On being a chef today, after you buy your local, seasonal produce

Not too long ago Tony Bourdain did a guest bit on Michael Ruhlman's blog.  I was excited to see the first question he was asked was "What issues do you see facing chefs today?" I wasn't happy with his answer.

Not because it was wrong; the points he made were fine.  I just feel there is a whole massive area that was completely ignored.  The question I wanted to see answered was "What staff related issues do you see facing chefs today?"  I wanted to see how those of us who wrangle the next generation of cooks, bakers, servers, dishwashers, minor criminals and pirates are seeing the shape of the future.

Since I didn't get his answer, I wanted to share some of my own observations.  These are the things I see, the things I try to handle as best I can, the things that I cope with to varying degrees of success.

First off, my staff doesn't expect to make a lot of money right away.  Contrary to the stories people tell about kids these days, these are cooks who even if they did go to culinary school aren't expecting to be the cock of the walk right out the door - there just hasn't been the employment market for that for years now.  They are happy to have a job. And, while they are making or just barely above minimum wage, they hope they have a chef that remembers what it is like to live on that kind of paycheck, when $600 equals two weeks pay, or when that Christmas bonus meant you could pay your bills and buy a few presents.  This matters. A lot. It's why they will scrabble for hours, take extra shifts, hope for a sliver of OT, get that second or third job. Luckily for them, there are plenty of us out there that do remember, because it wasn't so long ago when we were doing the exact same thing.  And as a manager who remembers that feeling, there comes the desire, especially with your best staff members, to wish you could change that, really pay a "living wage" whatever the hell that's supposed to be.  There's a big issue right there, and it doesn't even start to cover things like health care, paid time off or, the crucial one, where the money comes from to do these things.

OK, fine, the staff doesn't expect a lot of money - hopes for it, but doesn't expect it.  So what do they expect from their chefs?  Inspiration in one form or another.  To be taught, and have the chance to learn.  To be given the chance to try new things, to have their ideas taken seriously and with open mindedness.  In a perfect situation, to have the mentor that they will remember long after they have left the place.  Notice, I didn't say they "hope for" all of this, they EXPECT it.  This part is hard.  Every chef I know has days where all they want is a team that works with robotic precision exactly to their specifications day in and day out. Those are the days where baking powder gets used instead of baking soda in the brownies, where the tray of wineglasses gets dropped, and then, at the worst possible time, someone looks up and says, "But WHY do we do it this way?".  There was a time (and some kitchens still work this way, just none that I want to be in) where just looking up could get you fired, berated, a sheet pan thrown at you, all three.  Now, chefs need to anticipate that question.  To answer it before it comes at the worst possible time.  That's the only way to get the real hustle handled with the next generation - to equip your staff with everything they need to know, including the knowledge of when to ask, and when to put your head down and do the job.   And if they learn that, and do that for you, you need to make sure it gets acknowledged. Like I said, this is hard, but more and more, it's expected.

I'm sure some lament the loss of a military like obedience in the kitchen.  But really, I think the biggest issue facing chefs today is one that has always been there - how do we get done what needs doing?  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is the definition of what it means to be a chef from the perspective of your staff.  It doesn't matter what you think it means that someone slapped a four letter word next to your name on a menu. It matters what the people you hire, the people you train, and ultimately, the people you rely on to represent you think it means.

Sorry, chef, but without them, there's only so much you can get done, and we all know there's a lot that needs doing.

One more time, from the beginning

Sometimes, you have to start with a dumb idea.

There's a whole Zen thing - and I am not even remotely well versed on the subject so don't yell at me if I am slightly off in my interpretation - about having a beginner's mind, Shoshin.  You come to an activity with a willingness to try everything, no preconceived notion of what can and cannot be done - no idea that something is a dumb idea.  From there, you allow yourself to explore possibilities that wouldn't occur to the expert, rigid in thought and process.

The idea that mixing ice cream and flour could make bread, for example.

I find weird ideas like this exciting. Of course I had to try it.  To me, the batter immediately suggested biscuits, rather than bread, so that's what I made - butter pecan biscuits, topped with raw sugar.  The only bad parts were my hands got really cold mixing the dough, and now I have to keep a supply of self rising flour around the house.  Because I don't already have enough flours around the house.

The good parts?  I have been inspired to play more with my baking. Not just with this recipe (although I really want to try using a good pistachio ice cream next. Or maybe beer and chocolate ice cream), but with bread in general.  What makes bread? Most bread doughs are variations on the theme of 5 parts flour, 3 parts liquid, plus leavening and flavoring.  But what does that mean?  If the liquid is water, I can develop a passable baguette, but what if I use the liquid I strain off yogurt? What if I just use yogurt?  How do different fats affect things? Different flours? So many possibilities.

There's a trick here, though.  It wasn't hard to get excited about an idea that involved two ingredients, little time and intuitively seemed like it would work.  Also, there was cheating involved on my part - someone else had already tried the idea and presented it to the world as something that works.  But when there isn't someone else showing you the silly, weird, odd ideas that shouldn't work but maybe they could work, where do they come from?  Being open to all possibilities means being open to bad ideas, as well; how can you recognize those ideas, and do you try them anyway?  Crazy Brain Me says yes, you should try them anyway, because you still get answers from failure.  You just need to not let those failures and successes stop you from trying more ideas.

Good thing I have biscuits to sustain me through the process.

Going Kosher

It was 1 in the morning and I was madly etching a letter B on every sheet pan. I'd already been through a long production shift and behind me the overnight bake was in full swing, but there I was, discovering my lack of Dremmel tool skills, and there I would be for a good hour. I had to be, there was no other time.

The rabbi was coming at 6 am, and he was bringing his blowtorch.

I think I had been at my job for a week when people had first started asking, "Are you going to be Kosher?"  Well, now, that was a good question.  There's a sizeable Jewish community in town.  There's a local organization dedicated to helping people make that happen. Oh yeah, and I'm making bagels.  The first problem, though, was where I was making them. A kitchen space that enjoys a wide range of clients including some serious pork people? Yeah, not so kosher.

But then we started planning out our own space - we were already getting too big to comfortably share the freezer, the walk-in and if we wanted to continue that growth, our best option was to get the space next to the kitchen and build a bakery. If we were going to do that, then, sure, why not go kosher?

So what did that mean, exactly? Well, first it meant that our Kosher certification representative came to visit the kitchen on the inevitable day there was a big pork photo shoot going on. Seriously. We're talking sides of pig laid out across three tables in all their glory. Because that's the way my life goes.  I respectfully did not offer to shake hands (Thank you, Dan, for teaching me this etiquette tidbit years ago!) we snagged my boss and went to sit somewhere pork-free.  Then, we learned what we needed to do.

One part was paperwork.  We'd already done quite a bit, chasing down Ks and circled Us on labels and considering substitutes where there were no symbols.  I heard about disreputable merchants who use false symbols and very reputable ones that don't see a need to go through the process. I learned why spice blends are more suspect than the spices themselves and how an initially Kosher product that gets repackaged by a food distributor means we better make sure the distributor is certified.  Better to go to the source. Also, all those crazy Asian ingredients in our Miso Soy Ginger bagel? Mostly not Kosher. We would have to make, boil and bake those in the other kitchen. We had to track down actual certificates for all of those products, and submit our formulas.  I wondered, briefly, if this meant that some rabbinical council had the formula for Kosher Coke somewhere. I bet they had to sign something.

Then there was equipment.  We have an advantage in having a separate kitchen, in that we can still make things for the shop with bacon and sausage (only the bagels are certified), but it meant we had to have absolute separation between all of our equipment - bowls, sheetpans, knives, bench scrapers - and the kitchen's tools. So I dremmeled my way through the wee hours.  In the morning the rabbi brought his blowtorch to cleanse the items that had been used before, and to get a complete list of all of our equipment to keep on record. They count the sheetpans. Seriously.

So, beginning just before the High Holidays, we became a Kosher bakery.  We get weekly inspections, usually during the wee hours.  I consider it a compliment that after the inspection they often ask for bagels.  I've had great conversations with some of my farmer's market friends who produce Kosher items. "Oh, did you work with Tuvia? Tuvia's great!" "Oh, we worked with Tuvia, too!"  We can't control for where knives in the shop have been, so our qualifying bagels are only certified kosher in their whole, uncut state which has caused some giggles from our customers.

In the end, was it worth the time, the expense? The little rules that we have to keep an eye on, the paperwork we need to process every time we buy bowls or want to add a new flavor?  For me it's not about their religion, or my lack of religion.  It's about wanting to bring this great stuff we make to as many people as possible.  We didn't have to change our recipes, just substitute one product for another and now there's a whole community of people who can try one of my pumpernickel bagels.  That makes it worth it for me.

Demon's Farts and Other Legacies

So, I have a new job. Actually I've had this job for a smidge over a month now, but I'm just starting to get a finger and toe hold of an idea of what my life will be like on this train I am currently riding. It's been a fun, crazy, breathless time, and somehow in there I managed to learn something about pumpernickel.

 Me and pumpernickel, we go way back. I know it appeared for sandwiches (pastrami was probably my gateway to pumpernickel) but mostly I remember the bread dip. It was a recipe from my aunt, and it was creamy and full of dill and always served in a bowl of pumpernickel bread. On such occasions as this dip would appear, I would happily eat what was left of the bowl, with its thin layer of remaining dip, delighting in the flavors and textures. Those loaves even had the occasional raisin in them. I have no idea what made that baker put raisins in the pumpernickel, but it's probably the reason I like raisins, especially in savory items.

When faced with the prospect of making my own pumpernickel, it was that pumpernickel of my memories I wanted to recreate. Like so many other cooks before me, I found the task daunting, frustrating and perplexing. True pumpernickel is not what most Americans eat. The name refers to a sourdough rye bread that was baked low and long to get its dark color and was considered so indigestible that the name describes what the consumer was to experience later as a result of eating it. I'm not quite sure what demon's farts are supposed to be like, but it sounds really awful. So I'm mostly glad that the recipe in America was lightened up and enhanced, even if the name stuck. My sticking point was the enhancements. Pumpernickel color makes a nice dark loaf, but it is really just food coloring. Bleh. Pumpernickel flour, when checking the label, turns out to be dark rye flour with a variation that existed only on the price tag. Phooey. And everyone who loves pumpernickel has their own absolute list of what can and cannot appear: caraway or no, onions or no, coffee, chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my own list, and did what anyone experimenting with food should do - I played until it tasted right. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are those who will tell me how wrong I am doing it, but this is mine. Yes, dammit, there is caraway.  And despite the naysayers, there are those out there who have told me, "Hey, this is really good pumpernickel." I'm glad they like my memories.

A love letter to my kitchen

I went to fill the bird feeder yesterday and somehow, an hour later, I was standing in front of my stove with a toothpick cleaning out crevices and muttering darkly about ill fitting drip pans. I'm not quite sure how that came to happen, but the bird feeder did get filled. Eventually.

What I realized while I was doing this mad cleaning was that I spend more time cleaning my kitchen than any other room in my house. More time wiping, soaping, sweeping and clearing space in a room that has the same footprint as one armchair from the living room.

If I had to describe the kitchen, I would say small. My sweetheart goes to get a drink from the fridge and I stop moving because otherwise something will go horribly awry. I would then add comments about cabinet doors that don't close true anymore, especially in the rain. The single cabinet wide enough to hold my pans. Burner coils that only half work, and don't stay level. The fridge light has never worked properly. Two oddly placed outlets, total.

And yet, that tiny space is home. When I need comfort, I go there. When I want to celebrate, I go there. To bring together friends and neighbors, to find peace in solitude, that is the part of our house where I can make the world, for a little while, be what I wish it to be.

And really, that is why I cook for a living. Not because I love the craft of it, which I do. Not because I love the result, which without question is true. It's because that world that exists in my kitchen is a good world. If I move to a larger kitchen, then that good world I've created becomes larger, as well. If the people in that larger kitchen share their good world with mine, that good world becomes even larger. "Trying to make the world a better place" is trite and cliche to me. There is no try. When I cook, the world is better to me. I just want to get everyone else in on the action.

Let's Try Science! Antler Cookies part 1

I sat in my living room, looking at a piece of naturally shed antler from Bend, OR, a box grater, and a tiny pile of shavings that were the result of almost an hour and a half's worth of labor.

This... was going to be interesting.

Cooks get excited about weird things. If it is stinky, obscure, odd and edible, chances are a cook wants to do something with it. So, there was a sense of inevitability in my soul when I first heard about antlers being an early method of leavening baked goods. "I! Have! To! Do! This!" The synapses declared it, and there but for the grace of St. Honore go I. Or something like that.

First: acquisition. Luckily the internet makes conversation between strangers possible, so Ron Zimmerman was not simply helpful, but also supportive of my internet stalking/agenda. A hunter, eBay, antique store... the age didn't matter, he stated. OK! I explained the situation to basically everyone I met. My neighbors casually made my day, "Oh yeah, "they said, "we sell them as dog treats at the pet store. " Genius!

Second: preparation. Um, dudes, bones is hard. Antlers are hard. I looked at the antler piece. The cats sniffed it. I consulted awesome people. Microplane, maybe? Well, kind of, and the result was very fine but miniscule amounts and the microplane needed an edge to work from. Well why not the stubbly, sharp, knuckle destroying side of a box grater. Aw, yeah... Still slow going, but the result was a powder finer than I had expected, certainly finer than my salt.

Yes, I thought to myself, I can work with that.

Now I just need to bake. And what should I bake? Cookies, of course...

After the zombie apocalypse, there will still be cake

Best thing I have heard recently that I now have to try: before there was baking powder, there was deer horn. That's right, antlers, ground fine, can be used as a leavener in the same ratio as you would use baking powder. Similarly to baker's ammonia, it is stinky on baking, but the smell disappears when cool. And, bonus, like baker's ammonia it actually results in a better texture.

Now who's got an antler they can send me?

18th century brain in a 21st century head

Inspiration is surprising. It involves something like a jolt, an invisible hammer smacking you between the eyes and you had better make sure you don't blink or you may miss it. At least that's how it works for me. And let me tell you, I love being inspired. I love the a-ha, the whoa, the holy crap, even the sound of everyone in the room smacking themselves on the forehead and saying something like, "Duh!" The moment of revelation.

Maybe that's why I'm a sucker for even bad police procedurals and still get all antsy when watching the end of Star Wars.

If I had to shove a label on myself, I'm kind of a stickler. I like making lists, checking statistics. I like having a correct procedure to follow. I tend to lean to the traditional, will absolutely look stuff up in the middle of arguments to see who is correct. Yeppers, one of those. I even still put two spaces in after the period (although I have progressed past the indented new paragraph.) When I decided to go to school for cooking, I went to a pastry school, and not just any pastry school, a French one. The correct way, indeed.

The thing is, having a correct way can be limiting. While it gives a necessary backbone for our skills, it also can provide restriction against the creative, the innovative. I can make a damn good croissant. I've been doing it for years now, regularly critique my own work against my own high standards. I also go out of my way in my free time to compare the work of others. What are they doing differently than me? How can I improve my own technique within the realm of the correct procedure? And always, the beacon is the plain butter croissant. Like those pizza lovers who truly want to appreciate a pizza and therefore always order a plain pie, I look to the basic as the standard bearer. Maybe you make newfangled stuff, but if you can't do the real thing who needs you, right? Right?

What happens when you find someone who can shoot your basic technique the hell out of the water at a significant distance who is also choosing to ignore that in favor of the new, the different, the (dare I say it) incorrect? Can you be so arrogant as to be dismissive simply because it is not the done thing? Or do you see the hammer coming and don't blink?

Today I took croissant dough and stuffed it with kimchi and cheese. It was fun. And tasted amazing. Hell, yeah.

Putting myself out there

There is a comfort in working for someone else. The power goes out, and I just take care of what I know I need to, and call the Powers That Be. The Powers That Be handle the bills, the payroll, the order that didn't get placed and we need right now, screaming children, screaming adults. You know, all the fun stuff. But it also means that I am, basically, anonymous. The work I do is rightfully attributed to the place where I work. Unless someone recognizes me (it took the guy who runs the farmer's market, a regular customer, two years to make the connection) or I volunteer the information then I could be anybody or nobody. Now, I am not the kind of person to take advantage of that and slack off. This industry is way too small and I have too much respect for myself and those who I work with to not want to produce consistently great stuff. If I do make an error I am more critical of myself and my work than even my bosses, even if the customers don't know the mistake was mine.

Still, sometimes I want the whole package. I want to be known for the work I do, to have that work recognized as mine. But that whole package is scary, and fraught with, well, other people. Other people are a chaos factor, an unknown variable. One of the things I love about pastry is the organization of it all, the ritualized predictability. If you cook sugar to this temperature, it is soft ball stage, this temperature is hard crack. People don't work that way. Joy, sorrow, allergy attacks, euphoria. Completely unpredictable.

And yet, if I want people to know my work (which I do) I have to get it out there to people. So I'm trying. Here and there, I've been offering things up. Gentle, timid sacrifices to the mob.

We'll see where it takes me.

20 Things from 2010

1. Ayers Creek Polenta

2. A lovely glass of scotch at Laurelhurst Market

3. Getting the poached egg just right

4. Toasted 3 seed bread

5. Good Stuff NW

6. My walk to work

7. Fresh horseradish

8. Gaffer's Fish n Chips

9. Black Basque beans

10. My namesake

11. Braising greens that I harvested

12. Creme brulee can suck it.

13. Lobster mushrooms foraged by my neighbor

14. Hannah Bridge cheese from Ancient Heritage Dairy

15. Cranicocktails and brussels sprouts fritters for Thanksgiving

16. Passing around Soul of Chef

17. How I Fell In love with a Fish

18. A single sour orange

19. Fried green tomatoes

20. Half Smoke

Things I have learned here: market edition

I thanked my sweetheart recently for his continuing patience and indulgence where our food is concerned. When we lived in Chicago, food came from the grocery store or the produce market, because that is where I knew food to come from. Sometimes, a lot of it came in boxes. I had heard of farmer's markets, made tentative explorations in their direction, found good cheese.

Then we moved.

We moved to Atlanta, and there is a super big year round farmer's market there. I went there weekly, on my own and with my boss, to pick up fruits and vegetables (and cheese). I brought visitors there. We didn't take pictures because you aren't allowed to. After a couple years of this, and reading a book or two, it occurred to me that it isn't the same when the farmers in question live on the other side of the world. Did I really need berries in January?

Then we moved.

Now, I shop at my local farmer's market almost every week. Here's where my gratitude for my sweetheart's continued understanding comes in. We eat stuff now like weird turnips, and mysterious greens and the best polenta on the planet. The stuff we get is seriously tasty. It may not be the prettiest, and I have learned the hard way to wash stuff, and soak your cauliflower in salt water. (Seriously, folks. Soak it.) We eat a lot of plants, and less meat. I have a hard time buying meat, especially chicken, since I know where to get the good stuff. I also know, from actually talking to the person who raises those animals, how bad that other stuff can be. That holds true for a lot of our food. We aren't completely seasonal or local; I confess I bought bananas at the grocery store today. We make a pretty good effort, though. The only berries in my house right now are the ones I preserved. I know where it came from. It's never been subjected to a crazy giant recall.

Flat out, we also spend more on food.

Can we afford it? Probably, no. But I don't think we can afford not to do it, either.

Also, there is excellent cheese.

My role in the end times: chocolate zucchini cake

Yeah, in case of apocalypse, I'll need a farmer. Or at least a good gardener. Preferably one with no cooking skills whatsoever. The sum total of what I have harvested from all my plants this season, with the exception of herbs, is one (1) orange. I haven't even managed a green tomato, which is fine because I don't like raw tomatoes, but REALLY. Here we are smack dab in the prime season for dumping vegetables on your neighbors because you're sick to death of them and all I can do is be a recipient.

And make cake.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Pistachios

340 g all purpose flour

65 g unsweetened cocoa powder

6 g baking soda

6 g salt

8 g powdered ginger

375 g sugar

110 g butter, room temperature

105 g vegetable oil

2 eggs

5 g vanilla extract

110 g buttermilk

275 g grated peeled zucchini (don't use the seedy center because bleh. Also you could leave the peel on but why?)

175 g coarsely chopped dark chocolate (I used a 54%)

75 g pistachios, unsalted

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a 13x9x2" pan with parchment and spray lightly with pan spray.

2. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and ginger.

3. Cream butter, sugar and oil together. The key to this is to have everything at room temperature, so it mixes together smoothly.

4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping the bowl between each addition, and then add the vanilla.

5. Alternate adding in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the butter/sugar mix. Mix it just enough to combine. Fold in the zucchini.

6. Smooth the batter into the pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chunks and pistachios on top.

7. Bake until tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes. You probably should wait until it is cool to eat it, but who am I to judge, since I didn't.

Why pistachios and ginger? Because I like them with chocolate. You could probably use some other nut, or leave out the ginger. But the chocolate chunks really are better than chips, so don't change that part, ok?

Tweaked

I figured out what makes me different from a hobbyist baker. I think.

It starts with a simple thing, really. My neighbor is gluten free, and yet still willing to be a guinea pig to my culinary experimentation. My plan was to make chocolate cupcakes anyway, why not try and make gluten free ones?

(Obviously, the answer to that is "You don't have to make them gluten free you crazy person, so what are you thinking?")

At first, a hobbyist and I may proceed upon the same course. There is an internet, and it has many many recipes on it, even for crazy faced gluten free chocolate cupcakes. Some of those recipes make TASTY crazy faced gluten free cupcakes. At this point the hobbyist might say, "Hey look, a recipe from the Babycakes folks! It's gluten free and vegan! I'll use that!" and then go shopping and start baking.

I find the same recipe and then I take the path less travelled by. Yes, I hear from many sources that this would be a tasty, tested, workable solution. But it isn't mine. And it requires a lot of ingredients I don't have in the house. Things like fava bean flour. And xanthan gum. Now I love shopping for ingredients, but am I going to use fava bean flour that often? And xanthan gum is expensive for how little I need. Surely there is a better way? Oh, and the vegan thing is a useful notion, I'll make mine vegan, too. Because I am crazy.

So first I find some gluten free flour formulas that contain things I already have in the house. Yes, I have tapioca flour hanging around. Then I look at a whole bunch of recipes noting similarities. I write down some notes. Some other notes. A few crazy wild hair suggestions. Then I grab the scale and start making some stuff. And it goes horribly wrong. I try again, restraining myself to the scientific method and only changing one variable. (this is really hard, because I want to change six.) There is edibility. Again. Well, ok. Ooo! Coconut milk could add fat and moisture! Not bad, but I really miss eggs. And butter. And flour. Once again. Hey, these are tasty! I would eat these! Did I write down what I did? Oh good, I did.

And so it goes. Do I need a gluten free vegan chocolate cupcake recipe right now? No. But it's good to have. When will I make it next? Depends on what the neighbors think of it. I can always change it a bit here, a nudge there. Always something that could be better.

Then my day off comes to a close.

What you can find at the market in winter

It's not complete desolation....

the giant annoying brick wall that is looking ahead

The first kitchen I worked in, I was paired up with Bill, who, in addition to being the oldest guy in our kitchen, was a career prep cook. Not a sous, not a chef, but certainly a prep guy that could be relied upon to cover for an overly enthusiastic kitchen puppy like I was. I never asked him, then, why he stayed at the level he did, I was too busy trying to learn, trying to keep up. I didn't know that was the kind of thing I should be trying to learn, too.

I imagine that military folks, coming to the end of their enlisted time and suddenly considering they may want to go career may go through something similar, but I could just be making this up.

So the question of the day is "Where is this taking me?" or, better perhaps, "Where do I want to go with this?" (See, passive vs active voice, I get it.)

This would be easier if I were younger. I could take the time to work some really terrific places, enduring less than ideal living situations. I could work a lot, 36/8. Really build up a resume, a repuation and then take it to wherever. The reality is, I'm not. I don't want to dorm up with three other people. Yes, as odd and far reaching a dream as my $14 saving account may suggest, I would like to own rather than rent. Of course, I have some aches and pains and things that tell me that physically 36/8 just isn't an option (or at least not one for the long term) I have more than just me to consider, too; my sweetheart has endured two multiple time zone moves now, I think I've used up that get out of jail free card.

Stability is not what you come for in this industry. Sure, there are varying degrees of slippery slope but things can slide at any time. All tied up in the question of what do you want in your career is the bigger question of what are you willing to risk? And don't kid yourself that it's just professional risk. How important is that house to me? Important enough that I should give up the idea of my own shop? What do I save up for?

Stepping up my game at work is all well and good, but I'd like to know what I am stepping up to do.

Five years in

Five years ago this month, I changed careers.

How do you articulate a life changing event? An incident so personal, so entwined with the person you become, regardless of success or failure?

My first day I was delirious. Giddy. High as a kite and soared on that emotion for hours afterward. I have a record of it somewhere in the bowels of the internet and reading it this week, I smiled.

Someone asked me last weekend what it was like, to work in the business. He wasn't sure if he could handle the work. Was it really like what they show on tv? Could it really be that bad?

No, I said. It could be a helluva lot worse. It could be sitting on the side of a major city road during rush hour repairing a cake the fell over inside of the car on the way to an event. It could be going to work at midnight to be ready for a six am shop opening on the day of Christmas Eve. Discreetly ignoring the boss's drug use. Putting your feet up during the train ride home in hopes that you will still be able to walk on them when your stop arrives, if you don't fall asleep and miss your stop. The sinking feeling when you find out that because of business your hours are going to be cut, again. Keeping your head down, continuing to work and saying absolutely nothing while someone has a complete meltdown next to you. Days where you see no daylight. Nights that seem inhumanly hot, humid and endless. Equipment failures that happen at all the wrong times and menial, repetitive tasks that you perform (hopefully) perfectly, endlessly, day in and day out. Having that insane compulsion to push longer, harder, no matter the circumstances, for no good reason other than personal pride.

So, he said, after I wound down, Do you like it?

No. I love it.

Still.

rhubarb ginger ale and intuition

People seem to be talking a lot about intuitive cooking lately. You have books like Ratio which hope to inspire more of it. You have the great chefs who talk about a cook's intuition and its role in creativity. Then you have just regular people who are working on their own skills and realize that at some point you have to put the book away and just cook.

The Amateur Gourmet did a post on making your own ginger ale where he put the book away. To sum up, he had a recipe for the world's greatest ginger ale, in my humble opinion, and he just sort of put it together with what he had. It turned out great. This is the kind of subtle inspiration I love. You have a formula, a basic idea, a technique, a structure and then you just play around it.

I had some rhubarb. I thought, that would be good with ginger ale. And then I thought that I like honey with rhubarb better than sugar. So why not replace it? Well, honey can be a little strong, so why not cut the honey with agave? Sugar free rhubarb ginger ale?

Well, why not?

Now, I work in a professional kitchen, so I've learned one thing about these kinds of experiments that you don't always learn at home: You need to be able to replicate something good. Take Notes. So these are my notes:

175 g chopped rhubarb - 1 good stalk
100 g chopped ginger
150 g agave
50 g honey
350 g water

simmer to syrup, taste and adjust, 15 minutes +, rhubarb mushy. Strain. Chill. Mix with club soda/spark h20.

What you don't see with these notes are the cross outs, the scribbles. I started with 50 grams of ginger and after first taste, dumped in 50 more. I could have gone higher. There is a note about adding a squeeze of lemon, which would probably be nice. The word "strawberry?" appears and I'm sure that would really be nice. I may do that one next. I may do strawberry on its own. Someone else may have added more honey but I don't like that much sweet. I didn't even note the syrup consistency because I eyeballed it. It wasn't important, compared to the flavor. I could make this again with the notes I have, but I could do a lot more as well.

It is bare bones, not really a recipe, but I think that may be the best thing about it. It encourages adaptation. What is the most important part of cooking intuitively? Why is it so attractive? Because there is a chance that you will come up with something really good or really awful. Recipes can fail, yes, but that sort of failure is personal, you are more likely to blame yourself - what did I do wrong? The recipe must be right (although eventually you learn that isn't true.).

If you have no recipe and you fail, it raises more questions. Why did this not work? What can I change? Will it work if I do this instead? And if you succeed, those same questions are there. Why did this work? Will it work if I do this instead? What can I change? Freedom to fail and learn so you can fall and rise up again. Freedom to just cook, to just play. That is why you develop your intuition.

trying to perfect the imperfectable

I have a new obsession. Growing up on the East coast, doughnuts were either dunkin, or, in my world, Schneider's. I've gone through phases with cake and jelly. I distinctly remember my first beignets. I've moved around a bit, experienced hot doughnuts now, locally made doughnuts of good varieties and generally, I'm a fan. Hell, I even had them on the dessert menu at one of the places I worked. We called them Dishwasher Crack and had to take them off the menu because, strangely, sales did not match the number that were going missing each night...

To sum up, working in pastry has totally ruined doughnuts for me.

I can't imagine just grabbing a doughnut every morning. I mean, sure I could eat a doughnut regularly, but now, when I succumb to the urge, all I can think is "Crap. Mine are better." I can taste the bad fry oil (and worse, recognize it), notice the flavorless batter, scoff at poor quality toppings. Sure, there are good doughnuts out there, but, you see what I'm saying.

Now, I could make them at home. I just hate deep frying at home, for all the reasons anyone would hate deep frying at home. So I've embarked on a quest. I'm trying to make perfect baked doughnuts. Not "not too bad" as I saw one recipe described. Not a muffin. Not in a doughnut pan either because on some base level that seems like cheating. I'm trying yeast and chemical leaveners. I'm playing with flours, and I have a couple of weird ideas that may or may not work. And any real doughnut fan will tell me it is just not possible, because hello, frying! Totally different cooking medium! I'm trying anyway.

The ones in the picture are from batch three. They were ok. How many batches will I make before they come together, I wonder.

cost breakdown in plain english

It's the labor, that's why. Someone mixed this dough, laminated this dough, cut this dough in to individual pieces with a very large knife and then rolled each individual piece in to a rope, and coiled each rope into that lovely danish you're admiring. By hand. Over and over again.

That's why your perfect Saturday breakfast costs what it does.

In case you were wondering.

A question of Raspberries

Rhubarb has taken over my world, pies, turnovers and cases in the walk-in. The danish doesn't even have apples on it anymore and I thought that would be one of the holdouts. Yeah, sure there is a rhubarb apple pie, but seasons don't change overnight. Lemon curd still lingers. We're all looking ahead to strawberries. And savory is in on it too with rapini that makes me flat out hungry every time it is prepped.

But we also have a cake with raspberry buttercream. Now, it's raspberries that we got fresh and froze ourselves back in warmer times, but still, the berry bushes are spindly, mostly leafless and invisible. Even the plum tree in my back yard is barely past budding. So is this ok? A slippery slope? Where do you need to cross the seasonality line? When is chocolate's season, really?

Regardless, it is a damn good cake. And that's a slippery slope too. Someday I'm going to be the one deciding where the line is. What happens when it is a bad year for raspberries? Does an item like this, one of our cake staples, fall off the menu? Or do you devote what supply you have to just this item and change out something else? This is what I am learning about now. Good lessons.