Tools of the Trade- What Your Kitchen ACTUALLY Needs For Baking!

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Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

Since quarantine and stay-home orders have started, more folks have started getting interested in their kitchens. This is great news, especially as I can see how regularly my educational posts get visited.

For example, a friend of mine has been messaging me recently and asking for advice. Not so much on technique, but on equipment. A messy breakup has left him re-stocking his kitchen:

“Matt, what kind of rolling pin do you use? What material?”
”What do you suggest for bakeware? Any specific brands?”
”If I want to make cheesecake, do I REALLY need a springform pan?”

At first, I answered the questions and referenced my blog here. “I’m pretty sure I had a series called ‘Tools of the Trade’ or something.”

”Well, yeah, but you only got as far as knives, and that was five years ago.”

Oops. Time to solve that I think.

“Crash Course” time.

The whole Kit and Kaboodle…
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More Than A Paycheck: Why Work Matters

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Hello there, friends and neighbors. Hopefully you are all keeping safe and well, and that la vida casa isn’t getting to you too much.

Since the layoffs started, I’ve been trying to reach out to my culinary friends however I can just to check up on them. It really is the cruelest irony- we’re folks who “never have enough time” and now…. we’re kinda drowning in it.

Of course, it’s not just “what shall I do with all my free time” that’s got former kitchen workers in a froth… but it’s also not just the financial worries of being unemployed/laid off, though God knows that’s more than enough.

What I’m finding even more among not just culinary people, but ANYONE who’s been working in a given field their whole lives and suddenly finds themselves “non-essential” is the need to get back to work for work’s sake.

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5 Dumb Things You Don’t Need To Buy For Your Kitchen

/ The Black Hat Baker / 2 Comments

Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

Staying home for an extended period has gotten a pretty wide assortment of interests out of people. Some folks are getting VERY into home exercise, home improvement projects, shaving their heads, or falling down conspiracy theory rabbit holes that Junji Ito would pass on as too twisted.

Most beautiful of all of them, I think, is “I’ve got all this time at home now, I’m gonna learn to cook and bake better!”

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The God of Hospitality

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors! Sorry this blog is a day late- I was a little tied up for the same reason there wasn’t a “Whiskey and Jellybeans” yesterday. Namely, finally celebrating Passover with my family!

After a fashion, anyway

I did take the opportunity to do a little writing and thinking on the subject though. So let’s start with a seriously impolitic question today.

What god do you worship?

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Having Talent is No Excuse

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Good evening, friends and neighbors.

The worlds of food and classical music don’t always intersect- beyond the artistry and passion of their respective devotees, that is. When my wife (a piano teacher) and I discuss our work with each other, one of us is usually on “home turf.” I’m a professional baker and she loves to cook, or she’s expounding on an obscure piece of music and I know a couple big names. That’s marriage for you, though- we don’t “complete” each other, but we do find ways to be complete together.

In that sense, we often discuss ideas like discipline, teaching methods, leadership (in the context of our workplaces,) and the artistic aspects of what we’ve built our lives around.

And one thing that we agree on wholeheartedly is that talent doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Photo by OVAN on Pexels.com
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