Restaurants

Making A Menu

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

When you work in a restaurant with enough backing and fancy enough clientele (or minimal backing and working-class clientele, but you’re the chef-owner with a shtick), menu flips make the tedious bits of the job worth it. After making the same dishes over and over again for months, sometimes beyond the season it even makes sense to keep selling them, doing a little spring cleaning on the menu feels positively invigorating.

This years dessert menu is already selling well, but the core theme of the selection isn’t just “seasonality”. Pick a menu from any restaurant- from the neighborhood diner to the latest Michelin-starred hotspot- and what goes into the menu is just as much about convenience, defensibility, economics, and business sense as any high-minded philosophy about sustainability, slow food, or “decolonizing the diet.” That’s because we don’t just sell food- we sell a night out. We sell a fantasy. We sell pleasure– so we make sure there’s something we can sell to as many people as possible.

What’s your pleasure?
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We Don’t Need Permission to Be

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

The winery where I work has an excellent view. It’s a major selling point as far as our clientele goes- people can look down on the valley over vineyards and woodland while sipping a glass of wine and take it easy. It’s a magnet for photos and set dressing when weddings and celebrations buy out some space.

When I arrive to work early in the morning, that view is usually all mine- but I don’t take advantage of it at all. I have work to do.

That’s no one’s fault but mine, of course. I get in early because that’s when The Baker shows up. I get the most space and most access to the ovens for a limited time before the rest of the kitchen rolls in mid-morning to afternoon, and I need to get to work.

So I show up early, knowing I have work to do, but I always want to walk out on the patio where the guests sit- where I absolutely don’t belong during business hours (and in fact would prefer not to be)- and just soak up that view for a moment. The stillness. The vastness. My smallness. The soothing balm of scale and insignificance to start the day, and keep with me while I obsess over rolls, bites of cake, and bits of chocolate that manage to mean everything to me… and absolutely nothing at all.

I never do, though. I have work to do, and I don’t get paid- OR pay- to enjoy the view.

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In Praise of Diners

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When you come from New Jersey, you know exactly what it means to go to diner. Not just the food or the atmosphere to expect, but what it means– especially a 24-Hour Diner.

This morning, I was walking around Southeast Portland and found myself craving diner food. More than that, I was craving the diner vibe that I thought I’d left behind on the East Coast. Food doesn’t have to be the best or fanciest or prettiest plate in existence for it to be the best food for that moment.

A breakfast on a diner table. An omelette with feta cheese is on top in the foreground. Behind it is a plate with two fluffy pancakes and cups of butter and syrup. Behind that a cup of tea, and a copy of “The Art of Eating” by M.F.K. Fisher.
Late Friday morning after a brisk walk, this was perfection.
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What Makes Good Food Writing

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Food is a form of communication.

When someone cooks for you, the food can tell you where they came from, what’s important to them, what influenced them, and what they dream of being and doing. On one plate, everything from the ingredients to the cooking methods to the service style can give you a veritable masterclass in the entire culture the dish came from.

Then there’s people like me who try to write about all of that and what’s more, make a buck off of it. It takes no small amount of hubris to assume you can summarize a multimedia, multi-sensory experience to words on a page. Sometimes the only thing that encourages me in trying to do so is that 1. Someone has to, and 2. People have.

When your office is wherever you want it to be, things usually wind up delicious if a little unglamorous.
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