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Fryer Safety Checklist



Non-Slip Footwear

Slip- and Grease-Resistant Floor Mats

Personal Safety Equipment

Ladders and Footstools

Kitchen Layout and Storage


Education and Training


Quality Equipment and Oil

Safe Cleaning and Grease Transport



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A Lesson in Cooking Oil

Science of Cooking Oil

Ancient artifacts from Babylonia, 5,000 years old, suggest that “frying” was used as a cooking method in those times. In addition, artifacts from ancient Egypt suggest “deep frying” was popular 4,000 years ago. Considering how long frying has been part of our history, it’s surprising how little people in the cooking industry (and the public at large) actually know about how frying works, and how to extend the life of cooking oil in their fryer.

Cooking Oil

While cooking in oil is nothing new per se, it’s only in the last hundred or so years that major changes have been made. Traditionally, cooking was done in animal fat, tallow or “lard”. Near the turn of the twentieth century, people recognized that animal fat had a short shelf life and was becoming expensive. In 1903, hydrogenation was introduced as a way to improve vegetable oils. By hydrogenating the vegetable oil, the cooking temperature, melt point and shelf life were increased. However, the hydrogenation process created trans fats, which over the last several decades has been shown to pose a health risk. Today’s oil selections include “High Oleic Acid” oils (derived from canola, sunflower, or soybean), which offer many benefits, including:

  1. A healthier choice
  2. Easier to clean
  3. A pleasing flavor profile
  4. A more desired appearance and texture

Breaking Down & Extending Cooking Oil Life

To better understand methods to extend cooking oil life, let’s take a look at the chemical and physical changes that occur during the cooking process.

  • First, heat is applied to the oil to bring it to the proper frying temperature. Whether the oil is being used for cooking or not, it’s also certain that the oil will be exposed to air and light, and heat, air, and light are three of the many components that break down oil.
  • After reaching the desired temperature, a food product (protein, starch or vegetable) is added to the oil where almost immediately a “crust” begins to form on the food product via the excellent heat conduction properties of cooking oil.
  • As the heat penetrates the product, the water inside the product converts to steam and expands approximately 1,600 times in volume, creating a pressurized “steam envelope” around the product, pushing the oil away from the product.

To the operator, it appears the product is “boiling in the oil,” however, the temperature inside the product never exceeds 212⁰F  at normal atmospheric pressure.

The steam released from the product reacts with the oil in a process called hydrolysis, further breaking down the oil. If the product is over cooked, the steam envelope will collapse (no more water) and the oil will directly contact the food, overcooking the surface, and penetrating deeply into the product, leaving it both dry and greasy to the palate. Any “cracklings” that fall off the food during this process, fall to the bottom of the fryer, and further degrade the oil as those bits overcook. Also, if the fryer temperature is set to low, the oil begins to penetrate the product before the steam envelope forms, resulting in a greasy texture.

During oil’s cooking life, there are several stages from fresh (new) to fully oxidized:

  1. When new oil is nearly clear to white, it has a higher viscosity (or “thickness”) and surface tension so it resists penetrating the food. Typically, the final product is not browned enough and lacks the fried flavor profile.
  2. During “breaking in”, the viscosity and surface temperature reduce and the oil starts to become a brown color, imparting slight coloring of the food and some flavor profile.
  3. At the “optimum” stage, the product gets a good browning and optimal flavor profile from oil penetration (or absorption).
  4. The final stages to full oxidation, include degradation and runaway; the viscosity and surface tension are very low (thin versus thick) and too much oil is absorbed in the food, food color is generally too brown, and the flavor and odor are undesirable.

Optimum Cooking Stage of Oil Life

So, from the cooking process, we know that heat, water, light, air, and debris all contribute to reducing oil life. Knowing that, operators should take the following steps to stay in the optimum cooking stage of oil life:

  1. Turn the temperature down to a “ready” state (below 300⁰F) when the fryer won’t be used for long periods.
  2. Shake excess water (or ice) and debris off the product away from the fryer before frying.
  3. Keep the cover over the frying kettle when not in use to minimize exposure to air, light, water and debris.
  4. Filter frequently to remove debris (or cracklings). “Active” filtration with a powdered reagent (or impregnated pad) is far more effective. The reagent neutralizes undesirable, free fatty acids and other polar compounds that oxidize oil. With or without active filtration, filtering improves the color of the oil.
  5. Use a filtering method that minimizes exposure to air.
  6. Oil exposed to soft metals (bronze, brass, sodium, etc.) or detergents will breakdown extremely rapidly. It’s, therefore, important to insure the fryer, filtering mechanism, and accessories do not use brass or bronze.
  7. Avoid exposure to sodium (or salt) by seasoning fried products away from the fryer, never over the oil.
  8. If soap must be used to clean the frying kettle, ensure the fryer is properly neutralized, rinsed, and dried before refilling with oil.

While extending the life of cooking oil saves money and time, more importantly, it also makes the finished product look and taste better.

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Why Restaurants (and Diners) Hate Kids Dining Out
















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Remember the London fatberg story?









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Why Flatware Matters to the Success of Your Restaurant

At first blush, choosing forks, spoons and knives for your new restaurant might seem like a relatively insignificant task, just one among many decisions you have to make before opening day.

But make no mistake, flatware is incredibly important to get right.

Ask any restaurant designer worth her salt, and she’ll readily affirm the importance of flatware and how it can help—or hurt—the overall aesthetics of a restaurant’s design.

As a recent New York Times article notes, the three restaurateurs behind the re-opening of the historic Tavern on the Green spent hours debating and testing—with food—over 300 kinds of flatware for their new establishment.

“Flatware is the hardest thing to choose, because people have such strong visceral reactions to it,” Katy Sparks, Tavern on the Green’s executive chef, told the Times. “I want something that speaks to being part of a tavern, but updated.”

Flatware, as Sparks indicates, wields enormous power: it can complement your restaurant’s decor or distract from it. It can help you tell your story or be a glaring contradiction to everything you’re trying to communicate to your patrons. For example, a fork might say “bistro” when you’re trying to say “diner.” It might say “prim” when you’re trying to say “down-home.” Or “old-fashioned” instead of “elegant.”

Your choice of tableware can even alter the taste or your food!

Don’t believe me? Get this: Researchers from the University of Oxford found that a utensil’s color, kind and material can all impact how food tastes or feels in our mouths.

“Subtly changing eating implements and tableware can affect how pleasurable, or filling, food appears,” said study researcher Dr. Vanessa Harrar.

If you don’t believe me, take it from Science: flatware is important.

There’s more to consider than aesthetics, of course. For restaurateurs, durability is another important piece of the puzzle. Lower-grade steel might seem like a bargain in the beginning, but if it can’t stand up to the daily abuse of restaurant life, “cheap” can end up costing more money in the long haul.

With a long tradition of melding durability, precise workmanship and aesthetic appeal, Walco flatware, based in Utica, New York, has become a popular choice for restaurant designers and food service professionals. Walco is a perennial favorite at, offering a wide variety of flatware to complement your decor and earn compliments from your patrons.

So if you need new utensils for your restaurant or hotel, be picky! It’s an important decision! And be sure to check out or selection of Walco flatware.

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How Much Should Restaurant Workers Be Paid?

Pay for restaurant workers. It’s an issue that manages to unite us and divide us at the same time.


Most of us, in other words, can sympathize with the plight of low-paid restaurant workers because we’ve been there ourselves at some point, or have a friend or relative who struggles to cover basic needs while working full-time in a food-service position.

Divisions emerge when we stop to consider what, if anything, to do about it. Should we raise the minimum wage? Should we abolish tipping altogether? Should we pressure owners to pay their employees a living wage? Or should we let “the market” sort itself out and avoid potentially messy policy intervention?

Traditionally, many restaurateurs at our country’s 980,000 food-service establishments argue that forcing proprietors to pay their workers more will simply result in either less hiring or worse: layoffs. Further, they say that paying workers more would result in higher prices for patrons, who might decide to stay home and cook.

The counter-argument, one that I agree with, is that modestly raising pay standards to keep pace with inflation and other cost of living metrics is not only the right thing to do from an ethical standpoint, but will have the added benefit of stimulating more economic activity overall, because compensation isn’t’t a zero-sum game.

After all, folks who work in restaurants like to eat out as much as everyone else! If they’re paid a decent wage, they’ll have the means to patronize local restaurants once in a while.

What’s more, there’s the issue of fairness. Consider the situation in New York City, where nearly two-thirds of restaurant servers live at or below the poverty line. How is this situation OK? This strikes me as a classic example of a market failure ripe for correction.

In the meantime, whether you support change or the status quo, we as patrons can make sure our servers are tipped well, because tips aren’t simply bonuses paid on top of good wages. Without tips—heck, even with them—the far majority of restaurant workers wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.

And if you’re not convinced that your tip makes a difference, check out this powerful video.

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Top 10 List of Gifts for Chefs


 1. Pocket Thermometers


Our Favorite: Comark Waterproof Digital Pocket Test Thermometer – $24.90

 2. Wine Keys

 L'Atelier du Vin - 95096-0 - Black Chic Lady Corkscrew


 3. German Knives


Our Favorite: Wusthof 10” Cook’s Knife – $32.00

 4. Stocking Stuffers



5. Mandolins


Our Favorite: Jaccard Safe Hands ABS Mandoline – $36.95

 6. Knife Bags



 7. Chef Apparel and Clothing

Monte Carlo Chef Works Coat


Our Favorite: Chef Works Monte Carlo Chef Coat – $82.92

 8. Japanese Knives



 9. Dutch Ovens



 10. Knife Sharpeners, Steels, and Stones



Click to for a video on how knife sharpening works.

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Weight & Volume Conversions for Dry & Liquid Ingredients

Cup of Grated Cheese

A lot of what comes down to creating the perfect recipe is knowing the difference between weighing, measuring, and the right conversions.  Simply said; however, these are often overlooked, because a lot of us were raised on the notion that 8 ounces is 1 cup, right?  Unfortunately, that’s not always true, especially when it comes to dry ingredients.

For most liquids, 8 ounces does indeed equal 1 cup; except for heavy liquids, like molasses and honey, where 1 cup is more around 11-12 ounces.  That small adjustment in ounces can make or break a once amazing recipe, especially when it comes to dry ingredients.  When there’s so many other factors that could ruin a recipe (the pan you use, the altitude, the humidity, etc.), it’s important that you know the difference in weights of your ingredients.

Before diving into the conversion table, we’d also like to note that there’s a difference between weight ounces and volume ounces.  Weight ounces are used for measuring dry ingredients (whereas 16 ounces is equivalent to 1 pound); however, volume ounces are used for measuring liquid ingredients (whereas 8 ounces equals a pound).  In this case, if you were to look at the difference between 8 weight ounces of honey and 8 volume ounces of honey, the difference would be ¼ of a pound, which is a lot when looking to be precise with your recipes.  Another example, if you take a dry ingredient (which typically has much more air around it) and try to measure it in a measuring cup, rather than weighing it, odds are you’ll get very different numbers: 4 ounces of grated cheese in a measuring cup can equal 8 ounces of grated cheese on a scale (which one do you think is the right measurement of ounces we’re looking for here?).

Dry Ingredients Cup(s) Weight Ounce(s) Gram(s)
All-Purpose Flour 1 4 1/2 128
Bread Flour 1 4 1/2 128
Cake Flour 1 4 113
Pastry Flour 1 4 113
Whole Wheat Flour 1 4 1/2 128
Brown Sugar 1 7 1/2 213
Powdered Sugar 1 4 113
White Granulated Sugar 1 7 198
Chopped Nuts 1 4 113
Cocoa Powder 1 3 1/4 91
Cornstarch  1 4 113
Liquid Ingredients (for most: 1 cup = 8 oz) Cup(s) Volume Ounce(s) Gram(s)
Butter 1 8 228
Cream 1 8 228
Honey 1 12 340
Milk 1 8 228
Molasses 1 11 312
Oil 1 7 1/2 213
Sour Cream 1 8 228
Water 1 8 228
Yogurt 1 8 228
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Let’s Talk Turkey Seasonings

 Raw Thanksgiving turkey



Another question that sparks heated debates this time of year …

Should you brine?





And don’t forget butter!


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How to Get Customers in the Door on Thanksgiving and Christmas

Holiday table setting



Communicate with your current patrons





Connect with folks who haven’t dined with you yet


Do something special


Make sure hungry holiday shoppers can find you





Last-minute catering services?


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