oops...i forgot to tell you the best story in that last post! in a way it's about hustling, too, and in a way it's strange and sad, but i find i keep turning it over in my mind.
i have never been the sort of person to look outward for inspiration for stories, but this one, there's something about the mystery in it that i might just borrow it one day.
so, a while back i ran into someone i used to cook with. we chatted about workplaces and he gave me the rundown on who was still working at the restaurant {turnover. always} and who had moved on.
a skinny slip of a cook with intense eyes and a quietly cocky manner simply disappeared. he was married {i thought he was gay...eh...} and he left. left work. gave no notice. skipped town or not. changed the phone number or not. vanished.
i wonder if he took his possessions, his knives, his bicycle, his chefwear. i wonder if he's returned. in my mind he's on the line in some distant city, but what thoughts are possibly going through his head as he flicks the saute pan?
on a different note: i worked 32 hours in the last 3 days. give or take.
on a related note...i'm kinda totally in love with editing my manuscript. it's so scary and so wonderful. part of me wants to tell everyone i know and part of me wants to keep it all to myself. i know it's a very, very long process and i know there will be so many moments when i hate it and am discouraged and think i am not so good at this and want to go out into the world and do something else. but for right now it's such a rush...familiar yet totally not. i'm trying to trust it--the process, the voice, my skill, something. it makes me want to call up writer friends and have long intense conversations. it's somehow made writing feel new again.
Showing posts with label pulling doubles all weekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pulling doubles all weekend. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
boredom in the kitchen
I was talking to a fellow cook today about boredom. I kept checking facebook every five minutes. and twitter. I was so bored.
I'd had a pretty busy today at work before heading over to sweat a few more hours in someone else's kitchen, and a lot of orders to fill. Logically, there wasn't cause to be bored. Monday things are pretty slow, I can expect to have a short day, and since it's the end of my work week, I should expect that most things that need to happen that week have happened. I expect Mondays to be boring. But Friday...Friday would be my busiest day even if I didn't have somewhere else to be after work.
Part of it is being alone. No one to talk to. Part of it is the nature of the job.
A former line cook friend told me some time ago that if I was going to continue cooking, I needed to get used to boredom. I am sure this was in response to my complaints about having to work service during a slow night/month/season. I never liked working service (but that's another post), not least because--especially in an open kitchen, where you are constantly being watched--there is not a lot that you can do. Sure, you can start infusing that spice for an anglaise, but who is going to stand there and cook it for you if you get a ticket? Working service is, literally, waiting for the printer to spit out your tickets. Working in pastry, you are the wallflower of service, the last asked to dance.
I wanted to be busy all the time. Cakes in the oven, dough to sheet, chocolate melting over a double boiler and an infusion going. The kind of busy where you leave at the end of the day and realize that every single person eating dessert that night will be eating something that you made. You're exhausted and energized.
There'll be times when you're just chopping stuff for two hours, my friend said. Hulling strawberries. Because it needs to be done. You're going to be bored and that's part of the job.
pans by cseanburns
I shouldn't be surprised at boredom, but somehow I constantly am. Another cook once said to me that it's only after you pass through that phase {actually, in her words, it was only after you'd spent a year somewhere, but some places have steeper learning curves than others} that you begin to see under that layer to everything else going on, and you learn so much more. Take your pick of advice; get back
to me on it.
kumquats by orphanjones
I'd had a pretty busy today at work before heading over to sweat a few more hours in someone else's kitchen, and a lot of orders to fill. Logically, there wasn't cause to be bored. Monday things are pretty slow, I can expect to have a short day, and since it's the end of my work week, I should expect that most things that need to happen that week have happened. I expect Mondays to be boring. But Friday...Friday would be my busiest day even if I didn't have somewhere else to be after work.
Part of it is being alone. No one to talk to. Part of it is the nature of the job.
A former line cook friend told me some time ago that if I was going to continue cooking, I needed to get used to boredom. I am sure this was in response to my complaints about having to work service during a slow night/month/season. I never liked working service (but that's another post), not least because--especially in an open kitchen, where you are constantly being watched--there is not a lot that you can do. Sure, you can start infusing that spice for an anglaise, but who is going to stand there and cook it for you if you get a ticket? Working service is, literally, waiting for the printer to spit out your tickets. Working in pastry, you are the wallflower of service, the last asked to dance.
I wanted to be busy all the time. Cakes in the oven, dough to sheet, chocolate melting over a double boiler and an infusion going. The kind of busy where you leave at the end of the day and realize that every single person eating dessert that night will be eating something that you made. You're exhausted and energized.
There'll be times when you're just chopping stuff for two hours, my friend said. Hulling strawberries. Because it needs to be done. You're going to be bored and that's part of the job.
pans by cseanburns
I shouldn't be surprised at boredom, but somehow I constantly am. Another cook once said to me that it's only after you pass through that phase {actually, in her words, it was only after you'd spent a year somewhere, but some places have steeper learning curves than others} that you begin to see under that layer to everything else going on, and you learn so much more. Take your pick of advice; get back
to me on it.
kumquats by orphanjones
Sunday, October 14, 2007
dragging myself out into the world, or trying to
Writing...which means of course *not* writing. At Philz. I'm going to work on the cut-up story.
Tonight will find me at the Sister Spit reading, deep in the Tenderloin, in a creaking and quasi literary bar. I went to the tour's last SF reading. This one should be packed with animated and angry dykes, trannies, queers of all sorts and shares, and a lion's share of writers with former drinking problems. The writers will be funny and fierce and reckless in their use of grammar. They may be published in journals you've never heard of or they may have books out. They'll make me want to be one of them. A slightly dangerous and more glamorous version of myself. Their words will be messy and juicy and breaking and I'll feel over-educated and timid and I'll want to write new stories about the world I live in.
I think the chef world needs more chronicling, but different chronicling. The voice of the pastry cook, so rarely heard. The girl in the kitchen, ditto. Queer cooks, how many do you know? What you know of my industry is Top Chef and Anthony Bourdain, but there's so much more than that. Who do you read? What do you read? What do you know of the kitchen? Why do you come here?
Like the chef, the writer is a mysterious and overly romanticized figure. The hazards of the occupation are fewer, but you will drive yourself crazy just as quickly and your quest for perfection will be misunderstood. Intense and overly analytical circles, my two worlds. Long hours toiling alone. More questions than answers. The deeper in you go, the more you realize what you don't know. You want someone to help you, to give you all the answers, but the process is far too complicated to work that way. Normal people don't understand why you do it. And you have plenty of normal relationships in your life but when you're with another writer or another chef, you talk for hours about things other people don't understand.
{talking about rice pudding last week, my boss said that If You Understand How Rice Cooks, Then You Will Understand Why You Need To Sweeten It At The End. It's the sort of koan that makes me want to not go back to work until I figure out why but then I'd never go back to work because there is always more to know about rice, and sugar. But don't you all worry I'll be at work tomorrow, claro}
I am lonely these days for a balance in my life. I cook, and then I read and think about how I should be writing. I ride my bike to and from work and think about biking around to other neighborhoods and getting to know my new city more. I used to be a balanced person before all this food stuff happened to me. I'm trying to remember that there are more things that I like to do. That I'm not just the girl in the Sox hat working the line {perhaps you are surprised that I get to wear my hat at work. I was, too. But customers talk to me all the time!}
Once upon a time I liked to read, knit, play scrabble, watch burlesque, play pool, hang out in cafes, go to all the major museum shows, ride my bicycle, play video games, go to literary readings, go thrift store shopping, grow vegetables, take my dog for really long walks, go driving around, maybe go on a date with a girl I might like. I wanted to learn to: keep bees, fish, be a better gardener/grower, make fucking sorbet which I still can't do, write a screenplay, be a cowboy, get out of debt, work with chocolate, speak spanish.
The last thing I wanted to do? Learn to work with seasonal and local produce. {&how long will it take me to learn all I should know about fruit? How many lifetimes indeed}
Writing. Happening now. I want to tell you a story about the FPFM, but I don't think I should.
Tonight will find me at the Sister Spit reading, deep in the Tenderloin, in a creaking and quasi literary bar. I went to the tour's last SF reading. This one should be packed with animated and angry dykes, trannies, queers of all sorts and shares, and a lion's share of writers with former drinking problems. The writers will be funny and fierce and reckless in their use of grammar. They may be published in journals you've never heard of or they may have books out. They'll make me want to be one of them. A slightly dangerous and more glamorous version of myself. Their words will be messy and juicy and breaking and I'll feel over-educated and timid and I'll want to write new stories about the world I live in.
I think the chef world needs more chronicling, but different chronicling. The voice of the pastry cook, so rarely heard. The girl in the kitchen, ditto. Queer cooks, how many do you know? What you know of my industry is Top Chef and Anthony Bourdain, but there's so much more than that. Who do you read? What do you read? What do you know of the kitchen? Why do you come here?
Like the chef, the writer is a mysterious and overly romanticized figure. The hazards of the occupation are fewer, but you will drive yourself crazy just as quickly and your quest for perfection will be misunderstood. Intense and overly analytical circles, my two worlds. Long hours toiling alone. More questions than answers. The deeper in you go, the more you realize what you don't know. You want someone to help you, to give you all the answers, but the process is far too complicated to work that way. Normal people don't understand why you do it. And you have plenty of normal relationships in your life but when you're with another writer or another chef, you talk for hours about things other people don't understand.
{talking about rice pudding last week, my boss said that If You Understand How Rice Cooks, Then You Will Understand Why You Need To Sweeten It At The End. It's the sort of koan that makes me want to not go back to work until I figure out why but then I'd never go back to work because there is always more to know about rice, and sugar. But don't you all worry I'll be at work tomorrow, claro}
I am lonely these days for a balance in my life. I cook, and then I read and think about how I should be writing. I ride my bike to and from work and think about biking around to other neighborhoods and getting to know my new city more. I used to be a balanced person before all this food stuff happened to me. I'm trying to remember that there are more things that I like to do. That I'm not just the girl in the Sox hat working the line {perhaps you are surprised that I get to wear my hat at work. I was, too. But customers talk to me all the time!}
Once upon a time I liked to read, knit, play scrabble, watch burlesque, play pool, hang out in cafes, go to all the major museum shows, ride my bicycle, play video games, go to literary readings, go thrift store shopping, grow vegetables, take my dog for really long walks, go driving around, maybe go on a date with a girl I might like. I wanted to learn to: keep bees, fish, be a better gardener/grower, make fucking sorbet which I still can't do, write a screenplay, be a cowboy, get out of debt, work with chocolate, speak spanish.
The last thing I wanted to do? Learn to work with seasonal and local produce. {&how long will it take me to learn all I should know about fruit? How many lifetimes indeed}
Writing. Happening now. I want to tell you a story about the FPFM, but I don't think I should.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
sunday rant
Oh yum, there are 12 cups of real Maine blueberries waiting for me to get back to Boston and make pies! Xmas duck and blueberry pie anyone? I'll be back home before then...October sometime, for leaves and apples and Burdick's hot chocolate. Dunkin Donuts. Oleana. Herrell's, Toscanini's, Hi Rise toast with maple butter MMMh.
What I really wanna know is HOW we went through an entire batch of vanilla buttercream today, almost. Which is to say three pounds of egg whites twelve pounds of butter just over three pounds of sugar. I don't think there's enough left for much after tomorrow morning, which means we've got to make some fresh off the bat, and tomorrow is our most understated day. It's up to me and one other baker to get out 28 times 24 cupcakes frosted fourteen different ways. Plus the orders decorated. With no help for the first two hours of our shift and after our one lone helper comes, we've got to get into batters for the day. I made vanilla buttercream yesterday, that was part of me running around like a zoo monkey. I made a whole batch. How did we not notice it disappearing so fast? I'm so tired of being fucked before I even begin to pick up a pastry bag two days out of five in my work week. And I'm tired of certain people getting preferential treatment in their scheduling and others getting not enough respect for putting out 1,440 cupcakes on a day that's our third busiest and least staffed and for having to do it again tomorrow. I'm going to crawl into bed with the pizza I'm making when it's finished (green zebras, spinach, mushrooms), watch reruns of the L Word and Sex in the City, and work on my knitting.
What I really wanna know is HOW we went through an entire batch of vanilla buttercream today, almost. Which is to say three pounds of egg whites twelve pounds of butter just over three pounds of sugar. I don't think there's enough left for much after tomorrow morning, which means we've got to make some fresh off the bat, and tomorrow is our most understated day. It's up to me and one other baker to get out 28 times 24 cupcakes frosted fourteen different ways. Plus the orders decorated. With no help for the first two hours of our shift and after our one lone helper comes, we've got to get into batters for the day. I made vanilla buttercream yesterday, that was part of me running around like a zoo monkey. I made a whole batch. How did we not notice it disappearing so fast? I'm so tired of being fucked before I even begin to pick up a pastry bag two days out of five in my work week. And I'm tired of certain people getting preferential treatment in their scheduling and others getting not enough respect for putting out 1,440 cupcakes on a day that's our third busiest and least staffed and for having to do it again tomorrow. I'm going to crawl into bed with the pizza I'm making when it's finished (green zebras, spinach, mushrooms), watch reruns of the L Word and Sex in the City, and work on my knitting.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
don't fuck with my mise!
I should be going to sleep soon, but it's really nice to have energy. Especially since I almost fell asleep this evening when I got home from work, and almost burned my teriyaki chicken (rescued just in time to still be tender, mostly, and have REALLY crispy skin). I've been working like a dog since Friday.
I used to not really understand very well the teamwork aspect of professional kitchens, because where I've been the pastry person is always alone and usually taking up someone else's counter or oven space
(insert memories of Sonsie brunches and fighting over the oven for bacon versus focaccia).
During the Saturday market the girls would get low on pastries and forget to ask me to bake more, then come to me as I was cutting fruit for fruit tarts, whipping vanilla cream for shortcakes, etc. and demand seventy pastries be egg washed and baked. I'd do it immediately, push my project to the side, get my table dirty, clean, go back to my mise, be interrupted again, and not be able to bake off the new pastries because there was no oven space. It could all be avoided by proper planning. But please, don't fuck with my mise. It makes for a very long day.
However, it's very nice to be able to pop some shortcake in your mouth in the middle of a long day. I was feeling very frustrated on Saturday that it's my job to make yummy things for other people but not part of my job description to eat them. I was feeling like I needed food=love to get some energy to wash away the frustration, and get back to busting out pastries. It worked very well. It's hard to take a moment to eat or take a real break when you have enough work to keep you occupied. It saddens me that food workers don't get to feed themselves properly, but I go all day without eating too.
Saturday night was a catered wedding at Tilden, with a Masse's wedding cake. Two layers of chocolate raspberry and one of passionfruit. I demanded and got some of each. The passionfruit one was good, better than I was expecting. Better than the Tartine passionfruit coconut cake I got to try today since one of the girls at the cupcakery bought one for us all to try (must be nice to be rich, eh?)Tartine's was all about the overly large shredded coconut on the outside, and not skinning the underside of the cake, which is something that bothers me if you're going to be presenting cakes. Masse's was nicely trimmed. From the texture of the cake I was afraid it was going to be dry, but it wasn't. There was passionfruit bavarian and curd, or curd lightened mousse, or something. The caterer wasn't quite sure. There was also wine and Hennessey's cognac to take home, and quite drunken bridesmaids.
Then up this morning to get to the cupcakery by 8 (tomorrow as well). It was a big production day and I didn't leave the back room at all. Just busted through batches of chocolate and vanilla frosting, chocolate batter, cream cheese frosting. The funny thing about being the new girl is you do things like made a 4x batch of frosting and put it all in the large Hobart and then when your butter's good and creamed and you're adding the sugar (my first experience with American buttercream) the other bakers get around to telling you no one's ever done a batch that large in that mixer before. It's not cockiness when I pull it off and it's fine, and I get to cross it off the production list, and everyone's stoked that we saved some time, but rather a quiet happiness for something done efficiently.
The Sonsie days really are behind me. They've been on my mind lately, possibly because I know that for right now I'm not going to be working in any restaurant kitchens. Lifting large Hobart bowls that I'm not strong enough to maneuver (but trying to do it anyway) recalls the daily battle with the pizza dough, or the vanilla pound cake. It's interesting now that I'm also in a creative position. I'm on a big herbal kick right now. Scented creams, infusions, berries and spice. I get tired of making things week after week and have considered doing away with the strawberry lavender tart (just after it's developed a following, ah!). it's my duty now to think about flavors and components. When making the polenta cake, I found myself thinking of texture/crunch/creamy/sweet, which was a nice step from "I miss that semolina cake, maybe I'll make one with blackberries since we have them on hand." But there's still so much more I need to understand.
I used to not really understand very well the teamwork aspect of professional kitchens, because where I've been the pastry person is always alone and usually taking up someone else's counter or oven space
(insert memories of Sonsie brunches and fighting over the oven for bacon versus focaccia).
During the Saturday market the girls would get low on pastries and forget to ask me to bake more, then come to me as I was cutting fruit for fruit tarts, whipping vanilla cream for shortcakes, etc. and demand seventy pastries be egg washed and baked. I'd do it immediately, push my project to the side, get my table dirty, clean, go back to my mise, be interrupted again, and not be able to bake off the new pastries because there was no oven space. It could all be avoided by proper planning. But please, don't fuck with my mise. It makes for a very long day.
However, it's very nice to be able to pop some shortcake in your mouth in the middle of a long day. I was feeling very frustrated on Saturday that it's my job to make yummy things for other people but not part of my job description to eat them. I was feeling like I needed food=love to get some energy to wash away the frustration, and get back to busting out pastries. It worked very well. It's hard to take a moment to eat or take a real break when you have enough work to keep you occupied. It saddens me that food workers don't get to feed themselves properly, but I go all day without eating too.
Saturday night was a catered wedding at Tilden, with a Masse's wedding cake. Two layers of chocolate raspberry and one of passionfruit. I demanded and got some of each. The passionfruit one was good, better than I was expecting. Better than the Tartine passionfruit coconut cake I got to try today since one of the girls at the cupcakery bought one for us all to try (must be nice to be rich, eh?)Tartine's was all about the overly large shredded coconut on the outside, and not skinning the underside of the cake, which is something that bothers me if you're going to be presenting cakes. Masse's was nicely trimmed. From the texture of the cake I was afraid it was going to be dry, but it wasn't. There was passionfruit bavarian and curd, or curd lightened mousse, or something. The caterer wasn't quite sure. There was also wine and Hennessey's cognac to take home, and quite drunken bridesmaids.
Then up this morning to get to the cupcakery by 8 (tomorrow as well). It was a big production day and I didn't leave the back room at all. Just busted through batches of chocolate and vanilla frosting, chocolate batter, cream cheese frosting. The funny thing about being the new girl is you do things like made a 4x batch of frosting and put it all in the large Hobart and then when your butter's good and creamed and you're adding the sugar (my first experience with American buttercream) the other bakers get around to telling you no one's ever done a batch that large in that mixer before. It's not cockiness when I pull it off and it's fine, and I get to cross it off the production list, and everyone's stoked that we saved some time, but rather a quiet happiness for something done efficiently.
The Sonsie days really are behind me. They've been on my mind lately, possibly because I know that for right now I'm not going to be working in any restaurant kitchens. Lifting large Hobart bowls that I'm not strong enough to maneuver (but trying to do it anyway) recalls the daily battle with the pizza dough, or the vanilla pound cake. It's interesting now that I'm also in a creative position. I'm on a big herbal kick right now. Scented creams, infusions, berries and spice. I get tired of making things week after week and have considered doing away with the strawberry lavender tart (just after it's developed a following, ah!). it's my duty now to think about flavors and components. When making the polenta cake, I found myself thinking of texture/crunch/creamy/sweet, which was a nice step from "I miss that semolina cake, maybe I'll make one with blackberries since we have them on hand." But there's still so much more I need to understand.
Friday, May 11, 2007
the learning curve gets rough
Today, while making rhubarb-blood orange upside down cakes and brown butter financiers--I've finally worked out how much sugar I like in them, and they're just so cute I really want everyone to eat them, oh, financier, I used to think you were boring! for shame--I tried to figure out my semolina cake.
The semolina cake was about the only thing I really liked on the Sonsie menu (grand marnier mousse cake and mocha ice cream aside). The semolina cake was on the summer menu when I came to Sonsie, with blueberries and buttermilk panna cotta and blueberry coulis. It was a nicely plated dessert (plating wasn't my boss's strong suit, and his plates most often resembled strange lunar landscapes with holes, and I'm nor sure what that says about his pastry process in general). It made sense. But cooking the cake in 9" pans led, most of the time that I was present, to a mushy mess on a cake circle. I ruined multiple semolina cakes. Michael ruined a few as well, or at least tore out the middle or the side. No matter how hard we sprayed the pan, semolina guts everywhere. The semolina cake re-appaeared on the winter menu with tangerine panna cotta, blood orange sorbet and orange slices on top. The citrusy mess that didn't plate well, with an always-grainy sorbet, soft cake, and hard, unpleasant supremes of orange on top. I enjoyed the cake, but not that way.
I thought of it again yesterday while puzzling over what to make now at Frog Hollow while I wait for the produce to kick in. What to do with my strawberries, blood oranges and rhubarb besides the things I've been doing, and how to use off the rest of the tub of blackberries? (Forgot to make muffins again, damn!). I thought semolina cake with blackberries. But then this morning, I was washing off the rhubarb and cutting it, and I thought I'd rather make a rhubarb sauce, but I didn't really know how to do that, and in the back of my mind I'd been thinking over the crunchy, sweet rhubarb I'd had with my mango sorbet at Frisson, and how that had been the chance illustration of Maura's comments on how rhubarb and mango suit each other well. So I thought I'd candy my own rhubarb, and looking out the window at the spot where Capay usually sets up their stand I thought of Mariana and the baby fennel, and I wanted fennel whose texture was so similar to rhubarb, but I had to settle for anise seeds. Anise-infused cream, to be whipped and set on top of semolina cakes, garnished with candied rhubarb.
But then...I dig out the tub labeled polenta and spices. I've maybe made polenta once, from a log bought in the grocery store. I've seen the Sonsie crew make polenta a bunch with my semolina flour. I dug out a bag of what looked like cracked corn, and neither semolina flour nor the polenta I'd seen in stores. It very well may have been cornmeal or some sort. It came in a bag, tied with a grocery store twist tie. I was stuck; I'd mised everything else and I didn't want my very carefully brunoised, then candied rhubarb to go to waste. So I dug in, boiled the milk and vanilla, added the sugar and polenta, and stirred, and stirred, and thought of the polenta musing in Bill Bryson's Heat. It thickened, but not enough. Not as much as the semolina cake batter I'd whisk like I was teaching it a goddammed lesson, until the thing trembled away from the sides of the pan in a neat, uniform flutter. Not like I knew it needed to if I wanted to avoid the explosion in the pan. But I also had to get to job #2. So I boiled it away for a while, shocked it in the fridge (bad chef, no ice bath), got my whites sort-of-stiff-peak, and went with it. In the oven, when it's black it's done.
Mini muffins puffed up with the pride of having risen, with a nice resilient golden crackle in top greeted me in fifteen minutes. Not like the wilted, shameful semolina texture. I tested them, called them done, watched them fall a little. And then the test. I prayed for them to be good, and they indeed were. Whatever was in the bag. The Frog Hollow manager, who'd been eyeing me all suspiciously while I puttered while beseeching me to make candied lemon peel dipped in chocolate, came to appraise them. ("Chocolate and lemon's in right now," I told her. "I KNOW!" she sniffled. "It's not new, it's always been in in my culture." "Well YOUR CULTURE's in right now," I replied. We both rolled our eyes)
What's thaaat? she asked.
I told her they were okay, I'd been nervous, try a piece. She popped it in her mouth.
She liked it.
I told her what I was going to serve it with, and how they weren't quite how I wanted them, but it was nice to pass the test and go on with my day to work at the cupcake place. I would like to eat polenta/semolina cake with anise cream and candied rhubarb. Maybe next week if I do it again. But more than that, I'd like to understand how to get what I want from the polenta, or the semolina, or the cornmeal. How to react to the unexpected. And what do I do, do I ask my baker friends? The girls at the cupcakery had no experience cooking with semolina. Do I ask the pastry girls? It's possible Chelsea or Kimberly would know. Ask Cheffy, who'd probably ask me what I wanted mussing with semolina anyway? Call Maura, one early Cambridge morning? Puzzling my way out of the box, I think, starts with understanding my original recipe, and how the semolina adds texture and structure. But possibly it doesn't start there at all.
The semolina cake was about the only thing I really liked on the Sonsie menu (grand marnier mousse cake and mocha ice cream aside). The semolina cake was on the summer menu when I came to Sonsie, with blueberries and buttermilk panna cotta and blueberry coulis. It was a nicely plated dessert (plating wasn't my boss's strong suit, and his plates most often resembled strange lunar landscapes with holes, and I'm nor sure what that says about his pastry process in general). It made sense. But cooking the cake in 9" pans led, most of the time that I was present, to a mushy mess on a cake circle. I ruined multiple semolina cakes. Michael ruined a few as well, or at least tore out the middle or the side. No matter how hard we sprayed the pan, semolina guts everywhere. The semolina cake re-appaeared on the winter menu with tangerine panna cotta, blood orange sorbet and orange slices on top. The citrusy mess that didn't plate well, with an always-grainy sorbet, soft cake, and hard, unpleasant supremes of orange on top. I enjoyed the cake, but not that way.
I thought of it again yesterday while puzzling over what to make now at Frog Hollow while I wait for the produce to kick in. What to do with my strawberries, blood oranges and rhubarb besides the things I've been doing, and how to use off the rest of the tub of blackberries? (Forgot to make muffins again, damn!). I thought semolina cake with blackberries. But then this morning, I was washing off the rhubarb and cutting it, and I thought I'd rather make a rhubarb sauce, but I didn't really know how to do that, and in the back of my mind I'd been thinking over the crunchy, sweet rhubarb I'd had with my mango sorbet at Frisson, and how that had been the chance illustration of Maura's comments on how rhubarb and mango suit each other well. So I thought I'd candy my own rhubarb, and looking out the window at the spot where Capay usually sets up their stand I thought of Mariana and the baby fennel, and I wanted fennel whose texture was so similar to rhubarb, but I had to settle for anise seeds. Anise-infused cream, to be whipped and set on top of semolina cakes, garnished with candied rhubarb.
But then...I dig out the tub labeled polenta and spices. I've maybe made polenta once, from a log bought in the grocery store. I've seen the Sonsie crew make polenta a bunch with my semolina flour. I dug out a bag of what looked like cracked corn, and neither semolina flour nor the polenta I'd seen in stores. It very well may have been cornmeal or some sort. It came in a bag, tied with a grocery store twist tie. I was stuck; I'd mised everything else and I didn't want my very carefully brunoised, then candied rhubarb to go to waste. So I dug in, boiled the milk and vanilla, added the sugar and polenta, and stirred, and stirred, and thought of the polenta musing in Bill Bryson's Heat. It thickened, but not enough. Not as much as the semolina cake batter I'd whisk like I was teaching it a goddammed lesson, until the thing trembled away from the sides of the pan in a neat, uniform flutter. Not like I knew it needed to if I wanted to avoid the explosion in the pan. But I also had to get to job #2. So I boiled it away for a while, shocked it in the fridge (bad chef, no ice bath), got my whites sort-of-stiff-peak, and went with it. In the oven, when it's black it's done.
Mini muffins puffed up with the pride of having risen, with a nice resilient golden crackle in top greeted me in fifteen minutes. Not like the wilted, shameful semolina texture. I tested them, called them done, watched them fall a little. And then the test. I prayed for them to be good, and they indeed were. Whatever was in the bag. The Frog Hollow manager, who'd been eyeing me all suspiciously while I puttered while beseeching me to make candied lemon peel dipped in chocolate, came to appraise them. ("Chocolate and lemon's in right now," I told her. "I KNOW!" she sniffled. "It's not new, it's always been in in my culture." "Well YOUR CULTURE's in right now," I replied. We both rolled our eyes)
What's thaaat? she asked.
I told her they were okay, I'd been nervous, try a piece. She popped it in her mouth.
She liked it.
I told her what I was going to serve it with, and how they weren't quite how I wanted them, but it was nice to pass the test and go on with my day to work at the cupcake place. I would like to eat polenta/semolina cake with anise cream and candied rhubarb. Maybe next week if I do it again. But more than that, I'd like to understand how to get what I want from the polenta, or the semolina, or the cornmeal. How to react to the unexpected. And what do I do, do I ask my baker friends? The girls at the cupcakery had no experience cooking with semolina. Do I ask the pastry girls? It's possible Chelsea or Kimberly would know. Ask Cheffy, who'd probably ask me what I wanted mussing with semolina anyway? Call Maura, one early Cambridge morning? Puzzling my way out of the box, I think, starts with understanding my original recipe, and how the semolina adds texture and structure. But possibly it doesn't start there at all.
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