Bric a Brac

Walk into any professional kitchen during service and you'll eventually hear it: "86 the snapper." The fish is gone. Cross it off. Tell the servers. Move on. The term is universal in restaurant kitchens, used dozens of times each shift. But where did it come from? And why does a random number mean "we're out of something"? The origin stories are colorful, contradictory, and mostly unprovable. But the term's persistence tells you something about professional cooking: certain l

Mise en place. Pronounced "meez on plass." French for "everything in its place." In professional kitchens, it means preparing and organizing all ingredients and equipment before service begins. In broader cooking philosophy, it means systematic organization as the foundation for all serious work. Walk into a professional kitchen before service and you'll see mise en place in action: containers of prepped vegetables lined up precisely, proteins portioned and stored at proper t

During a busy restaurant service, you might hear a server tell the manager "the kitchen is in the weeds." It means they're overwhelmed. Orders are backing up. Timing is slipping. The carefully orchestrated system is breaking down under volume. Every professional cook knows this feeling. Multiple tickets printing simultaneously. Everything needs to fire at once. You're managing twelve pans while trying to remember what still needs to plate. The organized calm of early service

The difference between cook and chef is about role and responsibility in professional kitchens, not skill level. Learn what the titles actually mean.