More screwed up kitchen designs

So I was telling you some stories about how screwed up kitchens are in many hotels because many kitchen designers that hotels employ have never worked in a kitchen.  Just one of those things in life that doesn't make sense.  Kind of like why some of my hair fell out-doesn't make sense:)

I will take you back to the hotel I worked at in India for some more funny moments.

I remember the first time my boss gave me a tour through the kitchens as the hotel was still not fully completed.  We walked through the room service kitchen and this thing was, I kid you not, the same size as  your average kitchen you would find in a house and this kitchen was to service 700 rooms.  OK, there were more burners and other equipment to cook on but when I asked my boss where the rest of the kitchen was he said "this is it."  I wasn't fully surprised because I had been in the business long enough to know that most kitchens are just screwed from the start.

This is a classic example of what happens when you have some designer who has never worked in a kitchen design one-there were no tandoors in the plan.  They had woks instead.  Hello!  This is India, there is a tendency to use tandoors for their cuisine.  That is like opening a steakhouse and not putting a grill in the  kitchen.

What we ended up having to do was create a room service menu with a number of dishes from each of the four restaurants in the hotel because that tiny room service kitchen couldn't handle everything.  Sometimes guests would order things from each kitchen so the poor room service server would have to run around to each restaurant getting a dish here, a dish there to put the order together. By the time the server even got to run the food to the room, the food could realistically be sitting for ten minutes. What a pain in the ass!  I have heard that these kitchen designers often copy and paste designs from kitchen to kitchen and I wouldn't be surprised.

One of the funniest things was in one of the other kitchens.  All of the kitchens had floor grates which makes scrubbing the floors easier.  Simply douse the floor with soapy water and use a squeegee to push the water into the floor grate and all you need is a dry mop to follow and you are done.  Well, that is all fine and good except for one problem; the floor slanted up towards the grate!  When I first saw this I was in disbelief. It was stupid to the point of funny.  The dishwashers had to work even harder to clean the floor because as they would push the water up to the grate some would fall back.  That is like teasing; you put something there to make someone's life easier but add a twist to make it work against them.  Someone in the corporate office had a great sense of humor.

I had one dude tell me that in a hotel he worked the back corridors had floors in some sections with too steep of an incline so whenever you push a room service trolley with a full place setting, glasses and other utensils would fall off.

Til next time

Curt

Kitchen designers

All
Sorry for my absence but I have been experiencing a bit of writer's block.  I am on about half-block right now so I think I can come up with something for you.  I am working on a number of blogs that require some research but my blog needs some attention so here you go.

As I have done in past blogs I want to continue to give you an inside look at the crazy (but lovable) world of hotels and restaurants. Today I want to tell you about a challenge every chef will deal with most of the time during his or her tenure in professional kitchens; poorly designed kitchens.

Often, kitchen designers have never worked in a kitchen.  Yes, I know, it makes no fucking sense but it is true.  The way I would summarize my experience in a professional kitchen regarding this topic is like this.  "Expending vast amounts of energy to make something inefficient, efficient."  You can ask any chef and we will all tell you the same thing, "just give us a smart kitchen that works."

When I opened the Grand Hyatt in Bombay one of the restaurants I was in charge of had a beautiful open kitchen with a Molteni range.  For those of you not in the business, Molteni is like the Aston Martin of ranges.  It is elegant in its simplicity.  Anyways, one of the other features of this kitchen was refrigerated drawers.  I think there was about 30 of them and I had to get copies of all the kitchen keys made. There was no proper locksmith in Bombay, nor was there any key machine in the city so it's not like I could have just gone to the local Home Depot (there wasn't one) and had keys made.

I spoke to the purchasing manager and asked him to get me someone who can make keys for me.
A day later some homeless looking dude came up to me who I thought was going to ask me for money but he asked, "you need keys?"  I said, "yes, are you the key master?"  I was thinking of that line from the movie Ghostbusters.

I showed him the keys I needed copies of and he then proceeded to sit down with a bunch of metal pieces he then cut into keys.  Since he didn't have a mechanical key cutter, he used an assortment of tools that looked like a bunch of chisels and was just chopping away at those little metal pieces until he had keys...or what resembled keys.  Actually, it looked more like a bunch of metal he chewed on.

What I didn't realize at the time was that every damn drawer needed a different key. I don't know what the idiot kitchen designer was smoking at the time while designing this but it must have been some good shit.  Hell, I don't do drugs but I wanted to try whatever he was on. To make matters worse, once I finally got the keys, I had to fool with each one to get each drawer open. Because they keys were not cut with a machine using them felt more like fitting a square peg in a round hole. My Indian assistant had some trick to get all the drawers open quickly but anytime I had to go and open up the kitchen it took me like 20 minutes to open all those fucking drawers.  Brilliant design assholes!

What was also funny about this kitchen was the design of the restaurant itself.  We had four restaurants in the hotel and one of them I was in charge of was downstairs with an open top.  The design was like a hole was cut into the ceiling and you look up and you could see two of the other restaurants up above you.  There was a glass railing along the edge above so the people sitting along it could look down into this restaurant.  The idea was nice in principle, but on those rare occasions someone dining above dropped their plate, glass or whatever down into the lower restaurant, once on a guest, it ceased to seem to be a good idea.

The design of the upper restaurants was open, no walls which didn't exactly help in creating character for each restaurant.  You could sit in one restaurant and look over at the other ones.  These restaurants were situated near the front desk and corridors leading to guest elevators and the shopping mall as well.
The lower restaurant was a grill so you can probably guess there were a lot of grilled items on the menu. That is all fine and good except for one small problem; whenever the restaurant got busy, the exhaust couldn't cope with all the smoke coming off the grill because it wasn't designed to handle that much smoke. (another brilliant design idiotic kitchen designers) What would consequently happen is the smoke would rise (as it normally does) and blanket all of the upper restaurants and lobby.

To be continued

Crazy chefs

I am working on a couple blogs that require a bit more thought so for a week or so I will stick to some shorter blogs and recipes and so forth. With all these reality shows on TV you can see what it is like behind the scenes in many professions, including kitchens. 

I have had a number of people who watch Gordon Ramsay's TV shows ask me if working in a kitchen, getting ripped apart by the chef is how it really is and it is, although not like it used to be.  America and UK are very litigious societies so you can't treat people like that anymore although it does happen, just not as often.  In corporations you can't get away with that for sure.

When I watch some of those TV shows it reminds me of some crazy chefs I have worked for and I remember one of my culinary instructors from the culinary college I went to in Baltimore, Maryland.  

This instructor's name was chef Keeney.  He looked crazy, had crazy teaching techniques, acted crazy but everyone respected him because he was good at what he did.  

There are two things I remember most about him.

One was a game he had us play called "baseball."  He would blindfold you and then hold a small bowl of some random spice under your nose and you had to smell it and guess what it was.  The game was called "baseball" because you got three strikes and then you were out.

The other was how he punished one of the students who tried to deceive him.  I don't remember this particular student's name but he was one of those guys who was always screwing up and always thought he could get one over on the teacher.  We all know that normally doesn't work.

One day this student had to make quiche as part of his lesson but he burned it.  He thought the smart thing to do was to hide it in the trash. He then made another one but the problem was the class was about to end and his quiche wasn't quite done cooking.  When the instructor came to check on everyone before class ended he asked this student why it took so long for him to make one quiche.  The student started making excuses but you could see he was tripping over his own words.  It reminded me of watching "Cops" where you see some idiot getting pulled over for suspected drunk driving and the person can't get a sentence out properly.

The instructor, not only knowing this student's track record of being a screw up and not being forthcoming, knew something was "not Kosher in Denmark."  The instructor started searching the trash and found the burnt quiche. How did he teach this student his lesson about not only paying attention to what you are doing but to be honest?

He got some butcher twine, poked a hole through a piece of quiche and made a necklace out of it and told the student he had to wear that fucking quiche necklace for a week.  

Hilarious. We all nicknamed that student "Lorraine," after quiche Lorraine........  Classic

Recipe: Tear gas

I assume most of you don't know how to make tear gas out of a few basic kitchen ingredients so that will be our lesson today.

Here is what you need.

Crushed chili flakes........................you know the ones you put on your pizza?
Some fresh, sliced chilis like jalapenos, serrano or any fresh chili will do
A bit of oil

Put a pan on high heat and let it get smoking hot.  When I say hot, I mean HOT!!
Add your chili flakes and some sliced chilis then add just a little bit of oil.  It is important you don't put too much oil or this won't work.  Once you add the oil it will smoke like crazy and anyone within a close distance will be gagging and coughing. 

Before I proceed let me tell you life in a kitchen is full of practical jokes.  People are always messing around with each other.  In some places I have worked it was so bad that I was afraid to go home sometimes because I knew some smart ass was going to do something to my locker, tool box, station or whatever.  Of course, they had to worry about what I was going to do as well.

I first learned this trick in 1997 when I was working at a Spanish restaurant.  One of the Spanish guys I worked with taught me.  What we used to do is just make a very little then put the pan in front of someone's face so they start gagging.  If you only do a little bit it isn't that bad.

Well, me being me I figured if a little bit did the trick then a lot will be even better.  It was about 6:00pm, right as dinner service was starting.  I took a large pan and left it on a high, open flame for like 30 minutes.  It got hot to the point where the bottom was starting to warp and the handle was beginning to glow red at the point of attachment to the pan.  I remember thinking I was going to get that sucker hot as hell.

So the pan is hot as hell and I put a huge handful of those dried chili flakes in there along with about six sliced up serrano chilis.  I then put a bit of oil and that thing smoked like nothing I have ever seen.  Smoke came out of that pan the way a forest fire smokes.  That "culinary tear gas" spread through a kitchen that was about 20 feet by 30 feet in size within about 30 seconds. I had the everyone in the kitchen gagging and coughing and their eyes watering. Once I added the oil I thought, "oh shit, this is going to be bad" and I bolted out of the kitchen leaving the smoking pan on the fire for someone else to deal with.

To help you understand how strong this was, only a little bit will have you coughing an gagging if you inhale it and I had put about 20 times as much this time.  It was so bad that everyone had to leave the kitchen. Trust me, this stuff is just like tear gas.

The problem was that wasn't the worst of it.  This restaurant had an open kitchen so some of the guests started gagging and coughing as well and this stuff permeated the air in the entire restaurant. We couldn't cook orders for the guests because nobody could work in the kitchen until that shit dissipated. We couldn't go back into the kitchen for at least ten minutes. The restaurant manager had to give the guests some kind of lame excuse to explain the delay in their food and what the hell that stuff was in the air.  He certainly couldn't tell them that one of the kitchen guys has a horrible sense of timing when it comes to kitchen jokes.  All the kitchen staff was laughing their asses off.   That stuff was lingering for the rest of the night.  Coughs and gagging provided the soundtrack in the kitchen for the rest of the night as every minute or so someone would cough just like hearing horns in traffic.

Looking back I really don't know why I didn't get fired.  The chef was really pissed off.  Oh yeah, I remember why I didn't get fired, because the chef had no balls.  For the rest of the night I just kept my head down while I worked, looking over at my colleagues, laughing under my breath like a school student who has been scolded by the teacher,  giggling quietly with his classmates.

So now you know how to make tear gas from just a few kitchen ingredients.

Enjoy and don't inhale when you make this

Curt

Indian wedding-conclusion

We are getting all the food heated up for the plating and getting the two plating lines organized for executing the banquet.  For those of you who don't work in a kitchen, food is plated 'assembly line' style for banquets. You have long tables with stacks of plates on one end and the pans of food on the side of the table opposite the chefs who are plating. You usually have one person for each food item on the plate.  The chef at the end of the table with the stacks of plates will put a plate down, the next chef will put his food item on the plate and push the plate to the next chef, that chef will put his item on the plate and push it to the next chef and so on until the plate is completed.  The chef at the end wipes the plates and hands them to the servers.  When you are plating something like a five course meal for large numbers like 500 people you are basically standing there looking down for 30-45 minutes or more depending on the until the entire banquet is completed.

In the case of this wedding, there were not enough hot boxes to put the food in so we had to have a couple guys heat things in the oven and bring it to the plating line as we needed it.  An inconvenience but it can be done as the people plating cannot leave what they are doing.  Oh, for those of you who do not know what a hotbox is, it is what its name says it is.  It is a mobile or stationary box that plugs into the wall and you set it to the temperature you desire.  When you are plating a banquet simply cook your food and put it in the hot box and it keeps the food hot without cooking it like an oven would.  They also have cold boxes even though they are not called that and they keep the food........well, cold.

I already knew the chef of this hotel was a shoemaker but what really confirmed it was when we were plating the banquet.  On my plating line I had the Italian chef and the hotel chef (the shoemaker) working with me.  Here we are in the middle of plating this dinner, pumping out food and the chef takes a phone call on his cell phone.  He was talking on his phone with one hand and plating food with the other.  The Italian chef looked at me and said something in Italian (even though I couldn't understand it) that I could tell it was something bad regarding the chef's lack of professionalism and we both just started grinning.  I mean who the hell would take a phone call in the middle of plating a banquet? Idiot!

We finished plating the banquet which turned out to be a success.  It is kind of funny that everyone loved the food. That food was by no means what I would call great food (I know I wasn't very proud of it) because we didn't have the tools, or anything for that matter to do our job properly.  The guests of the wedding were all Indians, as you may have figured since I was in India and many of them don't know Western food as well as they know their own food so we were lucky.

We started to clean up but there was no soap, towels or anything to clean with and after the past few days of working in the most unhygienic and unsanitary conditions imaginable nobody was in the mood to deal with that shit anymore so we said "screw it" and left.  We had enough. Let those guys clean up.  If they want to work like pigs that is fine but I don't want to clean up after them.

After working in those conditions I felt a bit dirty, maybe even contaminated and I thought about that movie "Silkwood" with Meryl Streep as the main character who worked in a plutonium plant.  There is one scene where she is contaminated by radiation and they have to scrub her down with these harsh brushes and soap to remove any contaminants but it basically scrubbed her raw.  I though I may have to do the same to feel 'clean' again.

We finished our night in normal fashion in the bar with Black Label and cigars. While it felt good to be able to put out a banquet under those conditions and make everyone happy, we were looking forward to leaving.

I hope you enjoyed this story.  I will be putting more kitchen stories as well as recipes and please get your friends to add themselves as followers.

Culinary regards
Curt

Indian wedding part six

So here we are, the day of the wedding has arrived. My boss, the Italian chef, the Indian sous chef and I all had our morning coffee in the lounge sitting by the massive windows that reveal the stunning landscape outside.  It was still funny sitting in those beautiful surroundings knowing full well there was a disaster in waiting behind the scenes.  While we were sitting there one of the guys at our table went to the breakfast buffet to get some food.  He returned with a huge plate with everything from eggs to Indian specialties.  I looked at him in disbelief and asked, "are you nuts man?"
"What do you mean?" He replied puzzled.
"Dude do you really want to eat anything that came from that nasty kitchen?" I exclaimed.
"I have to eat, what are you doing for food?" He said.
"I have been eating packaged things like cookies and crackers."
He continued to eat and I looked at him like he was nuts.
For the past two days I have been thinking about having a HUGE meal when I return to Bombay because if I see one more damn cookie or cracker I will go postal!  Most people count sheep in their sleep, but for me during those nights I was counting pizzas.

We went to the kitchen and surprisingly everything was moving along fine.  There were still the occasional obscenities being blurted out and while we humored ourselves by making fun of that shoemaker chef.  Chefs always dog other chefs, it is our nature, but this guy really deserved it.  I mean you maintain a kitchen like this, what do you expect?

We were trying to figure out how to execute plating for 500 people because the jackasses who designed the kitchen obviously didn't consider many things like. Part of being a chef is taking a kitchen or system that doesn't work and making it work which is what we were doing here.  I brainstormed with my boss and we decided to make two plating lines so each line would only have to plate 250 plates.  We decided to plate the desserts in the hallway by setting up tables along the wall.  The hallways were so narrow I was a bit worried some server would walk by and unintentionally knock a plate(s) over.  We got the food heated up and because there were not enough hot boxes we had to use the ovens to keep food hot as well.

Until next time..........................................

Indian wedding part five

So it is the day before the wedding and we have a lot of prep to do.  The reinforcements arrived (my boss, the F&B and an Italian chef from another Hyatt) and I greeted them in the lobby to take them to the kitchen and show them around.  I have been anticipating the look on their faces when they see this god awful, disgusting operation much like you are looking forward to seeing someone's expression when you buy them a really nice birthday gift they would not expect.  They just have no idea what they are in store for.  As I was walking them through the kitchen they were dumbfounded and I was enjoying watching the look on their faces.  My boss told me that even though I texted him to tell him how bad it was he had no idea it would be like this.

After their shock had worn off we all took duties and started prepping.  The Italian chef took the risotto course, my sous chef took one course, I took one course and my boss helped where needed.  We quickly learned that if we were going to get our work done we had better hoard all the containers, knives, cutting boards and whatever else we could find.  In any kitchen cooks hoard and hide kitchen towels.  I think I have only worked in one or two kitchens in my career where we always had enough of them.  You can't pick up hot pans with your bare hands and can't clean without a towel.  Give a cook nice kitchen towels and it will always put a smile on their face.  Since that chef wasn't being supportive and we couldn't get any towels I went up to my room and took my bath towels and cut them up so we all had nice, new, clean towels to work with.  You should have seen the smiles on their faces. My boss asked me where I got the towels and when I told him my room he simply said, "well, I don't like the idea of cutting up guest towels but bearing in mind the circumstances, you gotta do what you gotta do."

While we were all working, the disgusting kitchen was naturally the topic of conversation.  "Curt, have you ever seen a kitchen like this?  What kind of chef allows this?  He is no fucking chef!" The Italian chef exclaimed.
I told him after a day I am just now coming out of shock so he should give it a day as well.

Every now and again someone, somewhere in the kitchen would yell some obscenities.
"Crap man!"
"Dammit!"
"Jesus Christ!"
"What the hell is this shit?"

Even the simplest thing like finding a towel or spoon was like pulling teeth.  There was not a shortage of profanity during those couple of days.  I think we even created some new words. It is enough of a challenge going to work in someone else's kitchen that you are not familiar with, not knowing the hot spots in the ovens, idiosyncrasies of that kitchen, where things are kept and so on, but worse is not knowing what state the kitchen will be in.

As I said previously, things always seem to work out but this time I was rightly concerned as to how on earth we were going to get this party out.  We were storing food in whatever we could find.   Large bowls, small bowls, water pitchers, sheet pans, trash cans that had new liners in them and so on.  What happens in situations like this is you basically have to compromise your standards big time.  We didn't have enough big pots for me to saute the onions properly so I put all the chopped onions on sheet pans and baked them in the oven.  Do what you have to and make sure the party goes out.

So the day has progressed and most of the prep is done.  Somebody mentioned aloud the thought of going to the bar and getting a drink and we all just nodded our heads with the utmost approval and called it a day.

Indian wedding part four

When I think of the dichotomy of this hotel it makes me laugh. For all you people out there who don't work in the hospitality business remember this.  You may go to a top hotel and be blown away by the decor, the architecture, state-of-the-art this or that or whatever but little do you know what a disaster can be lurking behind the scenes.  I am not saying all hotels are like this, I am just saying it is not that uncommon. I have found that in most cases, the nicer the hotel, the more professional the staff,  the more pride in their job which means in the kitchen they will most likely work cleaner.  I have been in kitchens of well known or famous places and was thinking how funny it was that the place had such a top notch reputation but the kitchen is horrendous.  How sad it is.

So after the shock of what I saw settled in, I had to start preparing for this wedding.  I had my sous chef who came with me start looking for cooking utensils and anything that was somewhat clean. We couldn't even start cooking for an hour because we were hunting down everything like we were on a treasure hunt.  The average home kitchen has more utensils and miscellaneous kitchen equipment than this place.  I honestly don't know how this hotel did large functions or even functioned like this.
Just as I was about to start working one of the chefs came and told me our fruit delivery arrived.  Ah, at least something good is happening.  We wandered through the maze of back hallways (which were to my surprise, clean) to the loading dock but I didn't see any fruit.
"Where is the fruit delivery?" I asked.
"It is coming now," he said.
"Where?" I asked.  As we were speaking one of those black taxis backed up to the loading dock.
"Here." He replied
"The taxi?" I asked puzzled.
"Yes" he said.
I didn't really know what to say so I waited.  The taxi driver got out of the car, came around back and opened the trunk.  All of the fruit was sitting in the trunk on the spare tire and other car equipment with no case, cardboard, bag or anything to protect it from being contaminated by all the automotive parts, oil and grease.
"Are you kidding me?" I asked dumbfounded.
"No, this is how the fruit comes." He replied as if he couldn't understand why I was puzzled but I was still new to India and learning the way things are done there.
"Holy cow," I said in disbelief, not realizing I made a joke because cow is holy in India..."Holy cow!"

At least all of the fruit had a thick skin like pineapple and watermelon so being in the trunk didn't ruin it.  We brought the fruit to the kitchen and we started cleaning it, removing the skin and the automotive dirt and grease that accumulated on it being in the trunk of a dirty taxi.
By this time it was approaching evening and I decided we had enough for one day.  By this point I was too damn frustrated and couldn't even think straight. Tomorrow the reinforcements would be here and we could get some serious prep done.

Off to take a shower then hit the bar.  The bar was more of a lounge, dimly lit and relaxing.  One thing I loved about being outside the US is that you can smoke in bars.  I had left New York City in August of 2003 and the city had become non-smoking shortly before so I was more than happy to be able to light up.  I lit a Monte Cristo no 2 cigar, had my Johnnie Walker Black Label on the rocks and kicked back.
Perfect ending to a screwy day.

Tune in next time
C

Indian wedding part three

As I waited in the beautiful lobby of the Hyatt Regency Kolkatta, the executive chef of the hotel greeted me at the front desk and took me to the kitchen.  I met his two assistants and within the first few minutes I could see he didn't want me in his kitchen.  You have to understand that chefs are very territorial so the last thing any chef wants is some other chef having a run in his or her kitchen.  Lions are also very territorial and mark their territory by urinating on trees and bushes.  The only difference between lions and chefs is that chefs don't mark their territory by urinating on kitchen equipment and walls.  Plus, chefs have business cards and lions don't.  It is fine to be territorial but to be a child about it is something different and that is what was happening here.

As we walked through the kitchen one phrase kept coming to my mind.
"I am going to get dysentary if I eat here!"

Remember how I spoke of 'dichotomy?" Well it is personified here.  In my previous posting I described how beautiful and immaculately clean the hotel is, from the lobby to the outdoor landscaping. Well unfortunately it stops there.  We walked into the kitchen and my first impression was depressing and dreary. It was dimly lit with fluorescent lights, (a standard for professional kitchens) some working, some not and some flickering on and off.  The floor was made up of these dirty, greasy, blueish-grey colored tiles that were the opposite of non-slip. Walking on this floor reminded me of the first time I went ice skating.  My feet were going in every direction that I did not want them to go. It took me about half a day of working in this kitchen to actually get my footing to where I didn't feel like I was walking on ice.  I have heard of getting your "sea legs" but not "kitchen legs." Holy crap!

The most appalling thing was the pot sink area in the corner of the kitchen. The drain in the floor was clogged so there was dirty, stagnant water about two inches deep covering the floor which made the area smell like sewage as opposed to a kitchen.  (Note to self: kitchens should smell like food, not garbage dumps) The poor dishwasher working in that area was in his bare feet (can you believe it, no shoes?!) standing in that disgusting, sewage smelling, dirty water washing pots.  

Within the first five minutes I already formed a low opinion of this shoemaker of a chef.  First the stand-offish attitude and then his disgusting, unsanitary kitchen.  I remember thinking to myself that I just wanted to tell him, "dude, you are not good enough to act like your shit doesn't stink because I will cook circles around you and my food won't make people sick." I don't care how good your food is, (and his wasn't)  if you cannot maintain an organized, clean and sanitary kitchen than you don't deserve to be called a chef. From that moment on I just couldn't look at him as a chef.  

One of the common problems in any kitchen is you never have enough tools or some of them are broken but you can always seem to make it work with what you have. Unfortunately that wasn't the case here. Everything was broken or worked at a substandard level and not only was there not enough of many things, there just wasn't anything at all.  The lack of care for this kitchen was blatant.  I didn't even know where to start, I was still in shock from the aromatic smell of ass coming from the one side of the kitchen where the pot sink was.  Everywhere I turned there was filth. Trash cans were overflowing, counters were not wiped down, the cutting boards were stained to the point that I couldn't tell what color they were originally.  To add insult to injury there were six guys in the kitchen and only two cutting boards. The cooks in the kitchen had uniforms stained to the point they matched the cutting boards.  Even the kitchen towels used to clean the kitchen were wet and stained.  I went to wash my hands but there was no hand soap.  Stupid me for thinking a kitchen would have hand soap so the cooks can wash their hands.  The pots had so much of that black, carbon buildup on the outsides that they smoked if you put them on an open fire.

I was concerned.  I had to prepare for and serve a five course, vegetarian dinner for 500 people in these conditions.  How on earth was I supposed to do that?  I couldn't even get friggin hand soap. I also had another concern on my mind that was distracting me from my job- how on earth I was going to eat?  The last thing I was going to do is eat anything prepared in that nasty kitchen and I wasn't in the mood to die from food poisoning.  I had to be there for three days and two nights for that damn wedding and then it occurred to me. The only way I would be safe would be to eat packaged things like crackers and cookies, so that became my daytime meal and after work I went to the hotel bar to have my nightly dinner of Whiskey and pretzels.  I drank a bit more than normal to make sure I killed any bacteria that may have entered my system from that contaminated kitchen and I also enjoyed it.

The good news was that my boss and another Western chef from another Hyatt was coming to help so at least someone could suffer with me. I remember texting my boss telling him what a nightmare this kitchen was and how he was like "ah come on it can't be that bad?" When he arrived a day later he changed his tune.


Until tomorrow tune in for part four

Kitchen practical jokes-"dirt tastes good"

First I need to give you guys a bit of background so you know what the hell I am talking about.
Have any of you seen hydroponic plants or lettuce? The plants or lettuce is attached to a piece of dirt shaped like a small brick about the size of your thumb. You see these things lined up in greenhouses.  That little dirt brick is like the plant's own little plot of land so to speak.

Well, we used to get this baby lettuce that came like that.  There were these little "bricks" of dirt and you had this petite head of lettuce that grew from it.  You simply take a pair of scissors and cut just above the dirt and serve it.  I will come back to this later.

Well for those of you who have never worked in the restaurant business, we love our practical jokes.  One day one of the servers got me good. We used to get bottles of water sent from the bar that we would drink in the kitchen.  Oh, kitchens are friggin' hot by the way. We didn't drink the tap water because it tasted like horrible.  I just don't like water that tastes like it.   I asked one of the server's to get me a bottle of water from the bartender and unknown to me the bastard emptied the water, filled the bottle with gin and screwed the top back on tightly.  I got the bottle, opened it and took a huge swig.  Once I realized what it was it was too late. I swallowed a huge gulp and what was left got  spit it out to what must have looked like a geyser coming from my face.  Please note this was an open kitchen so guests could see everything.  Well, the entire wait staff  as well as the guests who happened to see got a huge laugh out of it.  Two forms of alcohol I just can't stand is beer and gin.
So, score is bartender- 1, Curt- big ole' goose egg.  Well, I just couldn't stand for that and what this bartender didn't know about me is I have a completely sick sense of humor and when it comes to practical jokes I will not let anyone outdo me. 
Do you remember the lettuce I was talking about?  I took some of our chocolate cake and cut it the exact same size as that dirt from the lettuce.  I covered a plate with raspberry coulis, then placed two pieces of brownies and two pieces of the dirt on the plate.  I then covered them all with powdered sugar. The beauty is that this piece of dirt looked kind of like a brownie, I mean same color, same texture and with all that sugar on them you couldn't tell what the hell it was.

I called the servers and that bartender over for our nightly food tasting.  I told them "this is our dessert special tonight.  It is called chocolate surprise with raspberry coulis."
They all tasted while all of us in the kitchen were standing there doing our best to keep a straight face.  It was difficult to say the least.  The beauty of this was that nobody knew they were eating dirt.  Not one person suspected.  A few of them thought it tasted a bit weird but not one could tell.  One server even said to me "hey is that some kind of new chocolate sponge cake?"
"Sure dude, call it whatever you want."

We all finally busted out laughing and they knew we got them but they didn't know exactly how.
One of the servers exclaimed "OK Curt, I know you did something but I am just not sure what!"
I then grabbed one of those pieces of dirt the lettuce came on, held it up and asked "so how was your chocolate surprise?"

All the servers then started gagging, running to the faucet to drink that nasty-flavored water, spitting and trying to make themselves vomit to get rid of the dirt.
The thing is, only some of them got the dirt.  If you recall, I explained that I put two pieces of brownie and two pieces of dirt. I was so proud of myself.

Cost of dirt-zero
Cost of two pieces of brownies-$.50
Cost of raspberry coulis-$.25
The reaction and look on their faces when they realized I just fed them dirt-"Priceless"

Score is Bartender-1
              Curt- 10!

Kitchen practical jokes and chef rash

My devoted followers (well, the few that I have anyways)

For you three who posted a comment "thank you."  I am working on developing a large following so please spread the word and let me know what you guys want to see me post.  I will give you each a dollar.  haha.
Pooja, I will get you a killer fried chicken recipe shortly.  Do you want a veg or non veg recipe? :)

I thought I would go with a bit of humor here today.

For you non culinarians out there you may or may not know that professional kitchens are like breeding grounds for practical jokes.  Well, here is a story that I promise will make you laugh.

Do you know what chef rash is?  Any chef reading this is cringing just by reading the term 'chef rash.' Like hearing about a psycho ex or something.
Bear with me, as I need to explain this to get to the funny part.  Kitchens are very hot places.  One of the places that gets the hottest is down below....I hope you don't need me to spell that out.  Well, when you add the heat, sweat and friction from your inner thighs rubbing together.  Trust me, if you look up the definition of 'sucks' in the dictionary it wold say "chef rash."  Wait, wouldn't that be "pain in the ass?"

One time my girlfriend saw me walking funny after work and asked what was wrong.  I replied "I have the worst case of chef rash ever."  Her demeanor changed in a second and she barked,  "What do you have?  Who have you been sleeping with?"  I had to explain just what it was.

I am happy to say that I don't get it often but on those rare occasions when it does make its unwelcome visit it is reminiscent of coincidentally bumping into your ex that you had a nasty breakup with.

Fortunately there is a remedy that is readily available in just about every kitchen.  It is called cornstarch. Believe it or not, it is actually better than baby powder.  You can use cornstarch as a substitute for baby powder but I haven't tried substituting baby powder for cornstarch. 
You can always tell who has chef rash because they are the ones frowning and walking like Gollum from Lord of the Rings or like they just got off a horse. They are the ones who make way for the walk in cooler. Once in the privacy of your well-cooled surroundings unbutton your pants, dip your hand in cornstarch and apply.  Those same individuals who went in the walk in with frowns come out with a huge smile.  Just like new.  Can you readers out there now understand why babies cry soo much if they have a rash?  It sucks man!  Trust me.  Feels like you are wearing sandpaper for underwear.

Now, onto the practical joke.  One time I worked with this dude that nobody in the kitchen liked.  I was just a cook at the time and he was more senior and he was always messing with us younger guys.  He was a real asshole.  I mean, like Gordon Ramsay type _ _ _hole.  So one day the 'old light bulb pops in my head and it was in the form of cornstarch.  I thought to myself 'I will get this bastard."  When everyone was on break I poured the cornstarch in the trash and put flour in the box.

He was very fat, sweat more than the rest of us and would often get chef rash. He kept his box of (stash) cornstarch hidden in the walk in like an alcoholic hides his beer and sneaks a drink when he can. Fortunately for me that particular day was very hot and I could see the chef rash gradually forming by the look on his face.  I was struggling to contain myself.  We were in the middle of the dinner rush and he says "guys, I forgot something in the walk in I will be right back."  I knew where he was going and I looked at the other cook who knew  what I did and we were snickering about it."  Then we heard a scream from the walk in. "Ahhh shit man.  God damnit!" He stormed out of the walk in and asked "which one of you _ _ _holes put flour in the cornstarch box?"  Nobody could answer because we were all laughing so hard.  I felt soo proud!  I almost felt bad for the moron because he had to go and change his pants.  The flour mixed with all that sweat made a paste.  By the way, I said I almost felt bad for him. 
Stay tuned for more recipes, culinary advice, philosophy and twisted.....me