So, when I was at my last job, I was pretty particular about some things, and other things I was pretty lazy about, but someone else would worry about that. So, as far as the kitchen crew, we were ok with things, besides... general upkeep of the kitchen. We cleaned when we could, but we definitely did not get to clean as much as we would like.
Anyway, I find myself at my current job always thinking, boy if so and so could see me now!
Of course, I'm at home and I have a horrible memory, but I'll try to remember things that we do at work that I would have never allowed at my last job:
- So, we have like this knife service. The guy comes every Thursday and trades our knives out for a sharp set. So these are the house knives. I generally use my knives though, unless I'm doing a task that requires a huge wide chef knife. Anyway, when everyone is done with a house knife, they just throw it on the bus tub or in the dish pit.
With all the other dishes.
Which means, a dishwasher could grab a knife without seeing it and cut himself. It hasn't happened, but it definitely could.
Crazy.
And I have to admit, I have done it a couple times too. Yes, I have.
But those couple times, I made sure it was somewhere where the dishwasher would see it.
Still, it's against my principles.
- If you know about the rules of sanitation, then you know that there's a certain order of how raw proteins should be stored. Basically, things that cook faster should be stored above things that have longer cooking times. Makes sense, right? Well, our walk in is a little helter skelter. I have found cooked crabmeat cases on the bottom shelf under raw beef.
Why don't I do something about it, you ask? Well, I guess I don't feel it's my place. I'm just the lowly pantry cook. That stuff is not my domain. The guys seem to have their unorganized "system" and I'm scared that if I move things, they won't be able to find something and think we are out of it.
So, yeah, I'm one of those people who watch something go wrong and not do anything about it.
Here's the thing. This place is really still settling in. Things are not as efficient as they could be. And if I'm still around when things are morphing, then I'll help. The other thing is, all these other people I worked with have taken sanitation. I mean they probably all have current sanitation certifications, and I don't.
- FIFO is not always followed. First in first out. Common sense, right. The first thing you buy is the first thing you use. Simple. Doesn't always happen. Sometimes you will see like 3 open containers of salt, oil, milk, heavy cream, ground black pepper... it's so annoying. And like we have no freezer space. One reach in single door freezer, and a lowboy double door freezer.
So, we do brunch every Sunday. And we have to order things for just that day. Like english muffins. So we get the new english muffins in, and we put them in the walk in cooler. So, then there are frozen english muffins in the freezer that just sit there for another week. Annoying.
- We throw away a lot of product. A lot. The cooks at the last place always made fun of me for keeping stuff that they thought was not salvageable. So, it looks like every Monday we throw away fish. The fish is only a couple days old and it stinks horribly. I can't help thinking that it's not stored properly, or that too much is being ordered. But I don't order the fish, and I don't store it. So who am I to say. But I know that if it seemed to be starting to go, I would cook it and make something of it. But that's just me.
- We do have barely any storage space. But I think items are run down to nothing a little too often. Like I hate seeing that there's half a pound of garlic left, or 2 onions. And someone or multiple people noticed they were running low and didn't bother to tell the chef. Because I think they think items just magically regenerate. Or the worst, they leave the empty box there! So if you don't touch the box, you may think there is a new full box of onions!
Well, that's only a few things, but I'm going to stop my bitching for now. I'm tired, and I need to wind it down! This is late for me! And it's only 10:33pm!!!
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