Author: The Black Hat Baker

A Trip Home(s)

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Good evening, friends and neighbors.

The flight in was abysmal. Normally, I don’t truly care one way or another for air travel- I usually have enough of SOMETHING to make being stuck in the same seat for hours on end manageable- reading material, writing work, podcasts, exhaustion, something to make the hours a little shorter.

For some reason, though, the red-eye out of Portland International drove me mad. I’d been tired enough to sleep, but not exhausted enough to sleep for very long. Nothing distracted me long enough that I could ignore my legs getting twitchy and anxious.

Granted, that had been my entire body and mind for the last week or so, and this plane trip was meant partially to help me relax and get ready for a new job to start the next week. What better way to relax than ten days of family and food- and what better place to do it?

Philadelphia.
Hello, you f***ed up little city. Good to see you again.

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A Sense of Taste- Things That’ll Make Your Tongue Lie to You

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 Good evening, friends and neighbors.

To quote my wife, “Cooking with a cold must be like being a musician that can’t hear.”
This may or may not be because we went out to dinner once when I was dealing with some nasal congestion and couldn’t taste anything. My favorite beers, deep-fried brussels sprouts, and smoked ribs were utterly tasteless. It was frustration bordering on heartbreak.

The senses of smell and taste are obviously deeply connected- informing and influencing each other in one of our most primal survival mechanisms- when something smells off, it probably IS off.

When you’re a cook, though, not being able to taste things is not an option. You might know the recipes by heart, you may measure and cook everything perfectly- but if you aren’t tasting (or able to taste) as you go, it’s like driving down the highway with only one eye. Yes, you can do it- but you wouldn’t unless had to, and there are a LOT of things that can mess with your ability to detect flavors.

Here’s some of them:

Illustration of Beethoven composing

Supposedly, when his hearing loss was nearly total, Beethoven would put a pencil in his teeth and press the end to the soundboard of his piano so he could feel the vibration of the notes. Nothing quite like that for taste though.

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Dropping Weight by…Dropping Weight: The BHB’s Bodyweight Regimen

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Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

I don’t have a home gym setup. Never did. I saw absolutely no reason to drop 12 Easy Payments of $19.99 a month for some gargantuan piece of machinery that, in all likelihood, would become another clothes rack and hiding spot for the cat.

Yet, 6 years ago, I was 240 pounds. As of this morning, this is what my scale told me:

Scale readout indicating 164.2 pounds and 10.6% bodyfat

10.6 Bodyfat Percentage
Scale readout indicating 164.2 pounds and a BMI of 22.3

BMI of 22.3

Yes, I am still a baker. Yes, I still eat my own work, as I’ve brought up before.
I just lost the weight and keep it off without buying some ridiculous workout machine or diet plan.
In the previous articles, I’d mentioned it in the broad strokes, and I mentioned that I use a single, 50lbs. sandbag for weightlifting (or, as the case may be, a sack of flour), and told you all a bit about where and why I run, but I never went to any great detail on my bodyweight exercise routine.

 

Here we go then!

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A Wedge Salad Kind of Life

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Good evening, friends and neighbors.

A few weeks ago, I was in a bit of a state. It was a cloudy day, I had run out the door relatively early in the morning to make an appointment- the kind that requires a tie, vest, and pressed slacks. It required me to remind myself to pick a briefcase that matched my attire. My shoes were shined, and I’d even remembered to floss.

The appointment was… underwhelming, I should say. If you were to put a gun to my head right now, I couldn’t tell you want was said at any point in the meeting. All I remember is that I walked out at the end, looked up at the street signs, and decided I needed lunch and a beer.

Fortunately, I was near a restaurant that Emily and I had heard great things about, and throughly enjoyed dessert at. It was close enough, the menu and price were right- and I was certainly ready to walk in to something that felt certain.

“Down on His Luck”, Frederick McCubbin, 1889

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“I’m Here”

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Good morning, friends and neighbors.

​     It’s been more or less the refrain for the last few months.
I walk in to the cafe- usually through the kitchen door, but sometimes through the front. There’s a thin crowd in the morning. Lines of people on their computers against the far wall, where outlets are most plentiful. People in groups take up the central tables- chatting with each other, discussing their plans for the day, trying to cajole their kids into eating one more bite of zucchini muffin. Not too many people are reading books in the cafe in the mornings- readers usually swing in on their lunch breaks, or the late afternoons when most of the crowd is home and it’s a bit quieter. That’s the thing about doing your work in a cafe- it’s somehow more reasonable to be wearing headphones than if you’re just reading a book.
I pass through the employee entrance to the back, knocking sharply on the tinted window- the hand sink and dish pit are right by the door, and I’m likely as not to walk into a perfectly-murder-your-knee-cap-height mixing bowl, or someone just washing up.

Hang up my hoodie, punch the clock- Yes, that’s me. Yes, that’s my shift. Yes, I’m a little early- deal with it, Skynet.

Grab a few necessities out of my backpack then head for my bench.
“Morning, all.”
“Hey, how’re you doing, Matt?”

How am I doing? I’m dead tired. Given a reasonable choice, or a momentary lapse of responsibility or duty, I may not have shown up today. I know exactly what I’m getting in to, and what it’ll be like. I just shrug and flip open my notebook where I’d written down my production for the day yesterday afternoon.

“I’m here.”

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