[Sca-cooks] Safety in the Kitchen

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Jane Boyko:
>Hi everyone
>
>I am giving a lecture at our local practicum on safety in the kitchen.  I have
>quite a bit of information and want to round it out more.
>
>I have a few questions which I hope the answers you provide will allow me to
>address things I have not thought of.
>
>1.  What do you do to protect yourself in the kitchen from injuries?

I generally wear a cook's cote, designed with some of the features of 
a modern chef's white coat, in an essentially period design. My 
current model is a Greenland gown; I preferred my older cote version 
(as in, proto, less fitted version of, a cotehardie), because it was 
lighter and more tailored, so it had the flexibility without the 
weight. Both versions (and I'm about due to have a new one made) have 
a high collar to protect the neck, extra-long sleeves with doubled 
fabric at the cuffs, so the cuffs can be folded back and still cover 
the wrist and protect the forearms and hands from burns, and even be 
used as a potholder in an emergency. Both are designed to be easy to 
get out of, should they be splashed with a lot of boiling oil or 
catch fire or something like that. They also had/have a double layer 
of fabric across the chest, also for protection.

Good shoes (I am a huge fan of Birkenstocks, especially their 
"Professional" line of backed and strapped clogs for chefs, nurses, 
doctors, and lab workers: people that stand all day on hard floors) 
are beyond pearls. Those thick rubber floor mats, the perforated ones 
you sometimes see around dishwashing stations in restaurants, are 
also a godsend.

I am extremely careful with wet towels and potholders. There's 
nothing quite like picking up a potholder, only to find yourself 
being scalded by steam instead of being burnt by a hot metal handle.

You might need to teach people how to walk with knives in their 
hands. Professional cooks usually walk with their arms hanging 
straight down, with the knife blade held firmly, but not stiffly, 
against the thigh, point down, edge back. That way, the person 
leaping back to avoid the splashing, boiling oil doesn't get skewered 
through the back and chest. If you drop a knife, do not try to catch 
it. Let it fall, step back quickly, let it bounce, if necessary let 
it break. Pick it up off the floor, clean it, and resume work.

Kitchens are sometimes noisy places, and sometimes cooks concentrate 
highly on what they're doing. If you're behind someone dealing with 
something hot, or a rapidly moving blade, make sure they know you're 
there. A common and effective technique is to carefully and 
deliberately touch the person's back or shoulder, saying, clearly, 
but without yelling in the person's ear, "Behind you." This _does_ 
take some getting used to, of course, but in the end it seems to be 
the most effective technique.

A ritual of mine has always been to buy a fresh new box of Kosher 
salt for each event I cook for. (I'm sure my fellow local cooks just 
love it when they find 27 half-used boxes in the Provincial supplies. 
;-)  ) It's good for seasoning, good to add to a sanitizing solution, 
good for cleaning cutting boards, and good for soaking up grease 
spilled on the floor and providing traction if you're in the middle 
of service and can't clear the room to mop.

Watch the people that work with/for you. Even if you're too dumb to 
take care of yourself, make sure that they do. Either set up a break 
schedule or just make sure that everyone gets one. If possible, 
including you. Tired cooks are dangerous to themselves and others.

And finally, leaping headfirst into hot convection ovens is work for 
trained professional cooks in a closed kitchen. Kids, don't try this 
one at home!

>2.  Do you bring your own first-aid kit?  If so what do you consider
>essential?

Actually, my feeling is that if anybody needs anything much more than 
a band-aid (or equivalent level of protection), they're gonna have to 
stop working and [possibly] go to the emergency room, anyway. As 
such, I keep a very minimalist supply of first aid supplies: 
Band-Aids, pressure pads, pain-killing Neosporin, and some Ibuprofen. 
Then again, we also have local members who are EMT's and paramedic 
types, and they usually keep a full case of supplies.

>3.  Do you have any personal "problems" and what steps to you take to look
>after yourself - proir, during and after the event?

I used to drink seltzer as the beverage of choice. I now find, when 
I'm in high-heat or other dehydrating situations, I need something 
like Gatorade, in addition to the seltzer, or I develop agonizing 
cramps. A highlight of one of the last events I cooked at (actually I 
don't think I was in charge of that one) was my lady wife and myself 
both being essentially paralyzed by muscle cramps for a fairly 
prolonged period (say, 45 minutes or so), at roughly the same time. I 
think, because it wasn't my kitchen and I wasn't sure I'd be in there 
working, I neglected to bring any Gatorade (tonic water works, too), 
and maybe the fighters drank the event's supply...

I've realized, recently, that I can no longer stay up all night the 
night before an event, and expect to be coherent through the next 
day. Probably that whole Getting Old thing at work.

I try to remember to eat during the day, but mostly the form this 
takes is tasting dishes as they move toward completion, and I may or 
may not take in any significant amount of food. Digestion requires 
energy I can't spare while I'm working. (Yes, this probably sounds 
like I'm kidding, but I'm not.) Usually at around 1 AM, when I get 
home from an event, is when I get hungry.

I have a personal policy about alcohol in kitchens I run. I don't 
expect anyone else to share it, but if they work with or for me, they 
can accept it or choose to be elsewhere: I feel about alcohol and 
knives and fires the same way I feel about alcohol and driving or 
firearms. These things have the potential to be dangerous enough 
without alcohol taking the edge off your reflexes. Nobody loves a 
good single-malt whisky or a good stout more than me, when the work 
is done, but until then, it's for cooking, not for drinking in any 
quantity at all.

On a tangential note, a little hygiene experiment (in addition to all 
the usual warnings). Try counting the number of times you put your 
hand on your face, scratch your hair with an uncovered hand, scratch 
or untickle your nose, wipe sweat off your brow, scratch your tuchus, 
and any of a billion different ways to transmit germs to food unless 
you then, immediately, wash your hands before touching food or 
equipment. Honestly, make a little tick-off chart in your head, the 
kind where you make four slashes and then a fifth slash through them 
all. Keep a count of the number of hygiene no-no's of the type I've 
just mentioned, that you commit in the course of a day. You'd be 
amazed. Yes, wash your hands after each such offense, but the main 
point is to train your body and your mind: transfer control of this 
activity from an unconscious part of your mind to a conscious part, 
and remind yourself that each time you do it, you'll need to stop and 
wash your hands. You'll find that you do it a lot less. And remember 
that sanitizing gels, while effective, can be toxic if not rinsed 
away.

My apologies for the mish-mosh, but maybe some of it will come in handy.

Adamantius