Good evening, friends and neighbors.Pick a weeknight, and assume I worked that day. Here’s what tends to happen next:
Comfort Food
Cooking and Baking
Making Time: The Need for Family Dinner
Good evening, friends and neighbors.
It has been months since I have had dinner with my family.
It has been months since I have had dinner with my family.
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The last time I sat down to dinner with my family was when Emily and I were back in New Jersey for our wedding. Even with just two of us, Emily and I only get to sit down to a homecooked meal together maybe twice a week.
It’s quite a change from when I grew up, one I tend to feel often. It’s no surprise then that when I saw this early this morning, trawling through social media, it struck a chord.
It’s quite a change from when I grew up, one I tend to feel often. It’s no surprise then that when I saw this early this morning, trawling through social media, it struck a chord.
I was extremely fortunate as a kid- I had both parents, one of whom (my mom) didn’t need to work. She became a librarian when my sisters and I were in high school/college- not through necessity, but because she was bored and wanted something to do.
The whole time she was a stay-at-home mom, though, my mother insisted on a family dinner every night, and that that dinner should be homemade. Of course, all stereotypes have a seed of truth to them- some dinners were hits, others misses (my father will tell you stories of black bean burgers, and nuclear-hot buffalo wings where the red color was entirely from paprika.)
Hit or miss, though, the intent was the same. Dinner was when the family talked. It was where we shared our day and our thoughts. Books were forbidden at the dinner table (quite the imposition on three exceptionally bookish kids. A common game when out to dinner was “Guess the literary work from the first line that I’m reciting from memory.”)
Comic books, toys, and any other diversion where likewise banned. It was family time.
Since moving away, I have missed those dinners more and more- not just the food, but the conversation. The experience of eating and sharing together. Living on my own has gotten me used to… well, being on my own.
I do enjoy my alone time. It’s when I do some of my best work, and when I can think most clearly. At home or out on the town though, the most enjoyable of those dinners I remember involve friends. They involve laughing, sharing stories and jokes, and just enjoying each others presence in our lives.
I talk a lot on this blog on the virtues of food as communication, as well as the economic and experiential joys of home cooking. Of all the things cooking communicates, though- the very best is love.
There is something profoundly primal about the emotional impact of sharing with, cooking for, and feeding others.
Looking after your friends and loved ones at this most basic, biologically necessary level communicates- in a way deeper than words can conjure- that you love them, care for their well-being, and want them around.
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Four years ago this month, my grandmother passed on- and some of my most treasured memories happened around her dinner table. Holiday dinners- when family would come from afar and gather around her huge dining table with the carved wooden legs- are some of the happiest moments of my life.
The food and drink would flow, the family would laugh and share jokes and stories. To quote Vonnegut, in those moments “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
In retrospect, that was one reason I became a cook and a baker- I wanted to help EVERYONE find those moments of happiness. Whether I was cooking for them, or teaching people to do it themselves, I wanted everyone to have at least one moment around their dinner table like I did.
You have a busy life, though. You have so many things demanding your time and attention. Dinners tend to be afterthoughts, and lonely ones- or when you are not alone, it is so easy to be distracted.
There’s a club for people that deal with that- it’s called “everyone.” I attend the meetings every now and then.
When I decided that I was going to get in shape, one of the challenges was finding the time. I didn’t know when was best, when I’d have the most energy, when I’d feel the most motivated- “when I’d have the chance.”
One of the biggest lessons I learned from that was “You always have time for the things you make time for.” Thirty minutes I spent dithering on the computer could be spent running. Time in front of the tv could easily be active.
The same applies to your family dinner- “you have time for the things you make time for.”
Pick a time after which you will NOT be disturbed by work or other activity. If that’s too much, pick just one night a week. Keep it open for family dinner, and keep it sacred.
That sounds dramatic, but it really is what you need to do- make that time or that night special, to yourself and the ones you love.
It can be a homecooked family dinner right out a Norman Rockwell painting- or just swinging by a friends place with Chinese take-out.
It’s not hard, or even a really big ask- but it can mean the world.
You don’t need to cook well- or even at all. You just need to BE THERE.
Be there to witness- to listen, to laugh, and to tell.
Be there to love the people you love- they will know.
It’s not that hard at all- and it’s worth it.
Stay Classy,
Snapshots of the Bakeshop
Good evening, friends and neighbors.
Today, while creaming butter and sugar for coffee cake, I got to talking to Victoria who was herself between tasks. Up front, the baristas were zipping back, forth, in and out of the kitchen tending to a lengthy line of customers.
In the kitchen, however, things are smooth and mellow. The music of choice today is classic Dylan, slipped through with a little Hendrix, Bowie, and others. Victoria has interesting tastes and no one complained.
Victoria is shaking her head in bewilderment for a moment, deciding what to do next on her list. She has considerable experience cooking in commissary kitchens and restaurants- pastry kitchen and line. Never on a dessert line, though.
“That’d be pretty weird- what would I do? Just constant plating, but at line speed? Not sure I’m cut out for that.”
Victoria likes to be efficient- but on her timeline. She’d prefer to move along at her own- albeit quick- speed than have to keep pace with others, or under pressure from a chef or a sous.
The Bakeshop OST
Good evening, friends and neighbors.
It’s been a while since I’ve made any kind of list- certainly for music.
It’s been a while since I’ve made any kind of list- certainly for music.
Holidoldrum
The bakeshop is quiet as I write this. The cafe has closed early- everyone hustled through their chores, their closing routines- the maddening crush of the morning receding into exhausted bones and weary souls as they grab their coats and slip out into the gray Portland streets (threatening rain, but they always are. You stop paying attention after a while.)
Me? I’m waiting on quiche for the next couple days to finish in the oven. They’re almost there, but not quite. They slosh too much in the middle, where it should be an all-around uniform jiggle- “like a perfectly toned ass,” as Victoria said once. I’ve mentioned before how cooks use weird descriptors and get excited by the strangest things. Emily’s gotten used to hearing it when I’m in the kitchen.
Once the quiche are done, they get cooled, labeled (I’ve got my own system to separate the meat from the vegetarian) and set in the walk-in.
I’ll shut down the cafe, lock up, and make my own way home.
It’s Christmas Eve. I’ll be married in a little under two weeks. In five days, I will work my shift, and then get on a red-eye flight to see New Jersey for the first time in nearly two years.
Why this apathy, then? I want to look at myself in the mirror and say “Dude! 10 days off from work, you’re getting MARRIED, AND you get to go home again! Cheer up!” That’s what I’d like to say to myself- if I could just stop thinking it and then saying, “And then what?”
Cooks tend to think procedurally. Their days are laid out as an order of operations, and they approach much of their lives through the philosophy of mise en place- every day is a dish to be prepared in the right way, on the right timeframe, to be finished completely and well-executed.
Bakers are the same- but often 24 hours in the future. To make sure everything gets the time it needs to finish, bakers will plot out their production schedules days in advance to make sure that when the deadline comes- as always- everything is done completely and well.
The quiche are out of the oven now. Crusts of bronzed gold, filling like the last bits of a sunrise before it’s truly day. They need to cool a bit, otherwise they’ll crack in the walk-in.
I guess the holidays feel like a finish line- the wedding will be in January, the holidays will be a breeze. I don’t feel like I can enjoy them though. I feel I can’t let myself stop and experience them as anything more than another completed task. Am I afraid of something? Running from something? TOWARD something?
One of the crusts sunk in a little bit. It’s fallen back from the lip of the plate.
Not perfect, but useable.
The Black Hat Baker 