“A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
I knew that a lot had changed at my old culinary school before I turned off the Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing into the campus. There were better and brighter signs on the road to the parking lots, for starters. I peeked down drives slowly, trying to remember which lots were for students and faculty and which ones a visitor would go unnoticed in.
The larger one in the back of the campus- now shaded by sun covers that doubled as solar energy panels- fit the bill and it was right near the main entrance that I rarely used as a student. Students always went in a side door near a smaller lot, closer to the majority of the classrooms and kitchens. Not that too many young culinarians still used it. Class sizes apparently plummeted due to COVID and the Culinary Industry Brain Drain. Even coming from a community college, culinary school wasn’t a winning proposition for young people tight on money and prospects. It was a place now for two kinds of students- the passionate, and the lost.
Fortunately, those are exactly the kinds of folks that have kept the industry moving for years. I walked up the wide, low concrete steps and pushed open the door. Rather than noise from busy kitchens and clamoring students in pressed white uniforms, I’m greeted by silence- and the mingled smells of butter, hot fat, flour, bread ovens, and cold vegetables. I can never forget that smell. Some things haven’t changed at all.
“Welcome back, Matt.”
That’s the first time I remember thinking I wanted to be cool and make cookies like that guy. The counter and case are gone- the memory remains.
A series of personal events have brought Emily and me back East for a couple weeks. Using my parents’ place in Philly as base camp, we bent our energy toward reacquainting ourselves with as many familiar sights, sounds, tastes, and faces as we could manage. Walks through Reading Terminal Market and the 9th Street Italian Market were required, as was grabbing a bottle of rye whiskey from a historic Pennsylvania distillery to add to my collection back home (the distillery in question, apparently, was run by the descendants of a family that participated in the semi-failed “Whiskey Rebellion” put down by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.)
Core for me, though, was one Thursday when I borrowed my mom’s car and drove down to the shore. I was eager to have some of my old favorite foods; the wings from Charlie’s in Somers Point and a “Dino’s Special” from my hometown favorite sub shop in particular.
In retrospect, though, I was hungry for more than chicken and delicious Italian meats not slathered in mayo. (Dear Portland- get that mayonnaise off of your hoagies. The first step in atonement is admitting you’ve made a mistake.)
The first stop was my old culinary school. The program and faculty were a shadow of their former selves, with five teachers and a director to teach 80 students, and the program was brought under the auspices of the Dean of Liberal Arts.
Passion dies hard, though. Four of the five remaining faculty were my old teachers. Chef Chelius- one of the best (and hardest) teachers I’d had- stepped out of class for a moment to chat. She shared the story of the years in her composed, gracious, but enthusiastic style that I imagine still kept her students’ attention just as it had mine. We discussed the sad but pragmatic decisions that the school (and industry) required now. There was just a single degree in culinary arts with a focus in baking and pastry, rather than the separate track that I had completed 11 years ago. Familiar teachers quietly retired- or passed on- as class sizes shrank.
It was Chef Chelius who coined the theory I mentioned earlier. “The students we have left come to us either because they are truly passionate about food or they don’t know what they can do. They need to find their calling. I’m glad you got to see the school at its height and heyday.” I told her that I still tell my trainees the story of our conversation in one of her classes, and she smiled saying, “I’m glad. I feel like you were still trying to figure out what you wanted then too. The Japanese have a word for it- ‘ikigai.’ You’ve clearly found it, and it’s good to see.”
We were joined soon by another of my former teachers, Chef LaTorre, who had taught me cake decorating. I never had a great love of decorating, but it’s a valuable skill set to have and Chef LaTorre taught the more diverse and whimsical Specialty Cakes class I wound up taking.
As Chef Chelius returned to oversee her class cleaning up the kitchen, Chef LaTorre and I talked of the state of culinary education while she wrapped her students’ pastries for the school’s bakeshop. We reflected that the Academy of Culinary Arts was doing well compared to other culinary schools that just shuttered completely, and that even the smaller program was still an excellent one. Before returning to her work, Chef LaTorre handed me a loaf of Cranberry Walnut Bread and a Dundee Cake. All bakers and pastry chefs are alike in some critical ways- we won’t let anyone leave hungry.
Last stop in the school was to the office. It was early afternoon now, and I knew any teachers not currently in class would be found there. The Binder was still on the table front and center amid a bunch of pamphlets and recruitment material. “The Binder” was a constantly updated collection of job openings for culinary students looking for a place to do their externships, or just trying to find a job that might jive with their class schedule and teach them a bit more esoterica than what’s offered in the classrooms.
The one open door from the main room was to the old Deans office, and looking up at me was the familiar, kindly face of Chef Sheridan- once my “back of house” teacher, now the director of the whole program. In the office was also Chef Wohlman. For a guy who had been feeling distraught and lost for a bit, the faces of my old chefs when they recognized and greeted me were worth years on a therapist’s couch. “We know you. You belong here. One of us.” We discussed the industry, the years, and foodwriting for a while- but they had classes and meetings coming up, and there were at least two more appointments I had to keep.
It had been twelve years since the last time I stood here. I always meant to, but it turned into “I’m too tired,” “No time today,” “Not like they are going anywhere.”
But while I was driving through Margate to get my lunch, the house I grew up in was gone. HER house was gone, both replaced by newly-built McMansion monstrosities. That shook me a bit, and I needed to see something real and more permanent again. After all, they’re not going anywhere.
The truth is that, because I am the son of a doctor who’s the son of a doctor, there’s always been a part of me that felt like I had Something to Prove. The part of me that looks at these stones and pictures in albums and says “I’m just a baker, I’m just a pastry chef…” regardless of how happy my vocation makes me. My family are part of who I am and where I came from, but with a lineage like that I can’t help but feel their shadow on my shoulders.
Of the four people lying here, the only one of them who I know approved of my calling is my grandmother. One of her last times in the hospital, when my dad brought her caramels and cupcakes I’d made for her and her nurses, my Bubba said “This is good. We need to encourage this.”
She didn’t live to see me graduate, to become a pastry chef, or to become a food writer- and I haven’t been back here since the day she was buried.
I mostly remembered the route to the cemetery from my hometown, but where our family’s plot was inside was all muscle memory once I turned through the tall stone and wrought-iron gates. There are various lanes and crossways in the cemetery with little signs naming them after Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, but I never had use for them. No “right on Sarah after the entrance, left on Issac, five stones along.” It was always “toward the building, near the edge- you’ll remember them.”
Parked to the side, I walked over a couple graves I didn’t know with a couple pebbles from the road in my hand. I placed the pebbles on the family marker (an old Jewish custom), kneeled down in the grass, and spoke to my grandparents.
I apologized for my absence, for the state of the world, and for potentially kneeling on their legs and feet. I thanked them for being, for raising my parents to raise me, that what I am (such as it is) is because they existed, and I hoped that especially my grandfather didn’t mind I’d found joy as a baker. The canard in a lot of families like mine is “Your ancestors didn’t survive ___ and flee ___ just so you could be a baker.” My response has been “No, they did it so I could have the choice to become a baker or not.”
I told them about Emily. I told them about Portland. I asked for guidance and hope and love and inspiration. Finally, I asked their pardon as it was getting late, and I had to back among the living, such as we are.
Good things have a knack for sticking around, and Charlie’s in Somers Point is a very good thing. This used to be one of our favorite haunts back when we first started living together. The wings were (and still are) the best in the area, the beer was good, and it was where the locals were. Charlie’s didn’t shrivel up after Labor Day each year- it just returned to the original tenants.
Pulling into the always-tight-but-not-too-tricky parking lot after having caught up with another friend from my EMT days, I found a spot and recognized him immediately. The long hair, glasses, and giant bearded smile of the man who’d been the Dude of Honor at my wedding, my roommate for nearly a decade, and the one person besides my wife who knew me best.
Years and distance couldn’t disguise Andrew from me.
A hug, a brief hiccup with Charlies only taking cash now (THAT I think was new), and a couple drinks later, it was like we never went our own ways. Andrew and I were still a couple of working guys, getting an after-hours beer like we’d do when we lived together.
Andrew has a knack for putting me at absolute ease. His gregariousness, forthrightness, and contempt for sham was always refreshing- something I needed after travel, family, and way too long on the West Coast.
The stories flowed. The updates, job changes, and lifestyle shake-ups. New faces on old gripes and old faces on ancient gripes. We were joined by Genny, another old friend from our little cadre of weirdos holed up by the sea (or out in the Pine Barrens after we moved to Egg Harbor City.)
The wings were crisp. The beer was cold and good. We both laughed and lamented how the real sign we were getting old was that splitting a small order of wings and me ordering a salad sounded good and reasonable. Gone were our gluttonous bachelor days of pounding wings, pizza, and 50 piece McNuggets. Physically, anyway.
The night wore on. We debated a night walk on the boardwalk, but the chilly air and my hour-long drive back to Philly was foreboding- and again, we were older now. None of us could go all night anymore- we were tired and ready to turn in when we could. A long Italian goodbye, and I was back on the Garden State Parkway, pointing my mom’s car toward the Atlantic City Expressway and thus, Philly.
That was not the end of the trip. We had a few days yet to see more family and friends and get a few more Wawa trips and walks down the Italian Market in before we hopped a series of planes home. It was, however, the part of the trip my soul and heart needed.
I needed to see and remember the place I’d been from before I was from Portland, Oregon. I needed people who knew and loved me before I was a pastry chef. Before I was the Black Hat Baker. When I was just “Matt,” and that was enough. I needed to see where and who I had been, and what I’d come from so I could relearn who I was and where I was going.
The Jersey Shore and Philadelphia are part of my past. They are part of me, regardless of what I wind up doing or being. To these people, I was always myself. I have always been worthy and worthwhile just for being me.
They are part of me, and it’s good to know however much my life and career may warp and change, that core of the past- that aspect of Me– is still there.
Stay Classy,
The Black Hat Baker 