It can be intimidating to walk into a tightly knit kitchen and try to seamlessly slide in.
If you put your head down and perform every task with care and a sense of urgency you might earn their respect and be invited back. If you act like a know-it-all, or become a liability, enjoy the shift meal, if you get one, because it will likely be your last.
Working in a kitchen that has the occasional stage rolling through can be rewarding. If they are good you’ll score an extra hand to help bang out prep.
Sometimes you’ll see odd behaviors. These moments often live on in the stories told by the line cooks that witness them for decades.
Ted was toast before he ever stepped foot in our kitchen. He was a privileged college kid with too nice of a car to fit in with the rest of our band of misfits.
On top of that he wasn’t ready. Becoming a chef may have sounded good on paper, but when it came time to dance his nerves got the best of him.
He was too slow to help with prep, too shaky to plate a dish without splashing sauce all over the rim, and “did I just see him count to ten on his fingers?”
“Hey Ted! Drop this in the fryer and count to ten,” our chef de cuisine instructed.
The next thing I knew Ted was standing over our fryer using his fingers on both hands to count to ten.
At the end of the night when Ted started his car with his keychain, in order to warm it up before leaving, he wrote his own death sentence.
What can I say the kitchen can be a cruel place.