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Vegetable Melange posted:For what application(s)? Just to mix with seltzer for a non alcoholic fizzy thing
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 05:20 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 15:55 |
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HKR posted:Anyone who makes less then $455 a week on salary got rooked. I was more about quote:* The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers Because I know most of my "primary duties" qualify as manual work.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 07:06 |
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Turkeybone posted:Can someone (bartenders) hook me up with good recipes for potent lime and ginger syrups? (two recipes) Just mix equal parts juiced ginger and sugar, heat it to dissolve sugar then cool.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 07:30 |
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tycho_atreides posted:Just mix equal parts juiced ginger and sugar, heat it to dissolve sugar then cool. I make a ginger syrup similarly but I blend up the ginger with the intention of leaving the solids in the syrup, since I drink it in carbonated water. I'll add half the ginger plus a bit of water and then heat it until it becomes a syrup, then I'll add in the other half while cooling. It gets nicely spicier the longer it sits, but the above might be better solution for more things. I just like raw ginger.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 08:01 |
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tycho_atreides posted:Just mix equal parts juiced ginger and sugar, heat it to dissolve sugar then cool. Then go 1:1 volume of fresh squeezed lime and add your bubbles. Or do 50:50 lime:lemon, that's how I do my "home made ginger ale" at work for your totalers of tee, add bitters if it's an upset tummy on your hungover waitstaff.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 12:05 |
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tycho_atreides posted:Just mix equal parts juiced ginger and sugar, heat it to dissolve sugar then cool. That's a bit wasteful on the ginger end (though it's not an overwhelming food cost). I do a ginger syrup for iced tea and end up doing a 1:1 ratio of water:sugar, adding in 3 tbsp of pureed ginger, then let it steep after bringing to just below a boil, strain it.
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| # ? Sep 25, 2011 18:41 |
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If anyone wants pointers from the bar, I'll do what I can. Meanwhile my lady works in cheese retail and just got scumfucked by her boss on a huge catering order; seriously, it is vital to make and keep friends at other places in this business, because you have to be mobile laterally in case of being scumbagged. Seriously, I've quit jobs over that kind of thing.(not single occasions, more like camels backs and so on.)
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| # ? Sep 26, 2011 00:19 |
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I got a new pair of red wings' oxfords for FOH stuff, and my dad told me what I needed to do to break them is soak them in water and wear them over layered socks until the shoes dry out, and then hit them with this leather shoe coating stuff. Normally I'd take his advice, but I'm worried that might not be the best idea with these shoes--I just figured I'd wear them around to break them in. Which of us is closer to the mark?
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| # ? Sep 26, 2011 18:19 |
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I'd just layer socks and take the blisters for a week or so. I don't see the point in soaking them besides ruining the finish. And seriously, invest in good polish. Nothing like scruffy shoes to scream "this is just my day job".
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| # ? Sep 26, 2011 18:36 |
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How exactly do scruffy shoes say "this is just my day job"?
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| # ? Sep 26, 2011 22:18 |
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magnetic posted:How exactly do scruffy shoes say "this is just my day job"? Detail, detail, detail. Maybe it is just a job, but you want people to feel like you're there just for them. It's how we make our money up front. Hospitality.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 00:46 |
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Vegetable Melange posted:Detail, detail, detail. Maybe it is just a job, but you want people to feel like you're there just for them. It's how we make our money up front. Hospitality. I think that depends on what kind of restaurant you're in. Some places favor shorts and v-necks over nice shoes.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 01:54 |
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I decided to avoid becoming a chef because I love to cook, but cooking is hard work. I have spent years in the restaurant biz and, in the end, I have to say I really loved it. But I have never worked so hard for so little otherwise, and I can't imagine raising a family while doing it. To add to the advice about getting in to the biz. Learn how to say "yes." Can I help in the dish room? Yes. Do I know what's medium rare? Yes. Would I like to run the chicken fryer? Yes. Double shift on Saturday and Sunday? Yes. Can you take out this hundred pound drum of food waste? Yes. Can we round off the shift and clock you out now? Yes. Eventually, you become indispensable, because you can do everything and if you don't, it may not happen. I ended up quitting a job as the head cook at a buffet, though. Why? No raise. I never got the raise they promised if I "worked out." They tried to taunt me into working harder for the raise they already promised me. Then, when I finally quit, they were all tears and apologies. Too bad. When cooking is fun, and it can be, it's because you're throwing around pans of food and timers are going off and GODDAMN you are good at what you do and it's all happening like magic. That's really what separates amateur culimary interests from a professional one, whether you're looking at cooking as an aesthetic experience versus a massive, crazy amount of work that needs to get done and you're the person to do it. I would totally do it all over again. Even the place I had three bosses.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 04:38 |
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Day 1 in the new kitchen Diggin' it. Old place with a new chef who's cleared out the dead weight and whatnot. I'm the 2nd to last new hire and from what I've seen so far the kitchen's got a good vibe to it. Nice layout and spacing, too... everything's right where you need it without it being cramped and the storage is nice and close. I have the feeling that this is a place I could be at for a very long time and enjoy it. Fingers crossed.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 05:31 |
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Wroughtirony posted:a lot of it is a patois developed between cooks. Everyone likes to have their own secret language that nobody else understands. The offensiveness is mostly just bravado. If I say to the grill cook, "get your dick out of Andy's rear end and give me that sirloin!" It's likely that he and his wife spend thursday nights playing pub trivia with my husband and I, and Andy hosted a great BBQ last holiday weekend. Yeah, we have a lot of politically incorrect fun, but it's all tongue-in-cheek, never abusive. Whatever you saw on "Waiting" isn't how it works at all. I've never worked as a cook myself, but I spent about six years working as a part time dishwasher in the summers when I was in high school and college, and I gotta say, I still miss the bullshitting between everyone in the kitchen. When I first started, word got around that I was naive as hell, and even the slightest breath of the idea of me getting fired would drat near make me poo poo myself. I cannot tell you how many times the Exec Chef started chewing me out over something mundane, had me with my rear end cheeks clenched tight enough to make diamonds, then just started laughing at how strung up he had me. Around my second or third summer there, I finally relaxed enough to start biting back a little when I got poo poo, and those assholes are still my favorite coworkers I've ever had. I've never tossed around as much poo poo with my coworkers as I did with the guys and gals in the kitchen.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 06:00 |
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How (un)profitable are b&b's? Just a random thought
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 15:41 |
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Turkeybone posted:How (un)profitable are b&b's? Just a random thought No, but I'd love to find out.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 16:27 |
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Turkeybone posted:How (un)profitable are b&b's? Just a random thought The wife and I do B&B's twice to 3 times a year (grandparents come in for a week, mom and dad zip away for a night or two on the weekend) and there are good ones and bad ones. I know I have preferences, but I don't know about money. I can give you customer perspective if you give a poop. Pro-tip #1, if you are showing the house off to the newly arrived guests, don't go around opening closed doors of guests who have already arrived. The main reason I go to B&B's is it's a nice stress free place to have naked squirty time with the wife. You don't want to watch me writhing around under the sheets. It ain't pretty. No, but I left my vibrating cock ring on the nightstand... Sorry cleaning lady. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV NosmoKing fucked around with this message at Sep 27, 2011 around 16:33 |
| # ? Sep 27, 2011 16:28 |
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I always thought that B&B's combined the horror of cleaning a peep show with the stress of cooking for a couple who left their vibrating egg in the toilet bowl.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 16:30 |
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Generalisimo Halal posted:I always thought that B&B's combined the horror of cleaning a peep show with the stress of cooking for a couple who left their vibrating egg in the toilet bowl. Welp there goes my business model of starting a little place outside of a gay colony.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 16:34 |
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I actually used to live in a B&B (well, the house is shaped like an L; one half was a B&B, the other half was an upstairs apartment where the owner lived and a downstairs apartment where I lived), and as such, I got to see and hear quite a bit about the behind-the-scenes operations. The owner had the house completely paid off, so having guests in the B&B was basically free money, especially since the breakfast was entirely continental -- muffins and croissants from Hy-Vee warmed in the toaster oven and kept in a chafing dish, orange juice, a mixed fruit plate and a waffle maker, so no real resource investment there.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 18:48 |
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But not for its location in a house, this B&B sounds suspiciously like a Best Western.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 19:36 |
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pawsplay posted:
No. No, no, no. You have to set your boundaries, and working off the clock should be one of them. While pawsplay definitely has a point, there is a fine line between "indispensable, flexible, great attitude, gotta keep him, promote now" and "will do all the poo poo work for next to nothing without complaining, keep in the pit until he burns out." Pick your battles wisely, but stick with what you say. If you say, "just this once" and your boss asks you to do it again two days later, say no. If you told them in the interview that you absolutely cannot work past 10PM on Sunday nights bring it to their attention immediately when you find yourself scheduled 4-11:30. Don't whine, and don't be a dick, say yes whenever you can, but set the boundaries you need to set. Right now I'm working two jobs that total 50+ hours a week, every week. I've been doing this since February. One job has a set schedule, the other is variable. The ONLY reason I've been able to keep this up is that I built in at least six hours of sleep per night and one full day off when I gave my availability to the variable schedule job. It's really a win-win, because management knows that I am absolutely flexible within the parameters I set, and they don't have to be responsible for looking out for my work/life balance or worrying about me coming on for a six hour shift after being awake for 30 hours. (of course, if I get the job I really really want to get once we move to DC, all that goes out the window and I will sell my immortal soul to peel potatoes for 17 hours a day every day for months, compensated only by a daily bowl of rice garnished with potato skins.)
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 19:58 |
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Yeah, I'm with WI on this one. I only take so many fuckings from a job before I bail; two weeks ago I decided to give my notice at a job after they pulled me in on a Saturday when I'd already worked a whole shift at my other job so I could serve six people and get cut after three hours. I gave my notice on the next Monday.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 20:17 |
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"Round off the shift"? What? Can you short me money so you don't your payroll company doesn't have to include decimals in their checks? Why on earth would anyone agree to that at all?
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 21:23 |
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A Gremlin Eel posted:But not for its location in a house, this B&B sounds suspiciously like a Best Western. Nah, the rooms were actually really nice, and the house itself was gorgeous -- the first farmhouse built in the State of Iowa, extensively renovated not too long ago. Plus there was a Migun massage table. 
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 21:24 |
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I had the notion of building a b&b with a friend who wants to own/operate a winery/orchard. Sounds like a perfect little life on 50 acres in Washington state... oh BTW can I borrow 1.1million for the land?
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 22:21 |
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Wroughtirony posted:(of course, if I get the job I really really want to get once we move to DC, all that goes out the window and I will sell my immortal soul to peel potatoes for 17 hours a day every day for months, compensated only by a daily bowl of rice garnished with potato skins.) WI, I understand if you don't want to answer, but having just moved to DC myself for restaurant work I'm really curious as to where you're gunning for.
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| # ? Sep 27, 2011 22:21 |
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Magres posted:I've never worked as a cook myself, but I spent about six years working as a part time dishwasher in the summers when I was in high school and college, and I gotta say, I still miss the bullshitting between everyone in the kitchen. We also had the usual cast of characters: a sous chef who bought my leftover T3s from some dental surgery for $100, no questions asked; a pizza chef downstairs who had a doctorate in psychology, but ditched his work with the courts to work in kitchens for way less money after hearing a woman describe how amazing her 14-year-old son was at giving her head; a line cook who would explain how to separate the frozen pre-grated pizza cheeses by telling new employees to "treat the tupperware tub like that ex you really, really hate, only worse"; and the 45-year-old waiter who cold-cocked a guy at 2 AM for trying to kick out the bar windows. In short: kitchens have the best co-workers.  And if you're a young person reading this who isn't afraid of hard work, I really can't think of a more rewarding, interesting, eye-opening high school job that can turn into a lot more (the friend who got me the job stuck with it after high school and he's a sous chef these days).
lonelywurm fucked around with this message at Sep 27, 2011 around 22:59 |
| # ? Sep 27, 2011 22:55 |
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Wroughtirony posted:No. No, no, no. You have to set your boundaries, and working off the clock should be one of them. While pawsplay definitely has a point, there is a fine line between "indispensable, flexible, great attitude, gotta keep him, promote now" and "will do all the poo poo work for next to nothing without complaining, keep in the pit until he burns out." Pick your battles wisely, but stick with what you say. If you say, "just this once" and your boss asks you to do it again two days later, say no. If you told them in the interview that you absolutely cannot work past 10PM on Sunday nights bring it to their attention immediately when you find yourself scheduled 4-11:30. Don't whine, and don't be a dick, say yes whenever you can, but set the boundaries you need to set. I thought about following up with a paragraph about saying "No," but I decided that was a lesson for a later lesson, but maybe I should have taken a stab at it anyway. It is important to have boundaries, totally. You can't say yes to absolutely everything. But you want to maximize your ability to say yes, which means figuring out what you would definitely say "no" to. Probably one of the reasons I didn't get my promised raise was because I protested regularly having two hours shaved off my Saturday paycheck. I also told my bosses that, one time only, I would hold off clocking in, then work a split shift, but if I ever showed up again only to be sent home, I would probably walk, and oh yeah, I don't split an hour out of the middle of my shift unless I get lunch. Particularly if I have to play catchup following that glorious hour. I think you have to figure out, in your mind, where the line is between "things I just don't want to do" versus "things that are crazy, terrible, and unfair."
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 00:01 |
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The thing you have to ask yourself is "am I furthering my career by letting myself get hosed in the rear end repeatedly?" If you're working at some place that'll look amazing on your resume, or teaches you skills you can't get anywhere, then yeah, say yes yes yes and suck it up - for as long as is prudent. If not, then listen to wrought. It was brought up in the old thread, but it bears repeating: The bosses aren't there for you. If they can shave half a percent off their wagebill by exproiting you, they will. You're the idiot who accepted it.
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 01:04 |
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We keep one of those long BBQ lighters on the line for when the gas burners are being difficult. Somebody decided to store it on the shelf above the plate warmer and below the steam table yesterday night. Luckily, nobody was nearby when the thing exploded. Oh yeah, and never do poo poo without being clocked in. Say you get hurt and have to file for workers comp, if you're not on the clock at the time, what's stopping your employer from saying that you weren't working? Like dane just said, they're not interested in you, they just want to squeeze every cent out of you. Rockzilla fucked around with this message at Sep 28, 2011 around 03:19 |
| # ? Sep 28, 2011 03:14 |
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Rockzilla posted:Say you get hurt and have to file for workers comp, if you're not on the clock at the time, what's stopping your employer from saying that you weren't working? The fear of bringing attention to the fact they were employing unpaid labor. Otherwise, why wouldn't they just doctor the books every time someone slipped and fell?
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 05:40 |
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Rockzilla posted:We keep one of those long BBQ lighters on the line for when the gas burners are being difficult. Somebody decided to store it on the shelf above the plate warmer and below the steam table yesterday night. Luckily, nobody was nearby when the thing exploded. Most everyone where I work just keeps one in their back pocket. The maintenance guy was telling me a story about how more than once the lighters get left near burners and have shot across the kitchen like rockets.
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 13:55 |
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Hello, Industry Professionals. I am a long-time lurker, and I have a lot of respect for all of you. I am curious about how you feel about food writers and restaurant reviewers. Do you prefer writers that have a respectable background in BOH, or just someone who isn't a blathering idiot? I live in a well-rounded college town that has poo poo for reviews or interviews with professionals. Would you find a short interview geared towards college cooks a nuisance?
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 14:01 |
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Updated the OP, hoping the stop the tipping derail before it starts. Wroughtirony posted:Oh, before I go there are a couple of rules...
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 14:06 |
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Tig Ol Bitties posted:Hello, Industry Professionals. I am a long-time lurker, and I have a lot of respect for all of you. I am curious about how you feel about food writers and restaurant reviewers. Do you prefer writers that have a respectable background in BOH, or just someone who isn't a blathering idiot? I live in a well-rounded college town that has poo poo for reviews or interviews with professionals. Would you find a short interview geared towards college cooks a nuisance? At least around here, I generally don't think that the food writers and restaurant reviewers could find their own asses with both hands, a map, two sherpas, and a grant from National Geographic. But that's because they're generally the kind of people who go to a bar and grill, then spend the entire review talking about how it wasn't a kosher deli rather than talking about the food at all. Interviews with professionals could be interesting, but really most of them aren't going to say say the things that college cooks need to hear in an interview for print.
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| # ? Sep 28, 2011 23:45 |
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Tig Ol Bitties posted:Hello, Industry Professionals. I am a long-time lurker, and I have a lot of respect for all of you. I am curious about how you feel about food writers and restaurant reviewers. Do you prefer writers that have a respectable background in BOH, or just someone who isn't a blathering idiot? I live in a well-rounded college town that has poo poo for reviews or interviews with professionals. Would you find a short interview geared towards college cooks a nuisance? I know a lot of writers, and a lot of journalists, and I have been guilty of writing for pay myself, in the past. The biggest problem with food writers, as far as I can see, is that their primary goal is to convince their readers that they are more savvy about food than anyone else, ever. Whenever they write about a restaurant, their primary goal is to make themselves look good. They might also make the restaurant look good or bad, but mostly every review is about the reviewer. (this is an honest question) Why would anyone gear restaurant reviews towards college cooks?
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| # ? Sep 29, 2011 01:34 |
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Wroughtirony posted:Why would anyone gear restaurant reviews towards college cooks? College newspaper?
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| # ? Sep 29, 2011 04:09 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 15:55 |
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Naelyan posted:College newspaper? But wouldn't that be for the college diner, with a parent supported credit card? Cooks and bartenders in a college town usually know where their peers work and that is part of the benefit of cooking and bartending in a college town--a little quid pro quo. No need for reviews.
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| # ? Sep 29, 2011 05:05 |
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