Details of a Day Off

September 4, 2021September 4, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

It’s the start of my weekend. After managing two weddings, wholesale, and retail baking, I am friggin’ exhausted and ready to relax.

That’s why I’m awake at 4:30 AM. I let myself sleep in a bit, and I think what I need first after the last couple weeks is just some quiet time. On my back porch, I’m sitting under our porch light wearing my pajamas and a fuzzy hoodie. My legs are wrapped in a Mexican blanket Em and I got for our last beach trip that still feels warm and smells sandy.

I can hear the traffic on nearby streets, my neighbors air-conditioner, and my fingers clacking on a keyboard. Normally I like having music or a sound generator on when I write to help me focus. Right now though that would spoil all this.

The sun is starting to rise in the East, and the moon is still hanging high in front of me. If I put on shoes and got started soon, I might be able to reach Mount Tabor in time to see the sun come up over Mt. Hood.

I’m glad I live here. I’m glad I’m awake. I’m glad it’s my weekend, and I’m glad it’s quiet for now.

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Envy- Slaying the Green-Eyed Monster

August 28, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

When I am in a sour mood- cranky, frustrated, exhausted, irritated by life- that’s often when I am most likely to do something charitable. I’ll help out a friend with a problem, give some extra cash to a panhandler, or buy something I don’t really need to support a good cause.

Why? There’s a lot of psychology behind the action. We can discuss the differences between empathy and sympathy, that being frustrated puts me in a more empathetic place to others and I’m more likely to try and help. We can discuss how doing good things releases endorphins, making me feel good, and whether or not that makes the action actually “altruistic.” It could even be as simple as “I feel like this world sucks, so I’m gonna do SOMETHING to make it better.”

Those would be excellent blog posts… but they are not this one. This post is about the fact that that same principle applies to when good things happen to other people, and to help your negative feelings about it. This post is about Impostor Syndrome, envy, and diffusing both by supporting your friends.

Five peoples hand grabbing each others wrists in support — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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What Does Quentin Crisp Know About Cooking?- Fashion Vs. Style in the Food World

August 20, 2021August 21, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I am not now, nor would I have ever called myself at any point in my life, fashionable. Not even in college when I started wearing those enormous pants with all the unnecessary straps and half-heartedly dyed my hair blue.

I might have been trend-chasing, and I’m sure I thought I was cool at the time, but I was never fashionable- and likely never will be as I slouch gracefully toward early middle age.

Instead, when people see the effort I do put into looking put together, they say I’m “stylish.” That is a lesson I learned from Quentin Crisp, and I think we as an industry will be happier when we learn to apply it to our food.

Color photo of Quentin Crisp with the text “Fashion is a way of not having to decide what you are. Style is deciding who you are and being able to perrpetuate it.” — Quentin Crisp pulled off a scarf and eyeliner way better than I pulled off those pants from Hot Topic.

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Review #19- The Bellwether Bar

August 13, 2021August 13, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

WHERE: 6031 SE Stark St.

By all accounts, Caldera Public House should have been my preferred local bar.

It was walking distance from my house in a historic building, had an eccentric vibe, a beautiful back patio, decent food, and hosted live Celtic music? I have even have an amusing memory about the place. Before we got married, I came home from work one day and heard Emily in the bedroom. I said “hello,” and she called out “Oh… you’re home already? Um… I’m trying on the wedding dress.”

“Ah… gotcha.” I promptly walked down to the Caldera and got a seat because, before our marriage even began, I’d been kicked out of the house and sent down to the pub for an hour.

All the same, I rarely went to Caldera Public House, and chose other bars that were closer to work or run by friends. The food at Caldera was good, but never very good. The beer list was underwhelming, and I’m rarely a “fancy cocktails” guy. Above all else, the place was just not comfortable for very long. The live bands were good, but loud. You couldn’t sit at the actual bar because there were tables in the middle of the main room, and a small reading nook in the middle of the building had the most comfortable seats, but it was frustrating to read, eat, and drink there at the same time.

When Caldera closed up even before the pandemic, I was sad but not surprised. Then, when a new sign was hung outside the door about a month ago, I wondered if someone was trying to be the neighborhood bar Caldera struggled to be.

They were, and they are.

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Learning to Lead by Letting Go

August 7, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Managing is a full-time job in itself, and going from being a cook or baker to a managing is more than a promotion. It’s a shift in mentality. After years of needing to be “hands-on,” I will no longer have the time, energy or focus to give every task personal attention. Ironically, one of the hardest lessons I will have to learn as a chef is how not to be in control.