The Staff Of Life, Liquified

December 31, 2023January 6, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“Beer was liquid bread. Bread was solid beer.”
– Tom Standage, “A History of the World in Six Glasses

Walking in is as different at every beer hall as it is the same. Different decor, different vibe to the place, different service… different menus to be sure. Behind it all is a shared sensory vocabulary, however, that make each reminiscent of the others.

The arrangement of tables in the hall, sometimes, so that there is a selection of intimate booths for those who want to drink alone or in very select company and long linked tables for boisterous get-togethers and ersatz parties among colleagues. The general geography- you can see the seats and you can see the bar (the style and texture of which again reflects the mood and vibe of the place.) There is a clear order of operations to be observed here. A ritual to be followed and walked as carefully and unconsciously (for the faithful) as the Stations of the Cross.

A selfie of the author wearing an olive green newsboy cap, green tweed vest, and white shirt raising a pint of dark beer.

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End-of-Year Reflections

December 30, 2023December 30, 2023 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

When exactly does a journey end?

If you are looking to go somewhere new or better, ideally you find yourself in a different place, put down your stuff, and start about the task of living a new life in your new location. Joseph Campbell’s famous “hero’s journey” structure includes The Return- our brave hero, having crossed the border of the known into the unknown on their grand quest, returns across that border to the world they knew significantly changed.

Maybe they brought the “Magic Medicine,” as Campbell calls it, to solve a problem and the quest of seeking and finding the Medicine was only the first (albeit largest) part. Tripitaka, having successfully reached India and received the sutras from the Buddha along with his assistants Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, must now complete the quest by returning to China with them. Frodo, having seen the One Ring destroyed and the quest complete, returns home to free and rebuild the Shire.

For Tripitaka and Frodo, though, that still wasn’t the end of their stories. Tripitaka and his friends are magically whisked back to India after finishing their delivery and receive their ultimate rewards: Buddhahood for Tripitaka and Monkey, and sainthood for Pigsy and Sandy as their undertakings on the journey expunged the sins that set them on the road in the first place. Frodo, forever wounded and traumatized by his quest and prolonged exposure to the evil of the One Ring, realizes that he “can’t go home again” and leaves Middle Earth to seek peace and healing in the uttermost West.

Returning home but returning differently is just as much a journey as finding yourself in a new place- you set down old ways and start the process of living again as someone new.

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Real-World Questing- “If It’s Silly But It Works, It’s Not Silly.”

December 16, 2023December 23, 2023 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

(Full Disclosure: I wrote this post last week, but then… well, last week happened and I was exhausted, and this week is Christmas weekend so my brain is pretty much an electrified potato right now. Thank you for your patience!)

If you follow my Instagram, you’ve noticed I’ve been posting a lot of stories about beer in Portland lately. Not unusual in general maybe (#drinkerwithawritingproblem,) but just especially lately.

I found out casually while getting a post-shift beer at Von Ebert Brewing that they and several of my favorite local breweries decided to do a holiday “ale trail” called “The 12 Days of Gristmas”- “grist” being the term for the milled grain and mash bill used to make beer.

12 breweries.
12 holiday beers.
Get a stamp for each one, turn them in at the end for up to 12 raffle tickets to win swag.

It’s silly. I probably don’t need swag. No one needs beer enough to strategize how to hit as many breweries on the list as possible in one day on foot. I certainly don’t.

I love beer though.
I love supporting my local businesses that make good things.
I love walking around through Portland.
and I didn’t mind questing for something where the only thing at stake is my liver… but that’s what the walking is for.

Whatever breaks the despair and gets you out and moving is worth it.

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Something Like An Update

November 11, 2023November 11, 2023 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Hello everyone!

This week won’t be as heady or heavy as my previous posts have been. “It can’t rain all the time,” after all. Besides that, some version of whatever had Emily laid up for the last week or so has moved on to me. I don’t want to skip another week though, so instead I’m gonna pump myself full of DayQuil, chug broth, step back from the shitshow the world is being, and tell you about a project I’ve been working on and how you can get involved!

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Thoughts on Belonging

November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

We all want to belong. To something greater than ourselves, to have a community, a tribe, even just to have a family, biological or chosen.

The last few weeks have been a serious trial of my personal sense of belonging. Getting (mostly) off of social media has helped stem the tide of belabored bullshit. “You are either with us or against us,” whatever the “us” is, is a big red flag for whether you actually belong to a certain group or whether your belonging is conditional on saying and doing the “right” things.

Work in the kitchen has provided a sense of place and community. Kitchens ave historically been my “safe spaces” and sanctuaries. Everything has a place, a purpose, and my belonging in them is undeniable and absolute- by my experience and skills if not myself.

“Matt the Baker” is only part of me though, and leaning into that solely for my sense of belonging is dangerous. I am also an American, a Jewish man, more a leftist than anything else politically, and fundamentally a human being.

“Belonging” to any of those things has been intensely difficult lately, but I still feel the need to have a tribe and not be a “man without a country” when things get tough.

We have to learn to belong, first and foremost, to ourselves.