Some tips for garde manger cooks out there tasked with making family meal salad every day. Learn to think outside of recipes for vinaigrettes and creamy salad dressings. 

Mastering Salad Dressings

Making an aïoli is something every cook should be able to do without a recipe. I’d even go so far as to argue that aïoli is a mother sauce of the modern restaurant kitchen. 

There’s no recipe required for Mayonnaise

Culinary school can teach you so much about cooking, but it's a mighty questionable value proposition. Is it worth it? 

Should I go to Culinary School?

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina’s Your Table Is Ready, Tales of a New York City Maître D’ is here.

The Next Big Industry Read Has Arrived

The very essence of cooking lies in learning to make use of the mealy bits - the bones, the vegetable trim, the parsley stems. The good news is that making stock is way less complicated than the culinary Gods want you to believe.

Stock is a necessary touchpoint on the road to culinary enlightenment

The story behind the genesis of usefirst.com. How a New York City line cook used his down time during Covid to try and change the industry for the better.

Why I Built Use First

Tips on how to show up for that big first restaurant job interview. First appearances are everything. Make sure you’re not ice-capading around the kitchen in a hairnet in front of your future comrades and other lifesaving tips.

What tools should you take on a restaurant trail?

Ever wonder how professional line cooks make use of cake testers to hit the pass with perfectly cooked proteins every time? Here's everything you need to know to become a ringer on grill.

How To Use A Cake Tester

As a line cook on a station, your "all day" count is the total number of a given item that you have ordered in, including those that you are fired on.

All day counts become really important for items that need extra time to cook. IE those that are cooked off when or before they are ordered in. Pan roasted chickens, steaks, pork chops, duck breast all need at least 20 minutes or so to prepare. So, if in the heat of battle, you, the line cook lose track of how many chickens you need for all of the upcoming fires, you can ask your chef for an "all day" on chickens. If you don't have enough cooked off, you will need to act quickly to or risk extremely long waits for diners that are ready for their entrees. 

Expediting Chef: "Order in chicken, char"

Sauté cook: "chicken char, ordered in...hey chef, can I get an all day on chickens?"

Chef: "You most certainly can." [scans the board] "You have 6 all day. Do you have enough?"

Chef: "Okay, go ahead and get a pan hot and get two more cooked off"

All Day