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Soonmot posted:About two months ago I had the idea that since I enjoyed all the cooking I was doing during quarantine, I might want to get a part time job in a restaurant when (if?) covid ever ends. I've read all 9000+ posts in this thread since then and it's been a loving ride. You've also all convinced me to just have fun cooking at home, so thanks for that. Lol. You are probably the smartest person to have ever posted in this thread.
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Feb 13, 2021 03:25
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i have friends question how i can have fun spending five or so hours on a weekend putting together a dinner party, and i really can't get across that to this day there is a sense of relief that i'm not cooking for ten plus hours in hellish pressure cooker that i find pleasant
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Feb 13, 2021 08:26
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Skwirl posted:Lol. You are probably the smartest person to have ever posted in this thread. I know I'm dumb as hell and have been cooking at this hospital for nearly 6 years, lol. But at least I've got less than 3 weeks to go til my court hearing for my name change. So I got that going for me.
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Feb 13, 2021 09:18
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Manuel Calavera posted:I know I'm dumb as hell and have been cooking at this hospital for nearly 6 years, lol. Congrats!
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Feb 13, 2021 09:41
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Manuel Calavera posted:I know I'm dumb as hell and have been cooking at this hospital for nearly 6 years, lol. Cooking for a hospital is probably way better than cooking somewhere where the customers come because of choice, but congrats on the name change thing.
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Feb 13, 2021 09:54
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Thanks friends.  I'm gonna gush and be excited about it every so often because, like. I'm excited, gently caress. And yeah I'd say it's on par with hotel cooking probably in terms of. Actual respect for what I do. We try to make the food actually taste as good as we can. While dealing with sodium restrictions. (Pro tip for if you have to do hospital food. Ask for salt and hot sauce, they'll help a *lot.*)
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Feb 13, 2021 21:42
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The last time I stayed in the hospital I was there for 4 days in misery because the food was bland and I already can't taste food at all. I asked the guy who brought my tray if they had any hot sauce with tears in my eyes because I just couldn't eat more bland food. He came back 5 minutes later with a handful of Tabasco packets and some Tajin to put on my fruit. I don't think I have ever loved another human more in the moment. The only thing he said the whole time was "Miss, no one should cry about bad food. This is why they make the hot sauces." Hospital employees are a step above. And yes I am a hospital janitor on the weekends but I'm still correct. I'm just also proud.
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Feb 14, 2021 14:52
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The last time I had an extended stay in a hospital (granted, about 15 years ago) the food was so bad that the staff would go steal granola bars and stuff from other units so we'd have something actually edible. Thank you for caring about the food you serve patients.
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Feb 14, 2021 15:10
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I've only had 2 times staying at a hospital, but they were psych/rehab related so I was in a separate, smaller building. The food was actually pretty good! I guess maybe they get different contractors, and understand that food should be a pleasure, not something that makes an already suicidal person cry. But then, a few years prior to that, I did a 45 day stint in the regional jail, so after that, my bar on institution food is pretty low. We had to buy our own condiments (including loving salt), so until I got money in my canteen acct I had to beg or barter with other inmates to eat grits that weren't just straight up corn and water. Good times!
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Feb 14, 2021 17:03
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Manuel Calavera posted:Thanks friends. I just got home after three weeks in the hospital on a 2-gram / day sodium restriction. I was also on a low-fat menu. So I had all of five entrees to choose from for dinner each night, only three of which were even remotely edible (the choices were rosemary roasted chicken breast, whole wheat penne pasta with marinara and turkey meatballs, baked cod with tomato bruschetta, sliced turkey breast, sliced pork loin; guess which were edible?). Additionally, if I never have to look at a packet of Mrs. Dash again, I may die a happy man. Edit: In truth, I know all y'all in hospital kitchens have a truly thankless job, and between fluid restrictions and sodium restrictions and low-fat and low-phosphorus and renal diets and everything else, you have a ridiculous balancing act to do while still trying to turn out food that's even remotely palatable to people. (I also feel terrible for the people who answer the room service line and have to go back and forth with patients regarding what they can and cannot order within their diets.) Thank you for doing what you do. Timby fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Feb 14, 2021 |
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Feb 14, 2021 19:53
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Lemme guess chicken breast and turkey breast as inedible
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Feb 14, 2021 20:23
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Timby posted:I just got home after three weeks in the hospital on a 2-gram / day sodium restriction. I was also on a low-fat menu. So I had all of five entrees to choose from for dinner each night, only three of which were even remotely edible (the choices were rosemary roasted chicken breast, whole wheat penne pasta with marinara and turkey meatballs, baked cod with tomato bruschetta, sliced turkey breast, sliced pork loin; guess which were edible?). meatballs because they came in frozen, the penne because at least it has the sauce, and...then either the turkey or cod, probably the cod. I can guarantee the chicken breasts are so, so sad with no salt. My empathy for having only Mrs Dash for any flavor. Fun fact on renal diets. No tomatoes OR red peppers. Green peppers are fine though. No orange either. My only complaint about our call center is when they send out a ticket for me. Without an explanation on the nonsense they wrote. Most are fine. But every so often I'll get one I can't puzzle out what they want *at all*. That's like, once every other week or so I'll get one like that.
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Feb 14, 2021 21:29
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Most of the major hospitals in my province have outsourced their meal preparation to some giant conglomerate in Ottawa, so all of the meals are packaged offsite, trucked in, reheated, and served. It was not an improvement on having a hospital kitchen but maybe saved a few bucks and that's what matters, right? The main ones that didn't? The large Jewish hospitals like Mt. Sinai in Toronto. As I hear it, it was proposed to the board, and the board proposed right back that the efficiency people could be the ones to explain to the major donors why they no longer had a kosher kitchen on premises.
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Feb 15, 2021 05:55
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Manuel Calavera posted:But every so often I'll get one I can't puzzle out what they want *at all*. Time for our annual reminder of my favorite ticket ever: OMELET *EGG OTS Also, congrats on the name change!  I've been wanting to change my last name for years because I've disowned that side of the family and actively hate it (both the name and the lovely step-dad that stuck me with it). I only use it on government and banking stuff, everywhere else I use my name of choice. I can only guess at the relief of getting a first name that fits you! Yay!
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Feb 15, 2021 19:42
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evilpicard posted:Lemme guess chicken breast and turkey breast as inedible The turkey was most definitely inedible, as was the pork loin (which was a weird ... mush, I don't have any other way to describe it). The chicken breast was fine as long as I had some--non-fat, obviously--gravy on it and I doused it in black pepper, same with the penne pasta with turkey meatballs. The cod with the tomato bruschetta was also decent-ish with some squirts of fresh lemon juice, but one time I ordered it, the room service jackwagon just left it outside my room instead of bringing it in or asking a nurse or CNA to bring it in, so it sat on the tray dying for almost a half-hour before I got to dig into it. 
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Feb 15, 2021 20:39
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JacquelineDempsey posted:I can only guess at the relief of getting a first name that fits you! Yay! First AND middle! Keeping the surname because, like, I'm still part of the family and all. I could change it, but nah. Thanks friend.
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Feb 15, 2021 21:31
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Time for our annual reminder of my favorite ticket ever: God help me. Sigh. I'm going to admit it. I ordered this once at the hospital. I wanted the spinach and cheese omelette and I wanted the scrambled eggs. But I hate spinach in scrambled eggs. So I ordered scrambled eggs on the side of the omelette stuff. I actually thought of you Manuel Clavera when I ordered it. In my defense! The woman that took my order on the phone totally understood what I asked for and said it wasn't a problem. My ticket said something to the effect of: Spinach and feta with onions, no eggs, scrambled eggs on side. I'm so sorry.
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Feb 15, 2021 22:14
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fizzymercy posted:God help me. Sigh. I'm going to admit it. I ordered this once at the hospital. I wanted the spinach and cheese omelette and I wanted the scrambled eggs. But I hate spinach in scrambled eggs. So I ordered scrambled eggs on the side of the omelette stuff. I actually thought of you Manuel Clavera when I ordered it.  I had a "Greek breakfast scrambler" (eggs, spinach, roasted tomatoes, feta) for breakfast almost every morning in the hospital, and now I'm wondering what it would have looked like if I had ordered it the way you did and I think my brain is melting a little bit.
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Feb 15, 2021 22:41
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Soonmot posted:About two months ago I had the idea that since I enjoyed all the cooking I was doing during quarantine, I might want to get a part time job in a restaurant when (if?) covid ever ends. I've read all 9000+ posts in this thread since then and it's been a loving ride. You've also all convinced me to just have fun cooking at home, so thanks for that. For a very specific person cooking in a kitchen is a fun challenge. Congratulations, you are not that kind of person
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Feb 16, 2021 01:04
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fizzymercy posted:I'm so sorry. Oh, no worries fizzy! I did say it was my favorite bizarre ticket. Some of it was "ya had to been there". The guy calling it out was this big beefy dude with a deep booming voice, with long hair and a majestic beard. He LARPed as a Viking in his free time, to give you an idea. So imagine Brain Blessed in Flash Gordon saying "GORDON'S ALIVE?!" but instead it was "EGGS... ON THE SIDE?!" We ended up giving them pretty much what you got, I think it was a fajita omelet, so they got scrambled eggs and then the meat/peppers/onions next to it. Now, my least favorite bizarre ticket was the one where it necessitated FOH coming back to explain wtf the customer wanted. They wanted us to scoop out all the fluffy parts of a biscuit, leaving just the crusty shell, and then stuff it with country ham. Aside from this being a crime against biscuits and a PITA, they wanted six of these done. One? Maybe we'd do that. But six, during the Saturday 9:00-ish rush? We looked at our KM and she said "gently caress that, find the darkest, flattest biscuits we have and give 'em those." Heard! JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Feb 16, 2021 |
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Feb 16, 2021 01:49
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Now, my least favorite bizarre ticket was the one where it necessitated FOH coming back to explain wtf the customer wanted. They wanted us to scoop out all the fluffy parts of a biscuit, leaving just the crusty shell, and then stuff it with country ham. Were they trying to approximate a beaten biscuit?
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Feb 16, 2021 03:18
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casque posted:Were they trying to approximate a beaten biscuit?
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Feb 16, 2021 03:20
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cowboy
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fizzymercy posted:I'm so sorry. It's not your fault, so don't be sorry! At least the call center actually wrote a sensible ticket for the order. That's really all I care about, that they figure out how to write a reasonable ticket I can read and not be baffled by.
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Feb 16, 2021 08:53
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FFT posted:Or a Shooter's Sandwich, perhaps? There's approximating and then there's calling a hollowed out biscuit full of ham a shooters.
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Feb 16, 2021 10:07
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mandatory lesbian posted:For a very specific person cooking in a kitchen is a fun challenge. Congratulations, you are not that kind of person This is going to be my go-to response to everyone who tells me that I should work in/open a restaurant because I like to cook.
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Feb 16, 2021 10:38
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Could also go with 'I'd like to keep enjoying cooking'.
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Feb 16, 2021 11:47
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Canuckistan posted:This is going to be my go-to response to everyone who tells me that I should work in/open a restaurant because I like to cook. Yeah, keyword is " challenge". You like to cook for you and your friends but how about when you have 10 tickets on the line and your fry cook is puking in the bathroom bc he took some dubiously legal substances before coming in. Also two of the waiters are loving in the bathroom
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Feb 16, 2021 13:46
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mandatory lesbian posted:Yeah, keyword is " challenge". You like to cook for you and your friends but how about when you have 10 tickets on the line and your fry cook is puking in the bathroom bc he took some dubiously legal substances before coming in. Also two of the waiters are loving in the bathroom and then you remember that your next day off is 12 days away because the store is short staffed and you need the money
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Feb 16, 2021 16:03
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Coasterphreak posted:and then you remember that your next day off is 12 days away because the store is short staffed and you need the money And then you quit and walk across the street for a day off and a 25 cent raise, wondering why you didn't just stick with your passion as a hobby and a day job that let you pursue it at home. TheParadigm fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Feb 16, 2021 |
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Feb 16, 2021 16:06
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JacquelineDempsey posted:
That......sounds really delicious, maybe melt some cheddar cheese on top. I understand perfectly what a PITA it would be for a commercial kitchen to do, but I think I might make biscuits at home and try that sometime soon.
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Feb 17, 2021 04:30
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In utterly depressing industry news, Wendy's is opening up ghost kitchens in Toronto purely for delivery orders: https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2021/02/wendys-ghost-kitchen-opening-toronto-7-eleven/
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Feb 17, 2021 06:24
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demolition man taco bell future but instead it's restaurants that look normal from the outside running a secret taco bell in the kitchen
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Feb 17, 2021 21:40
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Soonmot posted:About two months ago I had the idea that since I enjoyed all the cooking I was doing during quarantine, I might want to get a part time job in a restaurant when (if?) covid ever ends. I've read all 9000+ posts in this thread since then and it's been a loving ride. You've also all convinced me to just have fun cooking at home, so thanks for that. If you actually want a challenge that benefits you and your community around you, try hooking up with your local food not bombs chapter. All the terror and excitement of working understaffed and undersupplied with none of the pay!!
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Feb 17, 2021 22:45
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ughhhh posted:If you actually want a challenge that benefits you and your community around you, try hooking up with your local food not bombs chapter. I started volunteering with a local church that has a free lunch program last March, they eventually decided to pay me after a few months and I'm still there. It's really interesting, I've learned a lot about batch/bulk cooking, budgeting, making do with donations. Lot of interesting clients too, if you like that sort of thing. We got a lot of plant-based roasted red pepper/basil/garlic dip today and I think it'll make a passable soup with some broth and maybe some (donated) cashew butter as it's cashew based in the first place. Or, it'd be nice on chicken over rice. You don't know what you're getting in one day to the next so it's really interesting to plan a menu for the week - if you get a shitload of nearly expired donated pineapples on wednesday, do you do a pineapple upside down cake or hawaiian ham? It's a little different than cooking in a commercial kitchen and you do have to get along well with older ladies as it's kind of a staple of this genre. Yesterday was supposed to be a break of sorts because a pizza chain was going to handle the food, but they kind of forgot or something and so it was shrove tueday pancakes, sausages, baked beans, the aforementioned pineapple upside down cake, fruit, and banana muffins. Donations are wildly variable, we get a van in from another charity several times a week of the stuff Costco can no longer sell, and it's anyone's guess what's going to the be on the van. Personal donations are also wildly variable with some people thinking granola bars would be good (they are!) and some donating like 17 tubes of harissa.
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Feb 18, 2021 02:53
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angerbeet posted:I started volunteering with a local church that has a free lunch program last March, they eventually decided to pay me after a few months and I'm still there. It's really interesting, I've learned a lot about batch/bulk cooking, budgeting, making do with donations. Lot of interesting clients too, if you like that sort of thing. I haven't worked in a kitchen for a while, and am probably better off mentally/physically for it. But I do volunteer in kitchens a couple times a year, it is a real feel-good experience to do something you are competent at, providing something for people that need it. I'm glad I'm there, because I am doing work, I am doing it well, and the work is being done for a good reason. You get up to some kooky poo poo making use of what you have on-hand as well. Overripe fruits + sugar + vinegar + butter/margarine + oats becomes an amazing dessert because your hands are there to do it. Between that and going the extra mile sometimes when cooking at home, it satisfies the animalistic need to complete the imaginary tickets in my mind every time I make a plate of food. Sometimes I still have dreams with the ticket printer sound, and I'm expected to produce [thing], and sometimes it has nothing to do with food at all I just hear the bzzzzt crkr and now I know I have to do [thing] FAST I always wake up alert and refreshed after having those dreams. That's great at 7am. No so great at 2am.
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Feb 18, 2021 07:25
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WITCHCRAFT posted:You get up to some kooky poo poo making use of what you have on-hand as well. Do we ever. It's incredibly satisfying to face a problem, problem solve, and then have an actual finished product that solves another problem. Most of my working life has been working on things that don't have concrete solutions that you can actually see at the end of the day. The strawberry turnip crumble was a perfectly innocent mistake that could have happened to anyone, and everybody liked it, and it's the fault of whoever labelled the bags being put in the freezer anyway.
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Feb 19, 2021 02:08
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WITCHCRAFT and angerbeet, y'all are super awesome for doing volunteer kitchen work.  (though I gotta know: what were the turnips labeled as? I'm assuming that's what was mislabeled...)Good news about Belle, the woman behind the current thread title: she got fight, indeed, and should be coming home from the hospital next weekend, yay! When I asked Merry, her closest FOH mate, about her today, Merry said she'd sent her a "Miss you, thinking about you! <3" text last night, and Belle responded with "<3 <3 <3", her first text back since the aneurysm. So, progress. That was a spot of good news. On a more amusing note, TIL that one of our ace cooks, Mark*, had no idea that green tomatoes are just unripe tomatoes. Amy was slicing green toms (we go thru a ton of fried green toms), and a few were pinkish inside, or showing a tiny bit of blush outside. Mark seemed concerned and wondered if they were bad, or they sent us the wrong tomatoes. "Nnnnooo," said Amy, puzzled, "they're just getting a bit ripe. That's why I'm slicing those now, so we use 'em up today." "What do you mean? They aren't ripe already?" After some explanation (and laughter on our part), he finally confessed that he always thought green tomatoes were their own breed, like granny smith vs red delicious apples. This from a man born and raised in the South, who's worked WAY more restaurants than this Yankee poster who never encountered a fried green tomato until I started working here. *I always change names, of course, but I kept his because I swear every restaurant I've worked at has a Mark. I have to give them prefixes to tell anecdotes to my husband, eg.: "That reminds of when Mark --- Big Mark --- [anecdote]". I'm up to Big Mark, Little Mark, Sports Mark, Downtown Mark, and now New Mark.
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Feb 20, 2021 23:17
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Oh, they were thought to be apples. One of the volunteers (back when they had volunteers) must have cut them oddly when preparing them, they apparently looked just like apple slices. This was all right when I started there, so it wasn't me cooking it. This:  Is probably the most satisfying piece of kitchen equipment I've used for years. Definitely getting one for home.
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Feb 21, 2021 01:46
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JacquelineDempsey posted:
This is been both very enlightening and confusing for me because there are absolutely tomatoes that ripen green, "Aunt Ruby's German Green", my mom grows them in her backyard and I've eaten them. So I've been making the same assumptions that Mark has. I guess in my defense I'm in Ontario, so fried green tomatoes aren't a staple. Anyway I guess I learned something today.
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Feb 21, 2021 02:59
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"That reminds of when Mark --- Big Mark --- [anecdote]". I'm up to Big Mark, Little Mark, Sports Mark, Downtown Mark, and now New Mark." God help you if you get named New Mark, your still gonna be getting called New Mark when you're the oldest Mark there.
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Feb 21, 2021 04:46
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