wax311

I would like to preface this by saying that I do not have experience working with purchasing departments, but I am a chef. I would not worry about "bugging" the chefs with a single email or phone call. It sounds like most chefs are enthusiastic about using your product, so of course it would make sense to keep them informed. I imagine these chefs would want to receive the same beginning of the year product/price/availability list email that you would send to their purchasing departments. Those lists are useful menu planning tools. Purchasing departments might drop the ball, and chefs are busy, but sending the list to both is more likely to get the ball rolling. If you aren't getting a reply and you are dealing with an inept purchasing department, I think a call to the chef perfectly acceptable. If you don't want to mess with the purchasing department's systems for ordering, I suggest having the chefs email their first order of the season and have them CC the department so they know what's going on and can plan amongst themselves for future orders.

"Mister" - medium rare. because in the heat of the moment, "medium rare" can be misheard as "medium" or "rare".

Why don't you just ask your purveyor reps what's available? Surely they can give you product/price lists, and recommend what is good, what is in season (and for how long), and what is reasonably priced.

I also have a big cell phone pet peeve. Cell phones and personal calls should not be part of any work environment. But I hope you at least give them a warning first, like, "Mark, cell phones are not allowed if you're clocked in and working." Because I really think your approach is a bit passive-aggressive, and withholding their cell phone batteries is discipline appropriate for middle-schoolers.

I've always found that adding a little bit of acidity to a sauce just before serving helps make it "sing". A few drops of sherry or red wine vinegar or just a few drops of lemon juice, depending on the sauce and what it is being served with, goes a long way.

I am finishing out my two week's notice at a place where the exec chef and chef de cuisine are both horrible at putting things back where they found them/where they belong. When one of them comes to "help" me on saute, I end up spending almost as much time cleaning up after them as they spend cooking the food! Sometimes it makes you wonder...how do these people fail to learn a very basic line cooking skill, and still become chefs?

Hey that's a pretty good motto. Chains aren't all bad after all!

For too brief a time, I worked at a restaurant in San Francisco where the chef had certain pet peeves - some odd, some not. The one that I am reminded of every day regards hangars. Yes, hangars. In the linen room, our chef coats hung on hangars. Under the rack, there is a metal hangar "tree" where the used hangars are supposed to be stacked - ubiquitous among restaurants. This is how it is supposed to work: A cook takes a chef coat and puts the hangar on the tree. When the tree is full, the linen delivery person brings it back to the company so they can reuse them. Unfortunately, many of the cooks at this particular restaurant were a bit lazy and/or inconsiderate. Upon taking their chef coats, most of the cooks failed to put the hangar on the tree where it belongs. Some people would just drop them on the floor! One day during a kitchen meeting, the chef led a discussion of pet peeves. I voiced a couple of mine, a couple other people mumbled some of their thoughts, and then the chef finished with his hanger peeve. There were a few chuckles, and someone asked why it bothered him. His rationale involved accountability. He asked something along the lines of, "does your mother still clean your room for you?" He explained that even subtle, little things like leaving a few hangars on the ground makes us look bad to the linen company. When the linen delivery person has to pick a bunch of hangars up from off the floor, it makes us look unprofessional. From that day on, every day I would put all the loose hangars in the linen room on the hangar tree. Every morning I unlocked the door and walked in to an empty restaurant, there were still some straggling hangars on the rack or floor of the linen room, despite the chef voicing his displeasure. It wasn't my pet peeve, but I understood his rationale. More importantly, I wanted to make him a little less pissed off and a little more at ease when he got to work every day. Now, I work at a larger restaurant with a larger chef coat inventory, lazier people, and thus many more straggling hangars. Strangely, I still find myself putting every loose hangar I can find on to the tree. Maybe it's a force of habit, maybe because I know it's the right thing to do. It's really starting to bug me!

I am pretty sure they get plenty of other volunteers who have limited experience like yourself. Just ask questions and request demos for anything you don't know how to do - and have fun!

I've been in the business for 8 years, and have recently had the opportunity to stage at "many" restaurants across the country. I would consider my personal sample size of restaurants enough to throw out some "mosts" and "manys". I do not feel the need to preface everything I say with "in my experience" - mainly because I love writing with such fervor (it's so much more fun)! A "cost-mindful chef" wouldn't simply settle for a 75% yield on beets - a "cost-mindful chef" would use the whole beet! But the beet thing is only an example. I have seen chefs throw away byproducts of some very expensive ingredients that can and should be used in some capacity. The truth is, $50 an hour (who makes that kind of dough?) to plan out proper utilization of $50 a week in waste really, really is worth it! I mean we're talking about $2600 of waste in a year that can be turned into pure profit. And "many" restaurants throw away much more than $50 a week of usable scraps. I am fed up with chefs being so mindful and concerned about the carbon footprint of their olive oil when they're throwing away a quarter of their beets.

Due to the vast disparity and inconsistencies in the restaurant review world, it is best not to judge a restaurant unless I have either 1) eaten there myself or 2) heard or read about it from a source I trust. So someone claiming to have "worked at a five star restaurant" is absolutely meaningless to me!

Is this is a restaurant kitchen setting? If so, you could burn the grates to white-hot over your stove burners, and then a good wire grill brush should remove a lot, if not all of the carbon buildup.

I don't know if I could tell you the difference between a man's cooking and a woman's cooking. However, I believe a good kitchen should have a mix of men and women. If there isn't at least one woman in the kitchen on the savory side, I - a man - will feel awkward and unsettled. I just staged at a big restaurant where all 7 line cooks were men and the three cooks in the pastry department were women - I didn't take the job.

Caviar being replaced on the menu with chicken wings Vendors putting restaurants on COD Servers complaining about 10% tips and threatening to finally find "real" jobs High-end trendy joints closing by the dozen

If a chef doesn't like vegetables or herb stems in their meat stocks, fine - find another way to use them. Throw together a small stock specially meant to be used for staff meal. As for brunoise beets, it's pretty wasteful to throw away 1/3 of the beet - the scraps can be used in staff salad, or perhaps incorporated into a different menu item (in a way that makes sense). If the chef decides to use only 2/3 of the beet as perfect brunoise instead of just wedges or slices where the whole beet is used, he/she should find another use for the scraps. When a chef plans a menu, he/she should be thinking about all of the little scraps and byproducts and incorporate those in different ways on the menu, in the same dish or in other dishes. Old leftovers only happen when the chef doesn't plan ahead.