I'm so glad we've had this time together...

but the farmer's market era is now gone for the short term future.
It was a brillant idea and didn't pan out.
It's been brewing for a while (hence my absence) and now I'm making it official.

Here I'll say the whole piece:
I don't like being at a market that has high volume commercial baked goods next to my own. The idea for me is local, sustainable, organic. Not margarine from a production facility where everyone wears plastic.
I don't like cold wet mornings and fighting to sell each little piece of bread.
I don't like old hotel ovens that have chronically ill thermostats.
I don't like concrete floors that are so old the whole building is sinking slowly only on the wall BEHIND THE OVEN.
I love baking.
I love this little place.
I love my customers.
I love what I learned from this and the confidence I've gained.
I love my guy. I'm back in the restaurant full time to run the dining room and make his desserts so that we can make it all work.
Thanks for all the great feedback as I worked through this!

Prepping for Robert Burns Night

It's been a long week. The menu change and market are already a blur as I'm more focused on our next one night menu.
Each year we celebrate Robert Burns Birthday with a one night menu of scottish food, a piper and dancers.

For this year, I'm creating a version of a traditional border tart:
dried fruit, nuts, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter in a short crust. I've added a bit of caledonian cream (marmalade sweetened whipped cream) to serve with it warm and toasty from the oven.
Next we're doing a chocolate and caramel covered shortbread,
Blackberry sorbet,
and a whiskey cream chocolate fondue.

Menu change tomorrow

but the desserts are going to stay the same.
Just too good and too much fun. And I'm getting over a cold.

But I want to do a chocolate that's a peanut butter cup sort of thing...
Maybe.
BTW, still spilling things.
Today lost 4 eggs, 8 oz of sour cream and 12 chocolate cakes.
Grr. Argh.

One of those days

where everything goes a bit wrong.
A couple of days ago I stumbled and fell. in the rain. on the sidewalk. in Oakland.
Skinned my knee and felt okay until the next day. Then the wrist started to swell and ache. and the arthritis in the other hand.
Ouch.
So today, I've spilled cocoa, sugar, scraped my knuckle, tripped, spilled au jus on my keyboard to the point my left mouse button ain't workin' right.
Grr. Argh.
Today is Thursday. So here's the new stuff:

Coconut Kaffir Lime fondue
Caramel Apple Bread Pudding
Fried Bananas in Palm Sugar Syrup

Recipes on request until I get all that done.

cheers!
T

I'm a ranting raving lunatic

I think I pissed off scared everyone in the kitchen on the Eve.
Man, but I do rant. Angry too.

Inside I feel like:

Outside apparently I'm:

Just about presentation on a dessert. Not critical. Not something anyone is going to remember tomorrow. But now they will. Remember my anger. My (over)reaction. And my bad attitude. Grr. Argh. There's something about single day menus that drives us all up the wall.

Must control anger since only person willing to slap me upside the head is the nsyo and she doesn't work here every night. SHE has a life. Sigh. lol. My life is here. Right now, I'm just taking it all a bit too seriously.

New Idol: food whore.

Time for a martini or three.

Just a tad too true

Please read these. If you read here, and don't read there, now is the time to start:

Owning Up 1
Owning Up 2

Too much to do

So I haven't gotten the paperwork done yet.
It feels a bit overwhelming. Kinda like looking at this...

So instead:
Peach tiramisu:
Layers of ladyfingers soaked in peach lambic
Topped with a mascarpone mousse with a hint of peach liqueur
In between layers of macerated local white and yellow peaches
topped with a lightly sweetened whipped cream and fresh peaches

Sound like something you might try?

An amazingly complicated day

It started with me in the midst of a "heavy" two-day prep and production schedule -- 5 desserts for tonight's theme dinner.
Good choices. One very authentically on the theme, one a clean almost authentic citrus dessert, some nice little cookies, a chocolate and the gelato/sorbets.
Got halfway through that when the restaurant owner told me they are going to put the restaurant on the market next week.
Sitting, breathing, trying not to feel like a hole just got punched through my lower intestine, I get through production.
Get ready for service and check email.
Inside my inbox was a a very nice innocuous looking email that contained a rejection letter from interview #1. I am overqualified and they have decided not to hire anyone right now. Sigh.
Add that to earlier and Tuesday and well, this whole week, and I'm just not sure which end is up anymore.
I have invested blood, sweat and tears (all literally and figuratively over the past eighteen months (almost to the day) to make this little place work. I have realized all the way through that the owner isn't satisfied or happy with how things work. I, however, also realize that the owner is a wonderful, creative person that doesn't manage well (that's why I do it), enjoys doing everything and therefore cannot delegate (that's why I do it), has a picture of perfect in their head and cannot articulate it well (that's what we all wish we had, that picture).
I thought the part-time-ness of this job would make is so that I could hang with this little place and still make an impact -- still be a part of something bigger than myself that was not part of a machine.
And honestly, I don't think I could work for anyone else in this little place without the owner. So... the not so little one says we'll come up with a solution. I believe I said that to nslo on a regular occasion over that past couple of decades.
And tomorrow is more cleaning, calling, switching, trying not to go insane with this overly full week. I am SO looking forward to being done with this set of have-tos.
Time to go read someone else's blog.

It's now official...

The job hunt has begun.

I am now seeking a pastry assistant/cook position at a restaurant in the area.
It's time to see if what I do can actually work in someone's else kitchen and if, perhaps, it can support me.
This is a difficult decision to make, but a necessary one.

I had the first call, the first interview over this past week for the position which turned out to be parttime and it went well enough to end in the plan of a stage.



Now it's just time to wait and see if it's a fit. On the outside it looks like a truly good outfit to be involved with. On the inside is definitely *always* different.

Filling in the details -- I got the gig at this little place cuz I'm good and I know the owner and it has been fabulous and has paid me very little. My savings are running dry and now it's time to get some work. I'd love to stay here. I want to stay here, but it just can't afford me right now :(

Mostly now, I'm sad at the change that is happening. I'm losing my security blanket and I'm just not sure what comes next. This used to be the kind of fear I could deal with regularly, but now it's just a bit too much to deal with on my own.
To the point that I'm physically feeling the sadness.
Handsome says it's because I wear my feelings a bit on my sleeve (I think the "bit" was a nice prevarication of truth...)
I'm seeing what I'm losing right now much more than what I'm gaining.
Fear -- such a wonderful motivator and driver for some can be paralyzing for me.

Ah well.
Positives -- three resumes, one interview, one stage. Not bad.
Amazing time for me to start the blog.
As a good friend used to say: "It's all good." and even if it's not, you just keep acting like it is until the reality matches your outlook.
Let's see what's next.