Habla Espanol??

In this day and age, no matter what your politics, if you are going to work in a professional kitchen, you need to speak and understand Spanish, if you want to get anything done.
Here is a perfect reason why...

It was my first job as "The Chef" at Blue Plate Restaurant on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

I needed Carlos, my prep cook, to clean the shells off of the shrimp for dinner that evening.

I asked in my broken Spanish, "por favor, limpiar the camerones" (clean the shrimp).
I went back upstairs to the kitchen to continue my own work. When I went back downstairs to check on Carlos, he had indeed cleaned the shrimp.

In a bucket of warm water with soap!!!! They were clean and shiny all right.

So, unless you want soap in the shrimp...Halba Espanol!!!!!!!!!!!!!