don't fuck with my mise!

strawberry shortcakes
Originally uploaded by the_jade_greene.

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.

small towns.

Is is Boston or is it SF?

Throw a stone in Boston and you hit Lydia Shire. Ken Oringer. Todd English.

Throw a stone in SF, you hit a Bostonian. Sox fan. Everyone here knows the places I've been so far, and I've only just gotten here and already the San Francisco chef community feels both small and insular, and weirdly connected to the community I left behind. Is it chefs the country over, or is there some kind of SF siren song us cold New Englanders are particularly susceptible to?

I was walking around the Gourmet Ghetto this afternoon looking for a good pastry, reached as far as I wanted to go and crossed the street to turn around when I notice Poulet is hiring. What the hell, I think, why not? If I fill out an application I can at least try to snatch a copy of Edible San Francisco without feeling so guilty about it.

So I fill out the application, take the magazine, go to leave the application on the counter and they're like, wait, we'll get someone for you to talk with, and they do, and I sit down with this woman Michelle who has lived in Cambridge. Worked at the Bostonian with Lydia Shire. I mention Sonsie, how Bill Poirer used to work with Lydia at the Bostonian, etc. She's eaten at Sonsie. I describe the French doors, how the tables face Newbury Street, I ask her how Lydia Shire was to work for, etc. She asks me if I'd like to bake one day a week or so if they need the help. Yes, duh, definitely. I've got an interview/trial there Thursday. Mmmmh roast chicken. I think working in the Gourmet Ghetto would be fun and dangerous (for the wallet). It makes me happy, so much good food. In the same way the Ferry Building does.

Apparently there's some Ferry-Building-is-the-temple-of-food article in GQ. Don't have my issue yet, though.

Went to Masse's after Poulet for some opera cake and coffee. The cake wasn't coffee-ish enough for my taste. It was strange. Eating it made me realize I've only had Cheffy's opera cake. Kind of like a lover's touch, you think you like being touched that way and then you realize it was only with those hands.