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David D'Aprix

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Everything posted by David D'Aprix

  1. Way back in the late '60's, when I was in high school, I was a dishwasher at a country club, and another dishwasher and I would often show up early for work on a Saturday or Sunday. The "chef," Frank, was a classic drunk broiler-cook type of guy from the era. He'd always show up for work about 7:00 or earlier--he didn't sleep much, just smoked three packs of Pall Malls a day and drank about two quarts of whiskey, washed down with plenty of beer. Frank was really good about cooking us eggs when we showed up. Often, we had been out the night before drinking beer (we were seventeen or eighteen years old). Anyway, Frank would use the same kitchen towel to wipe the counters, wipe out the egg pans, and blow his nose. That's right, blow his nose. Imagine eating eggs over easy, somewhat snotty, and having seen Frank blow his nose in the towel that he used to wipe the pans. There are many other Frank stories, watch for the book. People with whom I go out for dinner are especially put off by servers who handle glasses by putting their hands over the top of the glass. I've taught service for many years, and I am aghast by this ignorance, but it doesn't basically bother me in the sanitation sense. Any comments?
  2. Anything by James Beard. I especially love some of the entries in Hors-D'Oeuvre and Canapes- "This is a real man's snack, definitely not for a female audience"! (p.22) Agreed, and I am especially fond of James Beard's American Cookery.
  3. And for some of us, the networking capabilities is worth its weight and then some in the tuition debt. ←
  4. I agree wholeheartedly about both points. I would add that, in my opinion, you should start as a dishwasher. If you can't stand washing dishes, you won't make it as a cook. Cooking in a restaurant is really hard work, but if you manage to get an intro-level job prepping, you won't get the real flavor of the kitchen the way you would as a dishwasher. They get buried with dirty dishes just the way line cooks get buried with orders. And it can be filthy, exhausting work. If you like washing dishes, you have a chance to succeed in restaurant cooking.
  5. Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand?
  6. The common one at the country club where I worked was Tabasco in the Coke. During busy times it worked every time. Then there was chocolate syrup on the telephone ear-piece. Call out: "Julie, phone for you." She puts it to her ear and bingo.
  7. Interesting variation: use a hot quarter for the greedy ones.
  8. But that's intrinsically unfair. When hot-plating a waiter, the point is to say, "you know the plates are hot, you're supposed to use a napkin to handle them." That is, under ideal conditions you give hot plates to everyone. Of course, as the night wears on, plates become handle-able without the napkin, so waiters get careless. Thus, a hot plate technically is following the rules. If you give them one from the pantry, it's automatically and absolutely violent behavior, something that the waiter could not possibly have anticipated. It takes away the beauty of the act.
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