Am I a control freak?

chocolate bread pudding with pears and maple whipped cream

Life's been a bit nuts lately, which explains the month-long absence from the blog. I recently read this funny article by one of my favorite writers, Tracy Moore, in which she argued that it's a myth that you lose your identity when you become a parent. What you lose is precisely your time. That's it. The time just goes out the window when you are the parents of a young child. Somehow, the things you used to do in your free time, things you loved and that formed your identity and made you who you are become the very things you no longer have time for. For me, those things are riding my road bike, listening to and discovering new music, reading, traveling and entertaining.

To say that it's been hard keeping up a blog is an understatement. I don't have time to cook much of anything lately, and I don't have time to write about it even if I did. But let's stop complaining, shall we? And move on to what I have been doing: work and June.

On the June front, things have been great, if trying at times. My girl certainly has a strong and independent personality (wonder where she got that?) and has no problems letting us know what she wants and doesn't want. Her verbal abilities and ease with expressing herself never cease to amaze us. The other day she asked me "what's a sacrifice?" because she'd heard me use the word in conversation. Then on Sunday she told me quite clearly: "Mom, I'm so happy you're home. I love the weekends." My heart melted.

And she recently decided that, despite the false start several months ago and then her stubbornness about the whole thing, she is in fact ready to get out of diapers. She pulled her pants down and squatted at the playground the other day after she'd seen her friend go pee in the bushes. That must have made an impression because she rode all the way home in her wagon diaper-free (but with pants on) and when we got home she proceeded to go potty all by herself. She earned two stickers on her sticker chart and now we're on a roll. (I'll spare you the details). But it is an accomplishment --for both of us. For her, it means she's that much closer to wearing her 'big-girl underpants' like her potty-trained older friends, and for me, it means I soon will not have to wash diapers or fight with her to change them all day long. This is huge. But it also means my little girl is growing up.

At work I've made some discoveries, some mistakes and some bread pudding. A lot of bread pudding. If there's one thing I've learned it's that people love them some custardy, baked bread in this town. They also love anything fried and not that healthy. Which is why my two favorite desserts on the menu right now have been under-selling (the apple crostata and the zucchini cake) in favor of the two more decadent desserts: the chocolate pot de creme and the ricotta doughnuts.

I knew that trying to do things like seasonal fruit-filled, rustic pastry (the crostata) and unusual flavors that combine savory and sweet, citrus and spice (like the cake) might be a challenge. But I will persevere. I am planning to replace the zucchini cake (which people love when they go out on a limb and try it) with something pumpkin for fall. And I am hanging on to the crostata for now (I've switched from peaches to apples), hoping I can still make people love it. I am getting tired of the old pot of chocolate, but people seem to like it and I've gotten pretty good at making it now.

Speaking of which, I made a double batch of them one day like I usually do (that's over 40 jars) and for some reason I'll never know, they didn't set up properly after hours of chilling. Maybe my egg yolk count was off, maybe I took it off the heat too soon, who knows? But when I went to check on it before leaving for the day, it was still in liquid form, not the pudding -like consistency I was looking for. So the next day I was forced to come in on my day off and fix the problem. I wasn't about to throw out all that good chocolate and cream. First I tried pouring them all back into a pot and re-heating it, with a few extra egg yolks thrown in. I'd done some research and a few people claimed it worked. It did not work.

So I decided to try my first attempt at bread pudding. It was already halfway there: melted chocolate, heavy cream and eggs. I poured it over stale bread that I'd cut up and let it sit for 30 minutes. I poured that into ramekins and baked them for an hour. Then I made a peacan-bourbon-caramel sauce and served it warm with the sauce spooned over the top.

 It was a big hit. And I was pleased with myself for taking a mistake and turning it into something even better. I also learned I have to test my pudding  for consistency every time by putting a spoonful on a plate and into the fridge before pouring the whole batch into jars. If, after a few minutes, it doesn't move when the plate is tilted, it's good to go. If not, go back on the heat immediately. With pot de crème, like any custard, it involves a delicate balance between enough heat to thicken (the yolks are the only thickening agent), but not too much or the chocolate will scald. This is why such things can't just be cranked out haphazardly and quickly. They take some amount of focus and patience. This is not for everyone. And it's why I like making desserts. I like the concentration and the figuring out what went wrong and the satisfaction when something finicky turns out great.

I hope I can continue to be somewhat of a perfectionist with my product. I may drive the guy crazy whose job it is to plate my desserts. He may tune me out every time I tell him something that seems unimportant or obvious. I'm not trying to make his life harder. I'm just trying to ensure that the work I do each day to make a quality product is followed through with some care and attention at the back end just before the dessert makes it out to the table.

If the whipped cream is two days old it won't taste right. If the cake has not been sprinkled with powdered sugar before going out, it will look unfinished. And if the bread pudding is too hot you won't taste the different flavors. I have been struggling a bit with trying not to be too much of a control freak. But then I also think that perfectionism produces a great product and it's better to be a little bit of a freak when it comes to making things great. Someone has to care about dessert. After all, it's the last impression a diner has of the whole experience that preceded it. It shouldn't be treated as just an afterthought.

The pride and perils of returning to work

So I started a new job a couple of weeks ago and despite that fact that it's kicking my butt, I am really happy.

If you know me, you know that I have had a few other careers in my life (academic, teacher, interpreter, sales and marketing person, freelance writer) but the one I probably enjoyed the most was baker. When the career I spent way too many years in school preparing for crashed and burned (...), I turned to something I loved to make myself feel better and that's when a minor interest turned into a full-fledged passion. I spent a year in the kitchen of a well-known local restaurant assisting the pastry chef and learned more than any food network show or food magazine I devoured could ever teach me. At the time I thought it was a fun way to dip my toe in the water of an industry I'd always been interested in while learning if it was something I really wanted to do.

After that year, life took me in other directions for a while and five years after starting my pastry apprenticeship with my good friend Tom, here I am in my first pastry chef job. I'm not sure why they gave me the job, except that I have a lot of heart and passion for food and my employers must have seen something in me they recognized. I may not have all the experience or qualifications another person fresh out of culinary school or with years of cooking professionally behind her would have, but I'll always try my hardest and take pride in what I do and make. And it seems to be appreciated. Besides, if I were better at choosing jobs based not on how they make me feel but on unimportant details like how lucrative or practical they are, I wouldn't be me. Nevertheless, I am really happy to have this opportunity.

Some highlights of my first couple of weeks in the kitchen of an exciting new restaurant include almost crying on the day before opening when I realized what I had gotten myself into and in that same moment realizing if I ever cried as the only woman in a kitchen full of foul-mouthed male cooks, they'd eat me alive. I got through that really tough day and made enough progress to eventually feel like I could do the job.

Then, after realizing one of my recipes was great for making one at a time (at home), but way too labor-intensive for a restaurant, and yet it was on the menu and they were already printed--I switched gears and found a great substitute that is much easier for large-batch cooking and seems to be just as well liked. Problem solved.

the chocolate pie that nearly killed me

In addition to working a few days a week making the restaurant's desserts, I also got myself into working as a server a couple of nights to 1) pay the bills and 2) have some fun. I have already discovered I am too old and crusty and I would much rather be slaving away in the back of the house  listening to loud 80s music and working alongside my fellow masochists than dealing with customers and perky 23-year-old fellow servers. But I will persevere waiting tables for as long as I can take it and try to remember the real reason I am there. At least I can totally sell the desserts.

zucchini-olive oil cake with lemon glaze, cooling

Perhaps the biggest challenge of the last few weeks for me has been making the transition to going back to work after being a stay-at-home-mom for the last two years. I could write many paragraphs on this subject, but this is a food blog not a mommy blog, so I'll spare you. What I will say is that sometimes I look at my daughter's face when I have to leave and go to work and my heart sinks and I feel that work is not all it's cracked up to be. And other times, I feel proud that I'm doing something that's hard and rewarding and also helping our family's finances at the same time and I want to set that example for my little girl so she knows that her options are many. For us right now it's all about making this transition as carefully and easily as possible and trying to find the balance of work and life that is right for us.

June on her first day back at "school"

When I came home last Sat. night at 11:30 pm and my husband was asleep on the couch while my $200 All-Clad soup pot (that had an hour or so earlier contained water in it for pasta), boiled away to nothing and were it not such a stellar piece of equipment might have burned the house down, I thought that maybe things had gotten out of balance. After all, the man has been taking on more parenting duties (which, believe me, is every bit as hard if not harder than working) and still has a physically demanding full-time job. After scolding him for his carelessness I had to thank him for his thoughtfulness: he was just trying to have dinner ready for me when I got home from work.

what keeps me going...

In closing, I'm going to steal the Bukowski quote that a friend who is a successful small-business owner and mom used when asked by an interviewer what her fears were: "Find what you love and let it kill you." Well, I may not have lighted on my life's most important work with this new job, but at least I'm headed in the right direction. I am so lucky to have such a supportive husband and sweet, loving, secure and well-adjusted daughter. If we can manage to not burn the house down, I think we'll all survive.