Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Indie and You're Punk

Hello, Employment

My actual funemployment was short lived. If you take away the two days that would've been my weekend anyways. I was unemployed for... ummm... two days. I went on a total of four interviews, turned down 3 interviews, and only ended up trailing at one place though I was offered trails* for all four of my interviews.

All of the jobs were offering around the same amount of money but they were offering VASTLY different workloads, amount of responsibility and creative freedom and in the end I went with the job with what seemed like the least amount of stress and the greatest amount of freedom. This job, as it stands right now, is definitely not the choice that would've looked the most impressive on my resume nor is it the choice I originally thought I would make. In fact, when I sent out my resumes it was probably number three of the four jobs for which I actually interviewed.

I'm working at a tiny ice cream shop that has only had a store front for a year and only added in the espresso bar and baked goods to the retail cafe in January BUT before they had the store front they'd been selling the ice cream at events and from tricycles for two years and they just landed their first wholesale account. What is a slow day at Je and Jo was a busy day at Stellina. So I'm working for a small business again, but this time it's an obviously growing small business and I want to help the owners, who both have day jobs,  grow it more by taking on a lot of the day to day production responsibilities so they have time to do the big picture stuff.

I'm already in love with the shop, the owners and my coworkers. Everybody that works there seems to be really invested in working there. Ok, yes, it's just the owners, me and a few baristas but I have yet to hear anyone say a bad word about anyone else or the business and I basically started working last Wednesday (even though I've only officially been on board since Monday). I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be a chef who pours all of their creative energy into something and then have servers or baristas who don't give a fuck (not the case at Stellina, but definitely the case some other places I've worked) because if the front of house people aren't excited, customers aren't going to be excited. Also, obviously, it sucks to work at a place where everybody complains about everything/everybody all the time (very much the case at Stellina/Sorella and I was no exception).

There's no ego involved. I'm working for a veterinarian and an architect who went to ice cream school and have fully handed over the baked goods and kitchen management to me. And unlike my other jobs where I've been expected to take on those roles for a measly $10/hr, I'm actually getting paid the same wage I was as a sous chef and have promises of looking into health insurance if enough other employees want to opt in.

And of course, because you can take the girl out of California... as much as possible everything is organic and locally sourced and all the packaging materials, cups, etc in the shop are biodegradable. LOVE.

Right now things are pretty low key but I imagine things will start ramping up as the weather gets warmer and we start selling from the trikes as well as the store and hopefully, eventually get some more wholesale clients. My plan during this slow time, and part of the reason I took this job, is to do some massive food blog revamping and FINALLY start a confections side business. So if you don't see me over here for a while, it's because I'm somewhere on the internet figuring out a completely new blog design and whether or not the neglected blog and this blog will be one and if the food blog will still have recipes or just be for selling shit and maybe working on a cookbook.

Because when I sat down and thought about what I wanted my career to be, it wasn't about fancy titles and hip restaurants, it's about creating and doing something I love. I hate that right now I'm the type of person that would advise "don't" to anyone who asked advice on becoming a chef because in the end, I love what I do and even if I started working in another field, I would never stop baking. The flavors never stop running through my mind. It's the way my brain is wired, the way yours is wired to paint or make music or smith words and when your brain is wired for a certain creative endeavor, you know that life becomes incomplete without it.

Writers write. Bakers bake.

I am a baker. Sometimes it really is that simple.

*We use weird terms in the food world, I'm not just misspelling "trial"

Hello, Funemployment

For those of you that don't follow me on twitter or missed my tweets about it, as of April 14th, I will be unemployed. Unless I find a job by then, in which case, I will not be unemployed but will have a new job.

Yesterday I was informed that since when the gelato shop/bakery reopens it will be tiny and the restaurant will be the primary business focus and I am a baker, it just didn't make sense for the business to keep me on anymore. Which is 100% true. I had started sending out resumes in February when it became apparent that the bakery was going to drastically downsized but then there was a lot of talk about expanding the wholesale business and I figured I'd stick with it a while longer. Oh universe, you're so funny sometimes. The pastry sous chef position and what that roll entailed were created for me, to get me to come back to work when I had left last Summer and it was a really great fit for me then. With basically no bakery, it's not now. I can't disagree with their reasoning for letting me go when it's the same reason I've been thinking about leaving. It doesn't mean it doesn't suck though.

"Stability" was my word to work towards in 2012 and that was part of the reason I stuck with my job. I wasn't in love with it, but I thought sticking with it would allow me to push work a little more to the backburner and focus on getting the rest of my life back together, figuring out who I am outside of being a chef, do some volunteer work and maybe have a more regular social/love life. My job has always been where I put the most focus in my life and I wanted to let go of that a little bit. Now I'm trying to figure out whether or not that's an option.

I'm trying to figure out where the balance is between not selling out my artistic integrity and having medical benefits. Between making enough money to live comfortably in New York City and making food I can stand behind. I read these job descriptions for new bakeries and just opened cafes and most of them... I just, I just can't. I can't do it again. I've poured my heart and creative energy into so many struggling small businesses that weren't mine for too little pay and too much of my life given, and all I can think is that I just want some motherfucking stability. I just want enough money to live off, benefits and sick days. That's it. I know it's not the cool thing to say, I know my generation is supposed to be all about entrepeneurship and doing our own thing and going after what we love but fuck it. I've been doing what I love since I started culinary school at nineteen and I'm tired of being a starving artist. I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of people telling me my job is awesome without realizing that I've never worked somewhere where I could afford to regularly eat if I didn't have an employee discount. Or the look of shock at the lack of paid sick days. You probably tipped your server at your last meal more than I make an hour when I break down my shift pay even though I'm the one with the specialized trade skill.

I do something that I love, that I'm good at and it hurts my body and I can't go see a doctor about my inabilty to hold a knife for an extended period of time without part of my hand going numb.

Right now, doing something purely because I love it, seems unsustainable but I'm not very good at compromising my values and working for the man. I'm not even sure who the man is in the culinary world. I'm not sure where that leaves me in job hunting. I can't really afford to be super picky but I'm feeling really picky.

And frustrated. I'm just so effing effity eff frustrated.

I am the luckiest

It's 10am when I struggle with my copy of a copy of a copy of a key to roll up the metal gate and open the heavy door and walk into the dark and silent wine bar that makes up the front half of the restuarant.

What has proceeded this moment: 45 minutes of "snoozing", a bleary realization that I went to bed with my hair wet (again) and that it is sitting in a half-Jew fro on top of my head, hello flat iron, clothes somehow end up on my body, tinted moisturizer and out the door. Coffee at the bodega where they know my order (Am I a New Yorker yet?), 45 minutes on the train, half awake weaving through Chinatown and then digging through my purse.

I walk through to the pastry kitchen, flipping on lights and ovens,  setting down my phone and coffee. I snatch up a yellow legal pad and head downstairs. Into my cubby goes my purse, my real world clothes, my shoes and jewelry, out comes yoga pants and shiny blue clogs. My clipboard and I make our way around, counting and checking what was gone through the night before against what I had written for production. Two walkins, two kitchens, opening drawers, pulling out sheetpans.

And then, finally, thirty minutes later, I tie on an apron and head into the kitchen to start the real work.

Into the dock goes my iPod. Nobody is here yet, I can play whatever I want.

Stop... with you feet in the air and your head on the ground...

Mixing bowls out, yeast, water, flour and salt. Eggs for some. Olive oil for others. And suddenly the quiet kitchen is filled with the not so quiet whir of two 6 quart stand mixers and a 40 quart's clunk, clunk, clunk. I still have another hour before anybody else arrives. Another hour of just me, my music and the kitchen.

Even though I know that means I still have another 9 hours to my day, another 9 hours on my feet and running up and down the stairs and hoisting flour sacks and realizing the wholesale order should've been in the oven twenty minutes ago, I also realize that I chose right all those years ago when I chose culinary school over college because I am in the kitchen and so, I am happy.

This post was written as part of the Scintilla Project. Prompts can be found here.

Bits & Pieces (the second)

Social Life/BiSC:

In the last week, I met Adam, Sara and Bob, which means, along with Rachael, Dominique and Nicole, I have met 10% of the people I'm going to Las Vegas with in May. And I have to say if everybody is both as awesome and attractive as those six in real life, it's going to be the most overwhelmingly amazing experience I've had in a long time. Also, I'm really gonna have to bring my A game.

I made some moderately stupid decisions in the last week so that I could meet those people. And by moderately stupid, I mean I went out twice in the last week once knowing I was getting sick and once knowing I was still sick and should be sleeping instead. The result was working with a fever last Sunday and feeling likc if I had to stand for one more second past ten hours of work I might die for most of the week. But you know what? That's the great thing about being an adult. I consciously made those decisions knowing they weren't the best idea and I accepted the consequences and the only asshole to blame was myself. And then I spent pretty much all of yesterday in bed, spent today at AMNH and wandering through Central Park, came home, took a nap because that's what my body said we should do and pretty much feel like a human again. So I think, overall, worth it.

CA v NY:

It turns out you can take the girl out of California, but you can't take the California out of the girl. My pastry cook is giving up cigarettes, soda and fast food for Lent and everybody tells her it's crazy while I'm like "that's awesome, it's really not that bad". And not to pat myself on the back for not having bad habits I never picked up, I just call that normal life. I think most of my friends back home do too. It still weirds me out that the chefs I work with eat fast food. In fact I'm so not used to people eating fast food (with the obvious exception of In'n'Out) that even non chefs eating fast food surprises me. I mean, this week I'm concerned that I'm eating organic yoghurt from humanely treated cows and bread made at a coop because they come all the way from California and I think that's a perfectly normal way to think about food. I guess it's all relative to what you're used to. Hella NorCal, yo.

Boy Stuff:

I really will make out with anyone when I'm drunk. Pretty sure Sara asked me if I would make out with like 5 different people the other night and I said "yes" everytime. Sober me would not have said "yes" that many times. Sober me is now back in charge of my love life. The "don't get drunk on the first date" rule that Michelle gave me is now in effect. Despite being single for a whole year my friends have been shocked the last few weeks when they've asked about my dating situation because there currently is none. At all. Haven't gone on a date in three weeks. There are no boys that I'm currently regularly sleeping with. (I know, it's weird for me too) I am however, currently writing 6 paragraph messages to a guy on OkC that I genuinely want to be friends with. Or more. But most of the time when I go on dates from OkC I'm kind of forcing myself and I feel like I'm putting myself in such a contrived situation because I don't know if I would always go on dates if I had met the guy IRL whereas this guys seems like somebody I would actually hang out with in the real world. So that's possibly exciting.

New Year's Goals:

I'm currently losing weight at a rate of approximately two pounds a month. Did you know I was trying to lose weight? Probably not. Mostly because I think it's the most boring thing ever to read about on other peoples' blogs and because I'm a small person I feel like people will want to punch me in the face if I complain about my weight. But look y'all, I'm a chef which means my weight has actually been somewhat of a constant struggle since I went through culinary school. It also means part of the reason I don't weigh a lot more with what I eat is because I am on my feet cooking for ten frakking hours a day and lifting fifty pound sacks and running up and down the GD stairs. Anyways, with some portion control and stopping to make myself eat actual food instead of just randomly putting whatever cookie is closest at hand in my mouth when I realize I'm starving, I'm slowly but surely losing weight and starting to feel a lot better about my body and not hate the way every piece of clothing I put on fits. Which is good, because I really don't have enough money to buy a whole new wardrobe.

Dairy is the devil. I've gone back to pretty much cutting it out entirely and feel so much better on a day to day basis.

I'm still obsessed with Blue Print Cleanse juices but have mostly just been incorporating them into my regular diet instead of going all out cleanse. I would like to do another three day cleanse soon though.

Random shit:

I read all three books in The Hunger Games trilogy in two days. I would've liked it better if they hadn't been written in such a way that it only took me two days to read them. This is why I don't usually read YA books. Good stories aren't enough, I want to read that sentence that rings so very true my heart aches, that expresses an emotion so perfectly I'm knocked on my ass. I will say that it was a good story and will probably make a pretty enjoyable movie.

Best for last: My new work schedule is 10 am-8ish pm which means I might get to have a social life again. I've only had it for a week, but I think I might love it. I'm still alternating between having Sunday/Monday off and Thursday/Sunday off, which is really weird but the new hours might make it manageable.

I'm going going back back to Cali Cali

I've made the roundtrip coast to coast journey somewhere between 25 and 35 times now. One to two times a year almost every year of my life. SFO to JFK and then back again. Except not this time. This time it's different. JFK to SFO and then back again.

It's weird. It's just so weird. I keep thinking I need to take one last walk through Central Park, that there must be one more museum to fit in before I get on the plane that will take me to tacos and In'n'Out instead of pizza and bagels. I've gone into "No, please, don't make me leave" mode, forgetting that in ten days I'll be back. It's hard to believe I've been here close to a year now. It's hard to believe I have no intention of moving back to California. But both those things are very true.

I'm starting to get a little going home anxiety too. So many things I want to eat. So many people I want to see. So many people. After a year of not having time for anything much other than work and sleep, the idea of so much socializing is a little daunting. And of course there's the "What if I've somehow changed in a way that makes everyone hate me? Or me hate them? Or what if they've all changed?" anxiety. There's also the family anxiety. Just y'know. Family.

And part of it is that I feel so removed from my life in California. I was always living with one foot out the door anyways. The idea of slowing back down to California countryside pace seems so foreign. Slowing down always seems foreign to me. I think that's the part of my nature that will always be more comfortable here than there. Not just Sonoma County, but the Bay Area in general.

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm going to have fun. I can't wait to see more than three stars when I look up at night, for the redwood trees to be towering over me and to see that craggy coastline. I'm ready for going out with my boots on. Whiskey and semi drunken tractor rides. Wine tasting. Windy backroads. Girl nights. COOKING. I have a feeling I'm about to do so much cooking and baking, and I'm oddly thrilled. I really can't emphasize enough how much I miss cooking for people I know instead of strangers. Produce and slow food. (I'm sorry New York, but until you get over fine dining and learn how to do the slow food bistro properly, I will always be on the California side of the coastal chef battle.) Ace pear cider on tap. All the alcohol specific bars in Petaluma. Avoiding going into Sebastopol like the plague except maybe to play shuffleboard at Old Main. Ok, fine, I probably need a burger from Hop Monk too. And, I mean, just all the food in Berkeley. Seriously. All of it. Gregoire's, Cafe Fanny, Barney's, Fonda's, Rudy's Can't Fail... Probably more places I can't think of right now.

I'm excited to go. But I'm also excited to come back. That's a feeling that never existed when I was doing the trip the other way around. And that feeling, makes any of the struggling, any of the loneliness, any of the complete and utter exhaustion I've put up with for the last year, completely worth it. I knew last January that if I didn't move to New York, I would regret it. I'm thrilled that that's a regret I don't have.

And for the record, I will only ever say "Cali" when quoting song lyrics. I promise I'm not that lost to you yet guys.

Food Glorious Food

Food: What did you eat this year that stayed with you? Did you experiment with a new meal? Try a new restaurant? Reflect on your good (or less desirable) eats with detail and explain why it stayed with you!

Food. Oh my goodness, food. This year my world went back to revolving around it. My life is centered around the kitchen and it's an intense love/hate relationship.

The love is recipe development. The hours of brainstorming. The days where my brain just doesn't stop. Floods of flavor combinations that I have to write down because there are too many to keep track of. "Painting with flavor," my uncle calls it. I've always thought of it more as composing. But either way the idea is the same.

Pots out, ingredients cover the counter. Taste, adjust, taste again. Start a new batch because it's baking and some things cant be changed once you start the process. Decide on another flavor entirely, a different texture, put the flavors in a cake instead of gelato. I can do this for hours. I do do this for hours, days even, with occasional breaks for the regular production that needs to get done.

I am happiest then. That is what the kitchen is about for me- creating, sharing my creations. Hoping people love them as much as I put love into them.

It's never really been about wanting my own place or the rush of service or anything else. I just want to create and share and teach. I'd be content doing recipe development and writing cookbooks and never stepping foot in a professional kitchen with a store front again.

But being a pastry chef is my version of being a starving artist, and like most starving artists, I have to find some way to pay my rent at the end of the month.

So there's the hate side. The side where I'm supposed to be thankful I only work 9.5-10.5 hours a day because that's not that much for a sous chef in this city. The side where I don't always just get to make what I want, where I have to work service at the restaurant, where I spend a couple of hours each day making breadsticks. There's the side where even though I have a fancy title and get to manage people and am at a relatively good place in my career, I don't get vacation time or sick days or medical benefits and that's pretty much the norm in the industry. The side where the hours make it impossible for the kitchen not to be my whole life. Where finding new friends and having a social life in a new city has been made even more difficult because of my all consuming career. The side where I give people a blank stare when they ask me what i do when i'm not at work before answering "sleep" or "laundry".

I am, finally, starting to learn how to leave work at work at least.

I have a feeling this will be my last job working in a restaurant or bakery kitchen. I'm not saying I'm planning on leaving soon but when I do I either want to move into a test or teaching kitchen or go back to working with troubled kids.

Two hours and twenty five things later...

One of the problems with there being so many reverb prompt lists is that it's easy to choose the prompts that are easier to answer instead of the prompts that challenge, which is kind of the whole point. So I'm choosing this prompt because I tried to start answering and then gave up and maybe that means it's full of things I actually need to examine.

What are 5 things you have done for yourself in 2011?
1. Uhh, moved across country, bitches! Moving to New York was an entirely selfish act. I knew that if I didn't do it, I would regret it and that's really all there was to it.
2. I just spent a ridiculous amount of money at IKEA so that I could have a room that would feel like home and like mine. I'm still putting it all together but I'm pretty into it.
3. Stockpiled groupon deals for massages. Good decision.
4. I just had a bunch of pictures of my family and friends back home printed to put in actual frames. Again with the making my room more mine and home-y.
5. Relearned that it's ok to say no. Kind of. I'm always relearning that one.

What are 5 things you have done for others in 2011?
1. Petsat like crazy.
2. Picked up cold medicine for a sick friend.
3. Listened and supported.
4. Tried to be a good mentor/manager/teacher at work.
5. Worked crazy hours and covered shifts at jobs where I wasn't working at the time.

What are 5 things that held you back from doing things for others?
1. Being afraid of being let down if gestures aren't returned.
2. Getting into the downward spiral of feeling guilty for not calling/writing/supporting enough and then thinking that people probably don't want to hear from me at this point anyway.
3. Working so much and being so tired.
4. All my other answers are variations on the first. Fear of letting people in, fear of seeming too eager, too familiar.

What are 5 things that you want to do for yourself in 2012?
1. Go on vacation somewhere that is not California or New York.
2. Get a massage every month.
3. Go to Bloggers in Sin City
4. Buy a museum membership. (probably AMNH)
5. Try at least one new restaurant a month.

What are 5 things you want to do for others in 2012?
1. Cook for another person (that isn't paying me to do it) twice or more a month.
2. Volunteer with Big Brother/Big Sister or CASA
3. Be better at checking in with my friends and family
4. Sponsor a Project Night Night package every month
5. Bring homemade soup to sick friends.

“The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.”

Reverb prompt 3: What books did you read?

Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin

(Favorite this year, hands down, just fucking gorgeous beyond words. Also where the title quote comes from.)

“The many lights that shone through the misty summer air also seemed to be fires, and everything below her appeared to be alight. And yet the city was not strangled in its own smoke. It was alive, and she wanted to know it, even if it meant the risk of losing herself within it”

"No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile."

"Small scenes can be so beautiful that they change a man forever."

"Manhattan, A high narrow kingdom as hopeful as any that ever was, burst upon him full force, a great and imperfect steel tressed palace of a hundred million chambers, many-tiered gardens, pools, passages, and ramparts above its rivers. Built upon an island from which bridges stretched to other islands and to the mainland, the palace of a thousand tall towers was undefended. It took in nearly all who wished to enter, being so much larger than anything else that it could not ever be conquered but only visited by force. Newcomers, invaders, and the inhabitants themselves were so confused by its multiplicity, variety, vanity, size, brutality, and grace, that they lost sight of what it was. It was, for sure, one simple structure, busily divided, lovely and pleasing, and extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built."

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

(I just finished rereading this book for the first time since I was 18. Second favorite I've read this year, again, because the prose is just so stunning.)

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”

“Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”

Garlic & Saphires, Ruth Reichl

(Obviously, love her, love her books)

"While cooking demands your entire attention, it also rewards you with endlessly sensual pleasures. The sound of water skittering across leaves of lettuce. The thump of a knife against watermelon, and the cool summer scent the fruit releases as it falls open to reveal its deep red heart. The seductive softness of chocolate beginning to melt from solid to liquid. The tug of sauce against the spoon when it thickens in the pan, and the lovely lightness of Parmesan drifting from the grater in gossamer flakes. Time slows down in the kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions."

The Kitchen Daughter, Jael McHenry

(Food and grief, sweet and sorrowful and for anyone that finds comfort in cooking)

Just a small rip. At first it looks accidental, but everyone on a bench has a ribbon, and a tear in it. It can’t all be accident… It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart."

“I want them to bite into a cookie, and think of me, and smile. Food is love. Food has a power."

 "The rich, wet texture of melting chocolate. The way good aged goat cheese coats your tongue. The silky feel of pasta dough when it's been pressed and rested just enough. How the scent of onions changes, over an hour, from raw to mellow, sharp to sweet, and all that even without tasting. The simplest magic: how heat transforms.”

Little Bee, Chris Cleave

(heartbreaking and lovely)

“Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.”

“I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.”

More books I read:

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis Devoto, Joan Reardon

Highly, highly recommend. Julia Child was a pretty fantastic woman and these letters show all the work and struggle that went into changing the landscape of American cooking as well as showing the development of an amazing friendship.

A Dance with Dragons, George R. R. Martin

Obviously.

Summer Sisters, Judy Bloom

Written for adults but in the same language and style of the Judy Bloom of my childhood. Love and loss and growing older.

Wildwood, Colin Meloy

Fun young adult book from the lead singer of the Decemberists. Very much in the vein of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

This is maybe another "obviously" but I didn't actually see the movie. I meant to and just didn't get around to it. It's actually a really great book. Not going to lie, I cried at times.

I am small but I am strong

Quick practical note: This December I'm participating in #reverb11. Last year I only managed about half the month before the questions all started to seem like they were asking the same things in different ways. This year there are so many lists of prompts that I'm hoping I'll stay inspired through the entire month. I'm doing it because making time to write daily is something I really wished I did on a more regular basis and obviously it's easier when you have a whole internet community supporting you. Basically #reverb11 is like my work out buddy for writing. Also, it's that New Year's-y, birthday coming up soonish time of year so I'm probably going to be spending a lot of time all up in my head over analyzing the last year and making decisions about the new one anyway, and some of that stuff needs to get out of my head so I don't go insane. The posts won't always be eloquent or long, but they will always be true.

So...

Reverb11 Prompt 2: Who are you? Describe yourself.

Alana Margaret. Baker. Pastry Sous Chef in the most competitive food city in the world. But in my head, just a baker, creator, recipe writer.

Quiet, shy, sensitive, bookish but if I have my way you'll never know it. I never outgrew those things, but I got better at pretending, which I guess, is a lot of what growing up is about. A sometimes broken, bitter, midnight crier and sometimes the one who has weathered much and come out more whole than anyone had any right to expect.

I cling to schedules, routines, normalcy the way those of us with hectic childhoods do, trying to keep control, always. Hating when I'm not in control, always. Life has a way of not letting you be in control. It's tricksy like that.

Blunt, harsh and honest. To a fault. But once you're in, once you make it under the layers, there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, nothing I wouldn't give. Happiest as a care taker, food maker, present giver.

Small but curvy. Dark haired and light eyed. Fair Irish skin. Thankful for Eastern European cheek bones adding definition to a round, dimpled face. Rosy cheeked and dark lashed. Arms and hands covered in burn scars and knife nicks.

Not so secret lover of all things living and adorable. Small children (not babies, they still mostly look like aliens), puppies and kittens especially, though if I thought a baby polar bear or tiny penguin wanted to cuddle me and I lived in the right climate, they'd be right up there on that list.

I find equal comfort in the quietness of museums and the way words string together. Sentences over stories. Phrases get stuck in my brain the way songs get stuck in other's. Flavor combinations too. Repeating until I find a space to let them out.

Alana Margaret, almost twenty-six. New York City born. California raised. New York City returned. Baker pretending to be a Pastry Sous Chef. Reader pretending to be a writer. Unabashed liberal. Rule follower and authority hater. Goody two shoes with a foul mouth. A pile of contradictions, just like you, and at the same time, not at all.

Not even a little bit.

I do it because I'm good at it. Remember when I used to do it because I loved it?

Every kitchen is filled with flames and shards, fire and glass, boiling liquids and sharp objects eager to attack you. Cooking is too dangerous to permit distraction. If you step into that arena without the proper respect, you will certainly get hurt.

...

But while cooking demands your entire attention, it also rewards you with endlessly sensual pleasures. The sound of water skittering across leaves of lettuce, The thump of the knife against watermelon, and the cool summer scent the fruit releases as it falls open to reveal its deep red hear. The seductive softness of chocolate beginning to melt from solid to liquid. The tug of sauce against the spoon when it thickens in the pan, and the lovely lightness of Parmesan drifting from the grater in gossamer flakes. Time slows down in the kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions.

Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires

I need to get back to this. To remembering why it is I do what I do.

"HOLY... This, this is the best thing you've made. I know I always say that, but this is actually the best thing you've made"

"Yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with how those turned out," I say, nonchalantly.

The bomboloni are filled with buttery, salty whipped sweet potatoes (the secret ingredient is fat, fat and more fat) and she's dipping them into a small ramekin of maple cinnamon marshmallow fluff. Pure savory dipped into pure sugar, I had intentionally made the recipe for the sweet potatoes just on the edge of too salty.

"No, seriously, next time you interview somewhere if they ask you to make something of your own, MAKE THESE"

"These are fantastic," she exclaims to the pastry cook who actually made them that night.

The cook gestures at me as if to give credit wear credit is due.

I really loved those bomboloni, I was really really pleased with how they came out. They were me, simple and straight forward, a few clean flavors combined in a fun way.

There are many reasons Ruth Reichl (yeah, we're back to her again) is somebody to whom I look up, but I think mostly, it the prevailing theme through her memoirs, that she, like me, wasn't drawn to food for the big names or bright lights but for the comfort found in the kitchen and the joy of sitting around a table and breaking bread with friends and mostly, for the love of watching the expression on someone else's face when they enjoy something you've lovingly prepared for them.

I used to watch my friends' faces eagerly as they took the first bite of something.

"Do you like it? Are you sure? You wouldn't change anything?" I'd repeat over and over until I'm certain they sometimes wanted to slap me.

Now I sit there detached "Yes, I'm very satisfied with how that turned out," knowing I've created something that is well balanced in flavors and textures, that turned out precisely the way I wanted.

I need to cook at home, to cook for friends and to cook for myself. I need to remind myself that this isn't some job I have because I can execute things technically well and have a decent palate. I need to remind myself that maybe the things I make are a frivolity, maybe I'm not changing the world, but that food has the power to bring us together and sweet treats are sometimes the panacea for even the worst of days.

And I needed to read about somebody else having the same struggle to remind me how much my relationship to food has changed and how much I want to get the old relationship back.

I have a feeling I might need to start fattening up my roommates...