could also be subtitled...things everyone in culinary school but me seemed to know straight out of the gate

• you should always cut tomatoes with a serrated knife
• Knife skills, shmife skills
• (not for the squeamish) Cooks sweat into their pots. really.
• never wear nailpolish in a commercial kitchen. never.
• there are no timers or clocks in commercial kitchens. It's done when it's done. if you don't have an innate ability to know when that is, cultivate one or risk the wrath of the executive chef.
• one universal truth: the croutons will burn more often than they won't. See #5
• no one uses paper towels. ever. you get one cloth towel per shift and if you lose it, you're screwed.
• It's better to use cheap knives if you like to keep em real sharp (which you should). throw away your wustoffs and henckels. you can buy expensive ones when you own your own 5-star and can finally afford to burn through a set a year.
• nutmeg is actually a seed from an EVERGREEN(?!) and ground nutmeg should be used never.
• same goes for chicken broth as a stock replacement. never. or you suck. and have zero chef cred. even if you don't have pounds of chicken bones lying around and free time to cook them for 8 hours.
• be prepared to be a galley slave in a commercial kitchen if you want to make it professionally. EVERYONE starts at the bottom. You may toil as a slave for a year (or more) before ever actually cooking something. Be prepared to cut veggies for months. and like it.
• #11 is actually how most cooks cultivate amazing knife skills with which to dazzle their friends and loved ones. after slicing hundreds of spuds a week, who wouldn't be a master cutter?
• I undersalt EVERYTHING (which is better than oversalting, but still was a blow to my cooking ego)
• if you don't cook with love, you can actually taste it in the food (I always sort of suspected this, but it was nice to have professional confirmation)
• If a recipe calls for a dried herb, you can use the fresh herb as long as you triple the measurement.