Philosophy

Wherever You Go…

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

On my current schedule, Thursdays are my first day off of the week. While there is plenty to be done around the house- cleaning, planning, organizing, errands, and so on- Thursdays are MY day. While wandering the city, I learned of the existence of the Oregon Jewish Museum and decided to mosey down and check it out- get a little bit of my family’s history and culture in this strange new land.

Which is why I am currently sitting in Lan Su- Portland’s Chinese Garden in the heart of its Chinatown.

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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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An Open Letter to Brand New Pastry Grads- From Someone Your Age

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors!

Ok, so I’ve been sucking a bit at updating (except Instagram- that’s annoyingly addictive.) Sorry about that, but part of the reason why? I finally got a job out here.

The job is at a restaurant and caterer, where I was hired to be a “relief baker.” Since their banquet season is in full swing, however, and since I have pretty decent kitchen skills OUTSIDE of baking as well, my job has more or less been catering prep and cooking. All in all, not a bad gig.
The experience of having a non-baking job for the first time in a long time got me thinking. About now, many culinary schools are ending their winter semesters, and some of my colleagues may be graduating, throwing themselves and their fates into the industry.
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Discipline- In The Pursuit of Perfection

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

     Good evening, friends and neighbors!

The other day, my girlfriend and I were talking about our work over dinner. She’s a piano teacher, specializing in teaching very young children, ages 3 to 9. At this age, the children don’t learn to read music so much as listen and learn by ear, memorizing pieces and which keys make what notes to play them.
As we were talking, she mentioned that one of the hardest things to teach students of any age isn’t so much the material, as the characteristics of a pianist- attention to detail, feeling the music, investment and passion in playing, and most of all the diligence and discipline for practicing.

 

    I couldn’t help but smirk and agree. “Discipline” sounds like a dirty word these days, recalling images of ranting, groundings, spankings, and generally other forms of punishment that parents are warned they shouldn’t use on their kids because it will turn them into cold-hearted, dead-eyed shamblers of the twilight world that is their fate.
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“Calm down, Damien…”

But I’m not talking about that- at least, not directly.

 

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