Tasks you hate doing - Page 5

Psycho Chef · #61 02-15-2007, 08:46 PM

Tomatoes concasse. Just the feel of the grainy pulp underneath as the waxy skin slides off, the mucus encased seeds and their insipid juice everywhere....for about 6 weeks every year they are a divine pleasure. Now with 100 moules provencal a week hitting the board they seem like a never ending pain in the ***.

And I can identify with about 90% of the other posts too...Although I've never met a dishwasher that refused a six pack of heineken or corona to clean the grease trap. Total cost to me $6.48 Actual value: Priceless!

Cheri · #62 02-17-2007, 01:14 PM

Shrimp, HATE IT. And, for some reason I cannot stand to grease and flour ANY type of pan, I spray the heck out of 'em and PRAY. I'll also line the bottoms which is also a PITA but I would rather do that than flour them. Guess I just wanna get to the good stuff! When I teach I make others do the grunt work for me!

Entropy · #63 02-17-2007, 03:20 PM

Picking herbs, especially thyme.

Frenching racks of lamb.

kuan · #64 02-17-2007, 09:07 PM

Frenching racks is easy too. Cummon people!

Chop faster!

Entropy · #65 02-17-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kuan

Frenching racks is easy too. Cummon people!

Chop faster!

Its very easy (actually most cooking is pretty easy imo), its just not fun after the 150th rack and your fingers are numb, thank god nerves regenerate.

JerryG · #66 02-17-2007, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rivitman

Peeling of all those darn stickers they put on every piece of produce these days.

I wish a private **** on whoever decided to start using these things.

Chad Aaland · #67 02-17-2007, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JerryG

I wish a private **** on whoever decided to start using these things.

On that note...the purveyor we use for beef started individually wrapping the fillets a couple months ago which wasn't great but we got used to it...but I just noticed today that they started putting inspection stickers in what seems like 1 out of every 8 packages. Not only is it more time consuming...but what if someone misses that when they're unwrapping 250 steaks and somehow it ends up on the plate?

Mikeb · #68 02-18-2007, 01:04 AM

The task I hate doing most - making any sort of a garnish for a dish that people never really eat anyway. It's against my culinary philosophy, and is a colossal waste of time. I've worked in restaurants where 80 percent of the time was spent preparing 10 percent of the food. **** pretentious fine dining nonsense...

kuan · #69 02-18-2007, 07:12 AM

How about deliming the combi oven? One place where I worked the water was so bad we had to delime every week.

Entropy · #70 02-18-2007, 09:56 AM

I love cooking professionally. And mulling over this topic a little more I think that all the manual labor, cleaning, paperwork, dealing with purveyors, suits, etc.....all seems easy compared to getting cooks to do their work properly and consistently every single day without compromising the food in any way. Esp. in a union kitchen. "That's not my job," has got to be my most favorite hated phrase of all time.

RAS1187 · #71 02-18-2007, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikeb

The task I hate doing most - making any sort of a garnish for a dish that people never really eat anyway. It's against my culinary philosophy, and is a colossal waste of time. I've worked in restaurants where 80 percent of the time was spent preparing 10 percent of the food. **** pretentious fine dining nonsense...

I never really gave this one much thought, but you do bring up a good point. I can pretty much agree with you 100% on this.

kuan · #72 02-18-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikeb

The task I hate doing most - making any sort of a garnish for a dish that people never really eat anyway. It's against my culinary philosophy, and is a colossal waste of time. I've worked in restaurants where 80 percent of the time was spent preparing 10 percent of the food. **** pretentious fine dining nonsense...

What do you call those little bundles of herbs? Pluches or something? What's the proper name?

RAS1187 · #73 02-19-2007, 12:48 AM

I also thought about this, though it is a minor gripe since the customer is entitled to have their food the way they want.

I really dislike having to cook anything past medium (unless its chicken)

guinness_stout · #74 02-19-2007, 11:31 PM

I really dislike breading anything. That or waitstaff that doesn't tell you about big tops in the restaurant. Griping servers....Slow workers...blah.

Sleepy_Dragon · #75 02-20-2007, 03:08 AM

In fact, I'd say of the closing tasks I least mind, cleaning the fryer is one of them. I'd volunteer to do it if it means someone else will deal with all the fiddly organizing elsewhere. A big task which requires total attention is perfect for me after a day of multitasking, it's a chance to mentally calm down and not have to worry about anything else, and there is no running around on tired feet involved.

I do mind cleaning the hoods and filters, but only because of the climbing and squirreling aspect. If someone will fetch filters down for me and put them back later on, I'll be happy to scrub them to a mirror shine.

Citrus supremes are fun, very satisfying task. Same for tournes.

When I worked catering gigs, the task I liked least was the constant setting up and tearing down and setting up and tearing down, repeat ad nauseum. No amount of superior pay compared to restaurant kitchens could get me to choose that profession for full time.

But any task can be made unpleasant if you're teamed with a co-worker who's sloppy or otherwise uncaring and/or not mentally present. That kind of thing affects my own morale. Of course I do my best not to let it affect me but it sucks and is distracting to have to fight it anyway.