Battle Scars of the kitchen

Gretings all,

Just finished another 14 hour day on the line and can't sleep so thought I'd jump online and start a new thread I've been thinking about all day. Sorry if this thread has been done before (couldn't be bothered to search for one)

Treat this as our preverbial campfire...a place to tell our war stories of the kitchen so to speak.

So, sititng around this campfire let's swap stories about our battle scars. Let us all know of those injuries you've received in the line (of fire).

Ill go first, and tell you about the injury I received today whilst prepping. This particular scar involves a serious burn to the ring and pinky finger of my right hand (and I am right handed). This burn occured whilst deep frying falafels. I was lifting 3 falafels out of the 70+ degrees celsius deep frying oil when one fell from my ladle and fell back in causing the oil to cover those particular fingers.

This scar is going to be quite large, kinda proud of it ha ha ha. Stupid mistake though, but hope this starts of a thread where we can discuss the scars of our times in the kitchen...Discuss :)

Line Grunt

......why???

Battle scars? Too funny (ironic)......I roll outta bed every day....as well as carry on through the day and then attempt to sleep....... with a constant reminder of what almost 30 years did for me regarding battle scars.:rolleyes:

I can say that after a while, you find yourself just looking at that sheet pan sized brand, the grill marks conveniently made on the knuckle side of a hand or silver dollar sized fryer oil splatter in the kitchen, if things happen often enough (as they do when you have an A&E work ethic..........) with more of a "Oh look what I just did......cool" and shluff it off. Can't say that was what the reaction was the first few years but toward the end...........it was the norm.:rolleyes:

Just to share......there are two "scars" (besides the one I vaguely mentioned above) that were with-in my first two years of working in the business.

First was done while cutting salad mix for the Pizza place I got my first restaurant job at. Yes cutting.....it was a pizza place not Chez Paul.......:rolleyes: I cut the tip of my left thumb (more than a 1/2") completely off and had to have it sewn back on........:eek: Even 32 years later you can see the seam where it was sewn back on.

Second was probably the second worst in my life/career....While emptying a pot of pasta in the sink......some maroon I was working with decided to screw around and slap me with a towel while I had the pot resting on the sink edge to dump. The whole pot of scalding water and pasta........fell back against me. Ended up with first degree burns on my left arm bicep and arm pit and second degree burns on my entire chest and stomach. :eek:

:cool:...check the late night cafe sectioon....

Your topic made me curious. I just counted to scars on my right arm from elbow to fingers. 17. I am right handed, so most of them are burn scars. The worst of which, and also is not really a scar and thus not counted, is obviously the knife callous on the base of the index finger.

The most painful injury I ever had was when I was teaching a girl how to saute some fish. I turned my back for a minute while she had a salmon filet in a pan. When it was time, I went to give the pan a shake and the hot oil literally coverered my hand. Turns out she had half an inch worth of oil in the thing. My hand literally bubbled up an inch over the entire back of it for the next few days. Since then, I've been hit with hot oil on that hand many times over and it doesn't bother me for more than a few seconds, if at all.

The most heinous scar I have is on my left index finger from way back when I wasn't too good with a knife. Carving a raw top round with a very sharp 14" slicer knife, I lopped off the knuckle closest to the hand. Doctors said I was less than a milimeter from damaging the tendons or something along those lines. I still remember putting super glue on it and trying to finish out the work for the day but those above me demanded I go to the hospital. When I got there, the doctor asked me to describe the pain on a scale of 1 to 10. I said 0, it didn't hurt at all. He gave me a scrip for vicadin. Whatever. First and only time I've been to the hospital for work related issues.

I think cooking is easier, perhaps nearly requires, a numbness in the digits. I am somewhat clumsy in the first place with regards to my own safety (never others safety), but I also have a high tolerance for pain. I burn myself way more frequently than I should, but after a while, it just doesn't hurt as much, if at all.

The scars are both a badge of honor and an embarassment. It shows that I can tough it out, but at the same time, it shows I should be a lot more careful. The only one I think is important is the knife callous. All good chefs should have one or have a **** good reason why they don't have one.

better than bumping an old/dead topic IMHO. Welcome to the forums, if I may say, as a new poster myself.

WTF is up with that?! I've come sooooo close to face slapping people who do that... Last time someone did that they got their towel thrown back at them in 2 pieces /pet peeve
Never got into that "locker room" mentality.

BEST I'VE SEEN: Best scars I've seen are the carpal tunnel ones. Don't got them; don't want them. But they are hardcore scars.

BEST I'VE HAD: Besides the "sheet-pan-out-of-the-oven-on-my-forearms" scars, I think the best I ever got were when I was a doughnut fryer. Lots of little blisters all over the forearms. Then I did one where i had a 6" x 3/8" blister running up my arm. Old school baker said I "earned my stripes". LOL

CURRENT: Anyhow, these days, my back hurts. :roll: All fingers intact; no carpal tunnel. I got off "the line" before I could really hurt myself.

Nice stories all, thanks for keeping the thread alive and reliving a dead one if so.

Very impressive. Gotta agree, burns are a badge of honour and I'm starting to gain those badges rather quickly. I've even started to get my knife callous, so I'm very proud :)

Lef4Bread: thanks for the welcome, glad to be onboard :p (I also hate towel slapping, I think that stems form a childhood memory of my odler brother chasing with a tea towel trying to whip me with it when my right knee collided with a low lying brick wall, fracturing my knee cap and leaving a nice chunk of flesh stuck to the bricks. just another scar story he he).

Oldschool: lopping off part of your thumb?!?! thats hardcore, glad the part that came off didn't end up as topping on that pizza. Your pot of boiling water scar sounds horrible, I hope you exacted some sweet revenge on that Maroon. Reminds me of the scar I've got that is about the size of a bar of soap (strangec omparison I know) across my lower abdomen from that exact same incident as I was filling a pot with boiling water from the boiler, some server was mucking around behind me and bumped me causing the pot to slip, spilling alot of the water over my lower body. Thank god that was all that got burnt.

Schuster: I think I'm begingin to agree with you that a numbness in the digits is a good thing. I play guitar alot and the fingertips on my left hand are well worn with calouses so I don't feel alot of burns on them but my right hand is still very sensitive. You know where I get alot of tiny little cuts. On the thumb of my left hand from using a peeler, when peeling I must make such tiny cuts on that thumb but now my thumb is riddled with them, doesn't bother me until I'm squeezing lemons or pitting olives. Had to laugh though at your quick fix for the knuckle wound...Superglue! so many uses lol.

Feel free anyone else to discuss wounds received on the line

I have a 3" scar that runs down the outside of my right knee from where a line cook opened an under counter drawer into the outside of my knee and had my knee cap sitting on the inside of my leg. I was laying on the floor of the line cursing like a sailor in an open kitchen on a semi busy Wed night. One of the cooks helped me pop my knee cap back in place. 2 surgeries later to repair the ligaments and cartalige I am able to walk with only a slight limp, I like to think of it as a "swagger" though. I actually worked for 6 months on the knee 12-14 hours a day while I was waiting for the docs to approve the first surgery. While I was waiting I had the knee drained what seemed like monthly and that was actually more painful than the injury itself.

uggg...
that story turns my stomach, chefhow.
...
sounds ghastly.

oh gravy, i couldn't even begin to count burn scars. i was once using a piece of shite pull through knife sharpener to sharpen a carving knife when it popped out and sliced my left index finger down to the knuckle bone. i was on the carving station at a casino buffet. by the time i made it back to a sink in the kitchen, my glove was full of blood and people started screaming thinking i had sliced my finger off. i just wanted to super glue it. they insisted i get stitches. fail. of course, my real badges of honor are worn on each forearm. they're actual battle scars from Iraq. doing a raid on a market in abu gharib, some guy materialized out of the crowd holding a switchblade, slashed at me twice, then buried the knife a half inch into the ceramic plate of my body armor. i didn't realize until after the mission was over that the dipstick had flayed me open on both arms. two marine medics and half a tube of super glue later, the scars are barely visible. of course, the iraqi learned the hard way not to bring a knife to a gunfight.

I am reminded of it every morning when I get out of bed and take those first steps.

Hi there,

The higher up the food chain (pun intended) you get the more you look at "battle scars" as paper work and loss of productivity.

We all have them and if we thought about it carefully we would all admit that they where caused by carelessness or in-attention in fact when I fill in the W.C.B. claim forms under reason for incident (not accident anymore) I usually write Stupidity.

You say that you just finished a 14 hour shift, why? is the establishment you work for breaking labour codes? Are they understaffed? does ownership or management have that little respect for their staff that they would let them work a 14 hour line shift? or are you trying to prove something, nobody is doing anybody any favours by working those kind of hours on the line, productivity drops, quality drops and accidents happen, luckily this time it was you and you didn't end up putting some poor immigrant dishwasher with a family to feed in the hospital.

Get some balance in your life, if you continue to work those kind of shifts you will end up hating your job and resenting the ownership, or else looking for other ways to keep the energy levels "high" and that won't do you any good at all.

M.d. Hughes,

Any room for a "waiver" for owner/operators, especially in a "one person shop"?:rolleyes:

As a rule, you are correct.
There are always exceptions though.
Busy day, multiple banquets, a call in sick and a no call/show....someone is staying over.
Happened here last week.
Regularly scheduled 14 hour days, no.
14 hour day due to the above scenario, youbetcha.

As a baker, I mostly have burn scars; I don't use a knife often enough or fast enough to get many cuts.

When I was young, I spent a couple of years baking at a place with tiny old convection ovens. The racks were too close together, but we needed to use all of them, so I couldn't take any out. Anyway, I ended up with burn scars that line up perfectly to form a straight line across the fingers of my right hand.

I guess that ruins my career as a hand model, huh?:p

Mmmm. lotsa scar tissue on my left hand and index knuckle. Had a 2nd degree burn on my left ankle waaay back in the 80's, emptying a pot of pasta and slipped on the floor. Worked a week before seeing the doctor, told me another 2 days and gangreene (sp?) would have set in. No burn scars though.

Lotsa burns on my forearms from the convection oven. Remember seeing the family doctor once for a regualr checkup and wanted to know if I was tortured or abused or something, I just looked at him and said "Oh, those? just burns from the oven, that's all". He looked at me like I just told him I bought the Eiffel tower for $10,000.

Cut off my left thumb just above the knuckle and have maybe 50% feeling in the index finger, but that was from a summer job on a construction site when I was 18, the summer I decided to become a cook instead....

Flat feet. Have to wear orthoitcs, that doesn't count. Had a nasty bought of "plantar facscitis" on both feet,--for 4 Years, Doctors told me to take a couple months off and sit on my butt--hard to do when you 0/0 your own business, suffered through that one for a long time until the time was ripe to sell th business.

You own you do everything you can to keep it afloat, and more power to you, but would as an owner ever expect an employee to work a 14 hour line shift, note line shift, not banquet?

No, I would NEVER expect an employee to work the hours I do for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that "I" can take a break whenever "I" decide to. :rolleyes:

Not an owner, so can't really say what I would do until I am actually in the position, but theoretically yes, there would be occasions where I would need an employee to pull a 14 hour line shift.
If there are no other options but have them do it or shut down, I am going to ask them to do it.
And I think 7 out of 10 times they would do it.
There are those that will never come through for you, no matter how many times you've come through for them, but most will.
If I can cover it myself, I will.
But if I can't physically be in two places at the same time, and last time I checked I was lacking in that skill set......

I don't see 8 hours as a magical number, nor 9, 10, etc.
Some can't work 2 hours without whining for a break, others can work dawn to dusk with nary a complaint.

Chef How gets the purple heart so far. I used to work with a Viet Nam vet who had earned a purple heart. He said it was virtually worthless to him, so he brought it in to work and we'd take turns wearing it whenever we got hurt. You got to keep it until your injury healed or some klutz hurt themselves worse. Sometimes there would be arguments over who was hurt the worst, which led to my now oft repeated line "You ain't hurt, you're not even bleeding." They loved shoving it in my face when a frozen N.Y. strip loin fell out of the freezer and broke my foot. They were quick to point out that I wasn't really hurt as there was no blood, but they did allow me to have the heart. My worst injuries are a tie between cutting off the end of my middle finger on my left hand and a horrendous steam burn I had on the back of my hand from reaching into a steamer that hadn't shut off like it was supposed to. Literally cooked my hand. When you first work in a kitchen, every little burn drives you nuts. Now someone will say "Ow! what did you do to yourself?" and I'll look and see a burn I didn't know I had and tell them I don't know, I didn't notice it. I mentioned in an earlier thread how burning me seems to be the favorite pastime of my kitchen crew. Hot tongs on my arm, sheet pan on my arm, hot bacon grease down my shoe... I solved the hot stuff on my arm thing by wearing long sleeved chef coats so now it's just a grease spot on my coat instead of a permanent brand on my hide. Since burning me doesn't work any more, they've graduated to clocking me in the head with various doors. The award for that goes to our oldest waitress who kicked the diningroom door open while I was behind it putting away coffee cups. Had a knot on my head for three days. They say it's all accidents, but I sense a pattern here.... :cry:

My worst was when a convection steamer went cahhhput on manual setting... it pretty much sprayed out steam when I opened the door on the top of my hand/wrist. instant blister the size of a small cell phone in that area.. It took about 2 weeks to heal over... Getting burnt with a sheet pan in the back of the head wasnt fun... waking around with a red line on the back on my head for a week, hehe

This is how you know you should probably get out of this business: A few weeks ago I had an order for colossal shrimp and we didn't have any thawed. I was running water over and trying to hack some open as once they're butterflied, they cook fast. I'm hacking away with a santoku knife, saying to myself that if I keep this up I'm going to whack my finger, and then I did. To the bone. No adhesive tape for a butterfly stitch and I'm the only cook on, so put band aids on as tight as I can and a glove. Once the bleeding stops, glue it shut with crazy glue. Someone asked me later if I needed stitches. I said I probably did, but the only point in that is to stop the bleeding which the glue took care of, so I guess I don't need stitches any more. One of the guys said this was the first job he worked where you didn't get to leave because you were bleeding. I asked what kind of wimpy job they let you go home for just because you're bleeding, and he said construction. They'd get to go to the E-room and then home. What a bunch of wimps! They get paid about 3X what we do too. We're in the wrong business!

Oh I have a few.

I love how missing fingertips grow back in place. Covered a rag in blood last Sunday after cutting the tip of my left index off.

A few years back, I was working at a pizza place. Tired, after a long shift I was cleaning the dough sheeter with steel wool, and a strand got caught in the gears. Tired, obviously not thinking, I wraped in around one of my fingers and whacked the strand with tongs.

Just a few to mention.

I've got a perfect 2" triangle (from trying to salt a foccaccia while still in the oven) Its 2 years old n only just fading. Just beside it a 2" slash burn, I now have a tan, which makes it stand out.

Got an impressive scar on my left instep. Went to pick tomatoes from the kitchen greenhouse years ago. It had blown down in the high winds the night before. Stepped on a shard of glass. Didnt even feel it. First i knew, someone was moaning about my bloody footprints across the kitchen
old school chef thought he'd like to try stitching it himself. luckily i hitched a lift to A&E

It's been awhile since I really got cut, but my son has a nasty burn up the back of his calf where his chef shut the even door on his leg. I can't quite figure out how his leg got in there, and I'm not even going to try.:lol:

I had to laugh out loud at this one and I have to say it's true in a lot of cases!!

I've cut myself a few times but the one that stands out is when I had a filter basket of coffee fall onto my hand mid-brew. That was bad! At first I didn't realize what I had done and I started to clean up the mess when my manager told me to get that under water and then did it ever blister up. It took a good couple of weeks to heal and I did have a scar there for a while but it's long gone now.

• asked to borrow a pairing knife, took it out of fellow chefs hand, they didn't let go-stitches
• slicing an onion when 18, sliced up one side and then down the other, caught membrane on onion-stitches
• slicing standing prime rib, customer wants it wafer thin, did my best-stitches
• lighting gas BBQ, threw flame on top of grill nothing happened, bent down to have a look, boom- burn cream on face
• picked-up hot pan with wet towel-burn cream
• deep fried calamari for the first time- burn cream

All when I was young and learning the trade!:rolleyes:

I should have known better but I have a stupidity related burn. Last Wednesday was Remembrance Day and well we forgot or didn't consider it when we did the schedule (and the KM and I did it together..ack!) so needless to say we were slammed and had to have the owner come help us.

In the thick of the stuff I was making multiple tuna melts and I had slopped a bit onto the grill (which is set at 375F) so some stupid part of me thought it was fine to pick the tuna up with my bare hand and put it back. Well what resulted was a small burn but it was bad enough that I couldn't handle being in the kitchen without my fingers on ice (I did the ring and pinky fingers) so I spent the rest of the rush with my fingers in and out of ice slush and when things slowed down i spent the rest of my shift with my fingers on ice telling people what to do!

Don't have a permanent scar so I didn't post this earlier, but with the mentionof burn cream.....

It took me a couple of times to learn this, but I have grabbed the handle of a saute pan I had recently pulled from the oven.
Busy night, pans going in, out, shuffling around, forget I had just finished that dish in the oven, then YEOWCH!
Nice red, handle-shaped burn mark on the palm of the hand, finger tips red and tender.
Funnier seeing the hole in the handle print, a little circle of unburned flesh.

As I said, took me a couple of times before I started placing these pans with the handles facing away to remove the temptation.