True Story

I had a job interview today, as an assistant pastry chef.

It was the shortest, most surreal interview ever in the history of the world, with a tiny Egyptian pastry chef who came skipping out of the back to meet me in the kitchen.

To appreciate the story, remember I am 6 feet tall. She might have been 4'9" -- it was hard to tell with all the hopping around.

She runs up to me, throws her arms around me, hugs me, cups my face in her hands, and takes my hand hands in hers and says, i heavily accented English, "I am so sorry . . . you're too hot to be a pastry chef. You should work with meat."

And skips away.

The line cooks, who were watching with interest, nearly died laughing.

For those who are puzzled, she meant my metabolism is too high . . . if you have a high metabolism, you have a higher core temperature, which means pastry dough will warm up too quickly as you work with it. 

Meanwhile, someone would have to die for me to get a job in that kitchen, but they strongly suggested I check back often.

Tortilla Madness

This is The Husband's latest design in his functional pottery line . . . a tortilla holder.


To use it, you fold the tortilla into a cone, and place it inside the cup. You can stuff it with anything (chicken salad here), eat out of it, then lift out the tortilla to finish as a soft taco.

Words to Live By . . .

"The restaurant business is the only business where you can make creativity pay," a retired restauranteur told me this evening.

"In every other industry, the people above you want to be the creative ones, and want you to do their thing," he said, "and they'll put up with you as long as they can use you. God help you when you reach a point where you want credit for your own ideas . . . "

He's right, of course.

I wouldn't be a fry cook at the moment if he wasn't.

I tried -- tried hard -- to do the corporate retail thing. I tried to stay inside the box, and when that failed, I tried to think outside the box.

My problem is that not only do I think outside the box, but I seem to have misplaced my box, and I am honestly not really sure if I had a box to begin with . . .

That's not such a good thing in corporate retail, where they are very sure that you did indeed have a box and you should be sitting quietly in it waiting for further instructions.

And yes, it ended badly.

Really badly.

That is why I am again a fry cook.

I actually love it, although I would rather be in a restaurant with a little more challenging menu. Working a line turns out to be the type of thing you can either do, or not do, and if you can do it you can drop right back into it as if you never left. It all depends on your nerve, and whether you are prepared to just jump in and go.

I now have some excellent advice, including a more refined timeline for moving along, and a list of restaurants locally to either avoid or apply to on a regular basis until they take me.

Like I said, things have changed. And they are still changing, so stay tuned.

Kill Vader

I would go see a Quentin Tarantino take on Star Wars. How about you?

The Lego Star Wars Theme . . .

Boys & Vegetables

The Boy, age 10, has been on an anti-vegetaable kick this year, along with all his friends.

Oh he'll eat them, but usually after many threats and lengthly negotiations.

"You have to eat at least four bites."

"Does this count as a bite?"

"No. The guinea pig would not consider that a bite."

"It fits on my fork . . . "

"One tine doesn't count."

"I can't believe you want me to be rude and take a giant bite. That's so wrong."

"There is a bite sized somewhere between what you have on your fork and a giant, mutant bite."

* deep sigh *

"You do realize that you could have finished eating your vegetables in the time you've wasted talking about them and could already be back on the Xbox 360 playing Halo Wars."

* scarfs up vegetables and runs *

Suddenly The Boy -- the same Boy from the preceeding conversation -- only wants to eat quiche, preferably with spinach, tomatoes, shallots, celery, red and green bell peppers and shredded carrot.

Last night I figured out why . . . 

I buy free-range eggs from a farm that is on the way to school.

Actual free-range eggs, from chickens who are usually standing in the driveway when you pull up.

A couple of weeks ago we had an incident involving an egg that should have stayed under its Mama.

The Boy is suddenly all about quiche because he is hoping for another such egg . . . 

And so I chop and slice the vegetables, while he does the eggs.

He is disappointed that he hasn't discovered another embryo, but is always pleased when he finds a double yolk, and spends entirely too much time worrying about chicken twins.

I'm still not sure if that counts as a positive method of encouraging vegetable consumption . . . 

Can Beauty Save Newspapers?

Polish designer Jacek Utko makes a strong case for creating and expanding markets via an equal emphasis on form and function.