Knives and Fire Internship Day 15

[mamadeb]

Day 15

Today, I used my knife. First, Chef had me cut crudites - celery, carrots and cucumber. When that was done, I finished rough-chopping a case of red peppers. That was followed by making macaroni sets (mixing cooked elbows with roasted vegetables and filling 16oz containers.) I labeled them and the cheese sets and put them away.

Then I dished cupcake batter into muffin tins lined with paper. Then I cut up still warm potatoes for salad (note - two pair of latex gloves help a lot with this.) However, Chef already made some and told me to put my potatoes away for tomorrow, which I did.

Comments

[amadi]

Eeps. Latex gloves! Now I can't eat at this awesome sounding establishment when I visit NY this summer. :(

[mamadeb]

Are you that allergic? Have you had problems at other restaurants? Because latex gloves are pretty standard now - especially for food that will not receive further cooking.

[amadi]

Around my way, specifically non latex gloves, either nitrile or, more frequently, vinyl, are the standard, not only because of the risk to allergic patrons but because repeated exposure raises the possibility of developing a reaction for the kitchen staffers who have their hands in them for hours a day. Our hospitals are phasing out latex gloves as well. All of our ERs are latex glove free, best I can tell.

The thing with latex is that every exposure can worsen the reaction, so since I've already had bad reactions, it's important for me to avoid any further exposure. And in restaurants, I do, absolutely, ask, and leave if they can't assure me what sorts of gloves they're using.

[mamadeb]

*Nod*. That's reasonable. We have to wear gloves, and the gloves have to FIT because otherwise they get in the way of cutting food. And they're not going to pay for non-latex.

(In my case, I'm not terribly worried. I used a latex Keeper for years, only switching to a silicon Diva Cup a couple of years ago. No reaction at all.)

[amadi]

I've never seen food service grade non-latex gloves that were more expensive than latex ones. In fact they're usually cheaper, by a fraction of a cent per glove, something like 4.2 cents vs. 4.5 cents each. The vinyl ones are especially cheap.

[mamadeb]

If I ever own or manage my own kitchen, I'll remember that. Right now, of course, I'm just a kitchen slave.

[amadi]

Indeed. :D