- I mean,
just thinking about that day I'm like ugh,
what a horrible day. (laughs)
(playful music)
- Hi, my name is Diana, I am a Sous-Chef
at a luxury hotel restaurant.
And I've been doing this for eight years now.
- Hi, my name is Yolie, I'm a chef de cuisine,
and I've been working in this industry for about 15 years.
(playful music)
So I was working at a,
it was a Michelin star restaurant,
so already you go in there and you're very,
you feel a lot of pressure, very stressed out.
I was trying to finish all my prep before
dinner service started
and, you're by yourself in your own station,
so you have a lot of stuff to do
in a limited amount of time
and you do not have time to mess anything up.
So I believe I was slicing lemons,
very thinly sliced lemons when
I just got a little bit distracted
and I sliced a piece of my finger off.
It was a good size.
I would say it was like the tip of it,
maybe like the size of the top of the fingertip.
I was able to see some of the actual meat in my finger.
It didn't hurt because the blade was just very sharp,
plus the initial shock of a piece of your finger
being on the table.
I was very upset because
I had to throw away my prep,
clean everything, it just was a waste of time.
But then, I was trying to think of
how I can salvage some time
and that part of my finger that was on the ground,
well, on the table.
And I needed to figure all of this out very quickly
because I didn't wanna waste anymore time.
I picked up the little piece of finger
that was on the table
and I just tried to stop the bleeding,
I put some spray the coagulates to your blood
and it stopped it pretty quickly.
I didn't wanna lose that piece of finger,
it was very important to me so,
I figured, hey we use this thing it's like meat glue
that we use here where
we roll some stuff in bacon,
throw a little bit of meat glue,
and it like seals perfectly.
So I'm made of meat,
so I decided to sprinkle the meat glue on my finger
and just pretend like nothing ever happened,
put a big old bandaid and a glove,
and I changed it throughout service
and I didn't tell anybody
'cause I didn't want anyone to send me home.
I just, it's a very stressful situation when you're
under pressure like that.
So I work the entire service
while I was bleeding, while I was trying to glue a piece
of my finger back together.
When I went home, it looked very gross.
But I kept sprinkling that glue on my finger
and amazingly, it worked.
It glued together, which is weird
and I know it's unbelievable but
it worked, it healed.
I'm a huge advocate for meat glue now.
- DineLA. (laughs)
It is the worst thing that we need to go through,
especially when your chef is very ambitious
and wants to have a full menu going
and a sample menu.
And so, we're really busy,
and it's the second night of service
and I'm on pasta for the first time.
And I'm trying to make a farro,
which is for a farro risotto dish.
And I make it,
and there's like an hour left before service starts,
and I try it and, immediately all I taste is salt.
And so I'm like what the, who touched my risotto.
So I'm freaking out, but I don't have time for it,
because we have like 200 on the books to start, so,
I throw it away and I start it again
hoping that the chef doesn't notice that it's not ready yet.
And I make it, and then I'm done,
and I try it again, and I didn't put any salt in it,
and again, I'm like what is going on,
this just tastes like pure salt.
So now I have no time and I'm like rushing,
I'm hoping that no one gets that order until I finish
it again but I'm like,
lemme try everything.
And so I try it all separate
and then I realize that the veg stock was actually not
labeled, it was like an old sticker on it
and it wasn't veg stock, it was chicken brine.
Which is you know, that's like,
just pure liquid salt.
So I was like, god (bleep).
And I started all over again
and once I'm done and my line is set up,
tickets start coming in, all these modifications,
because everyone is super cheap during DineLA,
trying to split everything, but,
it's true.
And so I get it like going,
I have like a good rhythm with me
and I get a ticket that is no sauce,
no salt, no butter, nothing, just like plain noodles.
And I'm like, this is weird but whatever.
So I do it and I finish it
and right when I'm about to plate it,
they tell me to, they bring a dog bowl,
and I'm like freaking rich people.
Of course I'm feeding your dog right now.
So I plate it, and I put it up,
five minutes later I see the dog bowl coming back
and I'm like, the dog loves my stuff,
probably gonna be this dog's private chef one day.
And no, I actually have to remake its food
all over again because I insulted the dog
by putting it in a dog bowl.
So while I'm trying to catch up with my tickets,
I have to also remake this pasta for a dog
and plate it on our expensive plates
so that it can be an accurate presentation.
I mean, I think the dog was a happy
customer at the end of it.
It doesn't really matter,
the other end of it, like who's eating what,
or even if it is a person at the end of it
I just enjoy making the food.
So, it's always worth it,
and it's just like, test your patience constantly.
- So I was working at a restaurant many years ago
and it was very busy and
it was during DineLA
and DineLA is already a nightmare within itself.
From opening to when you close,
it's nonstop people coming and going.
So you have to work in the kitchen like a well
oiled machine.
One minor setback can throw off service
and lag ticket times.
And we had just a little minor bump in the road.
So it's, I would say it was about
8:30 or nine, right when,
it's like primetime.
Everyone is like focused
and we're just in the back cooking,
expediting, sending out the tickets,
when a server comes back
and he looks very scared.
He also looks a little bit wet.
And then another server comes back
who also looks scared and also looks
a little bit wet.
And then we find out that somebody had put
the big like heating,
outdoor heating things, and they put 'em too close
to a fire extinguisher thing,
and it sprayed the entire patio,
which was about five or six tables.
We lost about
20 dishes of food.
All the people that we're sitting outside
had to be reseated in the dining room
and we had to remake the food for them
while trying to continue to make
the food for the people that were not affected by it.
It was very stressful.
I would've cried, but I was just too busy. (laughs)
It was bad.
It was an accomplishment and we were all
really happy at the end, high-fiving each other,
no one died of like stress or panic so it was good.
- So it is my first time in a fine dining,
professional kitchen and the chef is
always on me, constantly like,
to better me, always on my ass basically, and so,
he comes up to me and is like,
I'm gonna be on you like white on rice.
All day, end of service, you're gonna go feeling like a
badass, but during the process I'm going to break you,
and I'm like, cool, can't wait.
But, I had just gotten out of a relationship,
not my choice, but I had to show up to work
'cause we can't call off and
every time he came up to me I was like don't cry, don't cry.
And at the end of it, I just started crying and I ran out.
But, you can't escape a busy kitchen,
so he finds me and he's like you're gonna go back in there,
you're gonna cut onions all service,
and that's what I had to do.
So I'm in the back like a sad little puppy
just chopping away pickled onions,
25 pound case.
And I did feel like very empowered after all of it, but,
it was a lot of tears.
My eyes were definitely burning.
That experience and that night of cutting
25 pounds of red onions
molded me into the thick skin person I am.
And now I tell people all the time I'm like,
if you're gonna cry in this kitchen,
you're gonna grab an onion and you're gonna start slicing
and gonna get some thick skin.
So I appreciated it at the end.
Not at the moment.
- So even through all of these
horrible events that happen in the kitchen,
I still love what I do.
- It's definitely not for people who want a
nine to five, like easygoing job.
Like every day you go into work
and you're like,
what is gonna happen today.
So you have to love that sense of excitement.
You do have to have a lot of passion
and I think I do and all the chef's I've worked
for have been mentors,
sadistic mentors for sure,
but they have like molded me and I respect them all.
- There's a lot of sacrifices.
You sacrifice your personal life,
family time.
You work every weekend.
You have scars from burning.
But at the end of the day,
if this is your passion,
then it's completely worth it.
(playful music)