Call to Arms

Now, I realize that every job has it's bullshit. The grass is never EVER greener as a matter of fact. But, what gets under my skin and wiggles it's way to my brain, infecting all molecules of my being is the fact that pastry chefs are deemed: the line cook who couldn't make it, dough-hoes, sugar fairy, the working individuals that are the after thought despite the fact that their food brings in revenue with generally a 3-11% food cost and really folks, it is the last thing the guests puts in their mouths. So it better be fucking good, or they are gong to bitch about it to everyone.

This nagging feeling has only gotten stronger over the last few years. I suppose, in the beginning I didn't care if the line cooks made fun of me. I usually showed up before them and left way after. But, because I made lollipops and pretty souffles with edible flowers, that makes me incapable of being a respected cook? Even better, I recall in my earlier fine dining days that the guys would say pastry girls were always the easiest to score with. Hell, they even had bets going. But only after a few weeks and me threatening to pour hard crack sugar all over their face I quickly received the nickname "ice queen". (that's 310F of boiling hot sugar asshole)

Pastry chefs and cooks are incredibly organized, obsessive, creative, masochistic, imaginative with color and structure, and they put up with an incredible amount of bullshit. Oh, and a lot of them are as angry as you can get. You would think with the amount of sugar that we consume, we would be the happiest people to walk this earth. I wouldn't put it past a few of them to snorting pixie sticks for the sugar high. We spend all day making cake layers, later to be soaked with pear liquor making sure it's evenly distributed along the cake; not to make it soggy and fall apart but to ensure its moist and flavorful. Next is the gelee. Beautiful Anjou pears that have been peeled, small diced and sautéed with lemon juice, vanilla and butter then added to a pear purée with just the right amount of gelatin to allow it to set up in the entremet but not to be used as a floatation device. You patiently allow that to cool before adding it to your frame to ensure that your cake layer doesn't absorb it all and royally muck up your cake. Delicately ladeling your gelee on top of the cake layer you allow it to set. Carefully placing another vanilla sponge pressing lightly to ensure it sticks, another application of pear liquor syrup. A milk chocolate cardamom mousse is made, whip cream gently being folded in then evenly portioned and leveled off the cake, another layer of sponge, another application of pear liqour syrup. Finally, a pear bavarian piped on top to create a ripple event to be frozen then sprayed with white chocolate to give a velvet effect. Beautiful, bursting with delicious delicate flavor. Then in a blink of an eye, some cook in a hurry rams a sheet pan on top of your gorgeous cake therefore runing it, and wasting the X amount of time and the X amount of product spent to make it. And you wonder why I'm so fucking angry?

I once had someone ask me " don't you get bored?" well, I'm sure a brain surgeon after a few thousand surgeries is thinking " right, another brain." but this is our profession, not a hobby. Sure, at times when at the hotel, I would scream in my head, another ton of cookie dough? "Quick, I'm going to lie on the sheeter and just press the red button. Goodbye cruel mean world!!" But alas I pull my shit together, straighten my chef jacket and realize that there are a million things one can do with baking and pastry. Allow me to take you on a lyrical montage; plated desserts, catering, petite fours, wedding cakes, sugar work, chocolate and confections, cupcakes, ice cream, breads, breakfast pastries, cookies, the list is endless and alas, I'm hungry and in need of a sugar fix.

What I'm asking for is not absurd. Fellow line cooks, general managers, owners, and head chefs, I can not embellish more on the fact that your pastry cooks want the same future as your much beloved hot line soldiers. We too want our own establishments, we too want to have cookbooks and be on Food and Wine top ten chefs in the country. ( which I still have yet to subscribe to since they completely disregard pastry chefs as "top chefs"). I understand that we only make up a certain percentage of the menu, but have you looked in a kitchen lately? Most kitchens have up to seven line cooks producing perhaps three to five dishes a cook. And then you have that one stressed out, running around like an idiot pastry person, or if you're lucky, two, having to produce their entire menu, brunch items, give aways, petite fours, banquet items, bread, all while creating new dishes. A sad team of one. On the flip side, after a long day is over, that pastry person can feel nothing but pure brilliance in their craft, that they have made it another day and if nothing got ruined or burned or "lost in the walk in", kicked some major ass.

In an attempt to find solace in all this I look to pastry chefs that inspire me. The Emily Luchettis, Claudia Flemmings, Tim and Elizabeth Dahls, Gale Gands, Jacqes Torres ( because he is french its hard for me to really feel for him since it's really his birthright to be a pastry god), Norman Loves, and Mindy Segals that made it for themselves and gave pastry disciples like myself something to look forward too. These individuals stuck by their craft, and didn't feel the pressure to switch sides. Or perhaps they did, but stuck to what they believed. We belong to a tribe of individuals who relish in the patience and practice of baking and pastry. We embellish plates with various percentages of chocolate from single origin beans telling you a story of delicate yet robust flavors. We sastify your want, your NEED, of lucious flaky pastry that have been layered with blocks of European butter. We sing you to sleep with bags of currant pate fruit and cannelles warm in your hand. That is what I think of when I get tired, or frustrated, or wonder if all this work, all this training, all this time is worth it?

So I call to my fellow pastry warriors: let's make a promise to ourselves and to our craft that we will stick by it no matter what the recession tells us, that we will go forth and train other warriors the CORRECT way to make desserts, breads, and confections, to keep this profession alive and well. And as God as my witness, order that second dessert because, honey, it's your duty.