You know you're a cook when........?

[David A. Goldfarb]

I also get wierded out making dinner at home.  I'm expecting to make 50-60 of something, not 4.

←

In college I used to work in the kitchen sometimes, where we always prepared meals for about 50-60 people, and when I went home on break everything in our home kitchen seemed so small. The pan we always thought of as "the big pan," was suddenly more like a medium sized pan, and trying to scale back, I still usually prepared enough food for at least twelve people when we were only four.

[Smitty]

You know you're a cook when you own a $600 knife and drive a $2000 car....

←

I don't have a single piece that is in the $600 range but the value of my knives greatly outmatches the value of my car.

My guess $1800 is to $800

PS. Does the fact that my moped is worth more than my car make me more of a cook?

Edited July 11, 2009 by Smitty (log)

[sparrowgrass]

"All Day"...caught myself saying this today to my mother when asking me to make copies for something

Kitchen lingo can so easily be transported into everyday life. I.e. Calling up your friend coming over to bring: 5 onions all day, quart of milk and an apple, on the fly!

Jim

←

Could you 'splain this to someone who never worked in a commercial kitchen? I get the "behind" thing, I know what "in the weeds" means, but this has me confused.

[pastrygirl]

"All Day"...caught myself saying this today to my mother when asking me to make copies for something

Kitchen lingo can so easily be transported into everyday life. I.e. Calling up your friend coming over to bring: 5 onions all day, quart of milk and an apple, on the fly!

Jim

←

Could you 'splain this to someone who never worked in a commercial kitchen? I get the "behind" thing, I know what "in the weeds" means, but this has me confused.

←

An 'all day' is a running total. If stealw needs two onions for the soup, two onions for onion rings, and an onion for caramelizing, he needs five all day. Or if table two orders two chickens, then right after that table six orders two chix, you have four all day. On the fly is ASAP, needed it two minutes ago.

[pax]

I'm no real cook like all y'all, but when I couldn't find a decent knife in someone else's kitchen and was tasked with mincing onions, I just about had a heart attack. How do you use a kitchen every day without a decent fraking KNIFE IN IT?

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'm no real cook like all y'all, but when I couldn't find a decent knife in someone else's kitchen and was tasked with mincing onions, I just about had a heart attack. How do you use a kitchen every day without a decent fraking KNIFE IN IT?

←

Heh. Now if I'm cooking somewhere else, I bring knives and usually a cutting board, and sometimes a large skillet or other cooking vessel, if I think I'll need it.

[sparrowgrass]

My mother has been known to take those dull as a wedge knives outdoors and hone them on the nearest hunk of stone.

[chezcherie]

My mother has been known to take those dull as a wedge knives outdoors and hone them on the nearest hunk of stone.

←

ha haaaaa! and i have been known to turn a chine plate upside down, and use the raised part of the base to sharpen up an awful knife in a pinch!

[Anna N]

My mother has been known to take those dull as a wedge knives outdoors and hone them on the nearest hunk of stone.

←

That's how I assumed everyone sharpened their knives! Our back step served that purpose when I was growing up. Never knew there was a better way until I was all growed up!

[gingerfreak]

I don't have a whole lot of industry experience, but I can't use normal sized cutting boards anymore either. So I got a giant one that is hugely out of scale in my tiny apartment kitchen. The "blue monster", we call it.

I also don't get people who have bad knives - if I'm cooking at my mom's place I just take my own.

Oh, and I freak out if my husband sneaks up behind me to get affectionate and kiss the back of my neck while I'm chopping anything. I'm gonna lose a digit that way...

[judiu]

I tend to bring my own knives and gadgets with me when I'm cooking in a different place than my own. Have gone so far as to bring my (manual) Diamond Hone knife sharpener, my peasant's knife (from Lee Valley; LOVE it!) and my little Cusinart paring knife with me to a social club function, when I know I'll be volunteered to cut, slice or chop something before the day is over! The only problem is, I don't have a knife roll, and any bag I put them in, they cut their way out of! Oh, yes, the garlic press gets taken regularly, too...

[chefdg]

You can cook in any kitchen with a dull knife and no cutting board.

[DanielBlue]

You can cook in any kitchen with a dull knife and no cutting board.

←

lol

[redneck92970]

How about reaching down and wiping your hand on a apron that isn't there. Oh and I totally agree with the towel thing.

[DanM]

When your home pantry is filled with cambros, delis and portion cups and there are hotel pans of various sizes under the oven.

I plead guilty to both.

Dan

Oh, and as a baker... showing up at my in laws for Thanksgiving with scale in hand.

Edited July 14, 2009 by DanM (log)

[DanM]

Even better! I just received the monthly newsletter from the local home brewing club with the following bit of harassment over a blood orange hefeweisen and a ginger saison that I brought to last month's meeting for peer review.

Speaking of unfair competition, Dan should not be allowed to bring his beers to YAHOO meetings. Allowing his beers to be compared to those of the others is simply unfair. For one thing, as a pastryman, Dan is capable of following a recipe, something no self-respecting homebrewer allows himself or herself to do – that takes some of the adventure and mystery away from brewing. Additionally, Dan knows the effects of spices and fruits on his beers – like insuring that the pits of blood oranges are not included in a beer. While the rest of us deal in measures of quarter fist fulls, etc., Dan probably deals in grams and knows exactly the effects/gram. Simply not fair. But then being in the YAHOOS is not supposed to be about competition, but should be about mutual development, fellowship, sharing, and cooperation.

Yeah, sure.

Too funny!

[sandra]

Stacking things up at the end of the worktop and waiting for the porter to come and take it away... it just doesn't happen at home, does it?

[TimmDavis]

Stacking things up at the end of the worktop and waiting for the porter to come and take it away...  it just doesn't happen at home, does it?

←

I've found out they don't respond well to "Pick up!"

[halogenic]

Ah, I forgot about the "cooking at someone else's house" issue. I just show up with my bag of tricks like it's a job interview (I bring my own towels too, they're my favorites after all).

[Special K]

For me it's when I'm a guest in someone else's home, and they are cooking - holding the (dull) knives wrong, adding pepper from a ten-year-old tin of tasteless dust, opening cans and dumping the contents into a saucepan, which then gets turned on "high" and forgotten, or grilling steaks or salmon to oblivion.

I say "Behind you" all the time in public (that "you" makes it intelligible to non-kitchenites), and I also have wiped my hands on the imaginary towel!

[sandra]

Stacking things up at the end of the worktop and waiting for the porter to come and take it away...  it just doesn't happen at home, does it?

←

I've found out they don't respond well to "Pick up!"

←

no, they don't, do they?

although the dog does respond to "clean up!" when I spill on the floor...

[Michaeltheonion]

I have quite a few outside of work habits, but I have a friend who takes it to a next level. When he goes around a corner, he loudly announces " Coming through Corner." When he opens an oven at home he will say " Oven!" even if there is no one in the vacinity. He is used to cooking on an eye which is quite hot. Once he was trying to sear mushrooms in a pan on an electric stove and they just couldn't get as seared as he needed them to be, so he didn't eat them. But he works to much...

[localherbavore]

"HOT PAN!" is a very common one for me, also "WALKING!" Either it's sad or just plain engraved in me I bring my knife kit everywhere and people just assume I'm going to cook if I come over, or if they stop by. My wife and I have come to an agreement that if she is in the kitchen, I stay out..... I've been known to say things like "Those wont cook evenly like that..." and "Your overmixing...." "You should blanch those first" and never, ever say to your sigificant other: "Please, Just let me do it" ORDER UP! SERVICE PLEASE! CLEAR DOWN! TIME!?! FRIO, HOT!

[brandonscott]

I have quite a few outside of work habits, but I have a friend who takes it to a next level. When he goes around a corner, he loudly announces " Coming through Corner." When he opens an oven at home he will say " Oven!" even if there is no one in the vacinity. He is used to cooking on an eye which is quite hot. Once he was trying to sear mushrooms in a pan on an electric stove and they just couldn't get as seared as he needed them to be, so he didn't eat them. But he works to  much...

←

I have shouted "corner" plenty of times out in public as well.

[LB Howes]

Maybe I missed it, but haven't seen it mentioned about cutting and serving equal sized portions of desserts.

Most home cooks just wack away at the cake or pie with the serving spatula or a butter knife, resulting in un-even pieces with jagged edges. I can't count the number of times I've seen some really beautiful looking desserts mutilated. I always designate myself as the official dessert cutter so the pieces stay looking pretty and there's enough portions for everyone!