industry

A New Project on the Craft of Living

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After a rainy day and almost too much walking around in it, it seems the last wayward drops are making their way off the trees and onto the patio.

The week at the winery ended, for me at least, in one of those “what the fuck happened,” twelve-hour shifts that you can’t quite put your finger on where the day went or where it clearly all went wrong, but the only thing for it is embracing the suck, powering through, and getting to a point where you can leave the kitchen for a couple days without fear anything will irreparably explode.

I dragged my ass home, pausing to hit up one of my favorite beer stores along the way. The fact that I then dropped all three can of dark beer on the pavement- one rolling under the car, leading me to kneel down in the dark in a black hoodie, waiting for some impatient shmuck to flatten me before I realized it had rolled all the way under to the curb- confirmed that the day was Seriously and Entirely Fucked, and I needed to get myself home and out of work attire before something else happened.

Emily, absolute princess that she is, greeted me when I came home and told me to just get comfy. I stripped off my jeans and long sleeve undershirt, having already deposited my aprons and jacket for the laundry I’d do later. After a little downtime, some brainrot internet cartoons, and a little of my latest whiskey acquisition, I was feeling something like human again.

I’m in the middle of outlining a second manuscript (yes, while the mentorship book is still very overdue on my own schedule. It’ll get there, this is important too, trust me.) This one is the first book I’ve really tried to write with another person- and what’s more, it’s my father.

Dad was already a doctor here. I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was. Both of us had mud in our boots and wet socks.
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Grounding vs. Grievance

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“[…]and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship […]”

– Exodus 31:3

Despite all my writing about The Way of the Floured Hand, the happy moments in the bakeshop, and how fulfilling it is to work with my hands (I’m pretty sure I would self-mummify at a full-time desk job), the fact is this shit is WORK.

As much as I may like the work, and as good as I am at it, at a certain point in especially busy weeks I find myself saying “I wanted to be a pastry chef… and for my sins, they let me become one.” Whether it’s persnickety chefs, crowded kitchens, or cooks that regularly seem too dazed and bewildered to understand what “hustle” means and manage to be underfoot even while I’m standing still, this calling of mine is good at reminding me that I’m doing it for pay, and they’re gonna make me earn that pay.

Picture of an old tree with large, sprawling above-ground roots.
“Deep roots are not touched by the frost.” – J. R. R. Tolkein.
Photo by Daniel Watson on Pexels.com
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Greasing the “#Grindset”

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The ups-and-downs of the hospitality industry are no joke. Bosses and owners use words like “feast or famine” to describe the activity between the “busy seasons” and “slow seasons.”

I came from a beach town, where “slow season” meant quiet time. It meant half the local, non-chain ice cream stands and places on the boardwalk simply shuttered from Labor Day to Easter. Kids who wanted/needed summer jobs near their parents summer homes knew they needed to have their applications and resumes in shortly after Valentines Day if they wanted an apron waiting for them by the time Mom and Dad aired out the “life’s a beach” and “Island state of mind” decor.

The winery’s busy season starts around Easter- our “dress rehearsal” for Mother’s Day Brunch- and lasts the entirety of Wedding Season (May- September) with possibly a small lull before the Holiday Party. After New Years Day, however, business goes off a cliff. Hours get cut, and employees cash out reserved PTO to fluff up their checks and pay bills. They find gig work, pursue side hustles, or even pick up per diem jobs at places with skeleton crews and sick time policies.

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When Last We Left Off…

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Hello everyone!

My six-month hiatus did bear some fruit, as the book is at least two chapters closer to being done, but mostly it took some pressure off of me to write every week during a particularly nightmarish wedding season at the winery.

There’s been at least one wedding every single week since May, and it still hasn’t stopped, but the restaurant is winding down a bit with the end of summer and even though our fall offerings and harvest season vibes are on point (if I do say so myself,) autumn in Portland means the rainy season. That means losing a quarter of our dining space- and our diners.

Every weekend of the last six months, I’ve been hoarding every moment I didn’t need to work or think about working like they were the last roll of toilet paper in a bomb shelter, ready to go for the throat of anyone who suggested they might need a few squares because they’re running out of pages in the Twilight series. I made time to write for sure, but energy reserves was another story entirely.

A typewritten page with a poem by Charles Bukowski. It reads: “air and light and time and space "–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something has always been in the way but now I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this place, a large studio, you should see the space and the light. for the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to create." no baby, if you’re going to create you’re going to create whether you work 16 hours a day in a coal mine or you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children while you’re on welfare, you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown away, you’re going to create blind crippled demented, you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your back while the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment, flood and fire. baby, air and light and time and space have nothing to do with it and don’t create anything except maybe a longer life to find new excuses for. - Charles Bukowski”
“Excuses, excuses…”
Yeah, I know.
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Making A Menu

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

When you work in a restaurant with enough backing and fancy enough clientele (or minimal backing and working-class clientele, but you’re the chef-owner with a shtick), menu flips make the tedious bits of the job worth it. After making the same dishes over and over again for months, sometimes beyond the season it even makes sense to keep selling them, doing a little spring cleaning on the menu feels positively invigorating.

This years dessert menu is already selling well, but the core theme of the selection isn’t just “seasonality”. Pick a menu from any restaurant- from the neighborhood diner to the latest Michelin-starred hotspot- and what goes into the menu is just as much about convenience, defensibility, economics, and business sense as any high-minded philosophy about sustainability, slow food, or “decolonizing the diet.” That’s because we don’t just sell food- we sell a night out. We sell a fantasy. We sell pleasure– so we make sure there’s something we can sell to as many people as possible.

What’s your pleasure?
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