If you ever start to wonder just how important having. a routine is,, just wait till something comes along and messes it up.
I’ve been out of work for only one and a half weeks, but it feels so much longer. As my energy/pain levels vary from day to day (but slowly doing better!) I find myself easily losing track of time.
I’m learning, though, that’s not always a terrible thing- and maybe I was due.
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.
Good afternoon, friends and neighbors. Sorry this week’s blog post is a little late, but things went a little bit… sideways on Friday, and I’ve had some hard lessons to learn about my limits, and just how far I can push my luck.
The day was already cooler for a Portland summer- way cooler than the oppressive heat wave we were promised for later in the week- and as the sun goes down behind the buildings and hills of the Willamette Valley, it’s starting to just get slightly chilly.
Perfect weather for eating outside and getting a cold beer or two- as long as you don’t mind your face feeling a bit warm.
Good morning, friends and neighbors!
In the space of a year and change, I have trained ten people in some way at my bakery. Some just to pick up a couple tasks left hanging while I’m gone, others to be assistants and stand-ins so that I can take a day off now and again. They were professionals, students, coworkers, wanna-be lifers. A few were just honestly curious- like the dishwashers that wanted to learn to pipe pate au choux, or the barista with some time to kill who wanted to try a couple recipes for themselves.
A bunch stuck around for a while- some got let go. Every one of them learned something though- and I learned that I’m really good at being a big brother.
The Black Hat Baker 