A customer asked if the sauce in my pan was for the trash or their plate

I was working a busy Saturday night dinner service, about 8:30 PM, when a guy at table 12 flagged me over. He pointed at my saute pan where I was deglazing with wine and shallots, and says, 'Is that leftover sauce or are you cooking something for me?' Stared at him for a second, then told him it was for his steak but he was welcome to taste it from the pan if he wanted. He just laughed and said that's the closest he has ever been to a chef's secret. Made me wonder how many customers actually think we just open cans back there.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lisa6d ago

Honestly I used to think it was all canned stuff too but that story totally changed my mind.

allen.amy5d ago

The one that got me was back in 2018 when a user named Sarah_M posted about finding her late grandmother's handwritten recipes in an old cookie tin. She showed photos of the actual stained pages with her grandmother's notes in the margins. @the_lisa, I think we forget that people used to keep recipe boxes or notebooks full of clippings and family secrets way before the internet made everything look so polished. It's those little details like a smudge of butter on the paper that make me believe it's real.