Speaking about hairnets. I particulary HATE hairs on anything but my head. My grandma and my mom ALWAYS made us wear a hairnet when we wanted to help them cook or pick up all our hair and put a lot of hair spray so not even one tiny hair might move. My grandma didn't like to eat at restaurants because she didn't see how they cooked. To the point: I see shows on tv where they decorate cakes or cook food and my husband and I always coment on that, they don't wear hair nets, not even a pony tail. I know some of the cakes or food on tv. is not eaten , but some is. What is the deal here? Are they not supposed to wear hair nets too? I am a band booster on my son's high school and we well at the concession stand on football nights and I'm in charge of one conc. stand, and I always MAKE sure everybody on my cons. stand wears gloves and hairnets, and the ones that take orders and handle the money don't handle the food and viceversa. OUr health dept. is very strict on that. One time I sold some nachos to a lady and when she left my friend asked me if I knew who she was, I said :no, he said: is one of the Health. Dept. Inspectors, she took the nachos, paid went around the stand and checked the temperature of the cheese with a thermometer! I was the one in charge of the cheese at the time, thanks God it was right. Now I know her personally and we are friends. You have to be ready ALWAYS
they probably didn't want to wash the berries because they are more prone to mold, especially raspberries. i've heard of pastry chefs following the same procedures, but not picking berries off the floor! also, a great way to remove much of the pesticides from the fruits surface is to used a solution of apple cider vinager and hydrogen peroxide, in sperate bottles, don't mix them. (pesticides soak into the fruit too, no way to avoid that unless you go organic). you spray fruit/veg then rinse with water for a miute or two. this was shown to be just as effective as bleach, but of course, much less toxic. i believe the study was done at Harvard University?? i also used this solution to clean my house : )
I forgot that one, I also have seen hot chefs cooking and then they stick one finger in the pot lick it and then just wipe it on their apron and continue cooking and sometimes do it again. And on TV, and no hairnets either, and people eat that food.
Yep, that's the way some are. Then again some are really clean. When you become a Pastry Chef it will depend on who your working for. I'm assuming you just graduated? You'll see it all depends on who your going to be working for, that's what it comes down to. If the margins are so close that the only place you can make $$$ is from labor that will explain it. I'm also guessing nobody from school went to actually check them out recently. It sounded to me they are looking for free help instead of actually trying to train you to what the real world is like.
Mike
The cooking shows on tv have to present the hosts as attractive. Honestly, think of Giada. The cleaver wielding Queen of cleavage. She wouldn't look very pretty with her hair stuffed up under an ugly flattening hairnet, would she? Or even good old Sandra Lee...her show would take on a "sanitized and stuffy" look with her donning gloves and smushing up her poof under a cap.
You don't actually want to wash your berries, even if you try very hard to dry them carefully. You just brush off any visible dirt. The water will cause the berry to sweat eventually, especially raspberries will break down. There was a thread on here a while ago about washing strawberries before dipping in chocolate. Berries don't stay fresh as long if they've been washed.
My brother-in-law, who teaches at NECI in Vt, bought 50 long stemmed strawberries, $1 each for his wedding. His sisters, trying to be helpful, rinsed them. By the next day, they were oozing out of the chocolate they had been dipped in.
Picking food up off the floor is gross, however.
I temporarily tried to run my cake business from a licensed and legal restaurant. It was sooo horribly dirty and gross. The floor in the kitchen was constantly slick from grease. When I mixed batter in their 20 qt mixers, black "gunk" would fall off the mixer into my batter (that day I went home and cried).
One time, the owner's wife was mixing up some egg salad for a catering. She stuck her finger in the bowl she was mixing it in, and then licked it off to taste it, then offered the bowl to her daughter. The daughter did the same thing. Then she offered it to me, she wanted me to give my opinion. I looked desperately around for a clean spoon. When she saw me hesitating, she snapped, "oh, just stick your finger in there, Kelley, no one cares!"
Licensed and legal doesn't mean squat. The only way to make sure if it's clean is if you're the boss.
I was Director of Catering at a college that had a program with Special Ed. students. They would come and fill ramekins full of mayo, etc. Well the chef wanted to broaden their horizons (and possibly cut his labor costs by using their free labor) and had them making egg salad. They were using their hand w/ food handling gloves to get down in the bowl and mix the egg salad. I just happened to look out the window of my office to where they were mixing, and they were licking their gloves and putting them back into the egg salad. I haven't eaten egg salad ever since.
But I mean the fruit came from off the ground in the first place kwim.
I do generally rinse off my fruit but I do it last minute too.
If one was truly germa phobic with the food they prepare they would never speak while around the food. We all expectorate our dna.
I mean I think we have to find a happy medium where you are comfortable.
The government allows so much bad stuff in our food including some very gross items like rodent 'drops' and rodent hair and etc. Miniscule amounts but nothing is pure.
My brother-in-law, who teaches at NECI in Vt, bought 50 long stemmed strawberries, $1 each for his wedding. His sisters, trying to be helpful, rinsed them. By the next day, they were oozing out of the chocolate they had been dipped in.
That may be true, but I would personally never NOT wash off a strawberry, lettuce, or anything else that was picked by human hands. How do I say this delicately. Ummmm, ok. I live in lettuce/broccolli/melon capital of the US, one of them anyhow. Field workers galore. Drug abuse, alcoholism, unsanitary conditions are all rampant out in the fields. Heroin addicts doing their thing out in the middle of the field. I don't think all of them come back to the bus to use the facilities either. I'm not exaggerating, I knew a nice lady who was a migrant farm worker for years who finally kicked a heroin addiction, and she says the field workers are notorious for it.
My brother-in-law, who teaches at NECI in Vt, bought 50 long stemmed strawberries, $1 each for his wedding. His sisters, trying to be helpful, rinsed them. By the next day, they were oozing out of the chocolate they had been dipped in.
That may be true, but I would personally never NOT wash off a strawberry, lettuce, or anything else that was picked by human hands. How do I say this delicately. Ummmm, ok. I live in lettuce/broccolli/melon capital of the US, one of them anyhow. Field workers galore. Drug abuse, alcoholism, unsanitary conditions are all rampant out in the fields. Heroin addicts doing their thing out in the middle of the field. I don't think all of them come back to the bus to use the facilities either. I'm not exaggerating, I knew a nice lady who was a migrant farm worker for years who finally kicked a heroin addiction, and she says the field workers are notorious for it.
true, true, true, and true.... but anything more than aesthetically unpleasant will NOT be removed by washing. The real stuff is already seeped in and would need to be cooked out (if possible)
They call me Mrs. Lysol at home and work. My employees think I have 3 sets of eyes and let me tell you even that is not enough! People have this vague, inexplicable thought that their hair, coughs, germs, spit yada yada yada carry no germs, no dirt and are perfectly suitable for other human consumption...not joking but seriously that IS true. I have lost count the # of times I have corrected employees, customers, children, co-shoppers on basic etiqette....to little or no avail.
My pet peeve is coughing at someone on their face or in their food- uh helllooo? knock knock!! What to speak of filthy restaurants I went to a well established cake decoration school in Toronto and the OWNER was teaching a class in chocolate making and truffles...the man irritatingly kept his dirty 70 year old binder on top of the marble slab, upon which he calmly proceeded to pour the tempered chocolate...he licked his fingers as did several others...needless to say when everyone was stuffing their bags to take home the goodies, yours truly gladly let others dive into my share! I mean for crying out loud-you are an institution meant to teach food hygenie to others!
As for washing berries etc...seen food tv lately? Practically all hosts will pop open a berry package and dump them straight in...
I try and avoid eating out too other than my day off when it is sad to have to cook and you enjoy the night out...but I am very careful where I go and most often it is the same few places we will frequent again and again. The worst are the young kids at food courts...try telling them handling cash and pizza together is a no no...I could go on and on and on...lol...
We have a friend that works for a large insurance company settling food poisoning claims. No one in his family eats out at restaurants because of what he has seen. Kind of scary! Also, I was told by someone to always wash your lettuce, etc because some field workers bring their dogs with them to work in the fields.
Where's Gordan Ramsey "Kitchen Nightmares" when you need him?
My thought exactly!!!
If you go to a friend's house and her stove has layers of grease on it, her fridge still has that dried up juice stain from last week and her dishes still have gunk of them, would you eat there?..... Cleanliness of an establishment is just as important as the handling of the food. It is your first impression.
As we put it, "This is the stuff you CAN see ... can you imagine the stuff you CAN'T see?"
BUT ..... I know when I'm in the middle of making Thanksgiving dinner, my home kitchen is a disaster. Forty-'leven projects going at the same time .... Hey! who the heck stole my wipe-down towel again!!? There is a consideration of the difference between what a kitchen looks like after hours and what it looks like at the peak of production.
That said, I DO acknowledge a difference between "working" clutter and filth that's been there awhile.
Well, I'm THANKFUL that I can work in a Health Dept. Inspected Kitchen that has NEVER had less than a 98% on an inspection. In fact, the Health Dept. has their functions at our facility and pays our church to cater them. Makes me feel proud.
Also makes me feel tired....I just came from preparing some food there and it's a production just to clean up in there or you get "The Evil Eye" from the Maintenance Guy! LOL But, he keeps us straight.
Today our Student Pastor was late coming in to a restaurant in which we were eating. He had been to another restaurant. They were taken to a table that needed to be wiped clean. The waitress went into the kitchen, came out with a wet cloth, dropped the cloth on the floor, picked it up and proceeded to clean their table with it! They turned around and walked out! EEEEWWWW! What was she thinking?
RE: Berries. I read somewhere (maybe on CC) that to clean strawberries and raspberries the preferred way is to take a damp paper towel and individually wipe them. That way there is no "ooze" from too much water yet the berry is wiped clean.
What? No "3 second rule" as industry standard? Are you SURE? LOL Glad you got reassigned. People never cease to amaze me!
Beth in KY
Oh, yuck! My family is meeting at a restaurant for lunch this afternoon and now I cannot stomach the thought of eating something there. I love Chinese food and there is a particular restaurant here that was consistently voted Best Buffet. I ate there about once a week because I loved their hot and sour soup. THEN they got caught by the inspectors with all kinds of violations and got the lowest score ever given in this area. Supposedly all is better now, but NO way this gal is going back. Gags me to think about it.
NEVER GO TO A BUFFET unless you see how they handle the trays of food inside the kitchen and outside when they replace the old trays with the new. I've seen too many people dump new hot food straight onto the food that's sitting there in the trays and not replace the old food at all. If they do that in front of customers, what the heck are they doing in the back? I won't go to a buffet at all anyway, because I'm convinced that even if they remove the old tray and replace it with a new one, they're still going into the kitchen and mixing the old food into the new food anyway.
I also love how people say things like "I've never gotten food poisoning and I've always done it this way." Know what? That's what everyone who's going to get food poisoning tomorrow is saying right now!
When I was in college, I was a waitress at a restaurant which was quite popular and well-known for their family style, all-you-can eat turkey dinner. People would wait in line for hours on the weekend to eat there. It was the most disgusting place ever. They recycled all the uneaten food. Any turkey left on the serving platter got dumped back in a bucket in the kitchen. (I don't remember if we were told what it got used for, but I'm pretty sure it went into the soup, which is totally gross). But I saw wait staff go get "bucket meat" out of that bucket, nuke it, and bring it to customers who asked for seconds instead of waiting for in line the chef to carve fresh meat. When people first sat down, we would bring bowls of cole slaw, cranberry sauce, bean salad, butter; trays of celery, carrots and olives; and rolls to the table. We were supposed to dump whatever was left in those bowls back into the tubs in the kitchen to be scooped out and served again. I refused to do it. I have never seen anything so foul. And to think people lined up around the block to eat someone else's table scraps.
Amazingly, I still eat out. I just try not to think about what goes on and I never send food back!
PS -- No, the restaurant is not open anymore 
Kristin
Well, after my Health Dept. Post thought I'd do an update. I was making desserts for the fundraiser tomorrow and in walks BOTH young men who have inspected the kitchen for us. There I was with my hair up and back and my gloves ON. The kitchen was kinda in a mess, but, just cluttered from me cooking. No problem.
They just walked in and started talking. They even helped wrap the desserts. Then one of them said "Are these supposed to be served cold?" "Yep! Wanna get your thermometer out and check the temp? 'Cause it's STILL cold!" LOL He just laughed and said No, that wasn't necessary. They each got a brownie before they left! LOL
It always PAYS to do it right ALL THE TIME!
Beth in KY
i worked at a mexican restraunt for 2 yrs, 1 yr in one location and the 2nd year in a new location. I must say they were very clean and when we werent busy we were made to clean walls, floors, counters, or anything tht could get dirty. Anyway the new location was in shopping strip and located next to a chinese buffet place. Heres where it gets gross, the chinese restraunts back door was right by our back (b/c its a strip mall). One day, at least we only saw it one day, they get a box dropped off at their back door from a refridgerated truck. The box sat out there for DAYS before they brought it in (our dumpsters were side by side so we wouldve know if it went in the garbage). We assume it was food that shouldve been kept cold/frozen but it just sat out their until they brought it in. BTW this is Louisiana so in the summer most days are over 90 degrees outside. Another time the whole area was without power for days (Hurrican Katrina) the board of health told everyone to throw out everything that shouldve been kept cold/frozen, yeah they didnt throw out anything! The board of health actualy let restraunts open back up before they checked them because they were so busy, so they had no idea if it was actualy done & in the chinese restraunts case, it wasnt. Perhaps the worst thing about this restruant was the fact that there were roaches all outside their backdoor, everytime they opened it you could see them just kind of pour out, it was awful. Im not sure if they are still in buisness, they probably are. I must say though that all the health board ppl held their functions and always ate at our restraunt b/c from what i understand most of the restraunts in the area were pretty nasty. Happy Eating out everyone!
One of my dad's friends worked as a health inspector for several years, and he said in general, the absolute worst restaurants were the Chinese places, and the best were the Mexican ones. He said there were many times he found spoiled, moldy meat and produce in the fridge and freezers in the Chinese places.
To me, this topic is another testimonial as to why home bakers should be allowed in more areas.
I agree! Home bakers are not allowed in my state. So I can't run a cake business out of my clean kitchen, but have seen things go on in licensed and inspected restaurant kitchens (see my post above) that make my skin crawl!
Kristin
I have worked at 8 or 10 different bakeries, restaurants, and catering establishments. I do not consider myself a "germaphobe", but I do have pretty high standards when it comes to cleanliness in the kitchen. I did have to leave one bakery when the owner's wife retrieved some moldy bread sticks that I had thrown IN THE TRASH. She was too cheap to pay a linen service for clean bar towels or aprons, parchment paper was re-used until to disintegrated, and I was scolded for throwing away food that had been on the floor. Week old baked goods were sold as fresh, and their "scratch" products were all made from mixes. Oh--also--NO paper towels. You just had to wipe on your dirty apron. I really hated it there.
All that being said, I have assembled thousands of fruit tarts and never washed a berry. It turns raspberries to mush.
I wish I hadn't read this post *SIGH* now I'll have to cook dinner at home forevermore. It's amazing that all of this goes on while many states don't allow home bakeries. I would rather eat something from one of my friends' kitchens than a restaurant anyday. I'm betting that many of these restaurant owners keep their home kitchens where they feed their families cleaner. I wonder if they let their families eat at their restaurants. I really wish health inspection rules were stricter.
OK, the OP's story was gross, but how about this. A restaurant featured on the Food Network is in the town where I live. After the show aired, we decided to try it with some friends who were in town and LOVE this type of food. It's not a fancy place at all, but it was packed and the food got RAVE reviews from Bon Appetit magazine, who rated these restaurants for the show. We had a nice breakfast and thought - OK, it's good.
My husband's secretary was there one morning a few months after we were there and she was sitting at the counter with her husband. The woman who owns the restaurant was making homemade tortillas clearly in view of the patrons. She stopped to take a bite of her breakfast taco, licked her fingers, then went right back to making the tortillas WITH THOSE SAME UNWASHED HANDS she had just licked! The secretary and her husband got up and walked out. EW!
I did have to leave one bakery when the owner's wife retrieved some moldy bread sticks that I had thrown IN THE TRASH. She was too cheap to pay a linen service for clean bar towels or aprons, parchment paper was re-used until to disintegrated, and I was scolded for throwing away food that had been on the floor. Oh--also--NO paper towels. You just had to wipe on your dirty apron.
Oh how nauseating. I hope you turned them in to the health department.
can someone clue me in to why it is bad for buffets to mix a not quite finished dish with a new dish? the only two reasons i can think of would be temperature or possible contamination...with the temp question, i can understand if it's during a slow time, but when it's busy, the "old dish" has only sat there for a short time and has not had a chance to lose temperature, so i wouldn't have a problem seeing someone mix them.
Woooow, there are some really disgusting stories on here!!! I bake from home (legally) and holy cow! I bet the inspector's love to visit me compared to some places out there!
I have only worked in an ice cream shop & we kept that place so clean, OMG. When I worked there (about 2 years) we always got 100% white glove award. The boss was really good about letting us (we were teenagers) know what should be done. I couldn't take working in a nasty place!
Anyway, to the OP...I'm glad you got reassigned!
One of my dad's friends worked as a health inspector for several years, and he said in general, the absolute worst restaurants were the Chinese places, and the best were the Mexican ones.
A restaurant friend said his health inspector told him the very exact same thing!
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