from the craigslist "writing gigs" section: famous poet seeks intern
"famous poet/sculptress {insert URL here}. She has read with Charles, Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg. She also dated Charles Bukowski for five years. This your chance to learn from someone who learned for the greats. She have rare books from the 70's that need to be complied in a 'complete works' book. Please email me your resume and I'll be in-touch."
so many things to say but let's start with these:
1. Charles, Bukowski? no...alphabetizing goes last name first
2. Do we want to know your sex life to get a job with you? Do we need to?
3. "learned for the greats"
4. sounds like someone's books are out of print and she wants a vanity pressing, eh?
Happy Poetry Month. At least we know why it's unpaid....
Showing posts with label sensing bitterness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sensing bitterness. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
pistachio/ out to sea
If you are coming here to find out information on the obvious, the thing I am not talking about except for vaguely, yes, I have a new boss. But that ignores the fact that I have worked for this person since being hired at the restaurant, that we know one another's strengths and weaknesses and work personalities and tastes. We are into the second week and things are becoming routine again, in a sense. We have replaced most of the things we no longer have, so that trying to get a job done does not mean a discovery of no rolling pin, no pastry bag tip, no magnet or marker. We are redecorating the kitchen.
We have almost all (one was xc) been in touch with our old boss. Heartfelt emails exchanged, replies (or not) waited for...this thing requires distance. It could have spun a thousand ways but the pieces fell this particular way. We get sad, we get angry, we navigate all kinds of tension in the course of a day. This is not easy. And we have not been silent even though sometimes that may be easier, too.
We did not ask for this, but we nonetheless react. Make new sweet things. People ask me, several of them, if I am planning on leaving now as if, because I signed up to work for one person and that person is no longer there I would want to leave. Hell No I tell them. I tell them how I would never abandon my team, not least in their moment of need even if I *did* feel I could no longer work there without this one person. And then I tell them how my new boss has so much knowledge and experience and I feel lucky to learn from it. Do I have confidence in my new boss? Do I like her food? Am I happy to be there? Yes, to all of these. To more.
But in the end, it's just another day at work. Chopping things. Making salads. Doing inventory and cleaning and watching.
We have almost all (one was xc) been in touch with our old boss. Heartfelt emails exchanged, replies (or not) waited for...this thing requires distance. It could have spun a thousand ways but the pieces fell this particular way. We get sad, we get angry, we navigate all kinds of tension in the course of a day. This is not easy. And we have not been silent even though sometimes that may be easier, too.
We did not ask for this, but we nonetheless react. Make new sweet things. People ask me, several of them, if I am planning on leaving now as if, because I signed up to work for one person and that person is no longer there I would want to leave. Hell No I tell them. I tell them how I would never abandon my team, not least in their moment of need even if I *did* feel I could no longer work there without this one person. And then I tell them how my new boss has so much knowledge and experience and I feel lucky to learn from it. Do I have confidence in my new boss? Do I like her food? Am I happy to be there? Yes, to all of these. To more.
But in the end, it's just another day at work. Chopping things. Making salads. Doing inventory and cleaning and watching.
Friday, February 22, 2008
fruit memories/newness
I made some fig jam today at work for one of the two parties we had. Took black mission figs, cooked them down with some sweet muscat wine and a little water. I took some time to appreciate the sugar sheen on the figs as I diced them, stopped several times to stir, add, adjust, left some space for patience. Pureed the whole thing. It was very good. It went with fried graviera cheese.
Today I also learned how to cook the octopus, from someone who I am strangely starting to bond with. When the dish was put together, he handed me a piece of tentacle. I stared it down, remembering the rubbery feeling in my hand. I tasted it. I let go. It was good, better with sauce and with the side salad. Do You Wanna Show Me? I asked him. Do You Wanna Learn? he replied. There was a time when I wouldn't have said yes.
I worked garde manger tonight so I stayed out of the pastry kitchen, mostly, except to try a spoonful of some fresh-spun ice cream that my new boss held out to me. When I tried to taste it, still so soft and precious, it slid down my throat instead in the manner of an ice cream shot. Some slight hint of flavor lingered in my throat, but it went too fast to make a full impression. Come Back When You Learn To Eat, she said. Visitors to our kitchen soon learn that we tease mercilessly though it is, like a schoolboy's crush, always affectionate at heart. So I went back to the savory kitchen but there it was, an impression, a tease, a hint of an answer to a question.
Yesterday I tasted something good lord so delicious. I was in the pk while it was being born and I got to watch it come to life, got to dip fingers in process, asked the whys. It was incredible. I'm so excited for it.
Change is constant. What do you believe, what do you believe in? Do you fight or do you let go? Me, I'm trying to hold to the things I resolved at week's beginning.
I loved that fig jam. I made it with love. I made it meditating on the first perfect fig I ever ate, in a small Palestinian town, which led me to the figs from Knoll, and the fruit-stealing adventure in Berkeley with some perfect figs devoured on spot, and faint memories of Jerusalem, desert sunrises, certain women, Sonsie figs, my bad habits, my good intentions. Food is love. Food is a springboard. Food is a lot of things, but only with human intervention.
Today I also learned how to cook the octopus, from someone who I am strangely starting to bond with. When the dish was put together, he handed me a piece of tentacle. I stared it down, remembering the rubbery feeling in my hand. I tasted it. I let go. It was good, better with sauce and with the side salad. Do You Wanna Show Me? I asked him. Do You Wanna Learn? he replied. There was a time when I wouldn't have said yes.
I worked garde manger tonight so I stayed out of the pastry kitchen, mostly, except to try a spoonful of some fresh-spun ice cream that my new boss held out to me. When I tried to taste it, still so soft and precious, it slid down my throat instead in the manner of an ice cream shot. Some slight hint of flavor lingered in my throat, but it went too fast to make a full impression. Come Back When You Learn To Eat, she said. Visitors to our kitchen soon learn that we tease mercilessly though it is, like a schoolboy's crush, always affectionate at heart. So I went back to the savory kitchen but there it was, an impression, a tease, a hint of an answer to a question.
Yesterday I tasted something good lord so delicious. I was in the pk while it was being born and I got to watch it come to life, got to dip fingers in process, asked the whys. It was incredible. I'm so excited for it.
Change is constant. What do you believe, what do you believe in? Do you fight or do you let go? Me, I'm trying to hold to the things I resolved at week's beginning.
I loved that fig jam. I made it with love. I made it meditating on the first perfect fig I ever ate, in a small Palestinian town, which led me to the figs from Knoll, and the fruit-stealing adventure in Berkeley with some perfect figs devoured on spot, and faint memories of Jerusalem, desert sunrises, certain women, Sonsie figs, my bad habits, my good intentions. Food is love. Food is a springboard. Food is a lot of things, but only with human intervention.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
the update
There are two moments I keep coming back to from the last few days. One is Monday night after a very lazy day...I went out driving, and I drove until I felt like I could write. Until I felt like I could open a cookbook and let the flavors, textures and ideas wash over me. I drove through from Oakland through Emeryville, slipping through streets but never getting lost, then down Ashby and back to the freeway, and back here. I came upstairs and wrote for a while. Then I opened the Oleana cookbook and paged through, and the dishes felt at once like coming home and like variations on a theme. When I look at that cookbook I see the tiny kitchen and its spice rack, its back line, its dish. When I look at the pastry recipes the reaction is more visceral. I remember them....and tied up with remembering them is the crazy abundant wild energy I had at the time. The gluttony of food. The desperation to move to SF. I may have been in Boston but I wasn't, not really. I felt that on Monday, again. At least a faint glimmer of it. I tried to think of ways to keep it close to me, to carry it through the week. To do certain things differently.
And then the week started. And Tuesday afternoon I was washing out a pastry brush someone left in the sink, and went outside to shake it off. I looked back inside, through the glass windows that seem to have grown larger, like some kind of Alice in Wonderland trick, to see two of my coworkers laughing at me. I went back inside, asking what was all so funny. They told me the brush wasn't dry enough and I needed to keep doing it. Then my other coworker walked in the room. Wait Here, I told her. You Have To Stay Here To Laugh At Me, Too. I walked back outside prepared to shake out the brush, and of course looked back at their faces, and almost fell over laughing. There was something about it all...how their faces through the glass mirrored mine, how the moment felt stretched to a minute perhaps, how it grew larger and seemed very fictional, almost. Except there was no realization, no epiphany, no sense of largeness. Only laughter, but strange and joyous and not unkind. I shook the brush and we all laughed, and I went back inside.
They already tell me when I'm being stupid, mean, or plain inept, anyway...
And then the week started. And Tuesday afternoon I was washing out a pastry brush someone left in the sink, and went outside to shake it off. I looked back inside, through the glass windows that seem to have grown larger, like some kind of Alice in Wonderland trick, to see two of my coworkers laughing at me. I went back inside, asking what was all so funny. They told me the brush wasn't dry enough and I needed to keep doing it. Then my other coworker walked in the room. Wait Here, I told her. You Have To Stay Here To Laugh At Me, Too. I walked back outside prepared to shake out the brush, and of course looked back at their faces, and almost fell over laughing. There was something about it all...how their faces through the glass mirrored mine, how the moment felt stretched to a minute perhaps, how it grew larger and seemed very fictional, almost. Except there was no realization, no epiphany, no sense of largeness. Only laughter, but strange and joyous and not unkind. I shook the brush and we all laughed, and I went back inside.
They already tell me when I'm being stupid, mean, or plain inept, anyway...
Thursday, January 31, 2008
goodbye my perfect view
I've got the moving jitters. It's silly, I know. It's only Oakland. I've been getting casually excited about all the lil east bay things I love and will be near again, but I'm also sad in a lonely sort of way. I won't see San Francisco anymore as that city I descend into with the start of each day, clouds hanging high or fogged down low. The fog won't roll down from the haight or over bernal hill and enclose me. I am very much looking ofrward to having a safe home environment again, don't get me wrong, but I feel pricky. Maybe it's the weather. So much and rain and cold.
But this is sort of how the day went: cutting frozen cookies until the cutter wore a sore spot in the palm of my hand, riding the soft flesh against metal through the pain, rolling the scraps back out, freezing them again, the soft click of the rolling pin reminding my hand of its soreness. A vulnerable sort of day for prickly girls.
I'm going to remind myself not to be sad about these new eastbay adventures. It is right that I'm leaving this place and I suppose the only thing to be sad about is the loss of familiar routines.
But this is sort of how the day went: cutting frozen cookies until the cutter wore a sore spot in the palm of my hand, riding the soft flesh against metal through the pain, rolling the scraps back out, freezing them again, the soft click of the rolling pin reminding my hand of its soreness. A vulnerable sort of day for prickly girls.
I'm going to remind myself not to be sad about these new eastbay adventures. It is right that I'm leaving this place and I suppose the only thing to be sad about is the loss of familiar routines.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
homeless, adrift
twelve days now or is it eleven? i've got to find a place. certain of you might relish knowing i am considering moving back to the east bay...though i would still prefer to be here, mostly because it's easier to have a social life and check out all the fun things i wanted to move here for.
ti couz this morning, because i know my boss would be happy for me eating buckwheat crepes in the nature of inquisitiveness and so on.
I had so much coffee I was jittery and happy, and then so much food I only wanted a nap, which as not to happen. First a buckwheat crepe with caramelized onions, tomatoes and cheese, the buckwheat's old and woody flavor lost to me at least among the other ingredients. Then a sweet crepe with whipped cream I first suspected of being from a can (but it wasn't)! The sweet tang of nutella reminded me of an old dessert we used to do at Sonsie, one I always hated making...both in the production and in the plating of it.
How ridiculously lesbian it is to spend your brunch talking with the girl you used to date for like half a second about the other women she is seeing now, while also discussing with a friend in Boston (who used to like you, god, a million years ago) her fears about her date that afternoon?
Apartment hunting in Bayshore with the rest of the daylight, and then a nap, and then off to Arinell for some delicious pizza and a feeling of being elsewhere than San Francisco, and then lastly Ritual to take advantage of the internet before they closed.
Currently in the doghouse I have to stand on my bed and hold the computer in one hand in order to get internet. Every day I get headaches from either stress or dehydration or both, and our only form of heat is still a space heater so it seems I can be cold and hydrated or warm and meh and it takes so much energy to merely reckon with it all. I try to be all positive and one-door-closes about the whole situation but really I feel it's undeserved...I mean what have I done, for real? My dog is a good boy and I myself am mostly good though cranky in the mornings.
Still there are good things and I try to hold onto them, push the scary homelessness stuff aside enough to appreciate the rest of it all. Reconnecting with old friends
ti couz this morning, because i know my boss would be happy for me eating buckwheat crepes in the nature of inquisitiveness and so on.
I had so much coffee I was jittery and happy, and then so much food I only wanted a nap, which as not to happen. First a buckwheat crepe with caramelized onions, tomatoes and cheese, the buckwheat's old and woody flavor lost to me at least among the other ingredients. Then a sweet crepe with whipped cream I first suspected of being from a can (but it wasn't)! The sweet tang of nutella reminded me of an old dessert we used to do at Sonsie, one I always hated making...both in the production and in the plating of it.
How ridiculously lesbian it is to spend your brunch talking with the girl you used to date for like half a second about the other women she is seeing now, while also discussing with a friend in Boston (who used to like you, god, a million years ago) her fears about her date that afternoon?
Apartment hunting in Bayshore with the rest of the daylight, and then a nap, and then off to Arinell for some delicious pizza and a feeling of being elsewhere than San Francisco, and then lastly Ritual to take advantage of the internet before they closed.
Currently in the doghouse I have to stand on my bed and hold the computer in one hand in order to get internet. Every day I get headaches from either stress or dehydration or both, and our only form of heat is still a space heater so it seems I can be cold and hydrated or warm and meh and it takes so much energy to merely reckon with it all. I try to be all positive and one-door-closes about the whole situation but really I feel it's undeserved...I mean what have I done, for real? My dog is a good boy and I myself am mostly good though cranky in the mornings.
Still there are good things and I try to hold onto them, push the scary homelessness stuff aside enough to appreciate the rest of it all. Reconnecting with old friends
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
hiding.
I've been hiding out at morgan's house, with a dog and the computer I just got back from the apple store, trying to make order out of chaos. I recovered a lot more material than I thought I would find, including several published pieces, my entire thesis manuscript, my first story ever about SF, and the draft of a wonderful flash piece I was hoping to recover so that I could send to to a journal who was really, truly hoping to publish my oaklandish flash piece but got there several months too late. So today is editing that piece back to polished, sending it to the editor, and keeping my fingers crossed.
Here's the thing: I need to find a new place to live. By the end of this month. With a dog, it's tricky. I'm trying to take my own advice to a friend and not stress out about the things I can't control but really, I've just had shit luck since december 18th and if you work with me or know me and think I have been sad or grumpy it's true and I am trying really hard to be more positive. There are a few bright spots in the whirling fog and work is one. Even if I'm only cleaning down the bakeshop at the end of the night rockin out to Crimson and Clover. Work is my rock in the middle of all this messiness and I am so thankful to feel that way about a workplace. It's unusual for me.
I'll be at the RADAR reading series this thursday gettin my writers' groove on, knitting some handwarmers and checkin out the pretty girls. I'll be at work most every night. I try to spend most of my time out of the house. But hiding out in others' houses means I'm hiding from the problems at home and that isn't good either. So I'm forcing myself to get the things in order and do the hard work of moving on for the third time in a year.
Here's the thing: I need to find a new place to live. By the end of this month. With a dog, it's tricky. I'm trying to take my own advice to a friend and not stress out about the things I can't control but really, I've just had shit luck since december 18th and if you work with me or know me and think I have been sad or grumpy it's true and I am trying really hard to be more positive. There are a few bright spots in the whirling fog and work is one. Even if I'm only cleaning down the bakeshop at the end of the night rockin out to Crimson and Clover. Work is my rock in the middle of all this messiness and I am so thankful to feel that way about a workplace. It's unusual for me.
I'll be at the RADAR reading series this thursday gettin my writers' groove on, knitting some handwarmers and checkin out the pretty girls. I'll be at work most every night. I try to spend most of my time out of the house. But hiding out in others' houses means I'm hiding from the problems at home and that isn't good either. So I'm forcing myself to get the things in order and do the hard work of moving on for the third time in a year.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
work meditations
I haven't been talking about this lately, as some have said, but it's still true:
I love my job.
I love that my coworker recites her rhyming poem about the pets she's had while we prepare phyllo-wrapped pastries.
I love that Al Gore came into my restaurant Monday night for dessert. And my coworker and I plated up the food he ate every scrap of.
I love that there's a line cook who makes me dinner when staff meal is nasty or all gone. And in return I feed her hot cocoa.
I love that I made the sous chef make the prep cook clean up the large mixer he made bread in and left a floury mess (every day he does this and never cleans it up). And that this prep cook and I had words about his needing to clean it up. I love my boss's response as I relayed the story.
I love that the chef asked tonight if we could wrap his phyllo dish rather than any savory cook.
I love that I made a list of all the desserts we'd made thus far, with all their components, and it was already so many things. Which we forget in the day to day.
I love that my boss missed her train tonight because was in the middle of giving me advice about a frustrating situation.
There's this server at work who got on my nerves for a while. Every day he'd ask the same, or similar questions about the menu.What is cardamom? What does it taste like? What does the phyllo filling taste like? What is anise? What is fennel? How are cocoa nibs different from chocolate? How should I describe this other phyllo pastry? Can I taste this, and this, and this?
One day it hit me, clear out of the blue. I was so irked by this guy's many questions, by his overeagerness, because it hit too close to home. He was me, we were twins cut from the same cloth. Not the most apparent realization. But sometimes you fight people the more when they resemble you too much. You see your faults writ large in their actions and words and you wonder, do I really sound like that? Is this how other people feel when they talk to me?
He's leaving the restaurant now (and the city, actually). And I'm kind of gonna miss him.
The cake's all together. I love that I banged it out in about an hour and a half after work, and that I knew it would take that long, and that I did it before taking a shower or eating or doing anything. It's done. Other things...not on my mind tonight. Now I'm gonna have a big glass of wine and finish watching L'Eclisse, because there's few things finer than a sultry Monica Vitti stomping around with a pout on.
I love my job.
I love that my coworker recites her rhyming poem about the pets she's had while we prepare phyllo-wrapped pastries.
I love that Al Gore came into my restaurant Monday night for dessert. And my coworker and I plated up the food he ate every scrap of.
I love that there's a line cook who makes me dinner when staff meal is nasty or all gone. And in return I feed her hot cocoa.
I love that I made the sous chef make the prep cook clean up the large mixer he made bread in and left a floury mess (every day he does this and never cleans it up). And that this prep cook and I had words about his needing to clean it up. I love my boss's response as I relayed the story.
I love that the chef asked tonight if we could wrap his phyllo dish rather than any savory cook.
I love that I made a list of all the desserts we'd made thus far, with all their components, and it was already so many things. Which we forget in the day to day.
I love that my boss missed her train tonight because was in the middle of giving me advice about a frustrating situation.
There's this server at work who got on my nerves for a while. Every day he'd ask the same, or similar questions about the menu.What is cardamom? What does it taste like? What does the phyllo filling taste like? What is anise? What is fennel? How are cocoa nibs different from chocolate? How should I describe this other phyllo pastry? Can I taste this, and this, and this?
One day it hit me, clear out of the blue. I was so irked by this guy's many questions, by his overeagerness, because it hit too close to home. He was me, we were twins cut from the same cloth. Not the most apparent realization. But sometimes you fight people the more when they resemble you too much. You see your faults writ large in their actions and words and you wonder, do I really sound like that? Is this how other people feel when they talk to me?
He's leaving the restaurant now (and the city, actually). And I'm kind of gonna miss him.
The cake's all together. I love that I banged it out in about an hour and a half after work, and that I knew it would take that long, and that I did it before taking a shower or eating or doing anything. It's done. Other things...not on my mind tonight. Now I'm gonna have a big glass of wine and finish watching L'Eclisse, because there's few things finer than a sultry Monica Vitti stomping around with a pout on.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
work. and work ethic.
I'm really quite furious when I think about it, have been in a mild frenzy all day. From an email first and then a phone message. My anger like a pot just below a boil, tasks at work just distractions.
How dare she steal his recipe. How dare she take something that wasn't hers to take, that was offered freely as a gift to the workplace, that was offered because she wanted something new and seasonal and had not/was not going to/whatever do any of the work herself.
A friend of mine spent time and money testing something out for his job and it ran for the last few months. For all I know it's running still. But apparently when his employer is asked to go on a television show and asked for one of her recipes to be featured, she asks if she can use his because she doesn't want to give away any of hers, and she plasters her name on it. And likely makes no mention of where she got the recipe from.
It doesn't surprise me at all. There came a point in time when I saw her character clearly.
And the message, frustrating. It makes me feel like Sisyphus with all those boulders. For every step I take toward the next level, I just keep getting held up, dragged back, whatever. It's SO HARD relying on other people who have to do their part before you can do yours. Especially if you don't have the faith they will pull through, but there you are, anyway, staking your name and your time.
One of the cooks at work is coasting on this slick of attitude and lately he only cares about something if it directly affects his work product. Nevermind that the cheese is missing. Or that his cooks keep putting away their items in the pastry side of the walk in (and, maybe, that is why he can't find what he needs?) He struts around giving cryptic answers to your requests for help, giving you attitude when you ask if he's seen something that someone else needs. Nevermind that you don't need it. Nevermind that it isn't your job. If anyone walked into the pastry kitchen looking for sugar, say, I'd try to find out what they needed and why and help them. Yeah, it might not be my job to make sure the servers can make mochas but chocolate is sort of my duty, in a sense. And having a work ethic means seeing the larger picture. It means taking care of not only your business, but the business of whoever is working the station after you, or who might find it in the morning. It means leaving things clean and prepped if you can. And taking the time to help other people who might help you.
This cook tonight asked us the difference between polenta and semolina, because he didn't know. And I taught him how to work with bread dough, at least better than he thought to do it. So you don't know everything, none of us do, but there's really so much tolerance I have for someone who is going to be a dick for no reason. For someone who is going to realize I'm right behind them carrying heavy things or hot things and decide to slow down. For someone who can't be concerned about the state of the walk in, the placement of their stock.
I'm waiting for his attitude to come around and bite him in the ass, because he needs to learn that he's not all that. And that he isn't going to command anyone's respect acting the way he does.
How dare she steal his recipe. How dare she take something that wasn't hers to take, that was offered freely as a gift to the workplace, that was offered because she wanted something new and seasonal and had not/was not going to/whatever do any of the work herself.
A friend of mine spent time and money testing something out for his job and it ran for the last few months. For all I know it's running still. But apparently when his employer is asked to go on a television show and asked for one of her recipes to be featured, she asks if she can use his because she doesn't want to give away any of hers, and she plasters her name on it. And likely makes no mention of where she got the recipe from.
It doesn't surprise me at all. There came a point in time when I saw her character clearly.
And the message, frustrating. It makes me feel like Sisyphus with all those boulders. For every step I take toward the next level, I just keep getting held up, dragged back, whatever. It's SO HARD relying on other people who have to do their part before you can do yours. Especially if you don't have the faith they will pull through, but there you are, anyway, staking your name and your time.
One of the cooks at work is coasting on this slick of attitude and lately he only cares about something if it directly affects his work product. Nevermind that the cheese is missing. Or that his cooks keep putting away their items in the pastry side of the walk in (and, maybe, that is why he can't find what he needs?) He struts around giving cryptic answers to your requests for help, giving you attitude when you ask if he's seen something that someone else needs. Nevermind that you don't need it. Nevermind that it isn't your job. If anyone walked into the pastry kitchen looking for sugar, say, I'd try to find out what they needed and why and help them. Yeah, it might not be my job to make sure the servers can make mochas but chocolate is sort of my duty, in a sense. And having a work ethic means seeing the larger picture. It means taking care of not only your business, but the business of whoever is working the station after you, or who might find it in the morning. It means leaving things clean and prepped if you can. And taking the time to help other people who might help you.
This cook tonight asked us the difference between polenta and semolina, because he didn't know. And I taught him how to work with bread dough, at least better than he thought to do it. So you don't know everything, none of us do, but there's really so much tolerance I have for someone who is going to be a dick for no reason. For someone who is going to realize I'm right behind them carrying heavy things or hot things and decide to slow down. For someone who can't be concerned about the state of the walk in, the placement of their stock.
I'm waiting for his attitude to come around and bite him in the ass, because he needs to learn that he's not all that. And that he isn't going to command anyone's respect acting the way he does.
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.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
my best private moments are in public ...
The FPFM was hopping today as usual! Cardoons, stinging nettles, purslane, lemon basil, heirloom tomatoes in all stripes and colors, figs, peppers sweet and hot. I intended to go shopping for some tomatoes and maybe some greens, lemon basil perhaps.
But then I was seduced on my way to the secret bathroom, where all the chefs and otherwise cool kids trot off to. I found a man sampling grapes, and when I asked to try one he handed me a cluster. I knew they weren't Concords but they looked similar in color. I smiled my thanks and ran off toward the bathroom, absentmindedly plucking a grape off the stem, popped it in my mouth, and came to a stop. The flavor of that grape jolted me, and I didn't move, didn't sway an inch except for the slack-jawed expression on my face of disbelief and thrill, but I felt naked in public. Had I known that grapes could taste like that? Or rather, that grapes could taste so purely and sweetly and not be the thickly fleshy, sexual kind where you work your tongue around the seed, the sort of grapes the Hudson Valley recalls though surely they are everywhere? I promised the man that I'd be back and then I continued my trek to the bathroom, pulling grapes into my mouth and almost laughing, bursting in on strangers in the bathroom, disrobing from my uniform, becoming a person again and not the white uniform.
I bought the grapes (I got them at Alfieri, and I'm planning a trip back Tuesday to see if there are more). And some Green Zebras, some lemongrass for coconut ice cream or sorbet), some spinach from the very expensive Star Route. Two things more on the FPFM: I really love the berries I've been getting from Yerena. They're organic. The blackberries last week were the best I've ever had. The strawberries are prime flavor this week. And best of all they give me heaps of berries (24 baskets between three kinds) for 44 dollars. And second, the Apple Store place in the FPFM had a large bundle of apple sticks tied together and a sign saying Faggot for Hearth or Bonfire. Technically a faggot is indeed a bundle of sticks, but cmon, I think its usage has evolved past that point and I really don't think the farmers market is the place to question your relationship to sexuality.
Cooking tonight for social events. The THINGy ice cream, for the cupcakery. And a grape-rosemary focaccia with my amazing grapes for a potluck in Oakland tomorrow night. Pictures when I can find the digital camera cable.
Body memory tonight while preparing the focaccia. It came time to stretch the dough, and so I oiled a half sheet pan and slowly got ready, not looking forward to this part. I lay my ball of dough on the half sheet pan and then I remembered how I'd done this twice a week for six months (and before that as well in another position). That it was in me, the method to stretch the dough was something my hands knew, even if my brain was nervous and out of practice. So I let them go at it, pulling and stretching and that dough just poured through my fingers out to the edges of the pan like it knew I was the master. It's baking now and I can just begin to smell it. Got to check if the ice cream base is cold. I'm sleepy. Cupcakery was intense today. I hauled my ass for three hours, busting out two 30 quart Hobart batch size buttercreams start to finish in an HOUR while depanning cupcakes, whipping frostings and then on to the decorating frenzy. Left me exhausted. I've been very tired this week. Lots of things on my mind, mostly women and work, and writing.
I want someone to come shopping at the farmers markets with me. And I want someone to share these private moments in public with. Then I get cold when people call me {well, people who haven't had the balls to call me in a year} and say I'm busy like in the middle of five different things gotta run. I want to say that the door closed, and you lost the right to be my friend when you treated me like such a stranger. And you mostly lack the cojones to question that. But is that really the right thing to do? Sometimes I miss these people but they act so much like children. I miss Somerville tonight. Cambridge. I'm on a quest for sahlab and other things appropriate to middle eastern ice creams. Tell me, Bay Area, that someone somewhere is making ice cream with sahlab. Somewhere there is dondurma, somewhere the strange ice cream with noodles that my manager wants. Because, really, are you gonna let Boston have one up on you?
But then I was seduced on my way to the secret bathroom, where all the chefs and otherwise cool kids trot off to. I found a man sampling grapes, and when I asked to try one he handed me a cluster. I knew they weren't Concords but they looked similar in color. I smiled my thanks and ran off toward the bathroom, absentmindedly plucking a grape off the stem, popped it in my mouth, and came to a stop. The flavor of that grape jolted me, and I didn't move, didn't sway an inch except for the slack-jawed expression on my face of disbelief and thrill, but I felt naked in public. Had I known that grapes could taste like that? Or rather, that grapes could taste so purely and sweetly and not be the thickly fleshy, sexual kind where you work your tongue around the seed, the sort of grapes the Hudson Valley recalls though surely they are everywhere? I promised the man that I'd be back and then I continued my trek to the bathroom, pulling grapes into my mouth and almost laughing, bursting in on strangers in the bathroom, disrobing from my uniform, becoming a person again and not the white uniform.
I bought the grapes (I got them at Alfieri, and I'm planning a trip back Tuesday to see if there are more). And some Green Zebras, some lemongrass for coconut ice cream or sorbet), some spinach from the very expensive Star Route. Two things more on the FPFM: I really love the berries I've been getting from Yerena. They're organic. The blackberries last week were the best I've ever had. The strawberries are prime flavor this week. And best of all they give me heaps of berries (24 baskets between three kinds) for 44 dollars. And second, the Apple Store place in the FPFM had a large bundle of apple sticks tied together and a sign saying Faggot for Hearth or Bonfire. Technically a faggot is indeed a bundle of sticks, but cmon, I think its usage has evolved past that point and I really don't think the farmers market is the place to question your relationship to sexuality.
Cooking tonight for social events. The THINGy ice cream, for the cupcakery. And a grape-rosemary focaccia with my amazing grapes for a potluck in Oakland tomorrow night. Pictures when I can find the digital camera cable.
Body memory tonight while preparing the focaccia. It came time to stretch the dough, and so I oiled a half sheet pan and slowly got ready, not looking forward to this part. I lay my ball of dough on the half sheet pan and then I remembered how I'd done this twice a week for six months (and before that as well in another position). That it was in me, the method to stretch the dough was something my hands knew, even if my brain was nervous and out of practice. So I let them go at it, pulling and stretching and that dough just poured through my fingers out to the edges of the pan like it knew I was the master. It's baking now and I can just begin to smell it. Got to check if the ice cream base is cold. I'm sleepy. Cupcakery was intense today. I hauled my ass for three hours, busting out two 30 quart Hobart batch size buttercreams start to finish in an HOUR while depanning cupcakes, whipping frostings and then on to the decorating frenzy. Left me exhausted. I've been very tired this week. Lots of things on my mind, mostly women and work, and writing.
I want someone to come shopping at the farmers markets with me. And I want someone to share these private moments in public with. Then I get cold when people call me {well, people who haven't had the balls to call me in a year} and say I'm busy like in the middle of five different things gotta run. I want to say that the door closed, and you lost the right to be my friend when you treated me like such a stranger. And you mostly lack the cojones to question that. But is that really the right thing to do? Sometimes I miss these people but they act so much like children. I miss Somerville tonight. Cambridge. I'm on a quest for sahlab and other things appropriate to middle eastern ice creams. Tell me, Bay Area, that someone somewhere is making ice cream with sahlab. Somewhere there is dondurma, somewhere the strange ice cream with noodles that my manager wants. Because, really, are you gonna let Boston have one up on you?
Monday, July 23, 2007
you say sink or swim, what a cruel cruel phrase
It's always my big mouth. I don't tell secrets ever. But I'm one of those filterless people. Know me long enough and I will utterly offend you without meaning to and often without being sure of why whatever I said was so mean in the first place. That is, of course, if you are lucky enough to befriend me without first getting to see the cold side of me. I'm not that nice of a person in the abstract.
But I will cook you dinner and give you rides. I'll take you to all my favorite places, I'll give you my bed to sleep in and I'll call you on your birthday and I'll remember your favorite pastries and make you pies. I am actually very sweet, it's just that the outside is cold and hard, and I'm shy in person and not all that interested in making small talk.
Things fly out of my mouth. My emotions are all over my face. I am always very challenged by working for other people/ Why is it that I should care about your goals and dreams? How is this worth my valuable time? Beyond paying me you need to win me over, and then I'm quite loyal. However it's rare. I have a short fuse and I'm smart and I get bored. I vent my frustrations before working on a project with a clean conscience unmindful of the fact that my frustrations are then carried by others. I'm not big on complimenting people and rarely do it. I'm hard to impress. I'd usually rather be reading a book.
I got in trouble at work today. Well all of us did but then the focus came down on me. Not too sure exactly what the ramifications will be but it's very hard to deal with. I give everything I have every day at work and most of the time the hard work is unacknowledged and only the problems are picked out. In that situation it's difficult for me to remain positive and to find something left to give. I've got to try to keep the things that irk me to myself and be a better employee, or give up and do my own thing.
I'm really tired of falling into the same unhappinesses. I'm tired of moving through jobs. I don't handle criticism well. I disengage. I think that if I weren't flawed in these ways I'd have a smoother, less stressed life. This side of my personality is all wrong for kitchens. As for most things.
But the part of me that's mostly me, where if I'm going to be working I wanna work and work hard, dammit, where I come in and do my job and get my hands dirty and work hard all day long with barely five minutes to sit and eat something that isn't sweet, where I sleep little and have basically no social life and am fast and efficient, that part does all right.
Frustrated with myself. And how I always want to be a better person faster. Note to self, let go of expectations of your self and of others.
But I will cook you dinner and give you rides. I'll take you to all my favorite places, I'll give you my bed to sleep in and I'll call you on your birthday and I'll remember your favorite pastries and make you pies. I am actually very sweet, it's just that the outside is cold and hard, and I'm shy in person and not all that interested in making small talk.
Things fly out of my mouth. My emotions are all over my face. I am always very challenged by working for other people/ Why is it that I should care about your goals and dreams? How is this worth my valuable time? Beyond paying me you need to win me over, and then I'm quite loyal. However it's rare. I have a short fuse and I'm smart and I get bored. I vent my frustrations before working on a project with a clean conscience unmindful of the fact that my frustrations are then carried by others. I'm not big on complimenting people and rarely do it. I'm hard to impress. I'd usually rather be reading a book.
I got in trouble at work today. Well all of us did but then the focus came down on me. Not too sure exactly what the ramifications will be but it's very hard to deal with. I give everything I have every day at work and most of the time the hard work is unacknowledged and only the problems are picked out. In that situation it's difficult for me to remain positive and to find something left to give. I've got to try to keep the things that irk me to myself and be a better employee, or give up and do my own thing.
I'm really tired of falling into the same unhappinesses. I'm tired of moving through jobs. I don't handle criticism well. I disengage. I think that if I weren't flawed in these ways I'd have a smoother, less stressed life. This side of my personality is all wrong for kitchens. As for most things.
But the part of me that's mostly me, where if I'm going to be working I wanna work and work hard, dammit, where I come in and do my job and get my hands dirty and work hard all day long with barely five minutes to sit and eat something that isn't sweet, where I sleep little and have basically no social life and am fast and efficient, that part does all right.
Frustrated with myself. And how I always want to be a better person faster. Note to self, let go of expectations of your self and of others.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
I feel like a person again now that I've got my zaatar
(it's true)
Today after apartment hunting I went to Samirami's, a Middle Eastern food store in the Mission. My supply of zaatar from Sevan had run out and I'd been without for weeks. At first I was doubtful...I'd found spices, but no zaatar. Then I spotted giant pound-sized bags of zaatar. Boulette's sells it for $2.25 per oz. but this was 5 bucks for a giant plastic tub of zaatar! And then, oh joy, I saw a bulk spice section with three kinds of zaatar (Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian)...this I hoped would be the freshest. So I filled two bags with some Palestinian and some Lebanese (I think the Sevan stuff was Jordanian). I did not let myself get sumac (it's trendy now though, I think) but I did ask the man behind the counter for mastic. And, to give him credit, he didn't seem surprised that a whitegirl wanted mastic. That sent me back over to the other side of the store for rosewater for Claudia Roden's gum mastic ice cream (I bet my new Vitamix blender can be used in lieu of robotcoupe). I looked for mulberries for ice cream, but no luck. My Persian supervisor at Frog Hollow *did* say she'd bring me a cup of mulberries (we had to negotiate the amount I wanted into a small enough amount she could spare it).
Rosewater/mastic ice cream...a taste memory. I am sure there's an Oleana-ish restaurant here in SF, and sometimes it's the memory of taste (the warm not cool mint flavor, the everpresent rose slightly oily in aftertaste, the milkiness), and sometimes it's in the memory of small and deliberate perfection. Here, I'm not in a community of people who serve food made with love on plates shipped from Turkey in suitcases. Here I'm in a community of baker-girls with boyfriends, career-change chefs whose restaurant experience is much more limited than mine. I bruise my hips on walk-in doors, decorate cupcakes, daydream about clafoutis and brunoised rhubarb and baby fennel. I feel like a person now I've got my zaatar, and I will let you know which kind I prefer. But I would like some people to talk about food with, for real,and I've been nostalgic for restaurants lately. Even for the gloomy darkness of Sonsie upstairs, getting coffee and looking out the windows on Newbury Street too early in the morning for foot traffic, whittling away time making 40 shots of espresso for ice cream and dreaming of California. Although there was no conversation at Sonsie, no dialogue about production and menu change and how to be better at what we do.
I'm not frustrated with work (really I'm just overworked, and pulling doubles the next two days). Just lonely for someone who can help me fix my polenta cakes, and who understands my zaatar longing, and whose taste buds are more refined than mine. Which is nothing new.
Today after apartment hunting I went to Samirami's, a Middle Eastern food store in the Mission. My supply of zaatar from Sevan had run out and I'd been without for weeks. At first I was doubtful...I'd found spices, but no zaatar. Then I spotted giant pound-sized bags of zaatar. Boulette's sells it for $2.25 per oz. but this was 5 bucks for a giant plastic tub of zaatar! And then, oh joy, I saw a bulk spice section with three kinds of zaatar (Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian)...this I hoped would be the freshest. So I filled two bags with some Palestinian and some Lebanese (I think the Sevan stuff was Jordanian). I did not let myself get sumac (it's trendy now though, I think) but I did ask the man behind the counter for mastic. And, to give him credit, he didn't seem surprised that a whitegirl wanted mastic. That sent me back over to the other side of the store for rosewater for Claudia Roden's gum mastic ice cream (I bet my new Vitamix blender can be used in lieu of robotcoupe). I looked for mulberries for ice cream, but no luck. My Persian supervisor at Frog Hollow *did* say she'd bring me a cup of mulberries (we had to negotiate the amount I wanted into a small enough amount she could spare it).
Rosewater/mastic ice cream...a taste memory. I am sure there's an Oleana-ish restaurant here in SF, and sometimes it's the memory of taste (the warm not cool mint flavor, the everpresent rose slightly oily in aftertaste, the milkiness), and sometimes it's in the memory of small and deliberate perfection. Here, I'm not in a community of people who serve food made with love on plates shipped from Turkey in suitcases. Here I'm in a community of baker-girls with boyfriends, career-change chefs whose restaurant experience is much more limited than mine. I bruise my hips on walk-in doors, decorate cupcakes, daydream about clafoutis and brunoised rhubarb and baby fennel. I feel like a person now I've got my zaatar, and I will let you know which kind I prefer. But I would like some people to talk about food with, for real,and I've been nostalgic for restaurants lately. Even for the gloomy darkness of Sonsie upstairs, getting coffee and looking out the windows on Newbury Street too early in the morning for foot traffic, whittling away time making 40 shots of espresso for ice cream and dreaming of California. Although there was no conversation at Sonsie, no dialogue about production and menu change and how to be better at what we do.
I'm not frustrated with work (really I'm just overworked, and pulling doubles the next two days). Just lonely for someone who can help me fix my polenta cakes, and who understands my zaatar longing, and whose taste buds are more refined than mine. Which is nothing new.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
I have a new job
...So why is it that everyone in SF starts looking for pastry people now?
I've never been solicited for a job before, but today I got the following email from the folks over at the Slanted Door:
Hi. I received your resume a while ago and I am looking for a pastry cook again. I belive you already have a job but If you are interested, please contact me.
Thank you.
_____ ________
_________@slanteddoor.com
And, not so very long ago when I was in the height of my then-fruitless desire to come out to San Francisco, I posted here about my longing, and how Slanted Door was hiring and I'd sent them my resume...and about three weeks before that I was all atwitter becase Boulette's and Frog Hollow were hiring, and wrote the following:
anyway, not only is Frog Hollow hiring right now, but Boulettes Larder is hiring a pastry chef as well, and though I am no doubt both too poor to get out there and unqualified for the second position, I am jealous. To work in the Fery Building adn spend every afternoon in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, reminiscing about the Berkeley days and who I used to be...and to write...and to eat, and be in such bounty.
And now here I am. On the day I got my new job, I also got chased out of Boulette's Larder by Lori Regis. Hounded from the second I walked in the door. The question is why...I have a few guesses but I'm not going to post them here yet. I'm going to go back another time, in my Boston hat (so she knows the Regis I know better is Susan), and see what happens.
Work was intense today. If I don't get to mise properly on Friday, Saturdays are always crazy, and if they run out of everything and I have to bake off five items at once nevermind that I'm in the middle of slicing fruit for fruit tarts and I've got shortbread to assemble, it's very challenging to not get in the weeds. And I feel pressured to get my nice things out there early, so they can sell.
My new job is at Kara's Cupcakes, an all cupcake bakery in the Marina. The'yre opening a second location next week at Gihrardelli Square so they just basically doubled their baking staff. The kitchen is small, and the walls are pink, but they've got this cute map showing where their lcoally-sourced products come from, and they've got the best cream cheese frosting I've tasted here in SF, a city obsessed with cream cheese frosting, and I'm looking forward to being chill and piping icing, mixing batter, having the sort of experience I was cheated out of having to have at Miette.
I have to stop and remind myself that not very long ago, I ached to be out here doing what I'm doing, and now I'm doing it. And writing a lot. And getting my first experience being creatively in charge. When people tell me (without knowing I make them, per se) how they LOVE the strawberry lavender tarts, it's such a nice feeling. Food is love. And you have to be generous; you have to give it away. So when it upsets me to be treated roughly, I know there are so many crazies and egos in this business, and I know where I stand and where I come from. I've paid a lot of dues and I'll pay them still, but I'm going to be generous in this business and I'm going to one day do things perfectly.
Tomorrow's Day #1 at Kara's.
I've never been solicited for a job before, but today I got the following email from the folks over at the Slanted Door:
Hi. I received your resume a while ago and I am looking for a pastry cook again. I belive you already have a job but If you are interested, please contact me.
Thank you.
_____ ________
_________@slanteddoor.com
And, not so very long ago when I was in the height of my then-fruitless desire to come out to San Francisco, I posted here about my longing, and how Slanted Door was hiring and I'd sent them my resume...and about three weeks before that I was all atwitter becase Boulette's and Frog Hollow were hiring, and wrote the following:
anyway, not only is Frog Hollow hiring right now, but Boulettes Larder is hiring a pastry chef as well, and though I am no doubt both too poor to get out there and unqualified for the second position, I am jealous. To work in the Fery Building adn spend every afternoon in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, reminiscing about the Berkeley days and who I used to be...and to write...and to eat, and be in such bounty.
And now here I am. On the day I got my new job, I also got chased out of Boulette's Larder by Lori Regis. Hounded from the second I walked in the door. The question is why...I have a few guesses but I'm not going to post them here yet. I'm going to go back another time, in my Boston hat (so she knows the Regis I know better is Susan), and see what happens.
Work was intense today. If I don't get to mise properly on Friday, Saturdays are always crazy, and if they run out of everything and I have to bake off five items at once nevermind that I'm in the middle of slicing fruit for fruit tarts and I've got shortbread to assemble, it's very challenging to not get in the weeds. And I feel pressured to get my nice things out there early, so they can sell.
My new job is at Kara's Cupcakes, an all cupcake bakery in the Marina. The'yre opening a second location next week at Gihrardelli Square so they just basically doubled their baking staff. The kitchen is small, and the walls are pink, but they've got this cute map showing where their lcoally-sourced products come from, and they've got the best cream cheese frosting I've tasted here in SF, a city obsessed with cream cheese frosting, and I'm looking forward to being chill and piping icing, mixing batter, having the sort of experience I was cheated out of having to have at Miette.
I have to stop and remind myself that not very long ago, I ached to be out here doing what I'm doing, and now I'm doing it. And writing a lot. And getting my first experience being creatively in charge. When people tell me (without knowing I make them, per se) how they LOVE the strawberry lavender tarts, it's such a nice feeling. Food is love. And you have to be generous; you have to give it away. So when it upsets me to be treated roughly, I know there are so many crazies and egos in this business, and I know where I stand and where I come from. I've paid a lot of dues and I'll pay them still, but I'm going to be generous in this business and I'm going to one day do things perfectly.
Tomorrow's Day #1 at Kara's.
Friday, April 27, 2007
well, brandade it ain't but...!
I tried bacalaitos tonight.
All my life, I have never understood eating things that smell bad. (Or are raw, or rotten, like cheese or sushi or so many gourmand items). And there's not much that stinks more than salt cod someone's rehydrating. I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's Salt at the moment, so I'm learning historically about why salted fish was/is important economically and to the survival of human history, but still, salt cod is a white leathery piece of fish that's wooden and dried out, and when you cook it to rehydrate you get this briney, sea smell. Not a beach smell (god, I've really been missing the beach lately.
At Sonsie the guys used to make brandade, and they'd always end up pureeing the cod with potatoes right near me, and it just smelled like bad fish that washed up on the beach somewhere.
But somewhere along the line of eating things in general and fish in particular, I owned up to brandade curiosity. I didn't expect to like it. I didn't expect to get near it anytime soon with any adventuresome friends. But they had bacalaitos at this Puerto Rican restaurant I was getting takeout from tonight, and I did it. I was going to get a filled churros from the lady by the BART, too, but decided salt cod was more of a challenge. How was it? Bizzarely, the texture was like fried eggplant in my mouth, only I could see the little fishy protein fibers. It wasn't overwhelmingly salty; it didn't taste like it smelled while cooking. It didn't taste like much I could pick out, more like a salty, deep undercurrent. Like something I'm not smart enough to know. It had gotten soggy, too, in the takeout container. Probably not the best salt cod.
Certainly the maduros and the pollo guisado were really not impressive. Which is to say, I guess, I miss Cuba, because their stewed meat dishes are much more flavorful (mine was a little congealed, too, from sitting there, even though the chicken was very moist), and the maduros really weren't ripe enough or else not cooked long enough to let the sweetness bleed out.
Work today was:
blackberry financiers w/browned butter, tasting pleasantly of almonds
more upside down cakes, again with rhubarb and blood orange, this time with the chez panisse fruit book recipe
orange chocolate meringues, to be filled with orange jam
strawberry-mascarpone filling for strawberry tiramusi a la olivetto
more fresh fruit tarts
more strawberry lavender tarts
shortcakes, maybe, blackberry-strawberry?
butter cookies
I burned myself again, once on each hand actually. Did not sleep well last night. I was wondering about a lot of things today. The physics of pastry, and such. Where to find something to make my rhubarb tarte tatin in. How lemongrass would taste with rhubarb. How substituting honey for sugar would work in cakes and what spice would rough up those blackberries in the financier (pepper. cinnamon. citrus. berries.), and what made Cheffy's financiers so much better than the David Lebovitz recipe I tried because I'd rather make a dozen of something that 50.
I tried almond extract plain today. Last week, I tried raw rhubarb. I need to learn bitterness. And then sweeten appropriately.
All my life, I have never understood eating things that smell bad. (Or are raw, or rotten, like cheese or sushi or so many gourmand items). And there's not much that stinks more than salt cod someone's rehydrating. I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's Salt at the moment, so I'm learning historically about why salted fish was/is important economically and to the survival of human history, but still, salt cod is a white leathery piece of fish that's wooden and dried out, and when you cook it to rehydrate you get this briney, sea smell. Not a beach smell (god, I've really been missing the beach lately.
At Sonsie the guys used to make brandade, and they'd always end up pureeing the cod with potatoes right near me, and it just smelled like bad fish that washed up on the beach somewhere.
But somewhere along the line of eating things in general and fish in particular, I owned up to brandade curiosity. I didn't expect to like it. I didn't expect to get near it anytime soon with any adventuresome friends. But they had bacalaitos at this Puerto Rican restaurant I was getting takeout from tonight, and I did it. I was going to get a filled churros from the lady by the BART, too, but decided salt cod was more of a challenge. How was it? Bizzarely, the texture was like fried eggplant in my mouth, only I could see the little fishy protein fibers. It wasn't overwhelmingly salty; it didn't taste like it smelled while cooking. It didn't taste like much I could pick out, more like a salty, deep undercurrent. Like something I'm not smart enough to know. It had gotten soggy, too, in the takeout container. Probably not the best salt cod.
Certainly the maduros and the pollo guisado were really not impressive. Which is to say, I guess, I miss Cuba, because their stewed meat dishes are much more flavorful (mine was a little congealed, too, from sitting there, even though the chicken was very moist), and the maduros really weren't ripe enough or else not cooked long enough to let the sweetness bleed out.
Work today was:
blackberry financiers w/browned butter, tasting pleasantly of almonds
more upside down cakes, again with rhubarb and blood orange, this time with the chez panisse fruit book recipe
orange chocolate meringues, to be filled with orange jam
strawberry-mascarpone filling for strawberry tiramusi a la olivetto
more fresh fruit tarts
more strawberry lavender tarts
shortcakes, maybe, blackberry-strawberry?
butter cookies
I burned myself again, once on each hand actually. Did not sleep well last night. I was wondering about a lot of things today. The physics of pastry, and such. Where to find something to make my rhubarb tarte tatin in. How lemongrass would taste with rhubarb. How substituting honey for sugar would work in cakes and what spice would rough up those blackberries in the financier (pepper. cinnamon. citrus. berries.), and what made Cheffy's financiers so much better than the David Lebovitz recipe I tried because I'd rather make a dozen of something that 50.
I tried almond extract plain today. Last week, I tried raw rhubarb. I need to learn bitterness. And then sweeten appropriately.
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