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.
Happy Halloween, friends and neighbors!
I hope you spend tonight safely, spookily, and loaded up with enough pumpkin and chocolate that you can’t possibly forget to VOTE.
This blog post is coming to you from my rocking chair, where it is about noon and I am still in my pajamas. This is because I have had a hell of a week, and I am getting an aggressive masterclass in How To Just Chill The Hell Out- because the five holes in my torso need to heal, and will not be denied.
As such, I have been sleeping a lot, listening to a lot of music and podcasts, and even awoke the Dread Owl from its slumber… so here’s what’s been on my mind.
When it comes to ambition, goal setting, and planning- whenever someone says “there wasn’t room for doubt,” I don’t think that’s true. I think they didn’t MAKE room for doubt.
That sounds almost cynical and defeatist- and I suppose it could be taken that way. I won’t pretend to be some grand philosopher on that. I’m an anxious person. “Doubting” is as natural to me as lemonade on a hot day- as is planning, contingency, and fear-setting, for better or worse.
If Jesus can have a moment of doubt at Gethsemane, I’m pretty sure us poor mortals can wake up in the morning and wonder if we’re still going the way we want to in life. Those moments are important, because that’s when you make the turns that get you there. Don’t cheat yourself by removing room to doubt.
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.
He was brand new. We had trained him for a week- he had a ways to go, but he took his tasks on, did the work asked, and didn’t make a fuss. He asked questions about the nuts and bolts of recipes, he asked about when we took breaks, and how he should clock in and out for them.
“Ten years in the business,” he said. “Started as a dishwasher at 16, worked up to prep, then line cook.” Covid took him out of the kitchen he’d called home and the bakery had work that needed doing. He wasn’t picky- he just needed to work.
Wednesday night, he went to party. Thursday morning, he never clocked in- a hangover made staying home more appealing than showing up for his shift.
A no call/no show. He can stay home as long as he likes now.
The Black Hat Baker 