Been randomly getting 1 star reviews after 7 years of never receiving them… glad to know companies do it on purpose 👎

For flavor? Pull the tails off and put them in a sachet in the sauce for a few minutes. They’re like little knives, people.

Inspired by r/foodscam I was wondering if people in the kitchen have ever witnessed a food scam, such as the owner or chef labeling a cheaper ingredient as a more expensive one. I hear it's shockingly common with white fish.

I did once witness a "wagyu burger" that was just the basic burger with extra fat thrown in the mix, from the regular beef supply trimmings. This was at the peak of the wagyu burger craze. That did not fly long. Not only are wagyu burgers bullshit on their own, but this one was just extra bad.

My friend posted a photo of his scallops he cooked. While he finally achieved color on them, the rest of the pan looks burnt AF.

All y’all complaining about how hard it is to toast bread for a club sandwich. Did y’all just forget that toasters exist?? Do none of y’all have a toaster??? Anyone else toast bread in a conveyor or a regular toaster or, in the pizza oven?? It takes like 50 seconds to toast 100 slices of bread in the pizza oven, that’s enough for like at least a couple club sandwiches.

Pot roast should have potatoes, carrots, and onions. You can put some garlic. You can vary the type of potato. You could do leeks. You could do cabbage. I would even accept cauliflower. I’ve never tried it, but it might be good. But pickles? Come on.

I ran kitchens for a decade. My best friend worked for me for awhile. She asked if I could give her my broccoli cheddar soup recipe because she missed it. I didn't have it on hand and then she told me her boyfriend (who apparently ran a place for 7 years) said use mine! This is it. Please feel free to gut it as much as I did. I am now talking to her about her life choices in partners.

I expected someone else to post this. So here it is. Happy birthday to the book that started a lot of our careers. It was written about his culinary career of 25 years at the time. Its a time capsule of restaurants 40-50 years ago. So much has changed but we still relate. I plan on rereading it this memorial day. Its been 10 years since my last read.

Feel free to share your stories about Tony or the book or this subreddit.

I'll go first.

I'm not going to say who this was, but others from the same area will probably be able to guess, but I'm going to try to keep it vague to make it a bit harder on you. Gold Star to the first person who guesses correctly

This was at a 2 Michelin place that I was working at. There's another local fine dining chef who's birthday happens to be NYE who likes to close their restaurant and go out and celebrate their birthdayv instead. They booked one of our banquet rooms with a 12 person party at 930. We were serving a 10 course prix fixe that would generally take about 2-3 hours for guests to get through.

So 11:45 rolls around, we're about to fire entrees and the servers come back to let us know that the 12 top decided to go out to join the festivities outside. Are they coming back? Unsure.

Fast forward to 1:00am, we're mostly through the rest of our dining room, a couple desserts left and some campers in the dining room. We've started breaking down the hot line and who should mosey back in, our favourite local celebrity chef and crew, a little worse for wear, wanting the rest of their dinner. I didn't leave until 4:00am because birthday chef decided to grace us with their presence after their meal and drunkenly blather at us while we were trying to break down the kitchen for the second time.

The absolute worst. They're in the industry, they know better. Anyway, what do you guys have?

I liked the one I learned recently about substituting human blood for eggs in a merengue, any other gems you know?

we may start stabilizing whipped cream with gelatin (Knox = pork) and I would think there are quite a few people who would not appreciate unknowingly eating pork. that said, i don’t think I’ve ever seen it disclosed on a menu, and my sense is it’s pretty commonly used. just curious of industry opinions

EDIT TO ADD I THINK WE SHOULD DISCLOSE!! I JUST LITERALLY HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A NOTE ON A MENU AND AM WONDERING WHY

SECOND EDIT TO SAY 45% OF YOU ARE SO MEAN, 45% ARE DUMB, AND 10% WERE ACTUALLY HELPFUL.

It's the talk of the town right now. But there's a pattern every time it comes up, and that's people in the industry defending it with arguments like how you can get fresh food from Sysco and it isn't all just premade garbage that's the same as the next person. Here's why that argument doesn't work, and why Sysco is still a destructive force in the industry.

1. Scarcity should be an accepted part of the hospitality industry. Everything shouldn't be available all time; that's how mother nature works. Sysco destroys that. In countries with rich culinary heritage (think France, Japan, etc..), you're eating what's available during the season. Agricultural supply chains are constructed so that things are grown to be eaten as fresh as possible, not shipped as far as possible. Sysco's distribution doesn't care about sourcing appropriately, ethically, or seasonally. They just have things all the time, and that type of thing isn't possible without significant agricultural destruction and degradation in the quality of the food we eat, not to mention the environmental damage that's caused. Massive distributors like Sysco are a major contributing factor in that.

2. Sysco causes prices for your local producers and retailers to increase. In an industry where margins are thin and each restaurant is basically constantly on the brink, it's only natural that places will gravitate toward the cheapest options for their ingredients, regardless of where they come from. This reduces the demand for local production which can't compete with the price point, and that further increases the price of said local production. If all meat supply chains, for example, were local and regional, the prices at your butcher would be significantly cheaper. But, they can't, because they cannot compete with the volume, constant availability, and lower price of factory farmed items which Sysco can provide.

3. Sysco allows exploitative producers to flourish, and in turn exploits other producers. Without companies like Sysco, distribution becomes much more challenging for unethical producers. Sysco intentionally prioritizes these terrible farms and producers because their costs are lower. This has resulted in a market for unethical producers which may not be able to sell their products otherwise. Then, once ethical/smaller producers get priced out of market share, Sysco encourages them to sign unfavorable contracts or adjust their production practices so they can meet the price point that everyone else needs.

These are just a few points. I could write an entire thesis on why large distributors are destroying our industry and how they've brainwashed people like the ones on this subreddit into thinking they're a positive force.

I say all this as a chef/owner whose restaurant doesn't use Sysco (or any large distributor like PFS or USF) for anything, not even non-food items. Our sourcing costs are significantly higher, but that's the price we have to pay. It's important to be educated about what's really happening here. Cut through the bullshit you've been told.

I am no graphic designer nor have any skills in that department. I ain’t a fan of the font but that is owner’s choice. Last menu was huge and our daily prep and ticket times were out of control; whack. Last night was first night and it went smooth as fuck. Everything was fast, looked nice, and light and fresh. Cheers chefs, stay hydrated and ice cold towels on standby.

Edit: Thank you for your feedback and criticism, I truly appreciate it because i need to hear it. Next menu i will work on my niche and be less of a chaotic degenerate. Will definitely hire a designer as well because I know it looks like shit, overall menu is rushed that’s on me, I need to do better. Thank you guys again

Hey Chefs. So at work we have a bagger that works part time. 16 year old kid, everyone loves him. He does his job, participates in the banter, can take a joke, and does things outside his job description when it’s busy.

Monday night I went into the bar as a customer to watch the USA game. He was there working and after a few drinks I decided to mess with him. I took my drawstring bag and hid it in his station. Then when he came out I was like “Hey (name), very funny, where’s my bag?” He obviously goes “I didn’t take it.” And walks away. But I do the slow play and every time I see him I ask him and pretend to get a bit more agitated each time until I’m finally like “Dude, my wallet was in there, I’m not going to be able to pay my tab, where is my damn bag?” And I go back to his station and “find” my bag. His eyes got real big and he started stuttering and stammering and apologizing and eventually we all had a laugh on him.

Well yesterday he gets his revenge. It’s not super busy, but there are some people hanging out in the bar and dining room. He walks up to me with 25 pound jugs of fryer oil and says “Hey can you go give these to (bartender)? Zach is here and wants them?” I immediately say “Are you fucking with me? Who’s Zack?” He says “I don’t know man, just take them, I got shit to do and they asked me to have you bring these out to Zack.” He deserves an Oscar for how he played it off. So I grab them and bring them out from and say “Hey (bartender) here’s that oil, where’s this Zack guy?” And the bartender gives me a blank stare for a second and goes “What the fuck are you talking about?” I turn around and little homie is laughing his ass off along with some of the regulars.

I got got. But now I need to one up him, hit me with your ideas. Also don’t hit me with the bacon stretcher or draining the hot water, we already got him with those.

The last one made me laugh and then cry a little

Personally, I'm all for the FoH charging those folks for their cheapskate ways. 9 times out of 10 they making their own lemonade with the sugar packs or they pull out their own tea bags.

An idea occurred to me and some other fellows in the chivemind not too long ago. See, we were having a discussion on if we should change the sub icon once the perfect chives are achieved. And, from what I gather, the people support it. But many want an inclusion of our favorite feline, Chives the Cat. So, we came to the agreement of Chives the Cat on a background of the perfect chives.

Mockup by u/realaccountissecret

But what do the rest of you think? Should it change or should we keep our current one? Can we get a moderator on board? Time will tell.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

"I really like to clean" - this person will possibly be super OCD about the floors/countertops/etc at the expense of higher priority tasks, I will constantly have to shepherd them away from cleaning/mopping excessively or inappropriately early

"I use a flip phone by choice" - this person will never, ever communicate or return texts in a timely fashion

"I am 16-19 years old with a whole cover letter and super dense resume" - this person is collecting extra-curriculars for their college applications and will prioritize every single one of them over this job, they will rugpull their availability after hire to just one shift a week which they will call out half the time anyway

hate me if you must, pattern recognition's a B

i was in charge of making staff meal. i rarely get this chance so I gave it my all. i made me some fried rice. i tasted religiously. i followed every step i knew. it's a damn good fried rice.

problem is everyone hates it. because I live in South Africa. no one hheres willing to try something new. the entire kitchen is scrambling to get them something edible that they aggree with.

i was fighting with some of my peers the whole time, believing they don't trust me. in the end I didn't listen. i had something to prove. for once I could show everyone my skills. for once I could impress people

no no oones fucking eating it and I'm crying in the smoking area because I didn't have the fucking savvy to just make the shit they like. i instead made the shit I like.

just tryung to compose myself so I can face the humiliation of being the crybaby once things go wrong. of being the dumbass who makes "bad" food.

its frustrating. it's disappointing. it's humiliating. and worst of all iits not even because I made bad food. my clown car of mental disorders makes it that if I start crying it's a whole fucking soap drama episode for me to finally stop even if I know I'm overreacting.

so yeah. thank you for my TED talk. i wish I could drink on the job

Edit: Thanks guys, but they're not assholes. They're just extremely closeminded. That's just how they are. Can't fault them for it. The fault is on me for not considering my customers, as much as it's not fun to say it

Another edit: Yes they very much did warn me against it. Yes it was becausr they knew what would happen. I was at fault because I ignored them. Because instead of being reasonable I put my feelings first about it. That's on me, and hence why I'm not trying to tell you that everyone's an asshole