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Stupid Cook Tricks

johnsmith45678

By johnsmith45678
in Food Traditions & Culture

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aliaseater

aliaseater

Posted
Posted (edited)

I thought it was fun to get a live lobster to go to sleep by standing it on its' head.

Has anyone else heard of/seen this?

It certainly impressed my youngest sister...

Edited by aliaseater (log)

Pick up your phone

Think of a vegetable

Lonely at home

Call any vegetable

And the chances are good

That a vegetable will respond to you

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chef_mico

chef_mico

Posted
Posted
Another thing we'd do is have competitions to see who can throw an empty garbage can the furthest...  Or one guy would take a 14" pizza knife, hold it like a sword, and another guy would throw lemons or tomatoes at him - and he'd slice 'em up in mid-air.  We'd also play baseball with a pizza paddle and pieces of dough.

Heh, yeah, we also did the "sword" thing, except using an 8 or 10 inch chef's knife. One time another guy who happened to walk behind the "batter" came inches from getting badly sliced. Did the baseball thing too. :smile:

I did something like that in my old job. we wanted to know who had the sharpest knife in the kitchen, we would get pineapples, lay one standing, and with swift slice, you should cut the pinapple in half without it seperating and falling off. My first attemp sent half the pineapple flying. :laugh:

Cooking is like a blank piece of paper, anything can happen.
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aliaseater

aliaseater

Posted
Posted
I've done the baseball thing, myself, though with the little individual serving creamers...those things explode like nothing I've ever seen...

We once had several cases of those creamers left from a catering event.

Chef asked me how to best make use of the product.

I suggested "Puree and strain" as opposed to using the labor to open the several thousand...

:hmmm:

Pick up your phone

Think of a vegetable

Lonely at home

Call any vegetable

And the chances are good

That a vegetable will respond to you

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Lilija

Lilija

Posted
Posted
I've done the baseball thing, myself, though with the little individual serving creamers...those things explode like nothing I've ever seen...

We once had several cases of those creamers left from a catering event.

Chef asked me how to best make use of the product.

I suggested "Puree and strain" as opposed to using the labor to open the several thousand...

:hmmm:

THAT is clever! Gross...but clever! :cool:

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Pyewacket

Pyewacket

Posted
Posted

We used to have contests to see who could drop the most perfect pyramid of soft butter on the toe of a coworkers shoe without him noticing. Also to see how long it would stay there.

Anyone who dropped a buttermid that lasted through the end of the night would get free drinks.

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chiantiglace

chiantiglace

Posted
Posted (edited)
But then, he earned immortality by getting behind on a rib on NYear's Eve, and dropping the whole stone cold raw piece of meat into the fryalator. He could blanch anything in the fryolator and finish it in the microwave or under the salamander. Talented guy.

"Blanch in the fryolator." Now that's a phrase to conjure with. Nice one. :smile:

Thats not even uncommon to me. We use to pull this trick several times a night at my first line job.

Edited by chiantiglace (log)

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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Ross.ucf

Ross.ucf

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Posted
But then, he earned immortality by getting behind on a rib on NYear's Eve, and dropping the whole stone cold raw piece of meat into the fryalator. He could blanch anything in the fryolator and finish it in the microwave or under the salamander. Talented guy.

"Blanch in the fryolator." Now that's a phrase to conjure with. Nice one. :smile:

Thats not even uncommon to me. We use to pull this trick several times a night at my first line job.

"Where the hell is my well done steak!" "

"One minute chef ;) "

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andrewB

andrewB

Posted
Posted
I thought it was fun to get a live lobster to go to sleep by standing it on its' head.

Has anyone else heard of/seen this?

It certainly impressed my youngest sister...

As the fish cook in SF i used to open the kitchen and receive all the orders. When i got the lobsters in and while i was waiting for the water to come up, i would cut their bands off and depending on the day and my mood, i would either have lobster wars or lobster races. I'm not sure if i have ever laughed harder by myself.. It was all fun and games until one day the chef came in ealry and caught me trying to get a lobster to drink my coffee...

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andrewB

andrewB

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It was all fun and games until one day the chef came in ealry and caught me trying to get a lobster to drink my coffee...

Andrew, I see you're in need of a sig line. . . :laugh:

this topic has been wonderfully dangerous. for example, as i was watching the restaurant fill and waiting to get my a@s handed to me on the sunday lunch rush, i was trying to come up with new fun things to do along these lines. oh, and also to torture my cooks with!!

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FistFullaRoux

FistFullaRoux

Posted
Posted

I'm a knife flipper. Either starting by holding the blade then grabbing the handle, or vice versa. Don't try this at home. I usually catch the blade flat, but I've been surprised occasionally. Then I just use fingers. Haven't cut myself badly yet. You just flip it gently instead of flinging it.

Screw it. It's a Butterball.
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Reefpimp

Reefpimp

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Posted
It didn't help that our supervisor was the kind of guy that would encourage fist-fights on shift because he thought it was funny (he later blew up his hand on shift with a home-made bomb, firebombed the dish pit causing the fire alarm to go off, and tried to fight a FOH manager...).

I don't remember you working for me... :hmmm:

Other stupid tricks:

Actually smoking weed on the line

Sleeping with the new waitress

Making the French hostess so mad she'd forget her English

Gang-pummelling the attitude right out of the maitre-d behind the Dumpster

throwing hot sautee pans at each other

pantsing each other while loading the order

arranging the roasting chickens in risque situations so the easily-embarassed intern would blush when they came out of the oven

....Good times. Good times.

This whole love/hate thing would be a lot easier if it was just hate.

Bring me your finest food, stuffed with your second finest!

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johnsmith45678

johnsmith45678

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

It's no secret after half the staff has eventually slept with her! :raz:

I know another stupid cook trick:

- Appearing innocent and ignorant while a joke is in play, such as the time when you crank the dining room music up to 10 (they turned it off between lunch and dinner) and you try to continue working with a straight face when the maitre'd comes storming back to turn down the music which is so loud it sounds like there's a thunderstorm right outside. There are many others...

Edited by johnsmith45678 (log)
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chiantiglace

chiantiglace

Posted
Posted
It's no secret after half the staff has eventually slept with her!  :raz:

I know another stupid cook trick:

- Appearing innocent and ignorant while a joke is in play, such as the time when you crank the dining room music up to 10 (they turned it off between lunch and dinner) and you try to continue working with a straight face when the maitre'd comes storming back to turn down the music which is so loud it sounds like there's a thunderstorm right outside. There are many others...

The funny bit is when they forget to turn the music on, and right around 6:30 when half the first round guests are seated they decide to turn it on.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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johnsmith45678

johnsmith45678

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
It's no secret after half the staff has eventually slept with her!  :raz:

I know another stupid cook trick:

- Appearing innocent and ignorant while a joke is in play, such as the time when you crank the dining room music up to 10 (they turned it off between lunch and dinner) and you try to continue working with a straight face when the maitre'd comes storming back to turn down the music which is so loud it sounds like there's a thunderstorm right outside. There are many others...

The funny bit is when they forget to turn the music on, and right around 6:30 when half the first round guests are seated they decide to turn it on.

That's pretty much what happened, but the dining room was mostly full. :laugh:

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chefdg

chefdg

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Posted
But then, he earned immortality by getting behind on a rib on NYear's Eve, and dropping the whole stone cold raw piece of meat into the fryalator. He could blanch anything in the fryolator and finish it in the microwave or under the salamander. Talented guy.

"Blanch in the fryolator." Now that's a phrase to conjure with. Nice one. :smile:

Yeah, that instantly became my signature.

"He could blanch anything in the fryolator and finish it in the microwave or under the salamander. Talented guy."

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Reefpimp

Reefpimp

Posted
Posted

Who here has had to make a mad dash back to the prep kitchen to pee in a sink (or, better yet, an empty pickle bucket) during service b/c you were too weeded to actually take a break?

Guilty, BTW.

This whole love/hate thing would be a lot easier if it was just hate.

Bring me your finest food, stuffed with your second finest!

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jkonick

jkonick

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Posted

Making really really loud sreaching/screaming noises in the walk in during dinner. Kind of fun to do that when there are customers about ten feet away, but they can't hear you.

I work at a pizza place, and our dough size for a regular pizza is seven ounces. Tonight I took a two ounce piece of dough and stretched it out bigger than a regular pizza. It was so thin that when I tossed it up I wasn't sure if it was going to come down. It actually turned out pretty well.

Being a pizza place, we always have lots of flour around. Once, right after we closed, I grabbed a handful and went into the walk in. Proceeded to smear it all around my nose/mouth/face (a la the scene in True Romance where the guy gets coke all over his face). Came out trying to look all drugged up adn realized a customer had just walked up to get his to go order. Very quickly ran back to the walk in, laughing.

There's a cafe part of our restaurant, so I try to get the baristas to make me the most ridiculous drinks possible. Sometimes I just give them names (i.e. mocha madness) and tell them to come up with drinks based on them. Once I got three baristas working at once, and ended up with a delcious sparkling rosemary lemonade.

Seattle Dim Sum Chronicles
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johnsmith45678

johnsmith45678

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Posted (edited)

Another stupid cook trick:

Robbing the place and not getting caught. Or hopefully even noticed.

I never took more than enough for a meal or two. But when I worked at a hotel one guy (who incidentally graduated from CIA -- do they teach this there? :raz: ) stole tons of stuff all the time. Whole boxes of produce, whole tenderloins, chafing dishes, whole cheesecakes, bulk cans of veggies, bulk bottles of sauces, etc. etc. etc. We used to go to parties at his place and it was a veritable banquet! He had also stolen fine china (silverware, dishes, glassware) from very high-end places he had worked. I was amazed at the amount he had stolen, and that he'd never gotten caught, or noticed, or had anything other than a good reputation (everybody thought he was great).

Edited by johnsmith45678 (log)
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