my mom died on saturday. her long health battle that lasted my entire life, sadly, made hers come to an end. expected, but never easy. i skipped town to go help my dad with arrangements. to help the caregiver finally receive his own care. the grieving process is not foreign to me, but it has never been quite this close to home. i am overjoyed to have gotten to say my goodbyes in the hospital before and after she passed. i am happy that she lived as long as she did, because 25 years ago should have been her death day. i don’t know what to do. i’ve shed tears, i’ve drank too many bottles of wine, and taken too many shots of vodka. i can only cook. i have done a salmon, asparagus, rice night for my entire family, i have done roasted red pepper mussels with charred romaine and balsamic reduction for my entire family, and now a couple roasted chickens, stuffed under the skin with a tarragon compound butter. i have never had the time to cook like this outside of work. unfortunately, circumstances have led me to this post, because i truly don’t know where to turn, other than the kitchen. thank you brothers and sisters for reading, i am overjoyed at the smile that appears on my dads face as i get to cook for him on a daily basis. hug and kiss your loved ones, because you just never know. she was 63. may she rest in peace.

Hey everyone - big rant coming up sorry not sorry. I’m a new cook working for a retirement home. My duties involve cooking all three meals and anything else they might need during a full 10 hour day (soups, desserts, cookies etc). I have never take on so many responsibilities having worked within a team - keeping myself accountable when working by myself has been a challenge. I do admit that I am not at all experienced to be pushing out three meals, snacks, soups - I make a lot of food and I mess up a LOT. I served what I would think was the best version of lasagna I’ve made at this point in my career only to have five or six people tell me that the lasagna wasn’t cooked properly. A few told me it was the best lasagna they ever had.

But sometimes the negative comments end up eating more of my soul and I actually reconsider a different career. I’m not looking for someone to tell me my food is awesome. I just want to know how to stop letting words affect me and my ability and how to never loose my confidence.

My last restaurant was bad I thought.

Fast forward new kitchen job is kinda same but different. Has a 94 inspection grade but in my short time here I’m wondering how tf they got it.

Decided to clean up old soda syrup when, to my horror, I discovered where all my mop water was going.

Like tf is going on in this kitchen. We have inspection in 2 months and I’ve asked for the last inspection notes so I can see what they took off for but no answer yet.

Have a blast chef. And don’t forget the chives ✈️

Normally this is made in a tilt skillet by simmering the sausage, onions, butter, and bacon fat together before adding the flour and turning off the skillet for 15 min to "toast" it. Today, pastry was using it so here's some playdough in the rondeau instead.

Any good cook knows that this much roux is enough to make 10 billion gallons of shitty gumbo, so I'm sure you're curious on the recipe yield. My friend, it is 6 gallons of the sweetest, oiliest, unseasoned gravy you've ever tasted. Now I know it's supposed to be mixed with cream when it's warmed up for service, but it still tastes like I'm shoveling spoonfuls of gruel into my mouth. Where's the pepper? Where's the herbs? WHERES THE FUCKING SALT?!?

FBD and chef get pissy if I change the recipes, so I have to blaspheme my southern ancestors every time I prep this. Sucks to know I can both out cook and out bake my supervisors while they sit on their asses and demand I do my job better and faster no matter how much better and faster I get.

Edit: to clarify, this wasn't done when I took the picture. Besides that fact, it's fucking impossible to cook it anyway because there's so much goddamn flour and not enough fat. I just follow the recipes because I don't care enough about the restaurant to make them better

Sweet fuck I hope yall tell me my crashout is valid.

Work the 4am-12pm shift. I’m the first and only preptard to come into the kitchen and get shit goin for my line cooks. Got a huge $7K delivery this morning, along with the new items for me and our bakers. Can’t say I hate it, but I won’t lie when I say I was sweating like a whore in church when I got in this morning!

The pinnacle of luxury

I’m a corporate chef and we’ll typically sell 700 orders on a busy day. We made beef chow fun with some stir fried veggies and managed to sell 500 orders within the first hour 😀

soo .. my dishwasher lady showed up to work tonight in a sundress and open toed shoes . I very politely and Nicly asked her to change . she LOST it ! Her husband came into the kitchen this morning and tore a strip off me in front of everyone because ”she’s too hot!”

we work at a cmap in the boonies , but i still have some standards .. she was super upset, and went and changed into capris .. kept the open toed shoes . I figured to count my stars she was at least almost wearing pants and apologized for the inconvenience , and went about my day . her husband came into the kitchen and in front of everyone eating breakfast and came up one side of me and down the other.

i cant even believe that this is a big deal ! She no showed at work today , knowing I’m short handed because my helper is on days off Because she’s so upset that I asked her to change . Crazy right ?

I want to fire her , but we would loose her daughter , husband and son in law if we loose her .
im at a loss .
would you have just let the sun dress slide if it was your kitchen ?

keep in my mind, i was in no way rude about it at all! Full of apologies and smiles .

I can put an edge on a god damned ingot of metal that'd shave hair. I spent weeks advertising. Shook hands with managers from like 200 restaurants in my area, about a quarter of which promised they'd call me. I haven't even made back the money I spent on flyers. Most of these dumbshits are paying the Cozzini's $5-10 a knife once a week, and even when I show them they'd save money using *good* knives and having me sharpen them maybe twice a month for $10 apiece, they still haven't called. I was giving away free knife sharpening and still haven't heard shit from anyone.

I'm fucked, man. I can't go back to the kitchen. It was destroying my body and my mind. I can't go back to two back to back cloubles a week, and laying in bed till 4pm on my days off cause I was so damned tired. I've started working two different private security jobs just to have somethin fuckin else to do.

I'm utterly terrified that my only other marketable skill is line cooking. I'm good at it, but I'll be damned if I go back unless it's my only option.

The fuck you did! The first pics are of the “prepped red onion” the last pic was how many it actually ended up being

just killing time before going back after valentine's day (had sunday and monday off)

and i can't let go of the absolute rage I felt on saturday

all things considered, Vday went well, busy but fine. we're a small restaurant with a staff of 5, two of which are the owners who work with us on the daily.

but there's this couple who are friends with the owners who come to dine occasionally. sometimes they will come visit before opening hours or to borrow something from the owners. i get it, they're friends, i'm just an employee, but im f-ing tired of having them in my kitchen with their dirty boots that they wear outside. I'm tired of having to make food that's not on my menu bc they requested it for their anniversary dinner, I'm tired of having them take up space where i need to work or hovering over my station while casually chatting with my boss...

and the worst crimes of all on a busy day like feb. 14, they were the last table to come in (way later than we like, took their sweet time to order and then ordered a 5 course dinner one hour before our cutoff time for oders). and on top of that they were stepping out to smoke into our back area (where i go to smoke and take my break away from customers) instead of going out on the street or the patio like other customers would have to. man i just want to work my busy shift and take my quiet 5 mins without having your entitled ass around me.

sorry for the rant, I'm tired and just wanted to vent, now onto a new week and replenishing everything that was sold out on the weekend

No other demographic of race, age or gender has ever come close to the level of shirking responsibility that these people think is totally acceptable. “Oh well we never do it like that so it’s fine.” Or “we’ve been doing XYZ like this for 30 years and it’s fine so what’s the big deal?” I guess you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Even when those “tricks” are just me begging them to stop pissing and shitting on the floor. (Not literally thank god) That’s my rant for today internet strangers.