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Anyone work in NYC could tell me how it is atm? I got let go at the beginning of the quarentine and now my boss is asking me to come back. I have a bad feeling about it and would rather spend my time doing better things (like yelling at cops in protest).
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Jun 27, 2020 00:01
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bloody ghost titty posted:Oh hi, actual question haver- I work as a sous and one of the chefs I worked with asked me to help reopen a restaurant I worked at (high-end Instagram club/restaurant). I called all the line cooks and prep cooks I trust and used to work with, but many of them left the city/country since they are immigrants with no support so I know we are going to be understaffed and inexperienced. Had a meeting with the owner and the he said some things that implied that everyone was going to be paid less and gave vague answers about healthcare and sick pay wrt covid. Sat in some meetings before I decide to work and there is no concrete information on worker protection or support, just a push to be open as soon as possible. Are there any rules in place for workers wrt to covid that NYC is trying to implement or pushing for? Support from the city of they get sick, rules/changes for kitchen work I should look at, cpacity reduction for customers etc. I am not going to call back people I love and care for to work if this poo poo is just going to start all over again. I can go upstate and shovel goatshit all summer, but I have people asking me where I am and if I need workers and I cannot in good conscience ask them to come to work without at least fighting to make sure they have some support. Many of them have taken lower paying jobs working delivery places and they need better paying jobs which I could provide... But the risks atm just seem too much. Just so defeated and scared. ughhhh fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Jun 27, 2020 |
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Jun 27, 2020 08:33
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pentyne posted:Staging has finally gotten enough bad publicity to turn opinions on it but for the longest time the argument was without hordes of young skilled chefs to work for free none of these world class places like Noma could exist at all. I worked with one of those people who came out of Noma and he expected me to work unpaid like he did at Noma putting extra hours outside of work hours. gently caress them.
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Jun 28, 2020 19:14
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thotsky posted:One thing is cooks being willing to work for poo poo/no pay; I can sort of get it; people believe there's a status that comes with it, jobs like that are in short supply if you've got no means or education. The only other option being the military maybe? Where I have trouble is that if all of these restaurants operate on the slimmest of margins, could not afford to pay their cooks more if they wanted to, and seemingly go out of business quite often, why are new ones being opened at all? It doesn't sound like a great investment. I know in NYC that many of the higher end restaurants are used as tax write-offs for the investors. Usually restaurants are used to up the value of property or location. None of the restaurants actually turn a profit and that gets used as a write-off or loss, but the value added to the property ends up being more than the loss and taxes don't have to be paid by the investors because the loss offsets the rise in value.
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Jun 28, 2020 21:59
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gwrtheyrn posted:Unless I'm missing something, rising property value alone shouldn't affect taxes other than property tax unless you sell. It does let you charge more for rent above and around the restaurant since the property is 'worth more', and also let you get/hold larger loans since the real estate is the collateral. Alternatively, there's some dumb trick with 'adding value' to properties that basically lets you have near infinite leverage on real estate investments. That plus loans they take out leveraging the property etc. Either way I was just trying to say a restaurant is more a financial vehicle for the rich than the labor the employees put in these days. ughhhh fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Jun 29, 2020 |
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Jun 29, 2020 08:08
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JacquelineDempsey posted:"NEW BIZ, GUYS! I GOT OMELETTE SPECIAL, EGGS... On... the side?" I worked in a restaurant with Egg prominently in the name and eggs as a specialty. Got a ticket for a two top that had every item with "NO EGG" and ended with "EGG ALLERGY".
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Jun 29, 2020 19:16
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Naelyan posted:I feel like I'm being loving gaslit. You don't loving eat fish scales, right? Like, atlantic salmon scales are not harmful, but you clean that poo poo off because it feels awful to chew and no decent restaurant would be caught dead serving fish skin that still has all the scales... right? RIGHT? You always descale salmon because the best part is the crispy skin when you pan sear them.
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Jul 25, 2020 00:11
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you have some of those glutino gluten free english muffins? Those taste amazing when dropped into a fryer with a poached egg ontop with some yogurt
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Sep 19, 2020 21:51
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i have a question for folks who work in hospital kitchens Difficult question to answer without more detail regarding dietary restrictions beyond just low sugar and low fats. Plus chemo and rad therapy messes up taste really badly. Also what kind of fats and what kind of sugars? Depending on the doctors advice/recommendation you can use one kind as a substitute etc. You can cook what you want, but portion control and properly measuring ingredients to comply with dietary restrictions is something you need to learn how to do. You can make a chicken soup from scratch, but only if you have measured or know totals of salt and fat content (how many grams of slat? how much chicken? was it with skin and bone? how much are they restricted on a daily basis? etc). So even if you do cook, just indicating the amounts would do alot towards giving your friend and their father a peace of mind. My mother had thyroid cancer and sever arthritis due to the chemo. I spent several years taking care of her and cooking for her while working as a chef. My go to type of cooking was Japanese cooking because umami flavoring was very palatable for her and using fish based oils and fats was ok as long as i never overdid it. Another thing to look at is kosher products, not because they are better, but because the ingredients are better managed and you can be more certain of the quantities and sourcing with them because of the kosher certification process. Its a rough task, but more than the eating of the food itself, im sure your friend and their father would just appreciate the gesture. ughhhh fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 2, 2020 |
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Oct 2, 2020 05:27
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Anyone have experience using Chefs Warehouse to order for home? I still have my contacts with the group that used to do orders for me when i was working at different places, so was gonna contact them to see if they would let me access the wider catalogue that isn't available on the shop@home catalogue. Just want to stock for myself and my friends households before the next lockdown/stock issues. In fact i never understood where they were making money, since most order i would make would only have delivery and fuel surcharge, but no transaction costs or monthly fee. Other than having your business account approved for credit and financial reasons, i never encountered any other costs.
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Nov 6, 2020 21:59
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Animal-Mother posted:What's going to happen when half the cooks on Earth lose their sense of smell or taste because of covid? "Taste this. Is it ready? Is it good? More salt?" I have no loving idea, I might be permanently hosed up from a virus. Now imagine the customer s that will be sending food back because it tastes balnd.
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Dec 4, 2020 07:31
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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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TheParadigm posted:One of the absolute funniest pranks I've borne witness to was for a hotel sous chef that always, and I mean ALWAYS pranked people making hard boiled eggs by putting a raw one in the cooling tray. Without fail, you get a broken raw one when peeling. This is literally a firing offence and once fired a cook on my line for doing that. Later the owner asked why I fired them for a harmless prank, and had to explain to them what salmonella was and how eggs come out of chickens butthole/multipurpose hole.
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Mar 13, 2021 18:07
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I haven't paid attention to what happening in the industry atm w/r to covid since I have been working in a farm shoveling goat poo poo. Last two days I have been getting calls and texts from my old bosses/chefs about working with them on new projects in NYC. Anyone know what the situation is like in the city? I'm vaccinated so not really worried asuch about the health situation, but the work conditions on work load and general pay. From a few of my friends I hear that they have been working longer shifts understaffed with the same pay. I smell like a goat and barely afford my rent, but at least I get to jump in a pond and bask in the sun everyday.
ughhhh fucked around with this message at 16:59 on May 17, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 16:56
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Mandolins, chef knives, any object made to cut? Never had a problem. Edges of 1/3 pans ,1/2 pans? Blood and cuts every where.
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May 19, 2021 15:01
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I once got a splinter under my nail from caramelized chili sugar disks were experimenting on for desert. The intent was to set melted sugar/chili liquid into disks we would decorate cakes/desert with. Didn't know how hard it would be after the first round of sets and I tried to pick up one of them from the tray picking at a spike one of them had made. It burned and hurt like hell for a few days.
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May 19, 2021 18:50
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I once had a customer send back a dish because he said the melon was not sweet but tart and tasted wired. it was the nice fresh heirloom tomatoes in his BLT.
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May 22, 2021 05:07
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So I spent a weekend cooking for about 50 people in the farm I am working at (we had a big work party). Every thing went great cooking 3 meals a day for 3 days straight. One issue that came up was people wanted to help with cooking and prep work and due to the size of the space I had to work with and my menu plan I couldn't really plug people in. I did organize a pierogi making day where I had a bunch of people filling up pierogi's as dinner prep and that was hugely popular (people got to sit and talk to each other while working with their hands and making food for each other). I was wonder if any of you fine folk had any suggestions to include others into the workflow or recipes that could work well with communal work? There should be another work party coming up later in the summer that I have to plan for.
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Jun 8, 2021 04:48
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AdorableStar posted:Do I count as restaurant industry if I deliver the food to your kitchens in big loving trucks that block your parking lots and I stuff your tiny freezer so full the boxes fall ontop of you when you open the door Would it be weird to just give one of you fellow drivers a call out of the blue to just say hi? Haven't been working a kitchen for a while but still have several numbers of supply guys on my phone and always wonder how they are doing these days.
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Aug 6, 2021 16:41
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FishBowlRobot posted:Kitchen goons, do your restaurants season steaks before cooking? I don’t eat steak often but I feel like every steak I’ve had from a steakhouse, and even a bistro I went to recently, wasn’t seasoned at all. I can’t taste salt, pepper, anything. Is this common? You have covid. Real answer, depends on the cut, but generally it is always seasoned heavily before searing. Most of the time, the seasoning isn't to add or impart flavor, but to draw out moisture or liquid on the outer layers. The flavor is supposed to come from the mallard reaction that happens to the outer layer of a meat which the seasoning is supposed to help with. Most places go season - sear - cook to temp - rest. When it rests it releases alot of liquid which gets used to make the gravy or sauce. At the point of rest most of the slat is usually washed off, so a good cook should season it again after cutting and plating or use the gravy/sauce. ughhhh fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Aug 7, 2021 |
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Aug 7, 2021 15:35
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 damnit.
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Aug 7, 2021 17:23
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Be ready to watch the food you cooked with love and attention sit and get cold for a good 5 mins on the table while the customers snap pics for their social media....
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Sep 2, 2021 23:48
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PurplPenisEata posted:Or find a closed kitchen. Ignorance is bliss. FOH will come back and say the customer found the food too cold.
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Sep 3, 2021 00:00
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:I always had red wings and they lasted really well (with insoles for comfort, an added expense worth noting), but the first ~2 weeks of break in was really rough. Hot points develop pretty quickly, and then you know where to put duct tape on your feet until the leather softens up to avoid awful blisters. Then all of a sudden, they're supple and comfy and stay that way for as many years as the soles stay good/non-slip. Seconding redwings, because they can also work as your daily ware if you get the redwing heritage. They stopped the cork soles recently I think, but they will last you a good long while. Spending a day sharpening knives and polishing my redwings was the most zen I would be after doing 12 hours shifts.
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Sep 3, 2021 02:51
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Assuming for bacterial growth. But if you use leather shoes with insoles that you can replace and use foot powder at times, your shoes won't smell and your feet won't get wired bacterial growth. Infact you can mitigate that further with using fresh socks. After shift I would change my socks if I was going to some social event. The cost of socks and foot powder is way less than a second comfy shoe (not mention easier to store/carry).
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Sep 3, 2021 18:22
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With the way industrial supply chains are going haywire and FDA being gutted, I'm not inclined to eat rare or raw products in restaurants.
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Sep 12, 2021 23:21
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Skwirl posted:If you get sick over a burger it's more likely to be from the lettuce than the meat.. Ergo: quote:rare or raw products
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Sep 12, 2021 23:25
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Why is that such a strange concept? When i used to live in Nepal and was a hiking guide, it was necessary to stop western tourists from eating raw foods other wise you ended up with a lot of stomach problems. Not just because of possible pathogens on the food, but because the water used to clean said products was not potable. Practically all village cooking involved heavy cooking or pickling of produce precisely because of health dangers. NJ just had a long term Boil Water warning after the Ida storm and who knows what process restaurants are using for food prep. Water and food infrastructure is failing around the country coupled with the fact that the restaurant industry is well known for cutting corners doesn't really make me confident in doing so.
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Sep 13, 2021 00:12
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Cythereal posted:No restaurant industry experience from me, but a goon advised me that this story I heard from a friend today would be appreciated here. Another aspect shattering of dreams and hope is that nowadays those culinary school grads are saddled with debt that they will never be able to repay because kitchen pay is lol
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Sep 30, 2021 01:07
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I used to close blasting Bruce Springsteen in the kitchen. One night a customer left their number with the comment "let's grab some brucekis together". Made my night.
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Jun 1, 2022 17:47
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odinson posted:Looking for some suggestions for shoes. Need ankle support along with the usual non-slip / water resistant features. If you can afford it, redwings heritage boots used to be my go to kitchen ware. Thick leather and water repellent seams, non slip cork soles. I bought one for 300$ and it lasted me a good 10 years plus. It needs a week of breaking in tho and a set of insoles, and regular care as if you were taking care of your knives (weekly brushing, and monthly waxing).
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Oct 18, 2022 18:06
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If anyone is in NYC looking to get the hell out of the industry, I just got out of my probation period in the NYC Parks dept and I can say whole heartedly that it is the best thing I did instead of continuing working those soul crushing 12 hour shifts as a chef. Right now the parks department is doing an insane hiring spree, but because of the way promotions work, they can't add new staff for certain positions (Associate City Park Workers, crew chiefs etc). So they need people to go through from the bottom City Park Worker position and are waiving the probation period as long as you preform well (so within say 3 months of working and and having the city pay for your CDL licensing) you can get bumped up. It's full time with healthcare, union representation, and pension. You need a driver's licence and highschool diploma fyi. Look for CPW full time position posting on the NYC.gov or NYCparks websites. Every Fridays is new posting.
ughhhh fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jan 25, 2023 |
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Jan 25, 2023 11:40
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nudejedi posted:waited almost a year for a measly fifty cent raise. apparently it's time to act my wage or go to school, this shits a fuckin joke. Quit and go work for your local municipality. Switched from working NYC restaurants to NYC Parks, and within 6months I have been promoted 3 times with better pay, benefits and I can sleep well. Lots of old heads are leaving and most people with degrees and education sneer at working public sector. The amount of discipline and work you do in the kitchen really shows itself .
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Oct 20, 2023 19:43
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Working in a union rules. It could be better, but goddamn I get OT without having to go through payroll, paid time off/sick leave as long as I have enough on my time off balance without arguing with a manager, If show documentation on OSHA/ANSI standards I get that equipment or work procedures changed practically overnight, nobody can call me after hours unless it's an emergency and I don't have to show up for OT unless I'm warned 12hours in advance.
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Oct 21, 2023 00:03
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On the other hand I wouldn't mind a report back on the sleepless nights filled with terror sweats and anxiety attacks as the bills starts piling up and friendships get destroyed.
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Nov 6, 2023 23:43
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