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

In a professional kitchen, a lowboy refrigerator or a lowboy oven refers to an appliance residing below the counter or cook surface on the line. Typically lowboy refrigerators can be found below the work surface facing the pass which are designed to hold food at safe temperatures during service and can hold backup mise en place for your reach in on your particular station. Lowboy ovens generally can be found against the wall under the "hot line" of French top ranges, sauté burners, broiler ovens, pasta tank, grills, deep fryers, etc.  

it is common to stock lowboy refrigerators with properly labeled quart / pint / cup containers of backup mise en place for service so that ingredients can be quick reloaded without the cooking having to walk off the station. In addition to properly labeled contianers local department of health guidelines will typically dictate that there be thermometers present and that they maintain a temperature below 40 degrees. 

Lowboy ovens are typically non convection and made to be cranked to 500 degrees plus to rapidly heat and plate food. 

In a professional kitchen, a lowboy refrigerator or a lowboy oven refers to an appliance residing below the counter or cook surface on the line. 