Chef Pauly

[marmalade]

How is cooking at a restaurant different from cooking at home?

I always wondered about this.

[Dreamweaver]

well at home you generally dont have to worry about getting in someone elses way.

[silverwhisper]

marmalade, i recommend anthony bourdain's excellent kitchen confidential. :>

[Paulypalooza]

How is cooking at a restaurant different from cooking at home?

I always wondered about this.
First of I want to say I am a cook not a chef. Yes I did go to culinary school but because I need medical insurance and very few independent restaurants can offer it I work at a TGI Fridays. Corporate restaurant hell. Much of the food is prepackaged, pre-made heat and serve crap. I'm not proud.


The biggest difference is the atmosphere. At work I have the pressure of myself and 7 or 8 other guys pumping out soups, appetizers, and, entrees for 200 to 300 people in a 3 hour span on Fri and Sat night. The sense of urgency you have to have to get this done is massive. At home you can take your time and focus on one thing at a time and relax. The most I've ever cooked for at home was a dinner party for 8 and I started all the mies en place (French for 'everything in it's place' or prep work.) the day before so I could be sociable and talk with with my guest while I cooked.

When you are cooking for friends at home there are rarely any surprises to screw you up. We have been in the middle of dinner before when somebody will come back from the walk in fridge to tell the boss that we are out of something and we need to 86 that item from the menu.
At home you did all the shopping.
You did all the prep work.
You know that pilot light on the right rear burner on your stove top has a tendency to go out so you check it before you put on your pasta water.

At home you can experiment. You can try new things that couldn't do with the stores food. You can try making chicken Marsala with portabella mushrooms instead of the plain old buttons. You can try different mixtures of veal-beef-lamb in your meatballs.

When cooking at home I like to go all out on plate presentation. A lot of high end reastraunts will have a great looking plate. Not so much at Fridays



I'm not sure if this answers your question if not please say so and I'll be happy to post a few stories of my checkered past in the kitchen.

[TinSoldier]

I'm enjoying the stories. I think this is a good thread...

[marmalade]

well at home you generally dont have to worry about getting in someone elses way
While my kitchen is larger than some apartment kitchens, all the useful counterspace is in a corner, so I'm always bumping elbows with Mr. marmalade. I covet an island.


marmalade, i recommend anthony bourdain's excellent kitchen confidential. :>Thanks! Just added to my Amazon wish list. Maybe I'll pick it up for my next vacation.


First of I want to say I am a cook not a chef. Yes I did go to culinary school but because I need medical insurance and very few independent restaurants can offer it I work at a TGI Fridays. Corporate restaurant hell. Much of the food is prepackaged, pre-made heat and serve crap. I'm not proud.Huh. I guess the problem of small businesses and health insurance is kind of universal.


I'll be happy to post a few stories of my checkered past in the kitchen
*dons footie-pajamas*

*snuggles teddy bear*

OK, I'm ready for story time! :D

[Cranky Dog]

well at home you generally dont have to worry about getting in someone elses way.
You never cooked in my home apparently. The kitchen is one of the main family centers.
The biggest difference is the atmosphere. At work I have the pressure of myself and 7 or 8 other guys pumping out soups, appetizers, and, entrees for 200 to 300 people in a 3 hour span on Fri and Sat night. The sense of urgency you have to have to get this done is massive. At home you can take your time and focus on one thing at a time and relax. The most I've ever cooked for at home was a dinner party for 8 and I started all the mise en place (French for 'everything in it's place' or prep work.) the day before so I could be sociable and talk with with my guest while I cooked.
Corrected for your convenience. Though I'd translate it as setting up everything.

I've worked in a few restaurants, many cooks, few chefs, and everything needs to be on turbo. You have quality equipment. The ovens and grills are always hot and ready.

In short:
Restaurant: efficient and stressful.
Home: Not as efficient but more relaxed.


Cranky Dog
"I have a cooking environment opinion, international!"

[Stephane]

All I really know is my Nonno's restaurant which was more of a one-man diner. They didn't get that many people. The atmosphere was generally more relaxed.

He did have a bunch of stories about being in the restaurant industry in Paris in the early 60s that were.. interesting. I especially liked the one where he went undercover for over 2 months as a dumb Italian illiterate dishwasher to steal some great chef's recipe for himself (as opposed to a jesuit trained almost graduate who knew 6 languages fluently, including ancient latin and greek).

He damned near got killed for doing that.

Pauly: I've watched Hell's Kitchen, would that be remotely close?

[marmalade]

I especially liked the one where he went undercover for over 2 months as a dumb Italian illiterate dishwasher to steal some great chef's recipe for himself That reminds me of the movie Tampopo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/). A widow inherits her husband's noodle shop, but doesn't know how to make the noodles. She is befriended by a trucker, and the lengths they go to to learn how to make noodles are very funny.

[Paulypalooza]

Pauly: I've watched Hell's Kitchen, would that be remotely close?

Hell's kitchen is a worst case scenario (Mothers day, and Valentines imeadiatly come to mind).
But the controlled chaos.
People trying to literally work on 5, 6, up to 10 dishes at one time.
Cooks burning, and or cutting themselves just saying fuck it and going right back to work.
It's all ramped up a bit for TV but accurate.

[Paulypalooza]

*dons footie-pajamas*

*snuggles teddy bear*

OK, I'm ready for story time! :D

One of my favorite stories from work happened at Fridays.
A server had screwed up an order for the ump-teenth time in one night. Jimmy was working the broiler and was getting slammed and had no time for people who made his life harder. He laid in to her verbally with everything he had......until she started to cry. After another server had taken her out of the kitchen to console he just turned to the rest of the line and said "she'll never do that again".

Needless to say he got high fives from everyone of us.

[TinSoldier]

One of my favorite stories from work happened at Fridays.
A server had screwed up an order for the ump-teenth time in one night. Jimmy was working the broiler and was getting slammed and had no time for people who made his life harder. He laid in to her verbally with everything he had......until she started to cry. After another server had taken her out of the kitchen to console he just turned to the rest of the line and said "she'll never do that again".

Needless to say he got high fives from everyone of us.Ow. What a hard way to learn...

Did she continue working there?

[Paulypalooza]

Ow. What a hard way to learn...

Did she continue working there?

she did, but gave Jimmy a lot of space for a couple weeks

[Dreamweaver]

well I am going off of the joy of not sharing a kitchen with anyone else at the moment.. and the kitchen that I grew up with is huge. **** has seen the kitchen at my mother's place.

[Paulypalooza]

More story time.

This one is an amusing tale from an open kitchen. For those of you who don't know who what an open kitchen is it means that the diners can see the cooks and more importantly for this story the reverse is also true.

We had a couple of macho guys who always sat at the bar and complained that our wings were not hot enough. So one day we decided to screw with them.

We took straight tabasco sauce (the hottest stuff we had on hand) added a heavy dose of white pepper, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, and pureed a few jalapenos reduced it and sauced the wings.

The poor bastards were too macho to say they were to hot to eat. They were sweating bullets struggling to get through the plate of 30 wings. They must of had had at least three beers a piece.

[silverwhisper]

pauly: gorram it but i love that story about the server! i remember once hitting a place that had wings in mild, hot & nuclear. i ordered the nuclear, full of confidence.

as my wife likes to say, they were so hot our tastebuds were numb. :>

[Mouser]

The poor bastards were too macho to say they were to hot to eat. They were sweating bullets struggling to get through the plate of 30 wings. They must of had had at least three beers a piece.

I love it!!!

[Paulypalooza]

Anybody in the business will tell you alcohol is where you make your money. Unfortunately that means every now and again you have to deal with people who can't hold their liquor. The next account is about a bad drunk.

This incident happened at the same place that the hot wing special did with the open kitchen. The manager on duty was Allison. Allison is a tiny little thing about 5 feet tall and as lean as a gymnast. She was explaining to a man in the bar that we would have to stop serving him drinks because he was already drunk. He was not pleased and said so, and none to quietly. He stood up, got in her face and started screaming at her because he felt he was entitled to another beer.

None of us in the kitchen knew why this was happening, all we knew was somebody was screaming, cursing out, and getting belligerent with our manager and friend who was almost half his size. She was trying to hold her ground but was visibly shaken by this drunken prick. From where we stood it looked like it could get really ugly.

All six of us dropped what we were doing to back her up. There could have been a fire on the grill and we wouldn't have cared. I can only imagine what was going through his mind when we all came up on him.
What the hell just happened here?
Where did all these angry looking guys come from?
Am I going to get my ass kicked in the parking lot?
After a little hemming and hawing he became much more polite and sedate. He even apologized. When asked to leave he paid his bill and left with his tail between his legs.

After we closed up that night Allison thanked us with a couple rounds on the house.

That wasn't the first time I've had to help eject a drunk and wasn't the last. In places that don't have bouncers when they need help ejecting somebody now. Not when the cops get here but NOW. The kitchen is the first place to get the call.

[TinSoldier]

Another good one, Pauly. Thanks!

I can just imagine the look on that guy's face!

[Paulypalooza]

This one comes from a friend of mine who runs a Amatos (http://www.amatos.com/news3.html) in Maine. Amatos is mostly a sandwich shop but they also do pizza. Since they want the guest to see them making the sandwiches the knives are right behind the counter, just like at Subway.

Some dumb fuck comes in with a switchblade and tells the owner of another store who is working the register to give him all the money. The manager looks at the 4 inch switchblade, then at the 20 inch pizza knife by his hand. He grabs the pizza knife slams the handle on the counter still holding the blade vertically and says "No!" The would-be thief ran like a little bitch.

He said when the cops got there they laughed their ass off.

[Mouser]

In places that don't have bouncers when they need help ejecting somebody now. Not when the cops get here but NOW. The kitchen is the first place to get the call.

And now we know why.

The kitchen is where all the big knives are.

:D

[Origen]

I'm REALLY enjoying these stories, Pauly.

Do you have naughty stories of kitchen love?

[TinSoldier]

I'm REALLY enjoying these stories, Pauly.

Do you have naughty stories of kitchen love?Ew.

:signs047:

[silverwhisper]

pauly, i'm loving these stories too, man!

[BattleNymph]

I wanna hear your SCARIEST kitchen story!

[Stephane]

Not to take the thunder away from Pauly, but because his stories have reminded me of my Nonno's stories. Here's one of his.

His diner is a open kitchen type of deal. He cooks, entertains and does cashier. He's the one who owns and runs the place with my Nonna who helps in the kitchen entertains and does cash. They usually have a waiter on staff.

This is Montreal. My grandparents know Italian, French and next to no English. Add to that: My Nonno's deaf in one ear (war wound). All the Italics are French. The cash is near the exit and the restaurant has a cerain amount of customers.

So this English guy comes into the restaurant and say in a low voice "This is a holdup." He's got his hand in his jacket pocket. My Nonno's not paying attention, he says, "ANITA! AN HOTDOG!". The guy gets pissed and with a lower growling voice, he repeats, "This.. is.. a.. hold-up".

My Nonno says flustered because he didn't make out the mumbling and being his exuberant self, "Speak up man, I can't hear you." The guy doesn't say anything but motions with his hand in his pocket. By now, my nonno's pissed, he think this punk is jerking his chain and he's still oblivious to what's happening "Do you want the hot dog or not?". The guy says something like "Fucking WOP" and leaves. He was obviously looking for an easy grab.

My Nonna who clued in at the second "this is a hold-up" finally breathes and goes back to work since that's part of the deal of being a storefront owner.

An hour later, cops show up at the restaurant and start talking about this punk who might have come in earlier. My Nonno remembering the guy says, "Oh yeah, the kid that wanted a hotdog.. what of him?". Then the cop explained that he went across the street to the Macdonald's did the same thing and got caught by the cops. He kept swearing about the "Fucking WOP" from across the street.

That story became one of my Nonno's favorite.

[silverwhisper]

that's awesome!

[marmalade]

He grabs the pizza knife slams the handle on the counter still holding the blade vertically and says "No!" The would-be thief ran like a little bitch. I think this is my favorite so far. Hilarious!

[Paulypalooza]

I'm REALLY enjoying these stories, Pauly.

Do you have naughty stories of kitchen love?

You mean like the time I walked in on my boss giving her boyfriend a hummer in the office? She was so surprised I'm shocked she didn't bite his johnson off.

As for myself I will just say that while a walk in freezer can be convenient, it isn't very a comfortable place for a romantic interlude.

[Mouser]

As for myself I will just say that while a walk in freezer can be convenient, it isn't very a comfortable place for a romantic interlude.

But nobody really cares.

[Paulypalooza]

I can't believe I forgot about this one.

Okay let me set the scene. It's Saturday night and dinner is just starting to kick in . My roommate at the time, Phil, says "Shit Paul we forgot to hit the liquor store on the way in." Next I hear the same from Jose and Donny says he wanted to pick something up too. (Ct blue laws prohibit liquor stores from opening on Sunday and we wanted something to drink during the football games)

"Dammit if you remembered 20 minutes ago on the way in we would have been all set."

Phil runs across the line grabbing his wallet along the way and stuffs a wad of cash in my hand. "Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to make a beer run."

Now Phil has always had the power to make me do stupid things. I love that guy but one of these days he is gonna get me killed, how he never got me fired is a mystery that is beyond me. But like I said some of the dumbest things I ever did were with or because of Phil. This was no different.

I didn't hesitate to ask what if the boss comes back and asks where I am? I didn't think, what if somebody arms the alarm on the back door I am currently going out? No I took money and a shopping list from everybody on the line and hit the ground running.

I drove that car like I stole it all the while thinking what the hell am I doing? Is a few beers worth my job?

I left the contraband in the car and the only thing between me and a flawless operation was getting back inside undetected.

The back dock is where we keep the garbage dumpsters glass recyclables and other assorted crap for the store. Naturally you don't want anybody back there so you install a gate to keep people out. When I left the gate was open. When I got back, that right you guessed it, somebody locked it. Luckily for me the lock was on a chain and I was able to squeeze my less than svelte ass through the gap.

Even before I could knock on the back door it Phil swung it open grinning like a maniac. He later said that he never thought I would make it bake inside after Michael locked the back gate but thought he better wait by the back door looking for me through window just in case I did.

That was thereafter known as the bullrun beer run

[BattleNymph]

No no, I want the SCARIEST STORY YOU HAVE FROM A RESTARAUNT!

[Origen]

As for myself I will just say that while a walk in freezer can be convenient, it isn't very a comfortable place for a romantic interlude.

That's not necessarily a no, though.

;)

Come on, Pauly. Fess up. Are the Barry White of the freezer scene?

[Paulypalooza]

No no, I want the SCARIEST STORY YOU HAVE FROM A RESTARAUNT!I can tell you about less than pleasant injuries I have sustained, but I don't have any horror/ghost stories and I was never in the store when they got robbed.

That's not necessarily a no, though.

;)

Come on, Pauly. Fess up. Are the Barry White of the freezer scene?

Yes I did it once after closing. It's the only time I was glad it was brief. At 10 below I thought my boys were gonna get frostbite.

[happykat]

Excellent stories, Pauly.

I was wondering if Hell's Kitchen was close to accurate, too.