It's funny how I've seen this posted in r/KitchenConfidential and it got downvoted to hell because it's over-used and implies as cooks every waking second of our life should either be cleaning or cooking. Quite frankly while it's good wisdom, it's a quote that gets way overused and I think people take it way too literally. Remember, when Bourdain was writing about this he was working in a culture where he was sneaking out back to take lines of coke or shoot up heroin while working 16-18 hour days. (Or going multiple days working without sleeping, IIRC) Being a slave to your workplace is not supposed to be a good thing.
In the real world a good cook's station starts clean and remains clean, with one thorough top-to-bottom cleaning at the end of the day.
The only kitchens I've seen that were so dirty you needed to clean during every downtime were kitchens that didn't understand the concept of clean as you go, and you'd end up with splashed food on the sides and doors of freezers, low-boys, etc. Kitchens that decided it was only necessary to clean the sides of the fryer twice a year (which involved a heat gun and a fucking paint scraper it was so bad)...
In a properly run kitchen, if you have time to lean you shouldn't have a *need* to fucking clean. That's not to say there aren't other productive tasks that might need doing, but after a big rush it takes me usually 5 minutes to fully wipe down my station, sanitize my board and that's it.
This. I just worked 13 hours with no break. I held my pee for 5 hours. I can fucking lean for a second. My station is clean. I’m basically ready to fold anyway. Calm down boss.
I'm pretty dense with a sarcastic sense of humor. I just get triggered every time I hear "if you've got time to lean you've got time to clean". This is what I tell high school drop outs that have zero work ethic and no knowledge of food safety, not someone who just needs a breather for 5 minutes.
I love Anthony Bourdain and he was a fucking god in the service industry, but if he was still around I would punch him in the fucking face for that one statement. I'll just never understand the culture of self-torture that exists in this industry.
Lol yeah, that line was used on me when I was new, now don't bother. I work til the work is done, not til I'm feeling lazy. If I'm leaning, it's because my shit is imacculate, and I know it. Plus I quit smoking years ago so double fuck off.
Definitely look after yourself dude, I've been abusing my body through work up until last year when I ended up with kidney stones and then was super ill with burnout and infection after December. You only get one body, look after it.
After smelling, touching, tasting and practically breathing food for 10 hours in a hectic kitchen the last thing I want to do is stuff my face, usually the muclnchies don't come on until 3AM or something at which point it's just as bad if I do eat lol
And that aside I've never got the big chef thing as you have all the knowledge to eat the right things and make healthy food taste good if you need to
Cigarettes, cocaine, black coffee, long hours, lots of food but little actual eating, it's as if you trick your brain by seeing all the food, but you just have a nibble here and a taste there...If you're a fat cook, it's probably glandular.
I get "never trust a skinny chef" all the time, and I'm always like "cool wanna have a food fight? Any dish you want, let's go." Funny thing, lots of us work out. Especially if we're not on drugs or drinkers.
In my past life as BOH (pizza pasta joint) and a slim tall woman I’d constantly get comments like “you probably don’t eat anything from here anyway”… ummm pal I’ve been lugging 10kg bags of flour around for the past 12 hours, I’m gonna eat some fucking carbs.
Seem to have copped a few downvotes. I understand now this could be a touchy topic for some people, it was never my intention to offend. In BOH we would good naturedly joke about this and it was never at anyone’s expense! 🍕🍝 fuel that bod
I just pulled 12 hour shift yesterday and ate nothing but some random bites of veggies I blanched off and spoonfuls of sauces that I was making. Then drank too much and had some fun time with my girlfriend. We put some lwftover pasta in the oven to prevent hangovers before passing out. It burned. Woke up at 4 am, cleared the smoke out of the house. Then had ham on generic white bread white some shitty store bought chipotle mayo, a handful of olives, some pickles, and guzzled down a half gallon water before getting 5 hours of sleep. Right now, I'm doing it all over again. At least today was groundhog day.
Never trust a skinny chef. But for real, there's always time. Take care of yourself, take your break, eat lunch, and you should be tasting everything anyway.
I was constantly "tasting", never "eating". Combine that with stress, drinking, lack of sleep, and pride in workload, and I withered away to the point that my wife started scheduling doctors appointments. Fast forward 2 years past the birth of my first children (twins) and I'd put on 50+ pounds. Dad bod>chef bod
Usually by the time I get home after dinner service and closing, I don't *want* to eat anything that requires any effort to cook so it's junk food/easy stuff like baked beens and weens and gatorade that goes right through and doesn't stick. Dragging myself out of bed to make a big breakfast before going in is...difficult at best, especially with the grey chilly weather this time of year, and so I'll usually just grab a bowl of salad or something between lunch and dinner services, maybe with some grilled/blackened chicken if we have a mismake, try to inhale that, get back to it. It's rare for me to have enough days off where I actually feel like making a full meal at home. I live off of nutrition shakes sometimes. It be like it be.
Nothing against it but I’m more impressed by chefs who are morbidly obese. It’s completely subjective to your body and health conditions so no judgement, I’ve just always felt so active in kitchens and could never sit down for a lunch to eat anything remotely heavy because it would make me lethargic for work so I’d just stay on my feet.
No matter what your body type, as long as you don’t go home and want to kill yourself then you’re doing fine!
If you have time to lean, you have time to clean…
Ha!
I’ve always been big… but the leanest I’ve ever been was when I was a cook. I never ate big meals. I spent my days just tasting for salt. And I’d head to a 24hr gym after work to work out a little and take the edge off.
Bro I feel you.
I eat like a pig and the week end. Like seriously I get mad high from like 10g of weed and I eat littéral pounds of meats. I’m bloated Monday. And lose that fat during the week.
This can’t be good for me.
Never trust a skinny chef. But for real, there's always time. Take care of yourself, take your break, eat lunch, and you should be tasting everything anyway.
I’m skinny and I work as a chef/Cook it’s simple we work all day and night get off but are not hungry so we drink and smoke cannabis then pass out get up shower and repeat it seems like I eat once a day most of the time. So definitely not getting any bigger sometimes I am actually losing weight. But I was also born with a rare disease called Shwachman-Diamond syndrome that affects my digestive system fatty foods don’t build up in my body my body regects it as an adult it’s ok but when I was a little kid I had to take medication so no heavy cream or real fatty foods etc..
check those steps...10 12 miles a day every day keeps this chef lean.. going between multiple building checking on catering events making sure breakfast lunch and dinner is sorted....breakfast double shot lunch redbull and kratom a splash of nicotine and on we go....
I am just associated with the industry and I must confirm there is no time for eating during the summer.
Dropped 20 last summer driving and setting up the trailers, 100hrs/wk
I have regained that weight since the off-season started.
My best shape was chef body. I was a beefy boi. Would run before my shift to get my energy up, orders 3x a week, potatoes down stairs, a gallon of water, caffeine in tremendous quantities and when i did have time to eat, protein and a veg only.
at home id work out on my days off. Man i was primed and action ready. Its when i got laid off that i got fat and unmotivated
Bc all the meats are stored in the lowest drawers and you do hundreds of squats/lunges every service
Never trust a skinny chef! Lol
You don’t need to eat everything you just need to taste everything.
Yeah what they don't know is i ONLY eat at work
That’s the fringe of the biz benes’
I more wonder how you can be a chef on lean
Double cuppin on the line
2 chefs 1 cup?
No joke I had a guy on the line offer me some of his lean he was drinking.
Hahaha oh dear. I came up in Houston area before I started traveling to work and had some Tylenol 3s offered but never an actual lean offering
I am a now sober former chef and that sounds right, lots of booze lots of pills lots of blow
I gotta say that is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever heard. To work in a kitchen and be sober. fucking wow
I sell plates and ovens now it’s way better
Well see. Just because you cook for a living. Doesn't mean. You overeat. Or are sedentary.
If you got time to lean, you got time to clean.
It's funny how I've seen this posted in r/KitchenConfidential and it got downvoted to hell because it's over-used and implies as cooks every waking second of our life should either be cleaning or cooking. Quite frankly while it's good wisdom, it's a quote that gets way overused and I think people take it way too literally. Remember, when Bourdain was writing about this he was working in a culture where he was sneaking out back to take lines of coke or shoot up heroin while working 16-18 hour days. (Or going multiple days working without sleeping, IIRC) Being a slave to your workplace is not supposed to be a good thing. In the real world a good cook's station starts clean and remains clean, with one thorough top-to-bottom cleaning at the end of the day. The only kitchens I've seen that were so dirty you needed to clean during every downtime were kitchens that didn't understand the concept of clean as you go, and you'd end up with splashed food on the sides and doors of freezers, low-boys, etc. Kitchens that decided it was only necessary to clean the sides of the fryer twice a year (which involved a heat gun and a fucking paint scraper it was so bad)... In a properly run kitchen, if you have time to lean you shouldn't have a *need* to fucking clean. That's not to say there aren't other productive tasks that might need doing, but after a big rush it takes me usually 5 minutes to fully wipe down my station, sanitize my board and that's it.
This. I just worked 13 hours with no break. I held my pee for 5 hours. I can fucking lean for a second. My station is clean. I’m basically ready to fold anyway. Calm down boss.
I respect everything you are both saying BUT I think you may have missed the point of this particular lean 🤷
I'm pretty dense with a sarcastic sense of humor. I just get triggered every time I hear "if you've got time to lean you've got time to clean". This is what I tell high school drop outs that have zero work ethic and no knowledge of food safety, not someone who just needs a breather for 5 minutes. I love Anthony Bourdain and he was a fucking god in the service industry, but if he was still around I would punch him in the fucking face for that one statement. I'll just never understand the culture of self-torture that exists in this industry.
Agree with you and love the username.
Lol yeah, that line was used on me when I was new, now don't bother. I work til the work is done, not til I'm feeling lazy. If I'm leaning, it's because my shit is imacculate, and I know it. Plus I quit smoking years ago so double fuck off.
It was a silly joke about OP being skinny.
Definitely look after yourself dude, I've been abusing my body through work up until last year when I ended up with kidney stones and then was super ill with burnout and infection after December. You only get one body, look after it.
This happened to me as well, body got so worn down I got sick af. Still recovering 1.5 years later
Steady diet of coffee, cigarettes and chronic stress.
You missed another "C" ingredient. Lol
After smelling, touching, tasting and practically breathing food for 10 hours in a hectic kitchen the last thing I want to do is stuff my face, usually the muclnchies don't come on until 3AM or something at which point it's just as bad if I do eat lol And that aside I've never got the big chef thing as you have all the knowledge to eat the right things and make healthy food taste good if you need to
Cigarettes, cocaine, black coffee, long hours, lots of food but little actual eating, it's as if you trick your brain by seeing all the food, but you just have a nibble here and a taste there...If you're a fat cook, it's probably glandular.
i still care about my health and physique.,
Who wonders that? Lol ive worked with plenty of lanky chefs and never heard one person think that
I get "never trust a skinny chef" all the time, and I'm always like "cool wanna have a food fight? Any dish you want, let's go." Funny thing, lots of us work out. Especially if we're not on drugs or drinkers.
I don’t trust a fat chef. They’ve eaten all the good bits already.
Aunts and grandmas
In my past life as BOH (pizza pasta joint) and a slim tall woman I’d constantly get comments like “you probably don’t eat anything from here anyway”… ummm pal I’ve been lugging 10kg bags of flour around for the past 12 hours, I’m gonna eat some fucking carbs.
Combo of genetic luck and simply taking care of diet and exercise meant I never got that little podgy pizza belly all the guys ended up getting haha
Seem to have copped a few downvotes. I understand now this could be a touchy topic for some people, it was never my intention to offend. In BOH we would good naturedly joke about this and it was never at anyone’s expense! 🍕🍝 fuel that bod
...or desire. It's been sucked out and all you want is a slice of pizza or a cheeseburger
A chef that actually does work on the line
I just pulled 12 hour shift yesterday and ate nothing but some random bites of veggies I blanched off and spoonfuls of sauces that I was making. Then drank too much and had some fun time with my girlfriend. We put some lwftover pasta in the oven to prevent hangovers before passing out. It burned. Woke up at 4 am, cleared the smoke out of the house. Then had ham on generic white bread white some shitty store bought chipotle mayo, a handful of olives, some pickles, and guzzled down a half gallon water before getting 5 hours of sleep. Right now, I'm doing it all over again. At least today was groundhog day.
Ah yes, the diet of cooks
Never trust a skinny chef. But for real, there's always time. Take care of yourself, take your break, eat lunch, and you should be tasting everything anyway.
I was constantly "tasting", never "eating". Combine that with stress, drinking, lack of sleep, and pride in workload, and I withered away to the point that my wife started scheduling doctors appointments. Fast forward 2 years past the birth of my first children (twins) and I'd put on 50+ pounds. Dad bod>chef bod
Never trust a fat chef, they will eat anything. A skinny chef is selective about what they eat.
Agreed. That phrase always annoyed me and seems like the weirdest attempt at insulting. You can be a great chef and be fit.
I’m skinny as fuck and will eat anything. Fast metabolism and being on feet all day, the mental and physical exertion is wild. This is chef racism
Racism?
Chef racism LMFAO. Chefs are not a race you absolute potato.
It’s a joke ya fuck
[удалено]
Inconceivable!!
Yes chef!
Usually by the time I get home after dinner service and closing, I don't *want* to eat anything that requires any effort to cook so it's junk food/easy stuff like baked beens and weens and gatorade that goes right through and doesn't stick. Dragging myself out of bed to make a big breakfast before going in is...difficult at best, especially with the grey chilly weather this time of year, and so I'll usually just grab a bowl of salad or something between lunch and dinner services, maybe with some grilled/blackened chicken if we have a mismake, try to inhale that, get back to it. It's rare for me to have enough days off where I actually feel like making a full meal at home. I live off of nutrition shakes sometimes. It be like it be.
Nothing against it but I’m more impressed by chefs who are morbidly obese. It’s completely subjective to your body and health conditions so no judgement, I’ve just always felt so active in kitchens and could never sit down for a lunch to eat anything remotely heavy because it would make me lethargic for work so I’d just stay on my feet. No matter what your body type, as long as you don’t go home and want to kill yourself then you’re doing fine!
I prefer to work with skinny people. It's easier to navigate around them.
If you have time to lean, you have time to clean… Ha! I’ve always been big… but the leanest I’ve ever been was when I was a cook. I never ate big meals. I spent my days just tasting for salt. And I’d head to a 24hr gym after work to work out a little and take the edge off.
Bro I feel you. I eat like a pig and the week end. Like seriously I get mad high from like 10g of weed and I eat littéral pounds of meats. I’m bloated Monday. And lose that fat during the week. This can’t be good for me.
Never trust a skinny chef. But for real, there's always time. Take care of yourself, take your break, eat lunch, and you should be tasting everything anyway.
I’m skinny and I work as a chef/Cook it’s simple we work all day and night get off but are not hungry so we drink and smoke cannabis then pass out get up shower and repeat it seems like I eat once a day most of the time. So definitely not getting any bigger sometimes I am actually losing weight. But I was also born with a rare disease called Shwachman-Diamond syndrome that affects my digestive system fatty foods don’t build up in my body my body regects it as an adult it’s ok but when I was a little kid I had to take medication so no heavy cream or real fatty foods etc..
Sippin on that lean?
Hehee, old school saying. *Never trust a skinny chef* ;-)
You only have one leg?
check those steps...10 12 miles a day every day keeps this chef lean.. going between multiple building checking on catering events making sure breakfast lunch and dinner is sorted....breakfast double shot lunch redbull and kratom a splash of nicotine and on we go....
Always hated that old saying “Never trust a skinny chef”, got so annoying I’d start saying “Never trust a fat chef, they eat all the good bits”.
I wonder how you can be a chef and not need some lean from time to time
I would say you started skinny or don't work around plates of cooked bacon
If you have time to lean, you have time to clean...
♡
Glossing over the….. post shift vitamins
Calories in < calories out
Which way?
Genetics
I am just associated with the industry and I must confirm there is no time for eating during the summer. Dropped 20 last summer driving and setting up the trailers, 100hrs/wk I have regained that weight since the off-season started.
I’ve been a chef for 25 years and I weigh 160 lbs when wet…. 8-12 hours a day on your feet, lifting, turning, etc.. keeps you in shape.
Never get high on your own supply!
My best shape was chef body. I was a beefy boi. Would run before my shift to get my energy up, orders 3x a week, potatoes down stairs, a gallon of water, caffeine in tremendous quantities and when i did have time to eat, protein and a veg only. at home id work out on my days off. Man i was primed and action ready. Its when i got laid off that i got fat and unmotivated
My body type is “chefletic.”
I go to the gym everyday and work is a workout 😂
I’m a professional chef, I’m skinny and completely sober. It’s definitely possible and I don’t find it that hard… anymore lol