Spent 45 minutes trying to slice a single onion before I noticed my knife was backwards

I was prepping for service the other night and this red onion just would not cut right. I kept struggling, thinking the blade was dull or something. After way too long I looked down and realized I had the knife turned around, using the spine side down. Idk how I missed it but my saute guy caught me and laughed for a solid minute. Has anyone else done something this dumb during prep?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_carter11d agoMost Upvoted

I read somewhere that something like 30% of kitchen mistakes happen when you're tired or distracted... it's basically muscle memory failing you. I remember hearing a story about a line cook who spent a whole shift wondering why his mise en place was taking forever and it turned out he was using the wrong side of the peeler. We've all been there man, the brain just checks out sometimes.

davis.noah1mo ago

lol the "blade was dull" part got me because my buddy once spent 10 minutes trying to chop a bell pepper with the back of a chef's knife, swearing it was the worst knife he'd ever bought (it was a perfectly good Wusthof, he just had it backwards).

alex_nguyen1mo ago

Haha I once used a steak knife to open a bag of flour and wondered why it wouldn't cut...