industry

“No More Eulogies”- What’s Left of a Food Capital

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Some people complain about doing anything with a mask on. For these folks, the idea of exercise while wearing one is dangerous, stupid, or just unthinkable.

The biggest annoyances regarding masks for me are 1. Having to hear these people whine about it, and 2. My glasses fogging up when I go on my runs around Mount Tabor.

As such, I didn’t really notice the first couple times I was hustling down Belmont and saw glassware lined up for sale in the window of The Cheese Shop. The third time, though, put a rock in my gut and stuck with me for the remaining three miles of the run.

Glassware for sale at a restaurant means “The End is Nigh”, and another food industry eulogy will need to be written.

Continue reading →

“Everyone Else Is Taken”- Finding Identity in the Kitchen

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, tell you who you are. You really shouldn’t want me to anyway. Brighter minds than mine have peeled apart the notions of “self” and “identity” for centuries (if not millenia) and even they tend to wind up shrugging and going “I dunno… it’s personal I guess.”

A portrait of Oscar Wilde in grayscale with the quote "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

And it is. I wrote a few weeks back about how to find your “culinary voice”– which ultimately came down to an elaborate rephrasing of “garbage in, garbage out.” That’s figuring out how to best tell your story though… finding out who you are takes people their entire lives, and is often subject to change.

So this post isn’t a “how-to”- it’s more of an exploration of the question, and especially what it means for us cooks- whether we are brand new and trying to find a place to fit in, or old hands getting flexed out of an industry that we can’t continue in and survive. Both groups- all of us, really- wind up looking at themselves in the mirror and asking, “Who are you?”

Continue reading →

Life After the Line- When Chefs Change Careers

/ The Black Hat Baker / 3 Comments

My friend Renee has- like most of our industry- had a rough couple of months.

Renee is a sommelier back east. She has enough skill that positions in her niche are scarce. She also has lifestyle demands that make the job pool even shallower- and enough contacts and familiarity with a particular scene on the East Coast that discretion is required. As we sip coffees and tea at a rainy cafe in Astoria, Renee spins a saga of staffing and management issues, attending the needs of VIPs, and protecting the restaurants reputation. It all culminates in a storm of uppity underlings, COVID protocols, and curiously nebulous budgets that lead to her (relieved but frustrated) resignation.

“I’m not even fond of wine,” she admits with a short snort. “I’m good at being a somme, but I honestly like cocktails more.” She didn’t even really enjoy the fine dining restaurant life. She was fine with the formality and artifice of high society. The social waters she navigates with ease gives me the willies just thinking about. Managing the wine at a restaurant, though, was “just a box that had to be checked on the way.”

“I think I’m going to pivot to distribution.” she muses as we finish our coffee. “That’ll keep my toes in the world. People keep suggesting I teach, so there’s that too.”

I recount my own experiences at the bakery (I’m almost afraid they’ll bore her- my own worries have been no less frustrating, but far less flashy) and we share a rueful laugh. The tragedy of it all is that none of this is new. “That’s the industry.” We’re both tired, both burned out- and wondering if we haven’t had enough.

It’s a question that a lot of chefs ask themselves. This foul year of Our Lord 2020, however, has stepped up a lot of professional timelines. With every successful night’s service, every broken freezer, every balancing of the books- chefs everywhere ask themselves “How much longer can I keep this up? ”

“What will come next?”

Youtube https://youtu.be/pYLjHhSOE7s

Continue reading →

Pies, Omelettes, and Skill with the Simple

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I had been in a depressive slump for a few days. Life for me was less a series of deeds and events than a monochrome shamble from one checkpoint to another.
But when I got home to a quiet house with my wife taking an afternoon nap, I knew the fog was lifting- because I wanted to make some pie.

I weighed out the flour and cut the butter. A small measure of iced tea was poured for the liquid. Regardless of my state of mind, my hands still had the skills. The ancient wisdom still flowed through them, and they knew without my correction how to create something good. It was the quiet, meditative serenity of letting my hands move while my mind watched and convalesced- shaking off the lead cloak Depression had thrown over it.

Reconnecting to something simple, delicate, and pure.
This is the space where I think people show their true skills.

Close-up of a perfectly baked pie with a lattice crust, decorated with sparkle sugar.
Continue reading →

Finding Your Culinary Voice

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Food is a form of communication. If you learn the history of cuisine, a plate can tell you its origin story, how its cooking methods were devised and why. Fried rice can tell you about the need to feed a lot of hungry field workers quickly and making their bland starchy staple taste good. Corned Beef and Cabbage will remind you of the poverty of new Irish and Jewish immigrants, crammed cheek-by-jowl in the slums of American cities, sharing what they had and knew to get by.

Food is communication. It’s a history lesson. It’s storytelling.

So how, exactly, does one become a good storyteller with food? The answer takes a bit more effort than “learn to cook”- as if that wasn’t enough.

Animated GIF of Jake from Adventure Time serenely frying bacon pancakes
Continue reading →