Castle From A Cloud

June 22, 2026 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Pavlovas are a dessert that always impress for how simple they are. I have them on the brain right now because I’ll be making a couple dozen for a VIP dinner the day after tomorrow and I’m coming off a bit of an inspirational drought. I’m on the porch in the shade with a lowball of grog beside me and a cigar I may or may not smoke.

Named for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, they are giant baked merengue bowls filled with whipped cream and fresh fruit. If you’ve ever made angel food cake, macarons, or “forgotten kiss” cookies, you already know how to do the hardest bit. Pavlovas look so impressive and dainty, it makes people think they are difficult when the truth is they are a masterclass in Technique, Patience, Fresh Ingredients, and Not Getting Too Fancy.

Simple things are always like that. No space to hide when you fuck up a step. It’s a “you had ONE JOB” scenario, and how well you did that One Job is there on the plate. Overdone? Underdone? Cracked? Everyone’s going to see and then eat it anyway, because it’s sugar, cream, and fresh fruit that you worked hard on. In that way, pavlovas are a reminder that it’s all just food.

Writing can be like that too, I’ve found. You work at it, you pace it right, tease out the story, don’t outsmart your common sense, and hopefully you end up with something people will enjoy.

A selfie of the author- black flat-cap with pins, olive green chef coat, brown canvas apron, smiling face with mutton-chops, and holding up a plated dessert

My boss and I had loosely discussed the VIP dinner dessert. The last dinner we did, he chose a riff on carrot cake because he knew it was the winemaker’s favorite and she would be in attendance. I did my best work on it and everyone loved it. Happy ending. The winemaker enjoyed it, but wondered if it really paired well with the wine that had been selected. I’d never gotten to taste the wine or even get notes on it, so the carrot cake was good… but overshadowed the wine at a VIP dinner at a winery. We could do better.

This time around, the winemaker showed me their advertising copy with tasting notes and poured me a little scoot to try. It was tangy, floral, and spoke of peaches and stone fruit. I jotted down notes in my phone along with her suggestion to avoid going too sweet, or the wine might taste sour in comparison. That’s easy to do with anything that isn’t “dessert wine”- ice wine, ports, or the kind of muscats you find glued to the lips of bridal shower attendees. A pavlova might actually be the perfect answer.

Initially, the boss and I had discussed a riff on another dinosaur Oceanic classic, Peach Melba. Instead of the poached peaches and raspberries on ice cream, however, my boss very much wanted a tart for the dinner. Tarts are easy to plate, clean to cut, and are easy to get cute with. Pile on the flavors, the textures, the colors, and a good cross-section will shine on anyones Instagram, hopefully tagged with the location and brand of the wine,

We both did trials of our tart ideas but neither quite fit the bill, and I kept assembling pavlovas in my mind. I’ve learned that some ideas won’t leave me alone until I take a crack at making them. Writing is a bit like that as well- you pay attention, and you’ll find a story worth telling the best you can.

A picture of Anthony Bourdain eating with the quote superimposed in white over the picture reading, “Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman- not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen- though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying.”

The pavlova shell would be flavored with jasmine green tea. The herbal/floral scent compounding the flavors above and giving a bittersweet foundation- a blank sky for a flock of birds to be seen against.

I debated a diplomat cream filling- pastry cream lightened and folded with Chantilly- but decided even that would be too much. Pastry cream is a custard. Custard means egg. Egg is earthy, sweet, and grounding- a distraction. Instead, whipped creme fraiche with vanilla- a little sweet, a little sour, not too fancy, This and the shell would be vehicles carrying the fruit- important to do well, but no one marvels at the foundations of a house.

It would be Peach Melba inspired, like the chef and I agreed. Stone fruit was coming into season, and this would be what spoke to the wine. It would have to be gently handled. Highlighted. Elevated to stand out on the plate and point toward the wine. I imagined grilled apricots- another touch of bitterness in the char to caramelize the sugars and announce the sunshine in the golden flesh. Fresh raspberries are always good as they are.

You glaze the fruit on a plate. That’s just how it is. Cooks are craftsmen, and it’s our job to imitate nature and make it look like whatever we served you just grew like that. If there is fresh fruit on a plate, it needs to look like we just ran out to a garden and plucked a fistful of raspberries wet with morning dew from the bush. We have to make ourselves disappear in your mind when you look at the plate– wizards and elves and faeries just poofed this perfect plate of sustenance in front of you with no human hand intervening.

A meme from AZ Quotes showing Chef Marco Pierre White next to a quote in white on a black background reading, “Mother Nature is the true artist and our job as cooks is to allow her to shine.”

Glaze adds sweetness, but done right it can add more without drawing attention to itself. I imagined the berries and grilled apricots, shining in the light on the plate atop their hillock of whipped cream and egg. A little hill. On the hill up to the winery, I knew there was a honeysuckle bush- I smelled the blossoms every morning. Pungent, light, floral, fresh… I needed THAT on the plate.

Early one morning last week, the idea couldn’t live in my brain anymore, and I put it together. “Just make it happen, get it out of your head, and don’t fuck around.”

That’s why the VIPs this week are getting pavlova, you got to read about how it was made, and I have an empty glass beside me. Putting the right things together and putting the work in to treat them right means you’ll more often that not have something to enjoy.

Grilled Apricot Pavlova with Raspberries and Whipped Creme Fraiche

Stay Classy,

“Do or Do Not”- Small Scale Absolutes

May 4, 2026 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I can’t identify the music coming from the interior of the burger truck behind my favorite local taproom, but it feels appropriate- an atmospheric endless riffing of electric guitar, like Kurt Cobain vamping on his guitar and deciding whether or not to sing. The sky is overcast, all but guaranteeing a cooler, rainier tomorrow than the last two days of pseudo-warmth. I’ll be back in the kitchen for those, hopefully getting through the day with a minimum of angst.

May is right around the corner, and it’s usually a rough month for my family. Memories of my grandmother and uncle flood through on the anniversary of their deaths, and being in a kitchen- where I tend to feel my grandmother’s presence the most- can make experiences that were already going to be fraught feel downright hostile and ironic. Is whatever I’d be doing just then what they’d want for me? Am I falling short somehow? Who can tell me what they might have wanted?

Nope, no good. I can do my best, but the dead don’t get a say anymore. Our ancestors march behind us, but any rivers we choose to cross, we make the decision alone. We can’t make a song just riffing forever, and the clouds need to empty themselves eventually. Shit or get off the pot.

My dream pie truck is on the metaphorical fire again. I’m piecing together a business plan- a real one, with gratitude and apologies to Chris Gillebeau– and Trying To Do It Right This Time. In a little more than two months, I turn 40. I have plenty of time to make it happen to my own schedule, and I’d promised myself that the winery would be the last time I worked for someone else. Recent events seem to have underlined it for me, and when such disparate minds as my wife, my mother-in-law, my therapist, and coworkers look at me and say “About friggin’ time, you won’t be happy any other way?” That’s a choir you’d better be sitting in the pews for. “You’ve got a song in you, we know it- quit riffing and sing.”

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Gaps in the Armor

March 23, 2026 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

The right food at the right time can give you nearly everything you need. In my case, I was back at the Beer Bus and had just pounded a tuna burrito from Saint Burrito. The balled-up tinfoil and a stained napkin were being held down by what remains of my beer.

I had just come out of the gym and needed a late lunch/ refuel. Protein, carbs, a bit less fat than your normal burrito, and 5% alcohol to help soothe the muscles. Beer doesn’t get enough credit as a post-workout beverage if it’s consumed within reason. John L. Sullivan, the legendary “knock out king” of 19th Century Boston, had an equally legendary drinking problem. All his work and fighting couldn’t keep his daily Kidney Pickling from turning his muscles slack and flabby. “Moderation in everything, including Moderation,” says verbal knock-out king Oscar Wilde.

A suit of armor on a black-gray vignette background

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Don’t Overthink It- Just Look Closer

March 1, 2026 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

It was the third time I’d made those damn tarts in a week. They were a fairly simple idea from my boss.

“Matt, what do think of offering seasonal upgrades on our holiday banquet menu? Like they can order your Chocolate Passionfruit Tartlets, but for a little more they could spring for some other more seasonal flavor?”

“Not a bad idea… what did you have in mind?”

“Hmm… how about apple? Just apple with some whipped cream and pecans? We can tweak the idea later- just spitballing right now.”

“Sure, I guess that’d work. I’ll figure out batching and stuff and we can discuss it.”

The next time it’s discussed looks like this:
“Hey Matt, we’re going to need about 20 dozen Roasted Apple Tarts for next week.”

“Um… since when? I don’t have a recipe or batching for that yet. Wait- did we already sell this?!”

“Just make a good apple filling and put it in some shells. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

In my world, “figuring out the rest later” means “throw together a basic recipe and, if you don’t have perfect math for everything yet, do the recipe as many times as it takes and keep notes.” It practically wipes out the point of production baking- doing one big batch only a few times, storing it, and pulling as needed- because I have only guesswork to go on. “This should make about this many, and we should be able to freeze leftovers for later…”

That’s a lot of “shoulds” and “abouts,” and if they are wrong suddenly I am remaking the product under more pressure. More pressure means more hurry, and more hurry means more mistakes. Haste makes waste.

The pastry chef in me sees this for what it is- a waste of time and a waste of resources spent on what comes down to the impatience and lack of communication that, alas, comes from working under others. That part of me also eventually says, “Fine. You want basic, you get basic.”

The good news is that basic by no means means “bad” if you know what you’re doing.

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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.