Seeking Stillness for the End of the World

June 16, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“The creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time, it occurs every day.”
– Marcel Proust

All you can do some days is keep going.

I come into the kitchen and assess the production list for the day, keenly aware of my struggles to lose weight again.

Next comes reviewing the banquets for the day and make sure I block out time to individually decorate and tray the desserts people paid for, knowing that people I called friends are agitating for my death (intentionally or not) because I’m a Jew.

I build out the list, grab ingredients, and start mixing the day’s breads, fully conscious that my government is a joke and that folks like me are continually convinced to focus their ire on each other than the higher-ups with every reason to keeps us all angry and hateful all the time.

I make my silly little pastries, bake my silly little breads, and carry on like none of it is disappointing and hurtful and frustrating and sad. I do it because I know someone out there IS disappointed, hurt, frustrated, and sad, and what I make can be the One Good Thing that they get to enjoy today.

I can grieve. I can rage and piss and moan and cry… but not when I’m baking. There’s someone else’s day at stake then, and it’s not mine to ruin.

Continue reading →

Making Meaning with Sauce on the Side

June 1, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Like so many culinarians, I found belonging and sanctuary in the kitchen.

I am just one of a community of artists, craftsmen, lunatics, madmen, and misfits who Found My Tribe. We are passionate, angry, opinionated, and utterly devoted to Food and Dining in and of themselves arguably beyond notions of “customer service.” Serving Customers, though important, is debatably an (important) afterthought compared to the effectiveness and quality with which we just Make Things For People To Eat.

Our belonging is anchored by shared experiences, shared knowledge, shared idiosyncrasies and lingo, and our personal capacity and skill sets. In absence of anything else, I belong in any kitchen I am in because my knowledge, experience, skills, and ability to carry hard give me the right to belong.

“Sanctuary,” on the other hand, is different for everyone. In general, most of the cooks I know (myself included) are terminal workaholics who fall in and out of rehab constantly. We know we shouldn’t work as many hours as we do as hard as we do. We grouse and complain about hoping to get sent home early, but we’ll be first to insist that “as soon as we look away, everything goes to hell.”

The truth is that the kitchen for many of us is not just “work”- even though we’re more than happy to get paid for our labor. The kitchen is where Everything Has A Reason and Everything Make Sense, including and especially us. It’s a space where order is established and it’s an order we know and understand well. No one has to tell us what we’re there for or what our function is after a while. We can lose ourselves in the dance of a busy service, julienne celery, or rolling seemingly endless loaves of bread. We see and feel our meaning for that day in our hands.

Close up black and white photo of a man’s hands. He is dusting them with flour in front of his black apron over a piece of flatbread he is about to work on. — Photo by Malidate Van

Continue reading →

The Alchemist

May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Baking and pastry, I’ve often noticed, gets treated with a mixture of awe, admiration, and contempt among kitchen workers. On one hand, we’re often the guys that have easy-to-grab snacks on hand. “Hey Matt… um… any of these cookies happen to ‘fall on the floor?’” Our weighing of everything, our techniques, and (frequently) the vision of us patiently stirring pots of bubbling stuff that smells amazing makes what bakers do look like alchemy or wizardry. Occasionally, there are some cooks with chips on their shoulder that insist we’re “useless” and “can’t do anything without a recipe book.” (Yes, I actually had someone say that to me once. To my knowledge they still have all their teeth, God knows how.)

Somewhere along the way, though, I’ve managed to cultivate an image out here that compels this question from my coworkers: “Dude, how old ARE you?”

My mannerisms aside, I don’t think I look a day over “ageless.”

Continue reading →

Processing the Parsley- Why The Slow Stupid Way Works

May 13, 2024May 25, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

This happens at least once in every kitchen.

A new cook is told to chop leafy herbs, and they are given a cutting board and told to hone their knife. A bunch or two in, the new cook inevitably looks up at the Robo-coup (a.k.a. “Robocop” or “Robo”, a brand name for a heavy-duty professional food processor. Our version of a Cuisinart.)
“This is friggin’ stupid. It would be way faster and more efficient to use the Robo-coup.”

An older cook looks up from their own prep and shakes their head. “Nope, it’s gotta be like this. The food processor doesn’t do it right.”
To the new cook, this sounds like “peeling potatoes builds character” hazing bullshit. As soon as the chef isn’t looking, the new cook has taken down the heavy cube of a machine, affixed the bowl and blade, and is shoving bunches of parsley in while the older cook rolls his eyes, watches, and waits.

The machine IS powerful, and noisy. Chunks of green juice and herb splatter against the clear lid like alien guts while the very-pleased-with-themselves cook watches and uses his “expert opinion” to decide how long is enough. Soon, he tips out the bowl into a container and is about to load another couple of bunches in when the chef’s voice rings out. “The hell do you think you are doing?!”

Young Iron Chef freezes, they don’t understand. The parsley is getting chopped, right? They’re doing their job. They’re doing it faster than everyone else, right? That’s the point, isn’t it? Why are they in trouble? “Chopping the parsley like you said, Chef!”

Continue reading →

Food and Drink- Keeping it Local

January 27, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / 3 Comments

Growing up in my wine enthusiast father’s house, I started learning about alcohol at 13. My sisters and I were passed small sips of whatever he and my mother were drinking, gently quizzed on what we tasted and smelled as far as our early-teen brains could describe ”flavor notes,” and then given an instructive lecture on that particular wine, where it came from, what caused those flavors, and the idea of terroir– that you could taste the unique chemistry of the soil and climate in the products of it’s earth.

I can tell you now that, despite my father’s instruction, I never really fell in love with wine. Unless it’s especially unusual, I will always enjoy wine as “interesting fun grape juice.” Unless it’s terrible, then I just don’t finish.

My dad was not speaking into a void though. What he said DID land and plant a seed, although it grew to be more inclined to beer and liquor, which I can say I then cultivated with the hearty fertilizers of sociology, history, anthropology, and being really damned curious when faced with the unfamiliar-but-promising.