# I cook for a living!



## AztekShine (Feb 15, 2012)

So I see a lot of similaritys between refineing and specifically sauces! I use bones to make steak sauce every week. And it is oddly awesome that I went to culinary school because of my fondness for chemistry! Fascinating world we live in!


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## nickvc (Feb 15, 2012)

If you expand your thoughts you will realise chemistry is all around us from the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear the medicines we use....


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## AztekShine (Feb 15, 2012)

Ya man that's been the basis of my dogma sense I was around 12yr old.


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## element47 (Feb 15, 2012)

There are similarities but there are real differences. Cooking (other than baking) is widely tolerant of spontaneous or accidental changes from a given recipe. The ingredients are fairly inexpensive, compared to PM scrap and chemicals. You can make a salad and add stuff, change the proportions, swap cabbage for lettuce, delete stuff almost to your heart's content. You'll still end up with something generally edible. It may not taste that great, but taste great or not, eat or not, the thing you cook ends up being flushed down the sewer pipe within 6-12 hours. Or immediately if you really burn something. You don't save up your dirty dishes for months and months and try to extract food from them after your pile is big enough. Cooking might stink up the house pretty well for a while, perhaps it might even start a fire if you really blow it. PM refining chemistry isn't quite in the same league. And finally, no two or more food items are known to explode or burn your skin to the bone or destroy your lungs.


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## Oz (Feb 15, 2012)

element47 said:


> And finally, no two or more food items are known to explode or burn your skin to the bone or destroy your lungs.


You obviously have not had my home made salsa on a chip.


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## AztekShine (Feb 15, 2012)

Oz said:


> element47 said:
> 
> 
> > And finally, no two or more food items are known to explode or burn your skin to the bone or destroy your lungs.
> ...



Two words...Ghost Peppers!




But in all honesty I do appreciate the heads up on the blowing my face off, and saving my dirty dishes. I'm reading Hoke and learning. I have first hand tear gassed myself trying to make mercuric chloride around 16 or 17yearold by dumping instead of dripping. That was when I learned the power of acids. And basses! All in my face!


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## glondor (Feb 15, 2012)

My favorite TV chef is Alton Brown. He explains the chemistry behind successful cooking. Very interesting. I did a whole Christmas dinner one year Alton style with brine'd turkey and all the trimmings the way he made them. Got rave reviews


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## glondor (Feb 15, 2012)

RE: Element 47. Have you ever seen someone try to deep fry a turkey the wrong way? The explosion and fire are quite spectacular.


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## element47 (Feb 15, 2012)

Yes, I will cheerfully allow that exception! Point well taken. That kind of fire can set your house ablaze. In a very similar vein, when I was working on a cruise ship, we were shown, as part of our safety training, some videos/films about deep-fat fryer fires. OMG, incredible, very hard to put out, even with your advanced halon systems and everything else.


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## glondor (Feb 15, 2012)

Hey Element, I also worked on a cruise ship out of Miami from 79 to 81. I worked the bars as a bartender. Nice ship for its time. TSS Festival for carnival cruise lines. Tried a month on a Cunard ship as well but did not like it. Ended up being a cook and engineer on a intercoastal schooner for a few years.


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## AztekShine (Feb 16, 2012)

glondor said:


> Tried a month on a Cunard ship as well but did not like it. Ended up being a cook and engineer on a intercoastal schooner for a few years.



What's that like, is the pay worth it?


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