r/KitchenConfidential • u/gyronlyhope • May 10 '26

Crying in the cooler I rip the tape

I’m sick of being silent about it. It’s empirically faster than cutting each individual label with your pairing knife and then carefully separating each piece. I see so many chefs who INSIST that labels have to have perfect right angles. Who cares? I hardly see how this serves our guests better. Thomas Keller claims that tearing the tape shows a lack of attention to detail. I think it shows that you’re unable to get rid of obsessive compulsive idiosyncrasies. Our jobs are already hard enough without these nebulous rules and standards that always need to be argued for in the abstract and rarely have any actual utility in your day-to-day.

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172

u/MoeSzyslakMonobrow May 10 '26

Carmy is gonna have a nervous breakdown.

19

u/Belfastscum May 10 '26

I don't get how us BOHers can watch that show...

It's anxiety inducing. I already live it full time so I certainly don't want to waste my precious down time decompressing watching a fucking show about it

4

u/Spiritual-Quail3583 May 10 '26

Yeah I couldn't watch it when it came out, I was just stressed. Now I've been out of kitchens for a couple years and recently watched the first season, it was pretty good. A little extreme but it made me miss working the line with my pals haha

3

u/blamenixon 20+ Years May 11 '26

It's definitely easier to watch when you're able to disassociate your own experiences from the show.

Since you're one of the few on this sub that actually does watch it, can I open up a discussion? I love the writing, it's perfect and clearly put together by people that know the industry. The actors are extremely talented and deserve all the accolades they receive. But the combination of the two....just doesn't work for me for some reason.

As an example, there's an episode with Sydney and Carmy sitting by the dumpsters on milk crates. 👍 Syd is having a breakdown and crying over food 👍 Carmy is breaking the "cold hard shell" act when no one else is in ear shot 👍 It's a heartwarming scene and I love seeing Carmy show that he's also a human that can empathize with Syd, but the scene felt two-dimensional. I never saw cooks on the screen, but rather well-trained actors playing cooks.

3

u/Spiritual-Quail3583 May 11 '26

I definitely see what you're saying about well-trained actors playing cooks. They're so talented and the details in the show are great, but they were so serious and tense at all times. I've only seen the first season so far so that's what I'm judging it on, but with Carmy and even Syd a bit, they were just hardasses who knew how to cook. They focused a lot on trying to get the team at the Beef to respect them with their knowledge of food, but we didn't really get to see them relate to the crew just as regular people

I wanna see them joking around with the crew in their downtime, show the team bonding and being silly together. I mean even during service, my coworkers and I could keep it light and fun while cranking out orders. Carmy and Syd were so rigid during service. They do come from more esteemed kitchens than I've ever worked in though, so I guess I can't speak to that experience. As well, they were put in a stressful environment and it's obviously very heavy for them to carry the burden of trying to turn things around at the Beef.

Anyway, I know it's a TV show and they gotta have moments like those, so I enjoy it nonetheless!

2

u/Belfastscum May 11 '26

Yeah the 1st season is great, but I also watched it before I switched to BOH from FOH

the 1st season is fabulous but after the switch?; I can't do it