Yes, somebody stole my baking soda. In case you wondered how much drama can happen in the kitchen of a coffee shop, there you go.

I was making chocolate chip cookies this morning. Flour? Check. Salt? Check. Baking powder? Check. Baking soda? ... Baking soda? ... "Hey, where's the baking soda? Sombody stole my baking soda!" A co-worker and I spent a good 5 minutes looking in every nook and cranny in the kitchen for the baking soda (mind you, the kitchen is quite small). We checked the refrigerators (even the ones up front), and the mop sink. No baking soda. I used it on Tuesday. The best I can figure is that someone broke in during the night and made off with my baking soda. I eventually ran to the grocery store a couple doors over and picked up a box of baking soda so I could finish my cookies.

¶ 12:56 PM 0 comments

Speaking of second jobs, I have one now.

Not that I need the cash or anything.

Though having the extra cash will be nice.

I've been recruited to be the head pastry chef at a coffee shop... well, I'm "head pastry chef" by virtue of being the only pastry chef. I get business cards that list my title as "Pastry Chef". (They asked what I wanted on it, so I told them.) ;-)

I started this job this morning at 5am. It's amazing how alert I actually was a 4am when my alarm went off. And then it was amazing how alert I was at 9:30am when I went to my regular job. By 3pm I was fading fast, but a quick 5-minute Power Nap™ during a long software install fixed that. Then when I got home at 6pm, another 5-minute Power Nap™ recharged me for the evening's chores. And all that on 3 hours of sleep! (Long story.)

"So what do you do?"

"By day I'm a mild-mannered (though slightly short-tempered) software engineer, and by night (which is actually very early morning) I'm a pastry chef."

Oh yeah... the final 3 months of culinary school is an internship, so I'm hoping and praying for an internship in Hawaii. Be sure to come visit me in Hawaii. :-)

¶ 9:49 PM 2 comments

"Printer continues to jam. Service call will be placed. Broken parts to printer!! Thank You"

Nice. Very nice.


UPDATE: 25 July 2005 10:58: So the particular printer pictured now works, but its best buddy immediately to its left is now hosed. I think they're teaming up on us to tick us off. And they're doing a marvelous job of it. Oh, and someone attached an addendum to the original note: "Service call WILL be escalated!!" Italics and everything. No joke!

UPDATE: 12 Aug 2005 12:41: They finally replaced the printers. Both of them. One speedy new printer takes their places. We'll see how long it lasts. And if you send your print jobs to one of the old printers' queues, the jobs seem to go into the bit bucket. You'd think they'd have disabled the old print queues.

¶ 2:54 PM 3 comments

I got back from Philadelphia a few hours ago. It was nice to get out of town, to a place I've never been, if even for a just a few days, most of which were spent flying. My cousin, about a month younger than me, got married. I'm told the bride's family are pretty hard-core party animals. It was quite evident at the reception. Fun nonetheless. And it was really great to see relatives I haven't seen in 2 years or more. I can't even remember the last time I saw the one cousin. He thinks it may have been high school. High school was a looooong time ago. I don't think it was that long ago. College maybe.

While we were having a family reunion of sorts in the Philadelphia suburbs, we managed to locate three highly recommended restaurants serving authentic Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches: Enzo's Italian Eatery, Geno's Steaks, and Pat's King of Steaks. Of the three, Geno's and Pat's have an ongoing rivalry between themselves claiming to have invented the cheesesteak sandwich, and claiming to serve the best sandwich. Of the three, I personally like Enzo's best. Their bread is tastier, and they cram more meat into the sandwich. Neither Geno's nor Pat's are really anything to shout about. I guess it's more of the experience for the casual tourist. For the locals, Geno's and Pat's are staples, and on Saturday nights seem to be the hang-out. I write to you now toting several extra pounds' worth of cheesesteak sandwiches tucked away around my rotund mid-section. It worth the extra pounds. :-)

On the way to Geno's and Pat's on Saturday night, we drove through central Philadelphia, around the Independence Hall/Market Street area. On Saturday night, there seemed to be something going on that I can only describe as resembling Freaknik.

[Disclaimer: To maintain the family-friendly atmosphere here, I will not link to any external information about Freaknik, nor will I recommend searching about it on your favorite search engine. You have been warned.]

For those of you who went with me on my high school band trip to Atlanta, you'll remember Freaknik '94. Basically, while all the preppie frat boys and sorority girls are boozing it up on the beach for Spring Break, African-American college students from all across the U.S. converge on a few locations, the chief of which being Atlanta, Georgia. My high school band had the interesting fortune of being housed in the middle of Downtown Atlanta in the Spring of 1994, right in the middle of Freaknik. Unaware, we were in our rooms in the hotel watching the news, and someone blurts out, "Hey, I think that's our hotel!" So we go to the window, and lo and behold, there's Freaknik '94 in the streets below. We saw a milder scene: inebriated people being wild and crazy, traffic gridlocked for miles. No doubt there were all kinds of debauchery and wantonness happening elsewhere in the city.

So, central Philadelphia last Saturday night kind of reminded me of Freaknik. We were fine, though, 'cuz I's down wit' da homies, yo. We eventually found Geno's and Pat's and had ourselves a nice midnight snack of Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches. "Mushroom-provolone-wit'!" (That's a steak sandwich with mushrooms, provolone and onions, for those of you who don't speak Pat's lingo.)

Oh, and it was my cousin, the one getting married, that asked, "So when's it your turn?" to which I promptly replied, "Oh, I'm taking my time!"

¶ 8:48 PM 0 comments

I got my first two paid commissions as a pastry chef last week, designing two birthday cakes. Challenging they were, but most definitely fun.



Sam's cake kind of came on the heels of Laura's cake (pro bono) from the week before. So I borrowed some ideas.



Lauren's cake is loosely inspired by a somewhat generic china pattern.



I really wanted to make a set of "teacupcakes" and a teapot for Lauren's design (tea party theme), but I wasn't sure how much creative freedom I had with it, not to mention how much the customer was willing to pay, so I went more traditional. My "agent" also seems to be pushing fondant as the covering of choice. I'm not complaining, but it does cost about $7 to cover a 9-inch layer cake with fondant, not counting any other fondant pieces (for example 18 pink and purple flowers).

I'd really like to try out the "teacupcakes" concept, so if anyone's planning a tea party and would be willing to pay an extra premium for art disguised as dessert, I'd like to talk to you. :-) The entire "tea set" would probably be able to provide dessert for about 20-25 people. And if you have a particular china pattern you'd like to lend me for inspiration, that'd be even cooler. And actually, there are pastry chef competitions in which a piece of china is selected/provided, and the chef must design a cake inspired by the china pattern. My friends seem to think I'm going to become some world-renowned, international celebrity of a pasty chef. We'll see.... ;-)

In the process of creating these two cakes, I remembered why I enjoy this so much: it's all about putting a smile on someone's face, whether a smile of wonderment, or excitement, or something in between. When I'm engineering software no one ever says to me, "Hey, man, great code! I love it!" But hearing about the face of a little girl named Sam light up at the sight of her pink and purple cake makes me feel satisfied and fulfilled, like I made a difference in somebody's life, if even for a brief, fleeting moment in the Grand Timeline.

¶ 12:11 AM 7 comments