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A broken walk-in at a Vegas pop-up made me rethink my whole mise en place.
Was doing a 2-day pop-up last month in a shared kitchen space. The main walk-in fridge died overnight. Lost about $800 worth of prepped proteins and sauces. Had to run to a cash-and-carry at 5 AM and re-prep everything from scratch with my two cooks. Now I split my mise between two separate coolers, no matter how small the gig. Anyone else have a backup plan for when equipment fails on site?
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sean_walker452mo ago
Splitting between two coolers is smart, but that only covers a total failure. What about the slow death? I had a fridge start to warm up over a few hours once, just enough to ruin stuff but not enough to set off an alarm. Now I keep a cheap digital thermometer with a max/min memory inside, so I can see if it spiked when I wasn't looking. It's saved me twice from using stuff that sat in the danger zone.
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hall.nora1mo ago
You're making me feel real called out right now. My "system" for checking fridge temp is sniffing the milk and hoping for the best. That max/min thermometer trick is actually genius though. Going to grab one before I accidentally poison myself at a family barbecue. Maybe I should also check the power cord while I'm at it.
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