Short posts on costing, ordering, walk-in discipline, and the shape of the work behind a well-run kitchen.
When wild mushrooms actually reach European kitchens: morel, chanterelle, porcini, black trumpet, hedgehog and more, with available and peak months. Written for chefs buying them, not foragers picking them.
Read the post →Not for service — for prep. The six things chefs actually look up during mise en place: hydrocolloid ratios, conversions, yield, sous vide temps, allergens, and sharing a recipe properly.
Read the post →A seasonal vegetable calendar for European kitchens: 35 vegetables with both their available months and their peak months, and what the gap between the two means when you're writing a menu.
Read the post →Yield percentage explained by a chef: the EP vs AP formula, real yield numbers for fish, meat and vegetables, and how to calculate your true cost per usable kilo.
Read the post →The 14 mandatory allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011, explained for working kitchens — with the letter codes, where each allergen hides, and how the US, Canada and Japan differ.
Read the post →Recipe scaling explained by a chef: the conversion factor, how to scale from the ingredient you actually have, how to hit a target batch weight — and what refuses to scale linearly.
Read the post →The food cost percentage formula explained by a chef — with a worked example, target ranges, and how to price a dish from its plate cost.
Read the post →An honest comparison of chef software in 2026 — meez, Apicbase, ChefTec, MarketMan, Paprika and DigitalKnife — sorted by what your kitchen actually needs, from multi-site groups to solo chefs.
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