Philosophy

Here We Go Again

/ The Black Hat Baker
AAAAAND I’m back. 

Good evening, friends and neighbors. It’s been a while!

Between a few moderate life upheavals- a new job, shakeups at the new job, moving to a new apartment, making the new apartment habitable, and so on- and simply lacking the energy to write or revise possible entries, On The Bench has been…well, benched for close to the last month or so.

With things starting to settle down a bit though, and my new baking education service slowly gaining steam, I finally have the time and opportunity to sneak out to a friendly pub and write.

So where am I? What am I?

 

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Who Needs A Hero?

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment
     Hello, friends and neighbors!
     Sorry that this blog has lately become biweekly- I’ve lately been planning to pull off a big redesign. I’m not quite ready to unveil it just yet, but when I do… oh it’s going to be worth it. Trust me.
     That said, everyone needs heroes.

     When I started trying to get fit, I had a notion of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to look- but I had never been an athlete before. I didn’t have any sports posters, or athletes I idealized. Sports were never a big part of my life, let alone bodybuilding or fitness.

     What I did have, however, was literature, movies, and comic books.

The hell with Michael Jordan- I wanted to be unstoppable like Juggernaut. I wanted to run like the Flash. I wanted to throw a punch like Bruce Lee, lift like Superman, and be as precise and flawlessly skilled as Batman. When I exercised, I wanted Rocky Balboa beside me, and when I ran a race, it was against Umslopogaas the Zulu warrior.

We all need heroes- people and characters to inspire and enable us.

Here’s some of mine.

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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?

Picture

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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