The Real Role of Ritual

February 16, 2026February 17, 2026 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I spent a solid chunk of my life trying to figure out how I was going to save the world. Then I realized I couldn’t, so I decided to just do what I could.

I sometimes romanticize this in my mind as “I wanted to save the world, but I was only one person so I became an EMT so I could save people and make them happy. As an EMT I learned I couldn’t save everyone and even then I couldn’t make them happy. Then I decided to just give people more reasons to be happy and become a baker. That’s when it started working.”

That’s adorable and might make a good eulogy for me someday, but the truth is that’s what we all do. Everyone at some point fights with themselves over where they fit in the world, what they want to be, and what they want to leave behind. Some figure out, some resent the question and never do, and others just decide to let the world figure itself out and they’ll go where they fit.

I’m lucky as hell I found my way to baking and culinary. It’s not just a trade and career for me, it’s a calling and spiritual expression. I’d love if it paid more- who wouldn’t?- but it’s work that activates Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul for me and I can make something like a living doing it. That’s not nothing.

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The Uncanny Valley by the Sea

December 29, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I still try to work out when I travel. It’s a reliable routine, and forces a little structure even on to my time off- a “whatever else goes on, I need to do this” task. In the case of my trip home, that means it joins a lot of food-centric tasks:

Hit up a Wawa
Hit up Dinos- get a Dino’s Special Italian, send pictures back west for instructional material to those who would put mayonnaise on such a sandwich.
Smuggle Yeungling beer and Tastykake pie back in a suitcase.

Priorities are important, all.

I’m staying near my old hometown, and the easiest gym to get into is the Jewish Community Center that my parents are still members of. It’s where I went to summer day camp as a kid, and where we went to enjoy the pool in summer. My dad handed me his access card and said, “When you get in there, report back and tell me where everything is. I haven’t been in there in a bit, and they’ve moved stuff around.”

“All things change and we change with them,” but that change is not always radical. It can be slow, in bits and pieces. When it’s a place that you remember being the whole world to you when you were young, what’s changed and what’s remained don’t always mesh in your brain.

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A New Project on the Craft of Living

November 16, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

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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Shadows of Loss

November 2, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Portland is full of tannin shadows, and so are we.

It’s one of those things that you see, appreciate, but don’t know the actual word for until the memory tickles you enough to do a conversational, unspecific Google search. “What is it called when fallen leaves leave imprints on the sidewalk before they are cleared away?” The unsought-for “AI Summary” regurgitated the fact that there was no specific term, or that the term depended on whether they fell on set concrete and left an imprint or if it was set and left a stain from rotting.

As it was, the summary’s “scientific cause” description was adroit and perfect, because I am a sentimental nerd. Tannins are the compounds in leaves that, when they are wet, can leech out into the porous concrete and leave a “shadow” before the leaf itself is swept or blown away. Wine and tea snobs will also appreciate that tannins are the compounds that make their beverage of choice “dry” and crinkle the sides of the tongue, and cause the stains in a teacup. Equally poetic is the fact that consuming tannins too regularly or in high enough concentrations can cause anemia as they prevent the uptake of nutrients and minerals like iron.

For our autumnal purposes, however, “tannin shadow” is perfect because it’s the impact of a loss, left in bitterness. Fall in Portland is rainy and blustery, calling everyone to get cozy and reflect on the year, and the tannin shadows aren’t just on the sidewalk. Sitting in my sweaters and scarves, looking into my dark beers and whiskeys, and staring at patterns in pipe smoke on the back porch, I can’t help but acknowledge the legacies of losses.

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The Bookworms

April 3, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“Think not of the books you’ve bought as a ‘to be read’ pile. Instead, think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place, and the right mood.”
– Luc van Donkersgoed

Years ago, one of my relatives indicated the piles of books in his house and told me “Booksellers love Jews, because Jews buy books. Why? Because we’re always the ones that have to remember.” It could also be that we’re historically not that great at sports and needed something to do on the playground.