Appreciation post: the dishwasher at my last gig taught me more about seasoning than my old sous did

Faith Wood · 2026-10-16T20:45:06.042594+00:00

I was cleaning down the flat top last Tuesday at the spot on Delmar and Marco, our dishwasher who barely speaks English, kept pointing at my pan and shaking his head. For weeks I figured he was just messing with me. Then one night he grabbed a cold pan, showed me his palm hovering maybe 2 inches above the steel, and said "hot, then oil, then wait." That was it. No lecture, no fancy words. I tried it the next service and my scallops came off the pan cleaner than they had in months. Three weeks later my old sous called me to catch up and I mentioned it, and he goes "yeah, that's just the Leidenfrost thing, everyone knows that." Except nobody ever said it to me in two years of working under him. Marco never went to culinary school. He just cooks. Now I watch how he moves around the dish pit and I swear he reads a pan better than half the line cooks I know. Has anyone else had a dish guy or prep person hand them something real like that while the actual chefs kept it a secret?

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Appreciation post: the dishwasher at my last gig taught me more about seasoning than my old sous did | Chefs - Thought Shares