Health and Fitness

To Build A Better Baker: Reps, Rolling Pins, and Finding A Reason

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
Good evening, friends and neighbors!
Ostensibly, this is a baking and food blog. I am, after all, a baker and culinary professional. I am used to, and in fact EXPECT to, get a lot of questions.
Most of them, however, are about fitness and weight loss- particularly mine.
“How do you keep so slim while working in a bakery? I’d be as big as a house!”                “How can you stand to be around all that butter and sugar?”

Or, worst of all,

“What diet are you on/pill are you taking to keep so trim?!”

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Because It Isn’t All Sunshine and Rainbows

/ The Black Hat Baker / 2 Comments

Good evening, friends and neighbors.You know it’s really easy to get lost?

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At the moment, I’m staring out the window of (surprise surprise) a bar, looking out into the drizzling night of Portland. I just watched my waiter take- and I’m not kidding- a full 45 seconds to pour my beer into a glass.

The week was a trying one, and I do love my Thursday nights. I found a spiritual successor, if not psuedo-doppelgänger, to one of my favorite sit-down-and-blog pubs, but was politely hurried out as the dinner crowd came in. I completely get it- they couldn’t really hold a two-top for some writer shmuck that wasn’t expecting to drink anymore. I don’t bear them any grudge and will likely be back soon.

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I’m A Morning Person

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

I love bakers hours.

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“Well f**k you!”
No seriously, I do. People tend to refer to “bakers hours” as a curse or a lamentation, but I really like them. Granted, right now my hours are 6am to 2pm at my current gig, which more or less puts me on the night shift of the baking world, but they are still early enough to make a lot of non-bakers cringe.
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Yeah, I get that look a lot.

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Teach the Children to Cook

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
Good evening, friends and neighbors! Happy New Year! I hope your New Year’s Eve was spent with friends and loved ones, eating good food and giving 2015 a fond farewell- or maybe a swift kick on it’s way out.
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Well, we can try anyway…
In a few previous entries, I wrote about education, but only as far as culinary school- that is, education for adults that want to make a career in the food industry. In my opinion, however, culinary education should start LONG before that.
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Maybe not THIS early… but eh- worth a shot.

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