Philosophy

The Calling

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Several years ago, back in New Jersey, I walked into the casino bakery in a sour mood, knowing it would pass in a few hours.

The sour mood wasn’t uncommon- the casino job wasn’t the most rewarding gig in the world, and I griped a lot to Emily and my housemates. This time, however, the fact I was going to a job I wasn’t enjoying was secondary- there was other, external issues weighing on my my mind and, perhaps appropriately, I have forgotten what was so terrible about those days five years later.

What I do remember was coming in, putting my tools up, and chatting briefly with Karen.
“It’s so twisted… I almost find myself looking forward to going to work. Here everything makes sense even if it sucks, and I have control over it.”
Karen nodded sagely and said, “You’ll realize that as you move along in your career, Matt. Your family and friends love you, they support you, and they absolutely care about you succeeding- but they will never understand this life.”

When you realize that you want to bend your time, energy, and life around something- in or out of the usual rat-race, regardless of whether other people understand why- that’s a precious moment of self-knowledge that you shouldn’t ignore.

You’ve found your Calling.

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The Right Hand Man- How To Be A Good Sous Chef

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You would think that “servant leadership” would be immediately applicable to modern kitchen life, but as a leadership ethos it has yet to see the predominance it deserves. It is not at odds with the traditional brigade system as Auguste Escoffier envisioned it- though it is certainly at odds with the bullying and barbarism that has come to be associated with being “classically trained.” Hardly a terrible thing, since that “tradition” is itself at odds with little things like “health and safety of the worker” and “being a fucking human.”

“Servant leadership” is, at its core, an ethos that changes leadership from “Do what I tell you” to “This is what needs to get done- what can I do to help you do it better?” If you would like a masterclass in what that mentality can and should be like, look no farther than the sous chef– the second-in-command of a kitchen, and the chef’s “right hand man.”

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Letting it Go- An Unspoken Survival Skill

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Sorry about the very late and frankly short blog post this week. For a number of reasons, this weekend got away from me.

This post WAS supposed to be a review of a new restaurant in town that I’ve been enjoying very much. I wanted to have one more meal there, and Emily and I made reservations for their Valentines Day brunch. A fun night out with the wifey AND fodder for a new blog post? That’s a win-win right there.

Then it decided to snow. A lot. Portland is famous for Not Handling Snow Very Well, given the fact that it’s fairly rare and all the hills and steep roads make driving treacherous with even a light dusting on the ground. Heavy snow, nearly wrecking while trying to drive the car for groceries, and finally an ice storm last night meant that those reservations were cancelled.

We were both bummed, of course, but we wound up sharing dinner and a bottle of wine at home along with a cake I had made as a surprise. Making the right decision doesn’t always feel good, but it’s not as bad as making the wrong decision.

You can’t control the weather, but you can control how you’ll weather it- once you stop wishing it was something it wasn’t.

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5 Simple Steps to Do the Thing

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I have been thinking about what to write in this blog post since I left work yesterday afternoon. In the time between then and now, I was preparing myself to sit down and write.
I also went for a long hike around Mt. Tabor, enjoyed a game night with my housemates, baked a pie, had a bit too much whiskey, slept in, ate breakfast, went for a run, meditated, showered, gamed a bit, and fixed myself a cup of tea.

All of it has been in service to writing this, because if you want to write about Life and Food and Joy and Good Things, a big part of it is getting those things in your life. The bigger part is actually sitting down and writing the thing. Far from being the sole difficulty of creatives, dreamers and nutcases like me, you can find difficulty in Doing the Thing in just about any human pursuit. I think it’s something to do with being sentient robots made of meat and untanned leather, stuck on a speck of dirt rocketing through the void.

So let’s go through my Five Simple Steps to Do The Thing together!

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Gimme More Than A Gimmick!

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A few months ago, I had a great idea. I’d just recently found a great challah recipe from America’s Test Kitchen, and I had the thought, “You know, challah isn’t the same as brioche, but it’s close. Cinnamon rolls are made out of brioche… so what if I made challah out of 6 braided strands of cinnamon roll?

The bread came out interestingly layered and noticeably over-worked, but good. The next step was seeing how the bread would do as cinnamon French toast. When asked how I came up with it, I gave a joking answer of “I like cinnamon toast; if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”

It’s a reductivist joke, and one that too many operations are taking literally. If you’re creating a dish, and you want it all to highlight and enhance a particular flavor, that requires fitness to do well.

If you’re going to go overboard, you’d better be able to swan dive.

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