Ideas worth borrowing

I was going to do a big ol' thing about lavender this morning but then I left a burner on and now I have to deal with a house full of smoke. So, here's some things that have inspired me lately from other people:

1. macarons without nuts

2. charred dates

3. horchata

4. chicken skin crusted pot pie (yes, you read that right)

5. cooking favas in the pod

6. alternate ideas in piemaking

7. lime cordial (seriously, I've made many batches of this stuff now. love it.)

8. black & white cookies

9. eggs in a corn silk nest ( I know, it's Ideas in Food again, but how lovely is this?)

Ok, the smoke appears to be clearing. More news as it happens.

Why do you need a pastry chef?

Because if you are a place that specializes in other people's occasions, having someone who can write "Happy Anniversary" legibly and correctly spelled on a plate is a good thing.

Because maybe someday you will want to make a galette, or put something on puff pastry, and you won't have to buy the dough.

Because a pastry chef can contribute to the savory side of things more than most savory cooks can contribute to pastry.

Because it isn't hard to figure out if your desserts are bought frozen and then served up, even if you garnish the plate.

Because it would be nice to have something on your dessert menu besides creme brulee, molten chocolate cake, key lime pie and cheesecake. Oh and a scoop of ice cream, ask your server for "today's" flavors.

Because that VIP will really like having a custom dessert whipped up just for them.

Because even though its the labor costs that make having a pastry chef expensive, a good pastry chef is going to work to make the expense worth the money.

Because long after your appetite for savory fails, your appetite for sweet carries on.

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.

Exit wounds.

I read something somewhere that when it comes to kitchen injuries, burns are sexy, cuts are when something stupid goes wrong. It was probably Tony Bourdain.

I was sitting in front of an endless pot of chocolate pastry cream one day (guest chef insisted that the recipe could not be increased and so to feed the event I had to make the same batch 16 times). Event cook of reasonable aptitude totally gets me with the oil he's using to pan sear his tuna. I flinch (I've named the scar after him) and keep stirring. "Oh did I get you?" he inquires. I flash the blistered skin. "Yeah, you pastry cooks don't know about burns."

Ahem, what?

When I interviewed for this job, as things were winding down we noticed that all three of us - owner, manager, and me, had identical marks. I told them of the wisdom of hot side event cooks. There was laughter. Sheet pans are hot. Pastry cream is hot. Water baths suck and I hate them. Anyone who suggests that pastry cooks don't know from injuries can go suck an egg. Just not the farm ones because those are expensive and better for the custards and Oh you don't know how to tell them apart? Snort.

I have a knife cut on my hand. Our butter comes in beautiful 44 pound blocks and my croissant detrempe does not need quite that much. So in cutting it down with the machete my hand slipped across the top edge the wrong way. Yes that is right I cut myself cutting butter, and I did it with the non-sharp side of a machete.

Tony Bourdain may have been right.

Pam Shortt's broken both her legs...

During one of the less tense moments of my day today, I turned to my co-worker and asked him, "What makes this chef special? What can he show us how to do that we couldn't learn from someone else, possibly better?"

"Nothing."

I had come up with the same answer a few hours before.

I don't know why I haven't been asking this question. I have been trying to define what I want. And while it is important to be able to answer the question, "What DO you want?" when you're sitting there screeching, "I don't want THIS!", sometimes you need to rephrase the question to actually get the right answer.

I have been dithering about trying to come up with a vision of salvation. Duh, there isn't one. No chef is going to come sweep me off my feet. Ain't happening. But you know what is happening? Not a whole hell of a lot. And I am furious about that.

I haven't learned a new recipe in ages. I haven't learned new techniques other than what I have taught myself. And what I can learn, those valuable pearls that may still linger? I could learn them just as well somewhere else.

So now comes the hard part... I have to let go of the trappings that keep me here.