cheap pad thai sauce" is weirdly accurate, and now I'm scared how many other canned foods are just hiding in plain sight as other meals. My uncle used to dump a packet of grape jelly into his canned corned beef hash and called it "sweet and savory," which is just a fancy way of saying he gave up.

How many of those tools actually earn their keep when the rush hits and you only have two hands? I worked a breakfast line for a year and the stuff I thought I needed just slowed me down, all those tweezers and squeeze bottles sitting there while the tickets piled up. The real skill is knowing your one tool so well you stop thinking about it, like that cook in Amarillo. The bench scraper is mine, and I would not hand it to anybody because the edge is worn just right and a new one feels wrong.