Old line cook taught me more than any culinary school ever did

I was working the fry station at this busy spot in Portland back in 2012, and this guy named Frank who'd been there since the 80s told me to stop flipping the basket so much. He said just let the oil do its thing and trust the timer. I still think about that advice every time I'm on a hectic Saturday night.

2 comments

2 Comments

xena_fisher491d ago

Old timers in any trade just have that sixth sense for it.

roberts.troy1d ago

And here's what nobody talks about with that "sixth sense" @xena_fisher49 - it's not just experience. It's muscle memory for failure. Old timers have seen so many things go sideways that they spot the early warning signs before anything actually breaks. They've got this mental catalog of every mistake they ever made. New guys see a machine running fine, old timer hears a sound that's slightly off and knows it's gonna fail in 20 minutes. That's not magic, that's just accumulated trauma. The sixth sense is really just remembering all the times you got burned.