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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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.

"Leadership" written in chalk on a black background. — Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels.com

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What’s Another Eulogy? My Non-Review of Roadrunner

July 24, 2021July 26, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Until about 5AM this morning, this week’s blog post was going to be about something completely different. I was going to write about taste, snobbishness, and keeping it in check.

But last night, Em and I decided to go to our first movie in a theater in over a year. It was a toss-up between Black Widow and Roadrunner, and Em decided she could see Black Widow another time. She wanted to see Roadrunner with me. We were both glad for that because in the back of the Laurelhurst Theater, over pizza, popcorn, and spilled beer, we both cried our eyes out.

I came home with mixed emotions and tried to write that blog post about snobbishness… but as of 5 am, aware of the discourse and controversies surrounding the movie, I knew I need to write this all out while it was still fresh in my mind. One of the problems with being a writer is that words vanish from your mind faster than feelings in your heart, so here we go.

One last story from my beloved doomed bastard of a hero, Uncle Tony.

Glad for the hat brim and lighting here- you cant see how red my eyes are.

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Clear Your Space, Clear Your Mind

July 3, 2021July 2, 2021 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I am definitely not a “neat freak.” Cleaning up my desk and bedside area today were proof enough of that.

A garbage bag was filled with old mail, flyers, documents I thought were too important to throw out (until I realized that I didn’t need three year old insurance mailers,) and probably every time slip and receipt I’ve gotten in the last two years. Some actually important stuff was moved elsewhere, and my desk now faces a wall rather than out into the room. The floor got vacuumed, the surfaces wiped down, and reorganized.

Yes, I am writing this from a corner table at Belmont Station with a short beer at my side (I did promise myself, after all, and rewards are important) but much like a kitchen, cleaning up your workspace (and keeping it that way!) may do more for your productivity and motivation than all the little quote calendars filling your waste bin.