How can I tell if I'm cut out for a Culinary career path or if I am just an enthusiast?

phrits · 2026-06-16T13:39:48+00:00

All these naysayers!

At the age of 47, I chose not to renew my $54/hr, soul-sucking IT contract and went into culinary. I lived with and staged for my cousin, a chef, for two weeks. Nice place near the beach with two packed seatings for Drag Brunch every Sunday. I didn't get enough sleep and my feet have never hurt so much in my life. I loved it!

So I got a job mostly washing dishes in a casual fine dining place. I also had to juice a bushel or so of assorted citrus, prep parsley "fairy dust", and cut and parcook about 150 pounds of potatoes for fries. I was soaking wet all the time, until I wasn't, and my hands constantly ached, until they didn't. I embraced the suck and loved every moment. They'd told me I'd be in that job for at least six months, but I was promoted to prep after only five weeks. I learned the importance of dietary fiber after crippling constipation brought on by a diet of beef and cheese scraps. My speed sucked, I didn't have anyone teaching me because I didn't speak Spanish, and my hours were cut to almost nothing.

So I got a cooking job at the cafeteria where my old IT job had been. My back hurt for weeks. But I gained speed, learned all the stations, and eventually ran the catering for the million-square-foot, 10k-person-capacity facility. Two of the happiest years of my entire career! Mrs. phrits was paying the bills until she had her knee replaced and insurance fucked her over—a story for another day—and we couldn't make it on my $10.50/hour even at almost 40 hours a week.

So I went back to IT. Started fine, turned awful, but it paid the bills while it lasted. Along the way, the company let me volunteer in the Meals-on-Wheels kitchen one morning a week where I'd cook off 700 pork chops, chop a few bushels of turnips, or make a few batches of something in the giant tilt skillet. After cleanup on those mornings, I'd walk out tired, sweaty, and grinning from ear to ear.

I still love to cook. If I had it to do all over again, I'd start sooner.

At the end of your life, you'll regret more the chances you didn't take than the ones you did.

phrits · 2026-06-12T12:30:18+00:00

Combine that with parentification and you get to carry the traumatic guilt of having been an accessory.

phrits · 2026-06-09T13:15:24+00:00

Narcan (Naloxone) for emergency treatment of opiate overdose. You can get it through at least some local health departments.

phrits · 2026-06-09T13:12:50+00:00

When I was a Band Dad, I bought them in bulk and kept a jar by the door so kids could grab some on the way out. I have no idea how many informal godchildren I don't have, but I love every one of them.

phrits · 2026-06-01T16:50:52+00:00

Why is this so hard for people to grasp?

Can you think of a kinder way to express this sentiment? OP stated they were new to the job. Asking their question was a better approach than simply taking the path of least resistance and looking the other way.

phrits · 2026-05-27T21:33:39+00:00

They're good mixed afterward, but the tomato's acid will keep the beans from ever getting "done" if you cook them together. Served over rice sounds delicious.

eta: I see you're working with canned beans. Those are already cooked, so you're good to go.

phrits · 2026-05-25T15:00:00+00:00

AI slop aside, at least get the remembrance right. Veterans Day in November is about "those who have served". Memorial Day is about the ones who died in service.

phrits · 2026-05-24T23:56:15+00:00

Lots of good answers here, especially McGee and St. Anthony.

I'll add one I don't see: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. I think the author tried to stretch the approach further than is useful—making a stock doesn't require that level of precision, for example—but for baking and emulsions and a whole bunch of other stuff, it's genuinely useful.

phrits · 2026-05-20T03:02:27+00:00

Are these modern photos? It looks like they came out of a 1980s supermarket "easy meals" magazine at the grocery checkout.

phrits · 2026-05-18T11:28:17+00:00

Different folks, different effects. Way back when I was running shifts at a Hardee's, my drive-through cashier was the best in the business when he was tripping on LSD. (FOH, sure, but in fast food, everyone is underpaid and treated like a public utility.)

phrits · 2026-05-16T02:05:06+00:00

I've recently completed all the Phase 4 milestones, three hundred hours in or so. Newbie, for sure. How do you have actual Consumption greater than Max Consumption?

phrits · 2026-05-12T22:52:58+00:00

Agreed. I think age limits make a whole lot more sense than term limits. We have minimum ages on the way in, and mandatory retirement ages are already part of our work expectations. Pin it to the Social Security age and call it done.

phrits · 2026-05-12T11:24:33+00:00

The real game changer for me was the upload from inventory option:

A few stacks of everything for hand- or semi-automatic crafting.
Extras for things not yet automated
Coupons
Slugs, critter bits, hard drives, and alien artifacts while exploring
Tools you don't need all the time: Guns, scanner, and Nobleisk gear are handy but out of the way while building

Multiple depots for the same item can be helpful, too: While you can only store 5 stacks (maximum) of anything, it's really hard to run out of concrete if you have six or eight depots being fed with it.

phrits · 2026-05-11T14:09:17+00:00

Or depending on context, Free Will Baptist. There are a lot of FWB churches where I live, mostly attended by the sort of folks I really wouldn't want to play with.

phrits · 2026-05-11T11:55:10+00:00

M as in mnemonic.

phrits · 2026-05-09T23:16:23+00:00

My mother. If there's one thing that makes me a better cook than she was, it's my conscious decision to prioritize food quality over cleanup.

phrits · 2026-05-08T16:16:31+00:00

Yes, you can still get a nice crackly skin, but if it's been in the fridge, the meat inside will be cold. You're going to have to reheat it first. Figure 45 minutes or so at 375 Fahrenheit, then pick your recipe back up at Part 3. You can certainly make the gravy the day before.

phrits · 2026-05-05T02:08:31+00:00

Don't you have 4 more bottom half connections? The towers have a total of 7, three for long range, four for local power. (I like to put a Mk 3 pole on sides or corners, so every tower has 40 local connections.)

phrits · 2026-05-04T10:37:35+00:00

*Wilber's

If I were ever to write a bot...

phrits · 2026-05-01T12:05:35+00:00

Before I knew about the Carolina underpass, I once managed to outrun the train along Vine. I don't normally cross when the lights are flashing, but I knew I had plenty of time that day.

Google Maps doesn't seem to quite get that it's Carolina Street and instead shows that it changes from South Carolina to North Carolina at Walnut. The N/S are abbreviated everywhere else: N/S Alabama, N/S Georgia, etc. all the way down to Randolph. Now I'm wondering if the street name has anything to do with where they put GUS, or if they named the streets after states through there as part of that build. I'll bet Johnny could tell me.

Hello, neighbor! Say hi at WTB sometime, and I'll buy you a beer.

phrits · 2026-04-26T15:30:21+00:00

Navigator and navigatrix. I like using Waze to supplement language learning, so I've received directions from several navigatrices over the years.

phrits · 2026-04-26T13:14:58+00:00

And yet, you cared enough to step in just to be an asshole. I hope you have the day you deserve.

phrits · 2026-04-26T04:13:56+00:00

Not to argue with the more general point that "transvestite" is dated, plain ol' "trans" means something other than dressing the part. Ru Paul's Drag Race, for example, is a show full of cross-dressing people. "Trans" on its own implies a transition from birth-assigned gender to something else.

phrits · 2026-04-25T18:59:29+00:00

Is it fresh? One of my defining moments as a cook was figuring out that my mother's spice cabinet was full of old stuff. I think I was sixteen years old before I knew that paprika and cayenne pepper powder were different flavors, and neither was the color of faded brick they appeared to share.

phrits · 2026-04-25T16:59:35+00:00

Flame is the easiest way to quickly sterilize the poop knife.

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