Cockroaches

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One of the problems of restaurant kitchen life is the number of ‘guests’ who expect to dine for free. They include ants, assorted bugs and, in particular, cockroaches – they just love a nice warm kitchen.

They like to socialize with chefs, too, it seems to me and I sometimes wonder if there isn’t some kind of affinity between the two species, recognized only by the cockies, it’s true, but perhaps more apparent to outsiders, such as waiters :0)

Whatever the truth of that, the problem is what to do when a cocky puts in an appearance during service. Start flailing around with a spatula and pretty soon there’s expensive food all over the floor and a hint of tiny laughter from under the fridge.

Using a chemical spray is even more hazardous. Not only do you risk poisoning your (human) diners, but the cocky will rush off to die somewhere, most probably in someone’s bowl of soup.

So we used vinegar. Just an ordinary spray bottle filled with a mix of 80% vinegar to 20% water will stop a cocky in its tracks. It will die where its hit and the vinegar spray won’t contaminate anything so as you’d notice. It’s cheap too, and very environmentally friendly.

You can even give the salad a squirt to sharpen up the dressing, if you’ve a mind to.