I hit 500 prep lists without a single recipe card used

At the place I work in Austin, I track every shift's prep list on a whiteboard. Last Thursday I counted back and realized I'd done 500 of them freehand without pulling up a recipe once. Do you still rely on written recipes or have you memorized your core dishes too?

3 comments

3 Comments

wren82613d ago

500 lists on a whiteboard is cool and all but who's counting? Seems like a flex for no reason. If you're making the same stuff every day you'd have to be pretty bad to not remember it after a couple weeks. Recipe cards exist for a reason though. Like when the new guy shows up and has no clue what goes in the house vinaigrette. Then what, you just draw him a picture?

gavin_kim313d ago

Nah I gotta disagree here. That whiteboard's not about flexing, it's about reference for the whole crew. Recipe cards get greasy and lost behind the reach-in after a week. The board stays put for everyone to see, even the dishie who's training on apps. And for the new guy? Yeah the board's way faster than digging through a stack of cards. Plus when the head chef changes the house vinaigrette ratio at 10am on a Tuesday, everyone catches it at a glance instead of waiting for someone to update the card. It's practical, not performative.

brooke7113d ago

That 500 number is just proof you've been doing the same 20 dishes on autopilot for years without ever needing to look anything up. Recipe cards aren't just for the new guy though, they're the only safety net when you get a random Sunday where the person calling out sick was the one person who knew the secret tweak to your house vinaigrette ratio. Whiteboards are great for daily notes but they disappear when someone erases them, while a card in a binder is a permanent record that doesn't vanish after the shift.