They totally taste like Apple Jacks

Cinnamon macarons with pippin-cox apple butter.

Branding myself

So, what do I want to be when I grow up? Going to pastry school, I had to reevaluate what that meant for me. I came to a conclusive, absolute decision.

I am never going to know what I want to be when I grow up.

(My friends are laughing at me right now, because of how true to me this statement is.) I can make a list of things that I would like NOT to do, and some of them even relate to the food industry. The thing is lately, I'm starting to formulate an idea of what I would like to do. Or at least, aspects that I would like to incorporate into something that could become the thing that eventually is what I do.

Um, does that make sense?

It starts, of course, with the food. That is the easy part. A list is forming, recipes being played with, tested. In many ways, this is the fun part; I'm covered in terms of my living expenses, this is just time to fail, retry, succeed and just come up with wacky schemes without risk. Time to define and refine what I'm looking for.

It is a deeply personal thing, these products. They are, more than any words, a direct reflection of my heart. My spirit in sugared form. It's funny, I'm sure there are cooks out there, chefs even, who could come to this point and not see this as so deeply their own. Me, I don't know any other way to do it and have a chance for it working.

And maybe that is why this work can be so heartbreaking.

For now though, I'm still having my first crush.
(pandan ginger and lemon saffron lollipops)

My, how things do change

My grandmother has been slowly dumping old cookbooks on me for a few years now. It's kind of a funny situation because I am very picky about having lots of cookbooks. My parents had a huge number of cookbooks, filled with lovely, fascinating recipes and they never cooked ANYTHING from most of them. I don't want that to happen to me, so I have one shelf of cookbooks. That's it. But so far, most of the ones from my grandmother have managed to claim a coveted spot on that shelf.

Yeah, like I'd throw away all of MFK Fisher, or that old James Beard.

So the one I received yesterday was 'Home at the Range with George Rector", copyright 1939. Rector did a few things with his life - restaurants, a hotel, some film roles as himself - and he writes as though the reader of the book would consider him a household name. He doesn't even have a wikipedia page, now. IMDB has him listed, though.

What fascinated me about the volume is the commentary about his restaurant and food in general. Japanese food was simply derivative of Chinese. Chinese food (as well as some Spanish dishes) was quite complicated, given the number of ingredients. Canned food was indistinguishable from fresh (He suggested a blindfold taste test, like the kind they use for cigarettes). Stock is something everyone would have around the house.

He even touched on seasonality. He lamented the availability of out-of-season items to everyone, because what could restaurants then use to surprise and delight their guests?

Huh.

Stuff that is in season, maybe?

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

You have no idea how happy this makes me. Even if it is less than three months until Christmas.

Stories

There are regular periods of downtime that you can expect, plan for. Between meal rushes. January. Those are times for rejuvenation, restoration. They help restore the psyche for what can be a grueling job even as they offer a little too much time for practical jokes.

I'm not so good with practical jokes.

What I like, though, are the unexpected downtimes - minor, surmountable disasters. Like the tree that knocked out power for the last three hours of the shop's day. After the flurry of getting everything as taken care of as we could, we started to wait it out. You have to wait it out, at least within reason, because those freezers need to come back on when the power is restored. Those timers need resetting, and if you can, you still need to get those doughs made. But until then, what else can you do but sit around, (possibly with the sudden manifestation of beer) and tell war stories. And don't think it is not a competition for the best fish.

We got some doozies. Boston blizzard deliveries with customers screaming about why they shouldn't pay because they weren't able to open even though you got the bread there on time. Side of the road wedding cake repair after a fender bender. The hands-down winner was the almost no power for three days after a windstorm the week after Thanksgiving. As in, driving proofed bread to another bakery to bake off just so you wouldn't lose it, and getting the power back only after you'd wiped out all the holiday backstock inventory you'd been prepping for weeks. Ouch.

Power was still out when I left, back on as usual the next morning.

How to make hot chocolate

Go downstairs to the kitchen. Watch the cats laugh at you when you step on the cold linoleum floor. They, being smarter than you, are sitting on the edge of the carpet, which they will not leave until you open the cat food, and then will return to the carpet as quickly as possible. The food will keep. You consider once again that the kitchen would not be so cold if you didn't leave the window open at night, but realize that you like it, because it reminds you of cooperstown and gives you more of a reason to have hot chocolate. You'll start closing the window soon. Maybe October.

Throw some vegetarian specialty kinda poptarts in the toaster oven because you find them strangelly compelling. Look at the box for the first time and snicker at these "healthy" roof tiles being 420 calories for two. It being a special occasion, you throw the box away, never to contemplate such numbers again.

Grab the New Favorite Pot, a large chunk of dark Callebaut (because you are the sort to have this lying around) and some water. Slosh water into the pot and turn on the stove. Chop a larger quantity of chocolate than you think necessary, and throw it in the pot. Add some sugar, vanilla paste and salt, because you have learned only as an adult that salt is good. Scoff at the milk. The milk is for pussies. You are having Hot Chocolate. You are not having a latte. You are not having anything Au Lait.

The not pop tarts are starting to smell good.

Deem it Time to Begin Whisking. Contemplate Brillat-Savarin and MFK Fisher and their great Hot Chocolate Wisdom. Whisk madly, stop, and taste. Be surprised that the flavors are right on the first try, because you always are. Become deeply critical, adjust flavor accordingly. Consider the Chinese 5 spice powder, restrain. It would not harmonize with the not pop tarts. Turn off the heat as the mixture begins to boil.

Grab a ladle and pour ladlesful of the hot chocolate back into the pot from high above, not to aerate, but to make yourself feel like willy wonka. Such is goodness. Pour some Hot Chocolate into the cup.

The toaster oven dings.

Wrap a hand around the warming mug and begin nibbling off the dry flavorless parts of the not pop tart. Quickly follow with a sustaining flavorful sip of the hot chocolate to rehydrate your tongue. Retreat to upstairs where the floor is carpeted to savor beverage and open birthday cards.

Good morning.

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.

The Epic Battle between Man and Machine

A new home kitchen is a living beast. Relationships are often established quickly, and can only be reshaped through constant, repeated effort. You do your best to set up familiar territory, to make sure your arsenal is ready when the unexpected strikes, but the fact remains the place is different. Outlets on different walls. Cabinets in different configurations. Worse still, in the case of the rental, different appliances.

A pizza box does not fit in my new oven, but thankfully, the half sheet pans do. There are only two outlets in the whole kitchen, and in order to plug in the mixer, I have to unplug and move the toaster oven. It has tiny, narrow cabinets and a single sink rather than the double I used to have.

There is a window, looking out into our patio and the hill with the hazelnut tree and the murder of crows that our landlord feeds. An open set of shelves gives me easy access to pantry items, and the general setup feels airy even though I know with absolute certainty the space is small.

I've made lovely cookies so far. That torte and a cherry clafoutis. Some terrific, farmer's market inspired dinners. Chili cheeseburgers. Udon. Eggs. Chocolate Marionberry jam.

I think we'll be ok together.

Rustic or refined?

I'm in the honeymoon phase. I'm feeling slightly awkward, slightly off kilter... the order of things is just different enough to keep me on my toes. My confidence level is weird, and I find myself asking for assurances in such a way that I find it annoying.

I'm working on that.

But the work itself is fun, interesting, the atmosphere a gazillion times better from what I left. (Sometimes I think that is part of the problem. I'm waiting for abuse that doesn't happen so I'm all confused. Human beings can be so ridiculous.)

The product we put out is lovely - small batch, artisan care, and serious commitment to the local. Our flour is locally milled. That is just crazy, and couldn't happen just anywhere. The style of the work is rustic.

Rustic is interesting. It doesn't mean careless, sloppy. There is a level of concern over the quality of our goods that I haven't seen in a long time. Indeed, sometimes the concern is a bit mystifying, given what I've been doing. What I have been doing, professionally, would not be called rustic. It would be considered a more finished style, more artful and stylized. Indeed, that's the kind of thing I tend to do at home as well, maybe even more so.

Now, I'm being asked to forget that. But still, there is finely detailed piping on those plain cut cakes. Deliberately placed currants among rough curled chocolate. Carefully cut and scaled laminated doughs filled with a local seasonal fruit mix. So I'm looking at a different style at home, too, for practice. The most perfect fresh prunes I have ever seen (The farmer told me they would be best baked, and then smiled and said considering where I worked, I would know what to do with them) become a rough torte. Monsieur le chef would have approved of this one.

Even if it is rustic.

Notebooks

In my past existence, I had a notebook fetish. I did a lot of project based traveling, and each trip had its own notebook - a lifeline of everything from expenses and coworkers' hotel room numbers to daily lists of necessary tasks. I still find these notebooks, tucked in corners. They are virtually useless now, but each time I find one, bent and broken from being shoved in pockets, I find it difficult to get rid of it. For a month, each one was my life. I may not remember the faces of those people, or the meanings behind my own shorthand mutterings, but there it is, that month of my life.

Notebooks have a different meaning in my life now. They are no less crucial. Perhaps they mean even more because now they live on, potentially long after me. Now, they are my recipes. Each job has had a different notebook, and what I put in them was a direct reflection not only of me, but of the person I worked for.

Monsieur Le Chef never required that I have a notebook, he gave me free range of his own. I made one anyway, pocket sized. The cover is gone from repeated use. The recipes we used all the time were at the front, strange seasonal and experimental ideas were at the back. The recipes themselves are just lists, the barest notes on process. I refer to them regularly.

My most recent notebook is in pristine condition. It did not fit in my pocket. Each recipe is categorized by type, and lists not only the ingredients but also extraordinarily detailed ("Three sheet pans, lined with paper, pan spray around edges") notes. The chef would check our notebooks regularly to see if we were writing down each detail, and even told my coworkers that my promotion had been in part based on the quality of my notebook. I care about maybe three of the recipes in this book.

Then there is my home book. It is not pocket sized. I've copied over all the important recipes, and have that first notebook tucked in the side pocket. It has my own recipes in it, sketches, plating notes, notes of inspiration. Inside the cover I tucked a photograph. It's not my own, and one of a series of three showing a flowering branch with varying levels of focus. A standard to reach for.

I started a new book this week. It's pocket sized. I'm trying to figure out how to balance the characteristics of the other notebooks. If I can do that, it will really mean something.