Back when I was a Scout, I learned one of life’s most important lessons by way of a story from dated, semi-racist book that exuded the “Noble Savage” trope. The book was “Gospel of the Redman” by Ernest Thompson Seton (who was himself a former Chief Scout of the BSA,) and the story taught me that we all define happiness and success for ourselves. It was about a man selling onions.
We’ve been short-handed for a few months now, and a COVID scare has the whole cafe on a staggered schedule until everyone on staff gets a negative test. In practical terms, that means that I need to bake fresh pies for the case and the entirety of the next days wholesale in under five hours.
I’m dashing around the empty kitchen, checking three ovens and answering texts from my boss and fielding questions about the schedule from staff… until it clicks. I stop trying to do the work and do the work, the Ancient Baking Wisdom flowing for heart, to muscle, to fingers. I clock out and leave the next shift instructions about what’s available and when the wholesale will be done. I was in The Zone, and doing what I loved paid off.
That’s good, because something I loved had to.
Good evening, all! Thank you for your patience during my… extended blog silence. Between finishing up the holiday season at the pie shop, shutting down the bakery for a week of vacation, and then all the madness/travel/actual rest involved in said vacation, I found that I needed to take writing off my plate too. You’d think I’d be excited to be stuck in a plane for 3 hours at a stretch with nothing to do BUT write, but an audiobook and the need for sleep had other ideas.
The good news is that I’m rested, refreshed, and slowly getting back into the good habits that I let fall by the wayside in the last few months.
Like most people, though, time with family is not always renewing and refreshing despite love and all the best intentions. My parents can be neurotic and benevolently overbearing sometimes (characteristics which, nebach, my wife says I come by honestly.) They are getting older and learning to deal not just with our world as it is- challenging enough for any age group- but coming to grips with the world as it was. That includes recognizing the good and the bad that we carry forward with us, however unwittingly.
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.
It’s possible for a space to feel too comfortable.
Looking at my own “workspace” at home, it absolutely looks like I spend a lot of time sitting there. There’s an art print on the wall behind my comfortable high-backed chair from IKEA. There is a minimalist desk lamp (also from IKEA) that illuminates the space directly between my laptop’s keyboard, the coaster for my tea mug, and the stand where my iPad or phone controls my Pomodoro timer and music selection.
It is my preferred space for book work. It is my preferred space for editing and tweaking my own work. Beyond that little ring of light and cheap wood, though, the rest of the desk is chaos. It is too comfortable. One of my culinary teachers warned us that our workspace reflects our minds- if you have a messy workspace, you have a messy mind. Beyond my laptop, thar be dragons.
When it comes to this weekly blog, I feel like I have to go mobile. The wanderlust of the “nomadic entrepreneur” seizes on me, and I need to pack everything in a satchel and “find a place to write.”
Today, my “office” of the moment is My Vice. It has cocktails and a really good beef sandwich. The table is empty except for my typing machine and a late lunch. Arguably, I could save money and do this myself by cleaning my friggin’ desk up- but what’s the fun in that?
My name is Matt Strenger, and I do a lot of writing in bars.
The Black Hat Baker 