The soup was made at 8:30 that morning. By 11, it's in the soup well on the line, hot and ready for lunch. Then service starts. Nobody's really watching the soup anymore. It's hot. It's…

The truck backs up to the door at the worst possible time. It’s the middle of a lunch rush, you’re two prep cooks short, and the driver needs a signature now. Everyone in the kitchen…

The strawberries arrived frozen. The cases were intact. They came from an approved supplier, passed receiving, and went into storage. Three days later, the vendor contacts you. Those strawberries have been recalled. Nothing was necessarily…

Prep is where cooks get themselves into trouble because almost everything you're doing feels normal. Boring, even. You're just getting ready for service. Chopping onions. Setting chicken on the worktable while you trim it. Giving…

If you've never worked in a restaurant kitchen, one of the things that might surprise you is how much food gets cooked ahead of time. It's a lot. New cooks are frequently shocked to discover…

75 Pounds of Scrambled Eggs I walked into my first large-scale breakfast service at 4 a.m. The kitchen was quiet — just one other cook and the a.m. sous going over the prep sheets for…

Picture a walk-in cooler with a leaky package of raw chicken sitting on the top shelf. Every shelf below it is now downstream of that leak. One drop of raw chicken juice lands on a…

The Time I Ruined 27 Turkeys About 20 years ago, I opened my first catering company, Chef Christopher Events. I shouldn't have. I had been working in restaurants for years and was doing really well…

I started the management stage of my career when I was working in steakhouses. Back then, nobody needed to remind me to cook burgers to 155 or steaks to 145 because I cooked them every…