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Did my first day of class for cooking yesterday and I think it could be a little interesting to say the least. I'm not so much worried about my ability to get through the class but for some of the others. It's a class called ala carte so we will be doing service in a few weeks to customers based on menus created by the teacher. Most of the people in the class have never worked in the industry before and are simply doing their qualifications full time. I have a feeling once services start in a few weeks there's at least 3 people in the class who won't handle the pressures of service seeing as they struggled to get just one dish prepared over the 4 hours we had to do it in. I know I shouldn't worry about them because I'm there to prove how well I can cook but it's going to be a very long 18 weeks stuck with a bunch of numpties. In other news my pay didn't show up in my account yesterday like usual and it still hasn't appeared today. It's kinda making GBS threads me up the wall really
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Jul 18, 2013 08:57
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:34 |
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Bro Nerd Alpha posted:Glad to help some. Got out late tonight, dishwasher broke down while I was a few loads short of being done. Thankfully my Navy days of having a similar machine on board helped, but I ghetto rigged it back together and finished. Having been both a dishy and a cook it always pays to look after the kitchen hand but not everyone is like that tbh and it can work the same the opposite way round. The kitchenhand I work with atm does nothing but dishes and never tells you when he is behind you so you go to turn around and he's under your feet once again. It bugs the poo poo out of me but theres nothing I can say or do because he's a co-owner of the restaurant. I just try and work around it and ignore how much it annoys me because I love the kitchen I'm in and wouldn't trade it for anywhere else at this point in time really
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Jul 20, 2013 08:41
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Naelyan posted:This is insane. That's not a "this bugs me" kind of a thing, that's a "hey there, one of these days someone's going to burn you with a hot pan or stick you in the kidney with a knife" thing. Seriously, elbow him in the jaw or something some day so that maybe he'll get the idea that what he's doing could seriously injure himself or someone else, before someone does get hurt. Unless it's a slow kitchen with a huge line or something, I can't believe no one's ever hit him with an elbow or a plate of food or something already. Trust me he's been hit more times than you can believe but what do you expect out of a 60 year old diabetic who goes hypo at least once a day. Tonights service was butt hosed by his slowness and I think from now on he won't be doing any more double shifts because he simply cannot handle them that well. It doesn't help that the kitchen isn't ideally layed out with the narrow end containing both the dish section and also cold larder/deserts and all the free space to prep when it's not entirely pumping. I have a feeling that the head chef wants to switch the kitchen around so that all the cooking is done in the narrow part and the dishes will end up in the wide part of the kitchen which'd make things flow a huge amount more easily.
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Jul 20, 2013 15:20
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Black August posted:The first thing, FIRST thing I learned and had drilled into me when I walked into the kitchen on my first day as a busser, was that you always firmly and clearly said "BEHIND" if you were carrying so much as a paper cup with a pretzel in it while moving past the cooks and other back area staff. I can't understand why someone would keep slacking on that, all it takes is one stack of metal pans covered in grease so hot it could melt lead to ruin someone's day and create a liability suit big enough to shut down every restaurant in a mile radius. Wroughtirony posted:Why on earth would you co-own a restaurant and work as a dishwasher? Especially if the guy's health is bad. Can't he expo? or wander around the FOH schmoozing? I learnt that one the hard way Black August. I had a chef when I was a dishy threaten to debone me with a full explanation and then he was going to fold up my skin to cook me in the dishwasher. All I did that was wrong was walk past with knives and not say BEHIND Knives rather than just behind. The way this kitchen works wrought is that my head chef owns the place with both of his parents. The business is partly his inherintance but it was also a way of keeping his parents in work when the global financial crisis hit Australia which was more of a ripple than a crash. He hadn't worked in a kitchen before they bought the business so even 18 months down the track he's behind the 8 ball in a major way. His wife acts as the matre de so FOH probably wouldn't work all that well for him tbh. Today was a very nice change though as he didn't work and because we where quiet the apprentice wasn't on so the kitchen was a much much calmer place and instead of just prepping all day I got to do service and get my prep done on the side. There's only really one other kitchen in my area that would push my technical cooking more which is why I won't move. The closest places that would push me are all in Sydney and there's no way I'm moving back down there and living on a kitchen hands wage or even a chef's wage. If I ever do move back it'll be as a high school teacher which is what I'll be qualified in by the end of the year.
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Jul 21, 2013 14:04
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I stuck a knife into my hand once causing a 3 week holiday but the injury was so big it didn't actually hurt all that much at the time. The inner skins of chestnuts are irritating because they end up wedged in your nail bed and its hard to get out once its wedged in there. Music tends to either be the radio or whoever's ipod cranking along. If it's my ipod it's a huge mix of various things but I've always found my go faster prep music is definitely electro and I used to listen to huge amounts of crystal castles or pendulum when I'd have to prep up the spring rolls in a previous kitchen.
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Jul 25, 2013 14:09
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I used to work for a boss who'd scream at the employees whether there were customers in the store or not. I still remember her screaming a delivery driver to get out of her shop while the restaurant was packed out on a saturday. That was the reason I didn't quit my job but simply didn't show up and put my phone in airport mode.
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Jul 29, 2013 04:13
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I put in my resume to be promoted to sous today. Here's hoping I beat out any outside apps! Good luck with that hopefully you can kick the others in the balls and make your way to the top
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Jul 31, 2013 03:37
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Wroughtirony posted:Well, it's been a week and I've fired someone, hired someone, had someone quit in the middle of a shift for good reason and had someone walk out in the middle of a shift for no good reason. Almost the whole staff hates me and multiple plots are being hatched to smear and libel my good name to the owners of the company, our longtime regulars, and anyone else who will listen. Changing the working culture of a place is never easy and I think as long as you have your manager on side there really isn't a huge amount to worry about tbh. It might be a rough few weeks but things will improve eventually. I found out yesterday if I'd aimed higher up the restaurant ladder in Sydney I probably would've gotten a better job with higher pay even though at the time I was unqualified as a chef. The teacher who's qualifying me as a chef said that most places that are decent won't look at your lack of quals as a downside and instead would ride you for a week and if you made it through that then you'd have a job. Only wish I'd known that then rather than working in the massive amount of crap house kitchens I worked in but thats in the past so theres not a huge amount I can do now.
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Aug 1, 2013 02:24
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I'm actually kinda loving life in a kitchen atm despite losing one of my jobs. They decided to call me up and tell me they had no more shifts because they needed someone more than one day a week which is fine cause I was looking for a way out of that job and they've given it to me. Outside of that I think getting my quals as a chef has been one of the best decisions I've made. I'm a fair way above the class so I cruise around and end up doing other peoples prep work but it's gotten the chef in charge of teaching on my side to the point that he's modifying the recipes for sections I'll be in to suit my level of ability which is incredibly nice. At the same time the section that I'm with for class is learning a huge amount off of me as I'm the old head in a class of mostly young guns. I think part of gaining that respect at Tafe is making me work better when I'm in the kitchen. We did a wedding today for 60 people and apart from the amount of prep involved it worked out pretty well tbh. We haven't done a function at work in quite some time but unlike the last one were we got pressed for time and things almost came unstuck but somehow pulled through. I think working in a small team at Tafe but also looking after the class as a whole means that in a kitchen where theres only the 3 of us fosters a certain amount of closeness where we look after each other when things are looking tough.
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Aug 3, 2013 15:40
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Wroughtirony posted:I'm starting to regret not having kids. While I don't think a reform school exists I've found a lot of parallels over the years between running a kitchen and a classroom. No matter how little you think they deserve it give them a tiny speck of respect cause they'll pay it back in spades. You don't have to be their friend at all but fair but firm works for me. The other thing that might work is trying to set up some sort of negotiated rules that you have some control over but that they feel they have some control over which tends to push them towards obeying the rules in general without too much coercion
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Aug 4, 2013 15:58
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Sometimes working in a kitchen can have a massive payback. Being in Australia it's winter and the Seville Oranges are in season which is good as I want to make some batches of marmalade and play with flavours. Unfortunately they are available in shops over here because you can't eat them which equals worthless fruit. Thankfully all the fruit and veg at work comes directly from the fruit markets which means I'll be able to crank out a batch of marmalade on Thursday hopefully
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Aug 13, 2013 15:34
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Boatswain posted:These shoes are awesome, and they look good too (better/more discreet than Red Wings imo). They are pretty much all anyone wears shoe wise in Australian kitchens while I don't have those exact one's I have a pair of Redbacks which are same same but different brand and they haven't been a problem since I got them. Comfy straight away and pretty easy on the feet for those super busy times
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Aug 18, 2013 13:05
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I've always just gone for the coffee but then always in quantities greater than 4 if I'm working and only one or two on a day off
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Aug 23, 2013 03:53
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Even though it's a longer process you could confit your potatoes in duck fat before frying them. The flavour will still get into the potato but you'll be able to decant and reuse the duck fat for a lot longer before it goes rancid
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Aug 30, 2013 02:13
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Aye-Aye posted:That's a really good idea and similar to some of the advice I've gotten. I'm going to have to small batch these ideas. You'll have to cut your spuds into the size chip you want before putting into a large roasting tray. Melt the fat before pouring over the top of the potatoes. Cook in an oven for 20 mins at 130C or until tender. You want the potato cooked but it still needs to hold it's shape. Once they've cooled slightly remove from the fat and then they'll be ready to fry at 180C for service. It'd be a fair bit of work for 70 orders a night but test it out on a small batch first to fine tune the recipe and make sure it's what you're looking for. Hope it helps
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Sep 1, 2013 23:55
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I managed to slice a good bit off the top of my thumb on nothing else but the lip of a saucepan while scrapping the burnt on demi glaze off the bottom of the pot. There was also a patch of time where I'd end up with bits of chestnut shell under my fingernails which isn't ever really fun
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Sep 14, 2013 08:08
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I've had a few chef's over the years tell me they'd rather hire someone with almost no experience over someone with years of experience simply because it makes training the person easier along the way. I kind of wish I'd known that when I was living in the city because I would of aimed for better restaurants rather than the crappy cafes I ended up in constantly
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Sep 30, 2013 00:25
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Liquid Communism posted:Welp, looking like I'm going back to night shift. We struck out three times trying to find someone who could handle the solo night shifts, and chef wants me to take 'em back over until at least after the holidays because we're too drat busy doing desserts during the day to be fixing problems. I'd say it's not a bad idea and even if you don't get it then at least you tried really. It's looking like I'll soon have to move kitchens because the place I'm in currently doesn't have enough work to sustain me while I try and work my way up the ladder of casual teaching which is few and far between because the school year is winding up in Australia. The unfortunate thing about where I live is there's only one or two more places that do better stuff than where I'm working and I don't really want to drop down a rung in the game. My question is wheter I should simply drop my resumes at the fine dining places in the hope that something comes up or if I should just go for whatever is floating by work wise?
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Oct 16, 2013 14:59
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The one pizza place I've ever worked in had frozen gluten free bases for the occasional orders that would come in. All I remember is they shattered super easy and occassionally you'd end up with maybe 3 sellable bases out of a both of 12. They'd normally get blamed on me if they where broken which is part of the reason why I decided to stop showing up on a permanent basis
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Nov 8, 2013 07:41
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I'm currently in the transition between hospo and teaching. Being Australia I can't ditch the kitchen work until Feb but I'd take being in front of 30 arsehole kids for 80 mins at a time over some of the head chef's I've worked under. Even though I'm not fully graduated I'm earning twice as much in a day as I can being a cook. It's been an excellent journey and I'm sure I'll miss the rush but at the same time weekends and a bucketload of holidays a year are certainly good
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Nov 17, 2013 12:05
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I had the teacher who's been qualifying me all semester turn around to me after our graduation service was that he'd take back the last two years of the kitchen he was in before he started teaching as it hosed his back picking up the load when he was covering people he'd made leave his kitchen along the way
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Dec 3, 2013 12:47
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I have a feeling the apprentice I work with is going to get a very rude awakening when I shoot through to a new job in a couple of months. Despite the fact she's been cooking now for a year she can't seem to get on top of the prep work at any point in time. Every weekend ends up with me doing almost the same prep jobs every single time and it's making GBS threads me to tears. I don't think it's that she isn't getting it it's more of a case of her being incredibly lazy and not actually thinking about the order that prep jobs get done in
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Dec 16, 2013 13:03
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There's no real point seeing as she believes she's the greatest thing since sliced bread and doesn't listen to anything I have to say. She had some time off a couple of weeks ago because she had fluid in her elbow and the amount of dead food floating around her section was worrying. She hasn't even bothered to buy her own knives which is a slack effort in my books
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Dec 16, 2013 13:41
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Summer tourist time in my town can suck it. The last two days we've been completely slammed on both a customer and prep level and there's still Saturday and Sunday to go. The only thing that's making it worse is the lack of a dishy rostered on. There's only so many services being both a prep chef and dishy that's good before you wear yourself out and have nothing left to give
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Jan 3, 2014 14:01
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My boss decided to use some left over bread to make a burger for staff lunch. It got a little large The egg is for scale
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Jan 12, 2014 14:30
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tomkash posted:Yeah I do understand that but I've got to keep a roof over my head somehow, it's impossible to unite coworkers with this too so it's always a case of like it or gently caress off The 18 months I spent living in Sydney working in kitchens where tough financially because I ended up in a whole bunch of kitchens that just weren't worth the hassle when you looked at what you were being paid verse what you where working. I ended up moving back to the mountains where things are cheaper but also the kitchens aren't quite as bad. What I would say if you're looking for work is put your resume into some of the restaurants that are higher up the food chain. You'll work your butt off but they can't really afford to screw around with unpaid overtime and stuff. The chef who qualified me at TAFE spent years at Quay and then ran Bondi Pavillion for quite a while. His advice was that quite often they don't look at what experience you've got but how you present in person they like people who are passionate about good food and cooking. I got a trial at the Victoria Room just by emailing my resume. The only reason I didn't end up working there was because I needed a job there and then and not in 3 months time when his new kitchen was opening
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Jan 30, 2014 13:29
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I know the overtime should be used to hire another staff member but in practice it just means I lose my job and have to find another place where likely I'll have the same problem. I think I either need to move front of house/another industry or have enough experience to give me more negotiating power.
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I know it's from a couple of pages ago but I found the new grad chat interesting. In the state I live in in Australia there's three ways of getting qualified as a chef. The most common is being an apprentice and doing your technical learning while working in a kitchen at the same time. The second option is full- time in the same program or at a private college which will get you the qualification without ever having to work in a kitchen. The last is to work in a kitchen for years and then get most of the program written off as prior knowledge. I got my qualifications using the third option and my class included a heap of people doing their qualifications full-time who'd either worked in a kitchen in the past or hadn't worked in a kitchen ever. Our area of study was al a carte so prepping menus created by the chef who was our teacher. In the first few weeks it became very obvious who would survive in the industry and who wouldn't. The people who'd take 4 hours to prep one dish was pretty special and 90% of the time they'd be the people who'd cry. I never really tried all that hard cause I'd spent a lot of time in the industry and could look after a section by myself. TL:DR The people I qualified with where for the most part poo poo and they'd be lost at sea in the real world
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Jul 8, 2014 10:20
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I switched from cooking to teaching at the start of this year I still occasionally miss working in a kitchen. The biggest moment of that I've had was looking at this job add yesterday. Stolen verbatim from the ad: We are looking for a human chef to join our fellow humans in the North Sydney CBD. Our restaurant/wine bar is located there. We are looking for someone who is fast like Usain Bolt, reliable like a Swiss watch and creative like a cheap hooker (what?). You need to have a minimum of four years experience grooming Himalayan goats. But cooking is also a valuable skillset to have. As a human chef in the 21st Century you will no longer possess the ridiculous bullshit antics of meglamaniacs roaming the kitchens left over from the 80's and 90's. However, you shall possess an awesome set of something. Perhaps its a sense of humour or stylish swagger, maybe some knives not from K-Mart. We would need you to be motivated, punctual and maintain a high standard of consistency in your sex life. We therefore sincerely ask for a mere 10% of that commitment in your job with us. I think we can all agree that this is fair on everyone. You will, however need to have a passion for food and eating, Otherwise...what's the whole point???? You must be able to work on your own when there is no one else there, be passionate about giraffes, flexible in your aerobics class and want to grow radishes in our business. Your roster would include weekends as well as Saturdays and Sundays. If you have two hands and half a brain then you should use both those awesome assets and apply for this non-missionary postion. As much as we love all that is Swahli, we have decided that English is your first language. Witch meens ewe Will haev a strong grasp off the wroten word, gramamatacitcly speaking. Qualified chefs via the antiquated apprenticship system need only apply. For those of you who have only completed certificate courses and honeslty believe you are an industry ready chef....PLEASE, GOD! do not respond....no, seriously...stop!! We are just not ready for you.... it's not you...it's me. We pay money and with that money you can buy things. We also pay superannuation, which is money you can use to buy things when you are almost dead. If you have read and understood all the above, then you should definately apply. If you have read this and ticked all the boxes. Then do not apply, because there are no boxes! TL:DR job add is long but makes sense if you know whats going on
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Oct 8, 2014 12:05
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:34 |
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A couple of weeks ago my former head chef got done for DUI for his 4th time. This being the wonderful country of Australia means you go straight to jail for that kind of thing. I feel bad for his parents who now have to find a chef capable of doing what they have on the menu with a pair of apprentices as their only cooking staff. I helped out the first weekend it happened but didn't help out for the second cause a full time teaching gig combined with additional study makes for a tight schedule. Thankfully the apprentice who has a year under her belt has stepped up to the plate but she doesn't yet have experience cooking meat at all and things being what they are in Australia they are supposed to work under a qualified chef for the first 4 years of their career while they complete first their trade qualifications then gain experience.
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Aug 10, 2016 09:41
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