Sorry for missing last week, friends and neighbors. We landed the metaphorical plane on Thanksgiving, but the cost was completely wiping out my personal energy reserves. Last Friday, I literally spent half the day sleeping.
I’m feeling a bit more together now, and I really wanted to get this post out there before Thanksgiving was too far from our minds. Appropriately, I’d like to start this post off by thanking you all for your patience.
So… what does gratitude look like in the culinary world?
As I type this, Emily is clattering around in the kitchen getting the last few things ready before we run out the door for a belated Thanksgiving dinner with my friend Gwen and her partner, so I am on something of a time constraint. I wanted to write something for this week, but given that I’d been working my whole ass off this week at the pie shop, I just never had the energy to think longer than 20 minutes about it.
In place of a proper entry then, please accept this simple post of “thank you.”
This last year was wild and hard, but I’m thankful for so many things.
First and foremost, the love and presence of Emily, my family, and friends in my life who cheered me on and kept me on the level when things got weird.
I’m grateful that I have a new job in the industry that I love, and one that values my skills and abilities. I feel more excited to work now than I have in the last several years, and Em smiles seeing me come up with new menu ideas. This past week was the hardest have ever worked in my life, but thanks to my amazing team we landed the metaphorical plane. Over 1500 pies in 4 days… I earned a day of doing nothing yesterday.
I’m also beyond thankful to all of you. The readers who enjoy and share my blog, who support me on Patreon, buy my books, and remind me that I have good stories to tell and people that want to hear them.
I’ll be back with more thoughts next week, but Em is in the shower now and that means I ned to back everything up. According to Gwen, dinner’s ready.
Stay Classy, and THANK YOU-
Idealism and practicality need not be enemies… as long as you keep your priorities straight.
Some time ago, I swung by a bakery I used to work at to try out a new pastry and see some of my old friends. The case and display looked much the same as ever, despite the high staff turnover. I picked out the new pastry- a riff on one of their staples- and took it outside for a discreet bite. That turned out to be the best course of action since no one could then see me throw the rest in the trash and quickly chug from my water bottle. I’d never really cared for that particular pastry in the first place, but somehow it had gotten worse since I left. The pastry itself was utterly tasteless, the icing oddly chemical, and the filling boring.
A while later, I texted a friend of mine who still worked there about it and asked what had changed. “Oh, yeah… we changed the recipe because the original one wasn’t coming out right from the new machine. It kinda sucks, but at least we’re not mixing it by hand anymore.”
What about the icing? This isn’t fondant…
“Nope, it’s this new stuff made with modelling chocolate, corn syrup… I think it tastes foul, but it’s easier to work with.”
As soon as you stop caring about making good products in favor of making sellable products efficiently, you’ve made a classic “deal with the devil”- and it won’t always end well.
There are more measures of success than the ones that show up on paper.
This job is my first time running a kitchen crew, and it’s my first time leading one through a massive holiday push. The fact that supply chains are screwy, getting ingredients are unreliable, and the country is still winding its way through a pandemic is just icing on the cake, so to speak. The “cake” in that metaphor, however, is “this year more people have ordered pies from us than ever before.”
No pressure, of course. I know how to plan. Bakers are practically born for logistics and time management. I had plenty of warning that the holidays would be “busy,” and I got lots of preparation done. Yet there’s still that nagging, deceitful feeling each and every day. It’s the one that sees me pulling my hair out over the schedule. It sees me racking my brains as supply lines fail and suddenly we can no longer get the apples and hazelnuts we need through the usual avenues. It sees me wince at every employee call-out, every frustration, every complication that isn’t going according to plan. It looks at the total predicted number of pies like Sisyphus at a holiday gift of muscle rub and soccer cleats.
It’s the feeling that goes, “Why is this so hard for you? Why are you sucking at this? You should have more control! This should be easy. Maybe you’re just not up to leading. Maybe you’ve been running a scam on these people and yourself the whole time.”
It’s the feeling that doesn’t let you look up and see the full picture.
The rain is dripping off my coat as I fumble finding the right key in the dim early-morning light outside the bakery. House key, house key, bike lock key, multi-tool, office key… got it. A little finagling and I’m in out of the rain. At least there’s that. Autumn in Portland heralds the rainy season.
“Isn’t every month in Portland the ‘rainy season’ though?”
Yes. Haha, you’re very funny.
Quickly locking the door behind me and switching off the alarm, I put the water kettle on to boil then turn on the lights in the kitchen. There’s some slight detritus from the last shift, but overall my team keeps things clean and tidy. I see the small pile of recipes at my station that apparently don’t scale correctly or need to be re-written, along with the daily production checklist I made for my team. I’ll deal with those later- there’s a bigger fish to dry waiting in the office.
Opening the office door, I drop my bag on the desk and switch on the light. Sitting in front of me in my boss’s spreadsheet outlining our Thanksgiving orders and their due dates. We have over 2000 pies due between now and Christmas, and private orders are still coming in. This was always going to be the biggest challenge of the year, and of this job. I knew it. I figured I’d be prepared. I’d done some banquet organizing and logistics work before, after all. How much more different could this be?
Staring down at the spreadsheet, I can already feel the television static fuzzing my vision. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it.
Tea first, though.
The Black Hat Baker 