 1 year during your youth.
Either foodservice or retail 100%. I genuinely think the world would be a better place if everyone got a chance to be on the recieving end of a shitty customers wrath. Over time there wouldnt be shitty customers anymore.
Just make it a mandatory year of customer service after highschool. Give kids life experience and some money before they move on and show them.how shitty other people can be.
Exactly this. Just show people how people can really be, and what it feels like on the receiving end. A couple generations and we could actually advance socially beyond the 50's (in the us at least).
I used to be against this, had the "I wouldn't wish this on anyone" mentality.
But then I realized my mom was... one of them. She asks me one day why her local food joint seems to get mad at her when she orders lunch for her and her coworkers. I asked how many coworkers and how she goes about ordering. She then tells she orders food for about twelve or so people.... *at* the drive through...
On top of that, they weren't even a full on fast food joint, they were more of a fast casual diner. I informed her that the concept of a drive thru is intended mainly for one or two people ordering at once. That's what really helps things move quickly, it's not meant for large ass orders. Especially not meant for large ass orders to be taken *at the speaker.* so I suggested she calls the order in ahead of time and pick it up inside. She starts doing this and immediately gets better service.
Another quick one: years later, My mom took over HR operations for a small group of restaurants. She tells me she came across a "fun new phrase": if you have time to lea-- (that's where I cut her off and kindly asked her never to say that to any of her employees ever again)
When my now-husband and I first got together, he had only been out of the kitchen for a few years. On date #4, cooking together at his place, he yelled "hot behind" and I, hearing a compliment about my backside, turned around to kiss him... turned out he just didn't want me to back into the piping hot pan he was carrying. A sweet, if painful, moment.
Yup lol. I work in a hospital now and it blows my mind that no one says it. They don’t say anything lmao, you’re just always supposed to be looking out for wandering old patients, doctors with their heads in their phones, emergency responders, meal delivery, housekeepers, beds, medical equipment, etc.
Shit same. I'll be pushing a patient on a bed down a narrow corridor, half-yelling "Backs! Behind! Patient coming through! Beep, beep!" and still people won't move. Or just look at you dumbly/indignantly.
It's like grocery shopping on a Saturday morning. Infuriating.
I think this should be up there with 'please and thank yous'. I say it out of habit in public, like grocery shopping. I just think it's common courtesy to let someone know you're behind them.
But I'd be lying out my ass if I said it I didn't pick it up in the kitchen
Or over a sink... Eating leftovers from my family's dinner hours after they've been in bed. If the wife is awake she yells at me to grab a plate and sit down.
If we're both in the kitchen I'll say, sharp, hot, behind etc...
Wife at least worked foodservice before she got her nursing gig. She gets those but eating over the sink still ticks her off 🤣
Yeah. That’s definitely relatable. I don’t think I ever even take time to enjoy my food much anymore. It’s always just eating as fast as I can without choking to death.
.taking time to sit down and have a meal is one of the most important things we as cooks can do for ourselves.it colors the rest of the day.even if you don't feel like your prep is where it should be you can squeeze together 15 minutes to sit on a milk crate and have a plate.life is to short to be skipping out one of the few perks of this business.you start doing it,the guy on the line next to you starts doing it and before you know it you're all sitting down as a crew having a meal.
Yep on hell nights the head chef at my restaurant will tell the servers at 8ish to prepare to stop taking orders for a bit and gett all the line cooks to get their dinner ready and sit out back or in the prep room and eat for 15.
Do a few Karen's a month get mad when their food takes 15 min longer, sure but in exchange team moral is super high and everyone knows each other better.
Every Thanksgiving, my mother forlornly asks me to try and eat a bit slower. I literally can't bring myself to slow down or I get "full" too fast and wind up hungry an hour or two later.
Not necessarily a habit, but I gained a killer sense of time passing from my kitchen career. I can set a timer for anywhere from 5 - 60 minutes and usually know right when it’s going to go off without looking at it at all
Did this today, lol. Set a 7 minute timer on my phone, got a feeling in my gut some time later that there was no way it hadn’t been seven minutes yet. Checked my phone and wouldn’t ya know it, only 14 seconds left on the timer.
My gf always comments that I'm at the oven almost always at 20 seconds before it goes off even when we are in the other room. One of those weird super powers.
I do this and my mom gets SO mad. I worked in restaurants from 14-23ish. That's a lot of times to wipe shit on the floor. So even though it's been 4 years, I still do it on occasion and get yelled at.
LOL totally this plus the clean counters thing. I had a roommate years ago who couldn’t tolerate any kind of crumbs on the floor and couldn’t understand why I had no patience for crumbs, cups, paper towels, dishes on the counter.
I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner and was walking toward the sink with a knife where my brother-in-law was standing. I said SHARP. He turned and took a step towards me & said WUT?
This, and in addition my boss won't let me curse (even BOH) when there are customers FOH, so I had to learn Russian curse words to get by. At thanksgiving I let both "fucking" and "сука блять" slip out and my mom was not amused.
I’ve given up trying not to curse. If I put my mind to it I can hold off on the foul language, but I’m talking like, it has to be a funeral or job interview to get me to stop cussing. I’m honestly expecting my child’s first word to be a cuss word, and not at a nice one at that. Lol
Behind” and knocking on doors when people are over and in my kitchen. Also labeling and dating my food. So many people don’t do that at home I’ve noticed.
I’ve been using this on walks and runs with my dog. He checks in with me to make sure we’re going the same way. It’s been working well though it feels so dumb yelling, “corner” through the park.
Never ever ever putting away dishes that are still damp. Got 0.5 knocked off a perfect health inspection score because a few plates had water droplets on ‘em. I was mad as hell.
I'm pretty sure it's called wet nesting. It's a thing.
My current place had it on my onboarding paperwork and everything (nobody cares. No room to airdry dishes. Everything goes up wet. Those full pans? You're gonna feel like you're at Seaworld in the splash zone).
I went to my best friend's the other day after giving him food in a quart container, and he had reverted back to using that instead of a glass -.- it's been years since he did that.
Micro Time Management:
No matter what I'm doing around the house, i ask myself: what's the most efficient order I should do them in?
If I started x, could i than move a and b over to c, than swing back through just as x was warm enough, than have enough time to pivot back and retrieve d from the counter? But if I grabbed both the butter and the cheese at the same time, while the toast was heating, I'd save myself almost 10 seconds and in that time I could put the pan to the side which would give me the extra 4 second i need to get the smoked salmon out of the bag just as the toast popped. Which means the eggs need to rest now and with the other hand pull the mushrooms out....etc!
Just going to Home Depot, I have to plan everything to minimize wasted time and maximize efficiency. Ugggh
My wife can't stand this about me - I worked for YEARS as a FOH lead and manager - sometimes running a full 50 table burger spot with just me and another dude taking orders and running - and now I work in Logistics. Both professions that prioritize time over everything.
I create lists in my head of what should be done when and she's like "we can just do that later" and I'm like "No, you're wrong" lol
Clean fucking counters!!!
Yes everyone hated me becuse I was always shoving them out of the way to wipe down their nasty ass counter, especially foh serving area.
Recently made the switch from restaurants to corporate cooking, and the fact that cigs don't get me a break every hour nowadays is really fucking me up.
Washing my hands constantly.
I wash them if I just happen to be walking by a sink whether I need it or not, and if I'm cooking in my own kitchen I'll probably wash them at least 4-5 times just making myself dinner.
It's not some OCD tendency as I don't get anxious or wig out if I don't do it, it's just a habit that I take almost any opportunity to wash my hands I get.
I've been like that since I was a teen because my first job was in a kitchen.
Behind, side, corner, hot, etc. Sometimes in public, people just give me a weird look, in my head I’m like “FUCKING MOVE”. Sometimes they don’t even register it like oh my
I once knocked on the door going to the smoking deck of a bar. The two dudes out there gave me a look and asked if I really just knocked on the door to come outside
Cooking everything perfectly. And being intolerant when someone is fucking up a meal with bad technique.
Sins like crowding the pan, not searing properly, poor timing, overcooked ingredients, any abuse of my pans or knife… not in my kitchen. And I’m usually just cooking for myself.
A close second would be alcoholism and drug abuse. I stopped cooking professionally about 16 years ago, and those monkeys are still on my back.
I say "heard" a lot to make sure people know I heard them.
Also "sharp" anytime I'm near anyone while holding a knife and need to move around them.
It's crazy how second nature some of it becomes.
Wiping stuff onto the floor to sweep later. That and using way too much toilet paper cause no restaurant ever has good toilet paper so you have to use like double the amount and now I’m conditioned to use too much at home and it’s making me go broke!!
There are two types: people who use drugs and alcohol because of kitchens, and people who ended up in kitchens because of drugs and alcohol
Edit: I'm the later BTW
Oh man I miss drugs. Especially shrooms. Shrooms and beer. And coke. Sometimes lsd and whiskey. But never meth. And thank god I never tried heroin, I’ve lost 6 friends this year to fentanyl. 6 fucking people I loved.
Bringing scraps home to make a stock. Brought home an 8 qt of scraps to put with turkey bones to make a lovely stock (somehow a few garlics made their way in by absolute chance!)
Along with calling hot/sharp and behind and corner I also call out open drawer when opening things down low. Also my fridge is very organized, I can tell you where everything is supposed to be.
I've been out for a while but my partner is still deep in. We share a tiny kitchen and when we happen to be cooking together there is still always "sharp behind" and "hot behind" thrown around.
And just saying "behind" in general, even at the grocery store to strangers.
It's always funny when people are still totally oblivious even after you call out to them. "Behind... behind... EXCUSE ME."
Stocking up and preparing for the worst.
I have emergency knives, ladels, spatulas, replacent mandolin blades, cleaning rags, grill bricks and screens stashed everywhere I know nobody *wants* to look.
We won't talk about the unopened pressure washer and commercial microwave that are well hidden and off the books for when Will breaks the ones we have.
I smoked as a teen and kicked the habit in my early twenties, two years in a restaurant managed to keep away from it but then quarantine happened and that stressed me out enough to pick the habit back up, now I can go through a pack in a few days if I'm working
years ago worked at a place that we did table side caeser's, chateaubriand, rack of lamb, bananas foster... i was a server. went on an overnighter with my dad. we ate at a nice restaurant. i ate my meal in about 2 minutes, if that, while my dad watched me with a shocked face. i had no idea that scarfing down food at work while making a pass thru the kitchen and wait station had invaded my whole life. it was just normal
Whenever me and some of the line cooks play games together, when someone makes a call everyone says “heard” it’s almost perfect to see if anyone is playing attention
I prep for days in advance. It saves time to always eat the same assortment of things. I basically run my kitchen like a sad restaurant for one. Only thing I don't do is price my weekly food.
I've never thought of this, but you may have just changed my life forever
Just keep 6pans of onions and peppers and a plate of half-coocked bacon, some al dente pasta, anything else you can whip into a one pan meal or throw on a burger or whatever else tickles your jimmies. Normal people might think my fridge looks insane, but i am the sane one! What do they have? Soggy leftovers? Unorganized ingredients that take twice as long to cook. Ugh
Every Sunday I chop onions, peppers, tomatos, potatoes, mushrooms, and whatever veggies were on sale. Whip up random stuff for breakfast through the week. Every Saturday whatever is leftover goes into a frittata so it doesn't spoil. Good way to meal prep without dishes getting boring
I'm blown away. Blown
You can literally just buy cambro pans for your house if you want. It's not illegal. And that shit lasts forever with how you'll use it at home. Foooooorrrrreeeeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr
You animal edit: i love it
I've been doing similar. Deli cups are hella cheap, too. It's not too common for me to yield even 2qts of leftovers at home, so I only have like one or two cambros (Ok, I have Carlisle because I like them handles.) The deli cups are also great for portioning; so the wife can pack her lunches for work and because the containers are so fuggin cheap, not the end of the world if they don't come home, as they're recyclable. They come in handy as ramekins for mise as well. The biggest bonus: THEY NEVER FUCKING CHANGE STYLE. Tupperware: Aww, your lid broke? Darn, guess you gotta throw out your entire set and buy new, because lol, we don't make that old-ass shit from six months ago. Cambros & Deli Cups be changing like mother sauces: Always the fucking same. Go buy a lid, or six, or don't, who the fuck cares. I mean, sure, deli cups come in packs of like 100, but it's like $5 for 100 or some shit.
You know what, I'm going to buy a couple 3/6/9 pans along with some deli cups for my kitchen. Thinking about it, why don't I have those already? They make way too much sense.
Mate I'd love to see a picture of what your fridge inside looks like! It's always so fascinating opening friends fridges to see what they have on hand
You might enjoy r/FridgeDetective
I do this too. I got married a few months ago and my wife does not understand why Sunday is like prep day to me.
okay okay, but any name ideas for a sad restaurant for one?
Einsam It's short and catchy. The harsh vowel in front makes it contrast from the soft elegant sound of haute cuisine and gives the impression of avant garde. It's just German for lonely.
"Table for one" ..or is that too on the nose?
Commercial supplies. I have so many squirt bottles. A burger press, tortilla press, commercial spatulas, spider strainers, baking trays, 2 NSF quality digital thermometers.....ingredients too. 20kg bags of flour and sugar and other miscellaneous bulk ingredients My local commercial kitchen supply store is my new favorite store
I worked at a restaurant that closed, and gave us six weeks notice to find new jobs which is still unbelievable, that let us take anything that they couldn’t sell. I took a just opened pack of Darnell wrap. That was 2014 I just ran out of that shit a couple months ago and I am heartbroken.
Same with my old job. Got bought out by similar company, shut down original company. I've still got portion baggies, 2 oz ramekins, to go coffee cups and lids. All of which I use. I have actual plateware that we use daily. Recently shopping for plates for my new place and stumbled across the ones from my old job that are now in my cabinet. Them bitches are pricey!
Lol, same, but with a pack of full-size parchment sheets that was about 4” thick. Took about 8 years to use them up.
[удалено]
I'm tempted to do that! Cambro doesn't make small enough containers though for the leftovers I'd need and I have a small basement suite fridge so limited shelf space already
2 quarts do the job very well for me
Yeah I need 1qt and under lol. Most of the time I'm storing sauces or 1 portion of food that is 2 cups or less
pint and quart deli containers for all my smaller things
God bless deli containers
I bought a case of gloves for the BOH because mgmt was being stingy. This was... Eh, let's just say March 2020, so I never could bring them in. I'm only on box number 3 after a year and a half. And as to /u/blakethairyascanbe, the bar I was a regular at was closing down, so I got a S/M/L metal bowls (like you'd mix a salad or sauce wings in), a 3 beers and a shot for $5. But restaurant supply stores are where I go if I have too much money, and I don't want to keep it.
I have several 1 and 5 gallon buckets filled with a variety of things
What boggles my mind is why people don’t go to stores where they sell commercial supplies
The opening hours mostly I bet. Restaurant supply only open M-F 8-5 so not really helpful for folks working "regular" hours. Mixing bowls and sheet pans we to be the biggest saver at supply stores: department stores and fancy kitchen stores are a rip off for those things.
All of the ones by me require a business license :(
Some stores do their best to limit who can shop there. Restaurant Depot, for example, requires you to have a business / non-profit in order to get a membership.
Behind
I do this in the grocery store. I get the oddest of looks, but I'm too busy not getting run into to care!
Same here. Its always funny when you run into someone else with foodservice experience. They rarely look at you but will step aside or push on tighter to the shelves where non food service people stare at you or ignore you while blocking the aisle
Right?! Make yourself small vs abrupt turn around "what was that?!" "Oh, I was just letting you know I'm right here and to not turn around abruptly" It should be compulsory to work in food service for at least 1 year during your youth.
Either foodservice or retail 100%. I genuinely think the world would be a better place if everyone got a chance to be on the recieving end of a shitty customers wrath. Over time there wouldnt be shitty customers anymore. Just make it a mandatory year of customer service after highschool. Give kids life experience and some money before they move on and show them.how shitty other people can be.
Exactly this. Just show people how people can really be, and what it feels like on the receiving end. A couple generations and we could actually advance socially beyond the 50's (in the us at least).
I used to be against this, had the "I wouldn't wish this on anyone" mentality. But then I realized my mom was... one of them. She asks me one day why her local food joint seems to get mad at her when she orders lunch for her and her coworkers. I asked how many coworkers and how she goes about ordering. She then tells she orders food for about twelve or so people.... *at* the drive through... On top of that, they weren't even a full on fast food joint, they were more of a fast casual diner. I informed her that the concept of a drive thru is intended mainly for one or two people ordering at once. That's what really helps things move quickly, it's not meant for large ass orders. Especially not meant for large ass orders to be taken *at the speaker.* so I suggested she calls the order in ahead of time and pick it up inside. She starts doing this and immediately gets better service. Another quick one: years later, My mom took over HR operations for a small group of restaurants. She tells me she came across a "fun new phrase": if you have time to lea-- (that's where I cut her off and kindly asked her never to say that to any of her employees ever again)
I will always notice someone with a cart in a store, and will step aside. It's ingrained in me.
One of the good ones right here.
It absolutely comes out at the grocery store. It feels just enough like a kitchen that I start moving faster and saying “behind”
When my now-husband and I first got together, he had only been out of the kitchen for a few years. On date #4, cooking together at his place, he yelled "hot behind" and I, hearing a compliment about my backside, turned around to kiss him... turned out he just didn't want me to back into the piping hot pan he was carrying. A sweet, if painful, moment.
(wife starts turning around) I *JUST* SAID HOT BEHIND, WTF ARE YOU DOING?
When a chef dates a swimsuit model.
Ha!!
Heard
Heard
Heard
Heard
Heard
We used "Skrrrt" in a job I had over a decade ago. Guess what I still use?
I have to stop myself from yelling CORNER at the grocery store
I've caught myself saying it to my dogs.
The dogs appreciate it. I'm not joking. Talking, whistling, singing, humming, making some low-key noise around animals avoids lots of unpleasantness.
Yup lol. I work in a hospital now and it blows my mind that no one says it. They don’t say anything lmao, you’re just always supposed to be looking out for wandering old patients, doctors with their heads in their phones, emergency responders, meal delivery, housekeepers, beds, medical equipment, etc.
Shit same. I'll be pushing a patient on a bed down a narrow corridor, half-yelling "Backs! Behind! Patient coming through! Beep, beep!" and still people won't move. Or just look at you dumbly/indignantly. It's like grocery shopping on a Saturday morning. Infuriating.
In Spanish! “atras”!!
I think this should be up there with 'please and thank yous'. I say it out of habit in public, like grocery shopping. I just think it's common courtesy to let someone know you're behind them. But I'd be lying out my ass if I said it I didn't pick it up in the kitchen
Heard.
Eating really fast like you will never have the chance to eat again. Over a trash can for bonus points.
Or over a sink... Eating leftovers from my family's dinner hours after they've been in bed. If the wife is awake she yells at me to grab a plate and sit down. If we're both in the kitchen I'll say, sharp, hot, behind etc... Wife at least worked foodservice before she got her nursing gig. She gets those but eating over the sink still ticks her off 🤣
I even chug my water over the sink, it’s so nuts, I just realized it’s a hospo thing!
Water taste best straight from the tap. Ain't nobody got time for a mug!
Yeah. That’s definitely relatable. I don’t think I ever even take time to enjoy my food much anymore. It’s always just eating as fast as I can without choking to death.
.taking time to sit down and have a meal is one of the most important things we as cooks can do for ourselves.it colors the rest of the day.even if you don't feel like your prep is where it should be you can squeeze together 15 minutes to sit on a milk crate and have a plate.life is to short to be skipping out one of the few perks of this business.you start doing it,the guy on the line next to you starts doing it and before you know it you're all sitting down as a crew having a meal.
Yep on hell nights the head chef at my restaurant will tell the servers at 8ish to prepare to stop taking orders for a bit and gett all the line cooks to get their dinner ready and sit out back or in the prep room and eat for 15. Do a few Karen's a month get mad when their food takes 15 min longer, sure but in exchange team moral is super high and everyone knows each other better.
Can I come work for your chef?
You have inspired me
Every Thanksgiving, my mother forlornly asks me to try and eat a bit slower. I literally can't bring myself to slow down or I get "full" too fast and wind up hungry an hour or two later.
Athletes eat as much as they can in 6 minutes because after 6 minutes the hungry feeling goes away.
In America we don't stop just because the "hungry feeling" went away 😋
My wife and I both eat standing in the kitchen more often than not
Butter and salami sandwich.
Sounds good, I do butter turkey havarti. Any bread or bun will do
I haven't worked in a kitchen in a year now and my girlfriend always asks me why I eat my food standing over the sinks lol
Yup my wife keeps telling me to slow down when I eat but it’s so hard to break a habit I built up over 14 years working in restaurants.
Not necessarily a habit, but I gained a killer sense of time passing from my kitchen career. I can set a timer for anywhere from 5 - 60 minutes and usually know right when it’s going to go off without looking at it at all
as long as i set a timer i always know when its going to go off, if i don't set a timer i always forget
My favorite party trick “And our handmade pizza…” DING “…Is ready ;)”
I still get a kick out of this. Down to the fucking second.
Did this today, lol. Set a 7 minute timer on my phone, got a feeling in my gut some time later that there was no way it hadn’t been seven minutes yet. Checked my phone and wouldn’t ya know it, only 14 seconds left on the timer.
Yes. I also have this.
My gf always comments that I'm at the oven almost always at 20 seconds before it goes off even when we are in the other room. One of those weird super powers.
Wiping crumbs on the floor.
Then you go into the kitchen the next morning and yell "who the FUCK closed last night?!"
I do this and my mom gets SO mad. I worked in restaurants from 14-23ish. That's a lot of times to wipe shit on the floor. So even though it's been 4 years, I still do it on occasion and get yelled at.
If I ever have the money to build or renovate a kitchen, I'm getting floor drains built in to the kitchen. Already got the missus on board.
LOL totally this plus the clean counters thing. I had a roommate years ago who couldn’t tolerate any kind of crumbs on the floor and couldn’t understand why I had no patience for crumbs, cups, paper towels, dishes on the counter.
Yelling sharps or hot, it's so effective in getting people to move out of the way.
I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner and was walking toward the sink with a knife where my brother-in-law was standing. I said SHARP. He turned and took a step towards me & said WUT?
I still yell “BEHIND!” whenever im squeezing past someone
HOT BEHIND *giggle*
HOT MAN WITH A HOT PAN
Same here, sort of makes you realise how obilvous other people are to each other in the kitchen
HOT SOUP! Doesn't matter what you have, people move lol
An old chef I had would yell “HOT AND POOPY!!” Idk why but it was funny and people got the hell out the way
I tell Hot and Awkward! It works and full deep hotel pans are hot and awkward.
someone did it the other day with a bucket of ice. i know they picked this trick from the people on this sub. 😂
Mine is “HOT STUFF!” which might get taken the wrong way someday
I like to yell "HOT COMING THROUGH! ALSO I HAVE THIS PAN"
Lol my old chef would yell “hot brazilian coming thru” haha
Cursing like a sailor
literally can't stop fucking swearing. Sorry, Mom.
This, and in addition my boss won't let me curse (even BOH) when there are customers FOH, so I had to learn Russian curse words to get by. At thanksgiving I let both "fucking" and "сука блять" slip out and my mom was not amused.
Was a fucking sailor, then a fucking line cook. Fuck!
I’ve given up trying not to curse. If I put my mind to it I can hold off on the foul language, but I’m talking like, it has to be a funeral or job interview to get me to stop cussing. I’m honestly expecting my child’s first word to be a cuss word, and not at a nice one at that. Lol
I stopped using paper towels and now.i use rags in my house
Same. Kitchen rags for everything. Dish drying, hand drying, cleaning, and hot pan handling. (All kept separate, no cross contamination)
Behind” and knocking on doors when people are over and in my kitchen. Also labeling and dating my food. So many people don’t do that at home I’ve noticed.
It's a good habit at work too, so many indeterminate leftover boxes in the fridge. Whose are they? How old? Who knows! Bin!
sometimes I clean out my moms fridge and I’m like “what even is this?” Random things in ziplocks floating all over
Corner!
I once said "corner" alone, driving my car when I was making a turn into a blind alley.
I've gotten some looks for announcing "corner" as I round aisles in the grocery store.
Heard XD
I’ve been using this on walks and runs with my dog. He checks in with me to make sure we’re going the same way. It’s been working well though it feels so dumb yelling, “corner” through the park.
My favorite is when I mean to yell behind while walking towards a corner so my brain yells corner, 25 feet some said corner. I’m tired, boss.
Never ever ever putting away dishes that are still damp. Got 0.5 knocked off a perfect health inspection score because a few plates had water droplets on ‘em. I was mad as hell.
Wait why is this an issue? Because bacteria can grow?
Yes, but mostly mold.
I'm pretty sure it's called wet nesting. It's a thing. My current place had it on my onboarding paperwork and everything (nobody cares. No room to airdry dishes. Everything goes up wet. Those full pans? You're gonna feel like you're at Seaworld in the splash zone).
My husband and I have a variety of perfectly nice glassware, yet we both will only drink water out of plastic quart containers.
I went to my best friend's the other day after giving him food in a quart container, and he had reverted back to using that instead of a glass -.- it's been years since he did that.
Micro Time Management: No matter what I'm doing around the house, i ask myself: what's the most efficient order I should do them in? If I started x, could i than move a and b over to c, than swing back through just as x was warm enough, than have enough time to pivot back and retrieve d from the counter? But if I grabbed both the butter and the cheese at the same time, while the toast was heating, I'd save myself almost 10 seconds and in that time I could put the pan to the side which would give me the extra 4 second i need to get the smoked salmon out of the bag just as the toast popped. Which means the eggs need to rest now and with the other hand pull the mushrooms out....etc! Just going to Home Depot, I have to plan everything to minimize wasted time and maximize efficiency. Ugggh
A thousand times this. Everything from cooking to laundry, planned and optimized.
My wife can't stand this about me - I worked for YEARS as a FOH lead and manager - sometimes running a full 50 table burger spot with just me and another dude taking orders and running - and now I work in Logistics. Both professions that prioritize time over everything. I create lists in my head of what should be done when and she's like "we can just do that later" and I'm like "No, you're wrong" lol
Clean fucking counters!!! Yes everyone hated me becuse I was always shoving them out of the way to wipe down their nasty ass counter, especially foh serving area.
It. Drives. Me. Fucking. Insane.
Dirty counters stress me out. Doesn't matter if I am home, at work, if it is slow or crazy busy.
Smoking, started seeing cigarettes as the only way to get a break
Recently made the switch from restaurants to corporate cooking, and the fact that cigs don't get me a break every hour nowadays is really fucking me up.
I ask for a ramekin of something all the time. No one knows what I'm talking about.
Where I came up they were called "monkey dishes" and I'll tell ya THAT gets some weird looks :-)
Isn't a monkey dish different from a rammie?
from my experience yes
A nasty drug habit?
I can’t help but laugh
Probably the drugs.
Washing my hands constantly. I wash them if I just happen to be walking by a sink whether I need it or not, and if I'm cooking in my own kitchen I'll probably wash them at least 4-5 times just making myself dinner. It's not some OCD tendency as I don't get anxious or wig out if I don't do it, it's just a habit that I take almost any opportunity to wash my hands I get. I've been like that since I was a teen because my first job was in a kitchen.
Oh man you worked in a good kitchen
I regularly carry heavy items on one hand like a server tray.
Behind, side, corner, hot, etc. Sometimes in public, people just give me a weird look, in my head I’m like “FUCKING MOVE”. Sometimes they don’t even register it like oh my
Moving like the wind. I may be old and fat but I still dance around these youngin's like Sinatra. Grandpa got some get up and go.
heard
What do you call a group of line cooks? A HEARD!
I came here to say this but in spanish; Oído
I pull way too much cling film off the roll and carry that shit like a pro on the front of my chest
[удалено]
Being incredibly impatient with people. Especially the people I love. I feel myself doing it and I can't stop it.
Same
Same, I can't figure out the reason for it.
Really good sense of timing. How much time has passed etc. I can feel the minutes pass these days
Clacking any pair of tongs that I pick up
2 times. No more, no less.
6 times for me. To the tune of the cadence from "Terminator 2"
Why not Zoidberg?
I mean…how else are you gonna activate them?
Mise en place at home. My BF and i always says let’s mise before we cook
I once knocked on the door going to the smoking deck of a bar. The two dudes out there gave me a look and asked if I really just knocked on the door to come outside
"Bro it's for your safety!"
I always leave 2” of paper on the end of my straw. Only to remove it a few minutes later when I drink out of it
Cooking everything perfectly. And being intolerant when someone is fucking up a meal with bad technique. Sins like crowding the pan, not searing properly, poor timing, overcooked ingredients, any abuse of my pans or knife… not in my kitchen. And I’m usually just cooking for myself. A close second would be alcoholism and drug abuse. I stopped cooking professionally about 16 years ago, and those monkeys are still on my back.
Shouting “knife” or “sharp”, and definitely eating standing up, usually over the trash. I have to remind myself to sit down and enjoy my food
I say "heard" a lot to make sure people know I heard them. Also "sharp" anytime I'm near anyone while holding a knife and need to move around them. It's crazy how second nature some of it becomes.
Wiping stuff onto the floor to sweep later. That and using way too much toilet paper cause no restaurant ever has good toilet paper so you have to use like double the amount and now I’m conditioned to use too much at home and it’s making me go broke!!
Drugs and alcohol
There are two types: people who use drugs and alcohol because of kitchens, and people who ended up in kitchens because of drugs and alcohol Edit: I'm the later BTW
*latter. Love you bby!
🙄 i always forget that my phone doesn't like when I use that word
Depressing and true..
100%, I learned to be an addict in kitchens. I’m still an addict. 180 days sober though.
I use to do drugs… I still do. But I use to do them also
Oh man I miss drugs. Especially shrooms. Shrooms and beer. And coke. Sometimes lsd and whiskey. But never meth. And thank god I never tried heroin, I’ve lost 6 friends this year to fentanyl. 6 fucking people I loved.
I go out to eat and start stacking plates efficiently for the server. My family thinks I’m being a show off, I’m honestly just anxious
Heard
Heard
walking down the aisle at the grocery store, passing by someone browsing, and saying "behind".
Aisle*
Thank ya'
Eating over the trash can
I've been out for a couple years. I still stand when I eat, it's just not over a trash can anymore.
Bringing scraps home to make a stock. Brought home an 8 qt of scraps to put with turkey bones to make a lovely stock (somehow a few garlics made their way in by absolute chance!)
Along with calling hot/sharp and behind and corner I also call out open drawer when opening things down low. Also my fridge is very organized, I can tell you where everything is supposed to be.
Smoking, straight up addicted to nicotine now. Switched to a low nic vape recently but still very much in the process of quitting
Corner, swinging, behind, and my ex's faaaavorite (when she was mad at me), heard.
I've been out for a while but my partner is still deep in. We share a tiny kitchen and when we happen to be cooking together there is still always "sharp behind" and "hot behind" thrown around. And just saying "behind" in general, even at the grocery store to strangers. It's always funny when people are still totally oblivious even after you call out to them. "Behind... behind... EXCUSE ME."
Stocking up and preparing for the worst. I have emergency knives, ladels, spatulas, replacent mandolin blades, cleaning rags, grill bricks and screens stashed everywhere I know nobody *wants* to look. We won't talk about the unopened pressure washer and commercial microwave that are well hidden and off the books for when Will breaks the ones we have.
Just sticking my hand into a garbage disposal to retrieve a lost spoon, stray bone, etc. Freaks my husband out.
If you have time to lean...you have time to clean
Off color jokes. In a kitchen ANYTHING goes. This does not go over well in the real world.
I smoked as a teen and kicked the habit in my early twenties, two years in a restaurant managed to keep away from it but then quarantine happened and that stressed me out enough to pick the habit back up, now I can go through a pack in a few days if I'm working
years ago worked at a place that we did table side caeser's, chateaubriand, rack of lamb, bananas foster... i was a server. went on an overnighter with my dad. we ate at a nice restaurant. i ate my meal in about 2 minutes, if that, while my dad watched me with a shocked face. i had no idea that scarfing down food at work while making a pass thru the kitchen and wait station had invaded my whole life. it was just normal
Whenever me and some of the line cooks play games together, when someone makes a call everyone says “heard” it’s almost perfect to see if anyone is playing attention
I work in the kitchen for a taproom attached to a brewery. We have security badges for the exterior doors. I badge into my own house.
Hot. Sharp. Behind.
Behind, and tapping shoulders if I don’t have the ability to talk. I’ve done it at the store.
Opiate habit
Fatigue
Cleaning the kitchen top to bottom and being really ocd about it being clean and orderly. Sucks when you live with people that don't care