Getting Up Early

Is Anyone Still Reading? I Hope So!

2007-09-25T14:49:00.002-04:00

So, I've been quiet for a while. Sorry I've been so busy; I haven't even filed in a long ass time. So, in preparation (or procrastination) to do that, I've decided to say hello and let everyone know my status.

Lately the inn has been not as busy as the last few years. We've had some very strange weekends only half booked when they should be fully booked. Since the inn isn't doing as well, it's become very difficult to support the properties it has now been charged with supporting. Not only is the inn responsible for my house, it is also responsible for my mother's new house on the Cape. This just isn't possible. So we've now got my house up for sale.

Have you ever sold a house? Well this is my first time. Our realtor is spankin and creepy all at once. Her bangs could take you. Not in a Jersey, 80's type way, but a really swishy, strong, bang power type way. It freaks me out. Selling this house in particular has been a major boon for me. It made me clean out everything. It forced my mother to come down and really go through the attic and the basement and closets, throwing out so many things that we needed a small dumpster and lots of neighbors to take away all the furniture we didn't want. I think it was cathartic for the moms. Then the painting started. I painted the garage doors from a dark, hunter green, to a light gray. The light gray also went onto a wooden sun rise over the front door, done by my courageous boyfriend on a rickety extension ladder! Then I painted my bedroom, again, erasing that dark, hunter green, to a beautiful linen white! Lately I've seen places we need to touch up all over the house, but I'm not going to unless I run out of other things to do. (not likely)

As of late, we've been talking to a professional inn broker. She thinks we should sell the whole kit and caboodle (including the house I currently live in now) as one package, somewhere in the area of $2 mil. Personally, that would be amazing. For everyone else who works here, it would be probably not be ideal. While my innkeeper for that last year is leaving to move to SF, the next one has no idea that we might be selling. I have no idea if it is reasonable to expect the new owners to keep a person in that position. It probably isn't. I wish I could stipulate that to the new owners. And what about all the people that are returning here because they love US? I know it sounds pretty self centered, but I believe a LOT of people come here because they like me and the service we provide, not because the house is beautiful, etc.

Lastly, we have some very large people staying here this week. They have already broken the bed in one of the rooms. They are moving into a different room at the end of the week. They are both huge. While I don't care how large someone is, I felt really bad for them when their bed did not hold up under them. All of this happened while my innkeeper was on duty, and then I heard about it secondhand. A few hours after I went on duty today they came back to the inn. I introduced myself and let them know I was working on the bed problem, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do to make their stay better. I also let them know that my boyfriend was a furniture expert and that he was getting them a part the next day for the bed. Then they told me that it was only ONE of them that had been laying in the bed at the time! Oh, these poor people. I tried not to make it embarrassing for them, and act like it was a malfunction of the bed (which the boyfriend said it was), and while it felt genuine, I hope they didn't feel like it was fake.

We also have some mafia staying with us, an American who sounds like a Scotsman, an old dude who complains about stuff and then says something really nice right after, a dude who never says anything but totally likes to party with his work buddy by drinking expensive wines they discuss in the drawing room, the aforementioned colleague, and some super cool people from California.

My boyfriend loves to keep dropping little hints that if I want to run the inn forever I should, and that would be alright with him. While I've never discussed anything that's going on with him and I in this arena, it'll suffice to say that living here with him would not be convenient for his job, which is 80 miles north of here. Also, I'm interested in baking still, not people. I've been taking some professional cake decorating classes in the city, and I think I've formed a plan for the future. If I end up having kids with this guy, I can't do it at the inn. It's too much. I think what I'll do is find a house, convert the kitchen to a commercial status, and then bake wedding cakes, so I can work and have babies. Or maybe I'll be a personal trainer. It could work, and there's basically no overhead.

Well, that's thoughts for now. I'll try to post more, really I will!

Cleaning

2007-01-16T08:56:00.000-05:00

That's right, sometimes I clean the rooms myself. Especially when it is slow, and we have less than 3 rooms rented at a time. The housekeeper stays home, and I or my innkeeper get to clean any rooms that need doing. So today I was putting the Bridal Chamber back in order and I was reminded of A) how much I appreciate having a housekeeper and B) how disrespectful people can be when using a space that is not their own.

Somehow, these people managed to get toothpaste at least two feet from the sink, and onto the mirror! There was soap and a mystery substance everywhere in the main bathroom, and I think they broke into the housekeeping closet so that they could use every towel we had in the room! (Is it possible we don't put out enough towels? We usually put out 4 large bath towels, 3 hand towels, a bathmat, and 3 wash cloths.)

The Bridal Chamber also gets the oh so special treatment of having breakfast brought up to their room. When I looked at the mess in this area, I was sad, because I realized that my innkeeper's cooking is NOT up to par, just looking at what was left over. One bowl of something I couldn't even tell what it was, but now that I think about it, it could be whipped cream. He also made rice pudding (on the same day as whipped cream?), pancakes and muffins. There was no evidence of fresh fruit (a requirement) and the coffee wasn't drunk at all. Given, my innkeeper had a most horrible yesterday when he sliced his left ring finger open and needed 7 stitches. There was no blood on the table, so at least that wasn't a problem. Anyway, this is a major symptom that I need to take care of immediately!

Today we have a whole slew of funeral guests coming. Someone's Aunt Marge died this Sunday after everyone at her nursing home got ill (not everyone died, I assure you). So now we've rented three rooms to that family, and they're also going to have a small reception here after the funeral, so I'm putting on the coffee, whipping out the bottled water, and putting up restroom signs with arrows. This is mainly how we make our income in the winter, basically being busy when people die. I think I need to do a brochure run at all the local funeral homes real soon.

Okay, back to the Bridal Chamber, just needed a break from the mess!

from the land of the dead

2006-11-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

So...I just got back from a state B&B association conference. I thought it was gonna be pretty cool. I'd get to meet other people who do the same thing I do, we'd share war stories about guests gone awry, I'd get to learn something from the veterans, and maybe get a few suggestions as to how to get our Murder Mystery Weekend booked. Well, I was WRONG!

The conference took place in Canandaigua, aka BumFuck, NY. Tis finger lake country, lots of wines (well, crappy NYS wines), apples, Wegmans & grapes. I've never seen so many grape pie stands in a 5 mile stretch. I wonder how they stay in business! Seriously, it took 5.5 hours each way for my mother and I to drive there. We pulled into our hotel, which was right on the lake. It was done up in a very lodgy fashion, I felt like I had stepped into the Great Northern, and that suddenly Agent Cooper would be sipping hot, amazing coffee. Well, Kyle MacLachlan never appeared, and the coffee was awful. There was a gas fireplace in the room though, and radiant heat in the bathroom, so that was pretty neat.

After checking in, we drove over to the conference site. Another restaurant on the lake, which featured mediocre food and a decent banquet hall. The view at this place was just as cool as our hotel's. Our trip to the conference site was highlighted by Cheshire, a town we decided to call "Toilet Paper Town" because it was a tiny blink of a place, completely draped in toilet paper from when the high school kids cover the town for Halloween. Apparently they just let it disintegrate over time, and it really looked like winter there. They even hit the sheriff's station.

On arriving at the conference, I was introduced to some people my mother knew. Everyone was over the age of 50, except for me. I couldn't help thinking that none of those people would be innkeeping 15 years from now. We also walked around and met all the vendors who would be at all three days of the conference events. Home Depot was even there, sponsoring a drawing for a complete wireless drill, power saw & flashlight set. There were a couple of soap vendors, some software people & a video twosome of boys who looked like they were fresh out of college. We all had dinner, had a little meeting and crawled into bed.

The next day we had breakfast at the conference site, and then proceeded to go through a series of workshops. The first was about leadership. I was very confused, as I think everyone there owned their own place, so weren't they already leaders? The next workshop was about branding. This is something we've also already done, and I think my mother has been training me in since birth. So both workshops turned out to be completely lame for me, but hopefully fun for the few aspiring innkeepers in attendance.

Then it was scavenger hunt time, oh boy! We were sent in teams to the town to take digital photos, visit shops and landmarks, and get to the know the town in a little shameless marketing style. We received all sorts of useless items, such as shitty chocolate in the shape of the state of NY, candles that smelled way too strong, and my favorite thing, a little toy that makes a funny noise when you swirl it around in the air.

We came back to home base, compared notes with everyone, and then had the vendor's drawing. Some folks gave away 20% off gift certificates, or a $100 gift certificate to LL Bean. Everyone was waiting on the Home Depot drawing. Finally, they pulled my name out! I won the drill! I've never won anything. I was pretty stoked. I picked up my set, and right after that a dude won a soap basket, and then asked me if I would like to trade. I said "Not on your life buddy!"

That night was the Winemakers Dinner, back at our hotel, another part of the conference I was looking forward to. Unfortunately, it was another let down, except for the part where we got to see some Native American dancing. That part was pretty cool, beautiful colors, fun people, and things I'd never seen before, plus a retelling of the Iroquois creation tale involving a turtle and the sky woman. The NYS wine was horrible, and the grape pie for dessert was nasty. My mother loved it though.

We had another breakfast the next day with the rest of the Hudson Valley crew. We got down to the war stories part, where I told the story of the finger lady, and my mom told the story of one of our innkeepers and her adventures with some trannies, and the story that followed that really solidified the fact that we are not like other innkeepers. The only thing that came out of these people was a story about how one time they had gotten a booking for an adult woman, her father, and her baby. The inn in question only had one room left, and it only had a queen size bed. The woman had decided to take it, and the innkeeper felt like something weird was going on. The innkeeper was later relieved to find out that they were canceling at the last minute and she wouldn't have to deal with them! I wanted to raise my hand and volunteer the information that I take naps in the same bed with my father all the time! But I decided to keep my mouth shut and just go with the so not interesting flow.

We ran out of there right after breakfast and went straight to the Canandaigua Spice Company, which is the BEST thing about Canandaigua. I was able to buy strange things, like organic lovage, and beluga lentils, for almost nothing, and I am so happy! After that it was back to civilization, with a murder mystery in the car to listen to with Mumsy.

In the end, I learned almost nothing, except that we are very unique people, and that one should buy their spices in upstate New York!

Back From Inner Space

2006-11-01T17:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry folks, I know it's been a while, but damn, have I been busy!

Being back at the inn has been surprisingly comfortable. Even after going back and looking at old posts, I wasn't daunted by the responsibility and day to day ridiculousness that makes the inn what it is.

I moved back into my old room from high school. Even that wasn't so bad. I've set it up in a similar fashion to how it used to be, and it's a little cave-like, but I don't mind. El Presidente, my mother, has since moved out to her new home in Cape Cod. She's managed to move most of her things there, but certain items still loom over me, reminding me of her presence. A perfect example is her box o birds. It's about 3 x 2, and built into the wall of our living room. While it's a stunning conversation piece, it's also a lot of dead bodies on display in what is now MY living room. Thank whatever it will be moving to an Ebay counter near you soon!

We're also switching innkeepers. Autumn, who started when I left, has decided to move out and start making a living through making bags and clothing and such. She's an excellent seamstress, and I will be sorry to see her go. She's leaving because it's just a really tough job to do when you've got two small children at home after you leave work. What job isn't though? I both admire and pity her in this situation, and it makes me wonder how I'll ever get to a point where I can feel comfortable having babies and still doing the inn thing.

I had a funny dream the other night. El Presidente fired the housekeeper, Glenda, who in real life is first rate. In the dream, Glenda was fired for being a terrible grocery shopper. But she does not have this responsibility at the inn. I was able to convince her to come back to work, as long as I convinced El Presidente to never set foot in the building again. On telling my mother of this dream, she was delighted to hear it. She said that it meant that I was taking ownership seriously, and that I was afraid that she and I would differ on some major decisions.

I'm also happy to say that I've been meeting a lot of wonderful people who've been passing through the inn. This fall was fantastic, and I even went to the Great Jack O Lantern Blaze this year. If you've never been, check it out next year, it's well worth going. I'll post some pictures soon.

Hope to be writing more soon, and thank you all for continuing to check the blog, as I never officially gave it up, and y'all have been yelling at me for so long!

Off and Loving It!

2006-08-15T08:56:00.000-04:00

This last week has been absolutely lovely! One of the joys in life for me is being able to wake up with no alarm, whenever I happen to come out of the sleep coma naturally. Since I'll be back to getting up early in about two more weeks, I'm making sure to do that every single day while I can.

I've even gotten to see the people who meant the most to me from work! Joe and I had beers together last week at his house. Coincidentally, he lives just a few blocks from me. When I arrived, there were three glistening steaks set out, waiting for the grill. While we drank and smoked, I got to hear some things about Joe from his long time friend and roommate, Jimmy, that I never knew. For instance, Joe used to pitch in the major leagues, when he was about 20 (remember, he's a little over 50 now) and didn't continue along that career track because he slipped on some ice and hurt his pitching arm. Apparently he was throwing at speeds of 103 mph at the time.

It's always amazing to me to hear about someone who's had a chance to live more of their life than I have, and all the twists and turns that happen over the course of 50 years or more, just to one person! Later on Joe and I were talking about moments in life where the fear of dying or being seriously injured was a major factor. He mentioned that he had been in a modern day duel of sorts, against a member of a biker gang. The duel was called "The Rage" and it involved sitting cross legged across from your opponent, blindfolded. A weapon of your choosing was laid between the duelers, and the battle ensued. The rest of the gang sat around you, waiting for something to happen. Joe is a very good storyteller and he kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. He also used to breed labradors. I'm sure you're probably thinking that all these facts might be fabricated, but really, what did Joe have to gain from lying about something like this? We're never going to be romantically linked, as our relationship is rather sibling-like if anything can describe it.

Joe also said all the things I was hoping he would say about my recent absence from work. Things weren't the same without me, he liked me way better than the new baker. He always used to come into the bakery to make jokes and give me a hard time, and now he barely goes in there except to grab produce. The new baker is apparently very serious, and he resents her leaving him little baked items because he thinks she is just trying to feed her own ego. Now I used to leave him little things too, or ask him to taste something just to check if it needed something else. But I guess I came across as not really needing approval, even though I did. For me, there is a camaraderie in a kitchen that is built not only on social interaction, but also on skillz. Just as I would test things out on the rest of the kitchen, they would send things right back to me, and of course cook anything they could that I requested. Sometimes Joe would discuss his thoughts about that day's specials with me, and when he was stuck, I'd try to give him some ideas for what he could do, without any personal investment, should he decide on a different course of action. But there was still a part of me that felt like I needed to prove something to him as a chef. He knew that I had had my own place in the past, but I had never really told him that 99.9% of my cooking experience had been in the hot kitchen, not the bakery. I'm sure he never thought about it, but I wanted him to know that my real skills were there. I finally had my opportunity to show them off when we hung out that night. There was no thought to having something accompany the steaks, and I suggested maybe we go pick up some veggies at the grocery store. Joe was game, so he accompanied me to the store. I have never shopped with a fellow chef in a grocery store before. It was a fun experience, as we whipped through the aisles like lightning. I hate shopping overall, and it always irks me when I have to shop with someone who pauses at everything of interest, and often puts things in the cart they won't be buying later. Joe was nothing of the sort, and while being 3 or 4 beers into the night, he was all business. Anyway, I picked up some ingredients for a salad I really love to make and eat, that I used to make all the time at my cafe. We got back to the house and we whipped up the salad together. My moment had come when he pronounced that the salad was amazing. It really made me happy.

I also got to go dancing with Miguel, his wife, and two of his friends at a Spanish bar. It was so much fun, and I even held my own playing pool. I wasn't attracted to anyone, so I could be the jackass that I am with no holds barred. It was great fun. His wife is lovely, and I really hope they come to see me at the inn sometime. Sadly, they said that Miguel was NOT floating around the restaurant, and that he had been relegated to being the pastry chef's assistant. Mig doesn't like her very much either, and I told him to find another place to work, as the owners just don't know what they want. I mean, why are they okay with giving the experienced pastry chef the assistant and not me? It just doesn't make sense.

I went and picked up my last paycheck, and that went fine. I was dressed up for a date I was going on later and I looked very girly and sexy. It seems somewhat strange to be dressed like that in a kitchen with everybody all in uniform, and sweaty and smelling like fish and raw meat, but it was a fun twist to me.

Just to let y'all know, I'll be moving back to the inn this week. Then I'll be traveling for a few weeks, so the blog will probably take a rest, but you never know, I might feel the urge to start bouncing ideas off of y'all. Be sure to check out some of the links I'll be posting, as I've just started tuning into a whole bunch of terrific food blogs.

Have a great few weeks everybody, and I'll definitely back by the first week of September when I'll be officially installed at the inn!

A Special Entry

2006-08-05T10:41:00.000-04:00

Folks, I know it's Sunday, but so much has happened in the last couple of days that I must capture my feelings about events before they fade into the long term data storage of my brain.

On Wednesday someone named Cathy tried out for the pastry position. She's a CIA grad, has worked with Martha Stewart's company, and definitely has some serious talent in the pastillage scheme. I wasn't into everything she made, but I also didn't taste everything either. I wasn't impressed with her technique of using imitation strawberry extract in her whipped cream for strawberry shortcake, but she also gave me a few tips on things I could be doing better. I was super friendly to her and tried to make her feel comfy in the kitchen, as if things worked out with her, I'd be free sooner. It would probably mean one less paycheck for me, but it would be a good trade off. We left the restaurant at the same time, and she said she was a little sad because if she took the job, I wouldn't be there. She had enjoyed my company. That was nice.

I was also nervously anticipating Miguel's try for the job. He auditioned for the pastry position the next day. He had plenty of time to prep some dessert dishes for review on Thursday night. I tried to help him with panna cotta, which he wanted to use too much gelatin in, but also neglected to put the panna cotta into the forms he wanted it to set up in when he made the dish. He set it up, then had to whisk the hell out of it to be able to pour it into the forms. Whatever, it was real thick, not quite what you want out of panna cotta, but the berry sauces he made to accompany it were lovely and it worked out anyway. I actually left work earlier that day, and returned to do his tasting with the chef I wrote about last week who is his master. I introduced myself to the chef and his wife, who is also a pastry chef. Both were lovely people and I could see why Miguel would always look forward to working with them. The major quality we discussed about why we all loved Miguel, was the fact that he's very sincere and loyal. Such a sweetheart. As usual, Miguel had been a dishwasher that the chef had promoted. While many people who work in kitchens are work very hard, Miguel stood out from the rest. Anyway he also made four other dishes for the tasting: Ice Cream Cake (with peppermint candies crushed on top, lovely), Checkerboard Cake, (plain, but it's just sponge cake really), Tiramisu (delicious, spectacular. I usually hate tiramisu), and Molten Chocolate Cake. The MCC was quite good. I never make it, as it's kind of played out for me, but I really enjoyed his version, which had something white in the middle, and he served it with a grapefruit and orange salad. I couldn't stop eating the salad either.

Mig's tasting went so well that I was now stuck, I wasn't sure whom to root for. If Cathy took it, she'd be very prepared for the job, and all of the work Miguel and I had done would be for naught. If Miguel got it, then he would be thrown deep into the belly of the beast, not knowing everything, and still trying to understand seemingly simple concepts, such as the breads and Fatima. He would have to buy some books and tools, which though I had most of already when I'd started, I'd still had to invest over $200 in when I began. Should he have to spend money like that? Should the restaurant take a chance like that? I wasn't sure.

Mig and I worked together the next day like nothing was different. By the end of the day, we found out the he was going to "float" around the kitchen. He'd be learning both in the pastry kitchen and the regular one. I sat down with the chef and asked about "the poop." He said they were bringing Cathy on as the main pastry chef, and she was starting tomorrow night. I asked when he needed me to clear my stuff out and he said that day would be good, and sorry to see me leave so soon, but the payroll was getting huge. I told him no worries, I was expecting this. I diligently packed up all my stuff, from my cuisinart and books, to the stereo, and of course a cup of Fatima. Mig's master had suggested I change her name to one that Miguel could relate to better to understand her, so we changed her name to Guadelupe. We laughed and I told him not to kill her just because I was gone. I was not as happy as I thought I would be to leave. Even though I am stepping into my new role as Vice President at the inn, I am sad I will not be working with the people I have grown to love in a very short time. Luckily, I had to return the next day for my second to last paycheck and I was amazed by the hugs that came from many people in the place. Miguel and Joe both played it pretty cool, but let me know their sadness for my absence. I'll be stopping there next week to pick up the rest of my pay, and I think it will be strange, but nice to see them one more time. I did manage to hand out some brochures about the inn to the people who mattered, so we wouldn't lose touch, so that was good.

And now, I embark on moving all my things slowly, but taking a little time off from working hard before I have to juice it all the time! It was a terrific learning experience, and I now know how much I still have to learn to be an accomplished baker, A LOT.

Miguelito & Kitchen Politics

2006-07-31T08:18:00.000-04:00

I am supremely comfident that Miguel, (now AKA Miguelito, which is what everyone seems to call him, since he's the youngest kitchen slave), is much more gifted than I in the department of spatial relations. The kid is already better at making a cake look very smooth than I am. I'm not saying I can't do it, I just don't have the patience for it. I also just don't see it sometimes, and that's where the spatial relations part comes in. When I was doing a lot of practice in the drawing realm, I read a lot about negative space, and it was an idea I understood and used more often in trying to capture the true image of something. While the main idea of negative space doesn't really apply to cake decor, let's just say I'm really good at telling Miguelito when his cake needs to be more perfect, but I just can't get the cake there myself in an efficient amount of time. He can! So I've told him that if he's remotely interested in this line of kitchen work, he should go for it. He's suited to it.

Alas, I believe he probably won't be taking over my spot. Even though he's starting to understand what goes into a lot of recipes that you need to do this job, and he's very good at making everything look the same, he has a vague future in front of him. He's been working in kitchens for at least the last three years. His last longstanding job was at a terrific place on the Hudson and more south of where he's working now. At that reataurant, he latched onto a chef, who subsequently left for a position in NYC. He invited Miguel to work there with him. Miguel went, getting a ride from the chef to and from work every day. The chef left the NYC job too. Miguel couldn't afford to go to NYC on his own without a ride, so he quit too, and since then he's been waiting for his master to get another job and take him there to work with him. I think if he didn't have this possible opportunity out there, he might take more to what we've been doing, at least with more zeal. I don't know if the owners here know this part of Miguel. Basically, I see training this kid as a waste of time, as he will eventually leave, and it could be as soon as 2 weeks from now. But whatever, that's not my problem! I get an assistant; I get to review almost everything I've leatned. It's a good situation for me, even if I end up staying the full four weeks I gave as possible notice, just to train someone who probably won't stick around. I'm very happy though, that Miguel is now taking care of all cake decoration, so as to get a good base in the hardest part of the job. He's also not bad with writing with chocolate.

The major shortcoming I think Miguel will have to overcome, should he decide to really take this on, is that he is not equipped for the job in the material sense. Now Jean, the previous chef, was so equipped, he didn't need tons of recipe books, but he had one that he had developed over the years. I have about 7 of them in the kitchen. I have knives, dough scrapers, peelers, pastry bag tips, spatulas, and a cuisinart in the kitchen. Everything has to be marked so that people don't think they can just use my stuff. Everything besides the cuisinart gets packed and locked up when I leave because I don't trust the dishwahers to bring my stuff back. Miguel has relatively little compared to my arsenal. I don't think he has money to buy books, but I could be wrong. If I get an assignment, and I don't know how to make certain things, I look them up. He won't be able to do that except on the internet, and you can't always trust that stuff. Even the book recipes I have, I have had to tweak in many instances. Miguel could certainly work without the cuisinart, but what will he do without any tools? I highly doubt the restaurant will buy enough for him to really have everything he needs. This part of it is what makes me think of the position as a sub-contracting type thing. Now working in a kitchen, you don't necessarily have to bring your own knives, but pastry is a responsibility where you have to be extremely creative if you have to make specific shapes, and not buy a product that just does it for you. Once again, not my problem.

Kitchen politics have remained basically the same since I gave my notice, but they are also putting more of a load on the pastry kitchen. The money guy hasn't really talked to me since I broke the news, except of course to give me more work and to wince when I ask him for my paycheck. I sort of like it that I'm taking money out of his hands now, for all that he's put me through and will never understand nor try to empathize with my situration.

When the chef first got back from vacation, where he had heard the news of my throwing in the towel, he was a little cold to me. I wouldn't evpect him to hug me or anything, but I was sort of expecting him to try to change my mind about my decision. There was nothing of the sort, and I believe he probably had stuff going on at home that made him sort of moody. After a few days, he returned to his normal self, and only mentioned my leaving once, in a "just making sure he understood the siituation" kind of way.

Chef: "So you're giving us four weeks notice huh?"
Me: "Yep."

That was it. After that, he's been less talkative, as why be friendly with someone you're probably kind of disappointed in? But he's been jovial sometimes, and overall alright. My favorite chef to talk to is the sous chef. His name is Joe, and he's funny as hell. He told me the rest of the people he works with are all douchebags compared to me. And yesterday he said he wanted to worship me for my bagels. Miguel has begun to call him Joselito, so I now go back and forth calling him that and Jo-Jo. He's sweet, and a terrific chef, though alternates putting too much salt and then not enough salt in things. I will miss him immensely. One thing about work environments that I've always found is that I would never become friends with people like Joe if we didn't work together. I treasure that stuff. Sorry to get mushy, but it's true. I know I will be happier at the inn, but I am already wistful of some of the things about this job.

180 Degrees From Last Week

2006-07-23T22:46:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the self righteous, radical me has pulled a complete 180. Drum roll please................. I have decided to take over the inn! Last week I spent most of my blog entry resounding on the reasons I have recited many times over the years to friends, family, and guests who were sorry to see me leave, of why I didn't want to go back to the inn.

Why have I suddenly changed my mind? Well, because I do that. Especially when my instincts flash a giant, blinding light that signal me that maybe I'm working towards nothing. Maybe I was getting too high on pride, while simultaneously feeling like I didn't have much too be proud of in the scheme of things. Well, here's what went down on Tuesday, not 24 hours after writing the blog on Monday. The money guy, of the three owners, who is the only one who seems to make decisions, greeted me.

Money Guy: "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that you've been accepted into the X health care plan. The bad news is that you have to pay the bill."
Me:"Didn't you guys say you would split it with me when you hired me?".
MG: "I don't remember that. We should talk with the chef when he returns from vacation on Friday."

Somehow, I just wasn't satisfied with that. Why would we have to have a talk with the chef on Friday? Money Guy makes the money decisions, it's as simple as that. I hemmed and hawed, and he finally spit out the real reason he wasn't looking to split the health care:

MG: "You're the only one getting benefits besides the chef,"

(I thought, and the only one who works like I own the place and don't)

MG:"We may have said that when we hired you, we were also working on the assumption that the money we were making then would be the same now. I'm not sure the we can afford to put that much money out to the bakery when it's barely bringing anything in.
Me: "Well, I'm not Jean! (the previous, French, asshole.)
MG: "I know that, and that while you are improving, and even though your cakes taste great, they still aren't cakes we can bring to our wholesale clients," (retarded) "and offer as consistent products."

Now I think that they would be consistent, but apparently one stroke left on a cake from a palette knife is not good enough for them. They are OCD! I'm sorry, but if a cake looks good to me, it better taste good. I don't do looking great and tasting like ass. Money Guy then suggested I could sacrifice taste for looks, and I just couldn't believe it.

I mentioned that even if we offered the wholesale clients what I had, I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to handle the load of work in a timely manner. He agreed, and then confessed that they had previously toyed with turning the bakery into a fish market before Frenchy came along. That moment, I realized the bakery wasn't a part of the central vision of the restaurant, that they would never, never respect the work that I did, not really. And that, ladies and gents, is why working for someone else absolutely bites the big one.

I immediately called everyone I usually call when I have a problem I need to vent about, or rather, everyone who might not be at work/available. No one was available except good old moms. Now, by the time I called her, I had had an inkling that I might be considering the incredible idea that I had been harboring some ridiculous fears about taking over the inn, and maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, as evidenced from last week's blog. Yes, I had rationalized it over and over again so well that it sounded unbreakable. But I also knew that if I said the words, Babs would be overjoyed to hand me the biz, hold my hand in it for a while, (probably as long as she was alive), and be more than happy to finally retire and hang out on her pedal boat.

What was I really afraid of? What job doesn't have parts of it that suck? What was I doing working like I owned a place and not getting any return? Why is Croton really such a bad place to live?

I realized that I couldn't honestly answer any of those questions without feeling like a complete coward or just lax. If I was lucky enough to have a person offering me a business, and an established one at that, I should take it. I had a meeting with the new innkeeper and the moms the next day. I worried that I might be running away from a difficult situation but I wasn't. I gave my notice on Wednesday.

So now they have up to 4 weeks to find someone new, and I'm currently training a new protege. How is it that I'm training anybody? Honestly, the way these people are handling my notice is very strange. I realize there's a financial bottom line here, but wouldn't it be smarter to hire someone who can actually get them the business they so obviously need as opposed to getting by paying me less than they'd have to pay someone with more skillz? I told them that I believed we had different perspectives on what was important on a cake. Yes, it should look appetizing, but I'm sorry, they wanted someone with 20 years experience and they got me. There was no way I was going to get that skill down in 6 months, and no way that I would keep taking their criticism and not start taking it personally.

So now I'm working with Miguel. He's 21, from Mexico, hired originally to replace the chef from Africa who they were supposed to can yesterday, who begged and pleaded for his job at the time, and now they don't know what to do with Miguel. Miguel is sweet. He calls me his amor, follows everything I say, couldn't be nicer. He works hard, and is always willing to try something new. But he also doesn't have the tools, or even near the experience I had before I took the job. So what color is he if not green? What comes before green? I will do my best to train him, ut hopefully he'll be better, or worse for that matter, than me, and then they'll either have finally made a good investment (not like I didn't, I learned a whole lot) or they'll fuck themselves. But I love teaching.

Really, Why Not Go Back to the Inn?

2006-07-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

Here's a carrot cake I made last week. The carrots on the outside are made of white chocolate. I solved the problem of cream cheese frosting by using buttercream instead, and it's working beautifully. I've never enjoyed carrot cake in the past, but I really like this recipe, and I'm very happy with the result.

Thanks to Rich and K for coming in to play with bagel dough and make the panda cookies. This picture is of Rich, holding about 30 eggs, and showing off his stuff.

I'm going to address the question of why I don't just go back to work at the inn. After all, I'm very good at it, the schedule is different, but more flexible. I know how to do it already, and I'd have a rent-free place to live. As an added bonus, I'd be able to see all the people I love who stay there, and continue to have great stories about the oddities of the public. My mother would like nothing better than to have me back there, completing the happy image of the mother-daughter business. She has trouble understanding why I wouldn't want to take over the inn when she retires because it's a ready-made business, and a cash cow. But now, ladies and gents, I will tell you why I just don't think it's the place for me.

-The inn requires that I work with people. I don't like people in general, and from a service standpoint, people as customers are sometimes absolutely brainless. I think that as Israel requires that all its citizens must spend some time in the army, all of our citizens should spend some time in the service industry. After all, isn't that one of major money makers? Working anywhere from a hotel, to a restaurant, for at least 6 months, maybe more, would give the average person a very good picture of what it is to serve. It might give them some respect for the people that serve them in the future. This is the same reason I don't yell at telemarketers. It's just their job, not their idea to call you during dinner to talk about alarm systems. I've done that job, and it's evil. But those companies are always hiring, so it's easy to get a job like that. Anyway, one might argue that in most jobs working with people is a requirement, so get over it already. I contest that when the public is involved, not just coworkers, it's a much different story. Most coworkers' traits are known to each other. What pushes people's buttons is clear, and when to approach them about certain topics during the day. When customers, that you've never met before approach, there is no bad time (in their minds), and conversely, often they feel awkward telling you that they need something. Also, going the extra mile, such as arranging something special for a guest, as I did many times, is often seen as just the opposite. It is just expected from the customer perspective, and I have a hard time justifying doing special things for people I don't know, just because they're going to give me money for my services.

-Location is a big factor for me. This is the house I grew up in, in my hometown. I've lived in that town the majority of my life, spending only two years somewhere else. It's immensely important to me to see more of the world, and maybe find the place that feels like I fit in there for being who I am, not just conveniently because I'm from there. A friend of mine recently bought a home in Colorado and when she told me the price, my jaw dropped from sheer surprise that one could get a house with land that cheaply. I realized that that is pretty much possible in the majority of places outside Westchester county. That fact alone popped the bubble I was living in. Other factors in the location arena include community. I'm still not sure that I would want to continue to live in the community. I've gotten past the small town feel of knowing everyone and their business, and them knowing mine. I hate doing errands there during the day because running into people is so time consuming. They want to know what's happening, and they never want to talk about their lives. It's very strange to me, and I wonder why they assume they should get to know about my life when I only see them rarely and they don't really know me and vice versa. These people are probably lovely people, as they are the parents of my high school classmates, old customers of mine from when I worked at the local coffee shop, not prying gossip hounds. I just hate that it can take up to 2 hours to go to the drug store to buy toothpaste and get thrown to the lions in the parking lot because that's where everyone does their shopping. Sometimes it's a boon. I've run into people I haven't seen in a very long time when they are home for 2 days and I didn't even know they were going to be around. That makes me happy, but it's rare.

-Lastly, taking over the inn would be turning my back on food. Yes, there is a lot of cooking at the inn, but at the same time, it's breakfast. Most guests I had would rather eat fried eggs with bacon (which I love myself) or cereal over something interesting. My mother insists that I could operate some sort of food related business out of the inn, such ss catering or making wedding cakes, but to do that would be compromising both the inn and my separate business. I may age a few years, and change my mind about this, but right now, I'm dedicated to food as my career. Yes, it's very hard to do. I'm screwing things up all the time, I'm working crazy hours and doing the job of two people. But I'm also learning so many new things, and I'm improving. I can't look at a recipe for a baked item and know what it will taste like yet, but no one ever said it would be easy. I saw a movie last week where the father character said that easy wasn't a part of the adult's life. That doing the right thing, and doing the hard thing are often the same thing. I fully agree with this, and I need to give the hard thing a chance for at least a year, maybe two. My life will most certainly change as I do this more. Who knows? I could meet some dude who gets me pregnant and then I decide to quit working altogether because I can. But I'm not going to walk away from an opportunity like this right now. My mother's giving me until I'm 30 to change my mind.

Sorry About This Week

2006-07-13T00:06:00.000-04:00

But no blog this week, as I've been sick, yucky sick, but still working my buns off.

Made it to the Fancy Food show at the Javits though, it was just okay. They did have some fantastic organic gin from Britain, and a wonderful Dutch cheese called Parrano.

Walked into work today feeling the best I have in a full week, and was hit with an order for 10 distinct cakes, due tomorrow at 12 noon. Isn't that great?

And...

2006-07-02T15:07:00.000-04:00

I just started reading a great blog by somebody I know from my hometown who moved to Senegal a little while ago. If you're remotely interested in Africa, journalism, or a funny ass white girl's experience in Senegal, please check it out here.

Man Fridge, Mom's Blintzes & Getting Married for the Sake of the Kids

2006-07-02T14:11:00.000-04:00

So apparently I have a "man" fridge. A friend came over recently and opened it up to put some beer or maybe even a girly rum cooler type drink in and couldn't help but comment on the fact that my fridge seems to be functioning just to keep alcohol and condiments cool. I disagree, it's not a man fridge, it's a restaurant worker's fridge. I mean, I eat at the restaurant, not at home! The food there is free, cooked by pros, and they'll make me anything they have in-house. With that option, I don't think anyone I know would opt for buying food and preparing it themselves in the tiny excuse for a kitchen I have. But, if the concept of having any empty-ish fridge must be deemed "man" fridge, I've got one.

It's better than what's happening at the bakery right now. Apparently the compressor in the walk-in fridge that is basically devoted to me alone is starting to work too hard, causing it to freeze up and you can see the crystallization building up on the outside of it. Eventually if not defrosted or somesuch nonsense, the compressor will actually cover itself in ice, overheat, and start making the box hot. So, the defrosting process must begin. This means taking everything that won't survive, and making room for it in the other, slightly larger walk-in box at the other end of the restaurant. Luckily, the super friendly chef, Joe, was enlisted to help me drag all the 40 quarts of heavy cream, 60 dozen eggs, 10 gallons of milk, apples, oranges, Fatima, butter, cookie dough, and such to their new home. I left some things in there that we would take out for brunch today, but other than that, the box is looking pretty sad. We're gonna be closed for lunch this monday and of course on July 4th, so I'll actually have a real weekend! I'm pretty pumped. It also means that I've slowed down on making things to sell out of the bakery direct as there will be no one there to buy them! It's a nice wind down to the week.

My brunch prep this week went amazingly fast. I was anxious to find a new recipe for danish, as we have all this danish dough, and while I don't think it tastes that great (Pillsbury makes it, you'd think it could be a little better, based on their magical crescent rolls and biscuits) I've been struggling to figure out how much to use every time I roll it out, and finding some interesting things to flavor it. I finally found a cool thing to do, which is twisting it into all sorts of figure eights and then filling it with pastry cream and a great apricot/orange filling. Yummy. Also stewed some extremely underripe peaches in a little sugar and added those to the mix. I'm not 100% happy with the danish, but they're a lot better than they were in the past, at least in my opinion.

I also want to start making a dish my mom saves for special occasions. She calls it blintzes, but I'm not sure that's really what these are, as they resemble nothing even close to a crepe, and there is no jam, though you could totally use jam where you use her traditional filling. It's really a phyllo pie, wrapped up in triangle fashion, filled with some really simple mix of eggs, ricotta cheese, sugar and something else, maybe melted butter. Mom, you wanna help me out here? Anyway, it occurred to me to make these for brunch, as I just need to make some little pastry type things, no limits or specifics from the higher ups, and you can freeze them to your heart's content. The only thing about these little guys that I don't like is that it means I must work with the dreaded phyllo dough. I used to make little pies filled with meat and/or veggies in the past at my place, and I had the touch then, but in the last year, I've lost it. It means that whenever I work with phyllo, I end up wasting about a quarter of the box on ripped pieces that just won't work for what I'm doing, or it dissolves in my hands! Evil. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but man it's frustrating at first.

I'm also getting a peanut butter cake together. I'm still trying to pick a filling, as I've got a great peanut butter frosting for it, and the cake itself has lots of peanuty flavor, I just want to find something complementary. I'm thinking either a jelly type filling, or even banana flavored whipped cream. Chocolate is out, as I've got a couple of great chocolate desserts under my belt already.

Turtle Update: Whatever the chef said to Turtle has apparently worked. The guy only says hi to me now, and the only remotely stupid thing he does is randomly walk into the kitchen and out of it to stare at my ass in passing. That works for me as long as he doesn't come near me or ask for kisses or anything. I did have a very strange interaction with one of the waiters last week though. The waiter had just gotten married, because he had gotten his illegal girlfriend pregnant. Sorry folks, but I just don't jive with marrying someone when this happens just because it's supposedly the "honorable thing to do." If you end up not being happy in the slightest, it's the same as staying together for the kids, it sets up a horrible example to the kids as far as what marriage should be, and the married people in question are miserable. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people out there who fall deeply in love, or maybe just comfort, and things work out, but it's probably a small percentage. So "Pete", whom I genuinely like as a person, even though he spends the rest of his life not at the restaurant playing golf (what a waste!) got married in the late morning, then had his reception at the restaurant. Now everyone at the place seems to get along with this guy. He's the head waiter, and he's usually pretty jovial and has a very distinctive laugh. He adds an overall good feel to the whole place, and while I couldn't be sadder for him in this instance, I was super jazzed to make his wedding cake. He's allergic to a lot of very common foods, such as apples, pears, nuts, etc. He settled on a fancy, but not wedding-type, cake, with strawberry and lemon flavors. I had just enough lemon curd to do his cake, so I made up some sponge cake, and did layers of that spread with the lemon curd, then a layer of strawberry mousse, real strawberries, and more mousse. Then I took the last of the lemon curd and made up some whipped cream with it, and covered it with that. Wrote "Congratulations Christine & Pete", and did some intersecting lines of strawberry slices on top. Can I just tell you that I HATE writing the word Congratulations? It's just so goddam long! I also got at least two people telling the extremely unoriginal joke, "Wait, isn't her name Claudia?" The first one got me though. It was a very cool cake, and it made it even better for me that I was doing it for someone I knew and liked. After the cake was all done, I saw Pete later. He came up to me and gave me a great tip, $50, and stuffed it in my cleavage and then gave my right boob a quick squeeze! What is it with these guys? I mean, Pete and I have definitely had a few machine gun rate quips about my breasts, but I never thought he'd do something like that, and right after getting married! The weird thing is, even though I know it's completely inappropriate, somehow it was okay. My head is totally up my ass.

Sorry about the lack of photos this week, I just haven't had time to find the darn camera.

Lastly, I finally made this uber-cool looking dessert that I'm calling the "Creamy Mango Mojito." It's a mango puree/lime juice based jello, (really a gelee, but who gives a crap?) , that you pour into glasses and then set them up at a 45 degree angle, and then you put a mint & basil flavored cream on top and let that set up in the glass. In the end, it looks really friggin cool, and all the kitchen has to do at service is take off the plastic wrap and add a mint sprig. I'm thinking about sugaring the mint though. It's a great play on jello, and I think it will be a hit once I make it in smaller glasses. Maybe I should do it in shot glasses, add a bit of rum, and make it the "alcoholic's dessert" that the chef's been asking me to dream up. I'd just need to either make up a variety of flavors to serve together as a flight type dish, or make a little cake or wafer to go with it. Yummy.

That's it for this week. Everybody enjoy your 4th!

I'm 7! Let's Party!

2006-06-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

Folks, I totally apologize, I completely forgot to tell you about the Boston Terrier cake I had to do last week! One of the chefs is totally fun and ridiculous, and he has a 72 year old landlord who has a boston terrier who was turning 7 last week. the landlord was having a birthday party for the dog and the chef wanted to know if I could make a cake with the dog's picture on it that said, "I'm 7! Let's Party!" I loved that idea. So he brought me a photo of Daisy, and I made up a sketch of it for him to see. I'm sure most of you don't know but I have a habit of trying all sorts of creative outputs and then not having time to do them all. For instance, while I've picked up the fiddle many a time, I haven't been able to play in probably six months. Just no time for it. I also took a class in drawing, and I'm so happy I did, because I was completely able to make a good analysis and sketch of the puppy.

Anyway, the plan was to serve a bit of cake to everyone at the party and then let the dog go to town on the cake, so it couldn't be chocolate. I decided to go with a strawberry mousse filled vanilla sponge cake with buttercream frosting. I made the dog and the letters all out of chocolate. We added a few chocolate paw prints, and my chef friend was in love with the, as he termed it, "puppy cake".

The report the next day was that the cake was enjoyed by all! I love projects like that!

Panda Cookies, First Sourdough, Westchester Mag

2006-06-26T23:46:00.000-04:00

So the same lady who wants the baby cakes wants us to make cookies in the shape of pandas for a shower she has to go to two months before the wedding. There was all this hullabaloo about finding molds for the pandas. The bosses ended up getting cookie cutters that just look like teddy bears, not pandas specifically. So I had to make them into pandas with fondant. Do you know how much it takes to make fondant black? For some reason all the black food dyes out there seem to be more of a dark green than a black. I haven’t heard yet whether she was into the samples I made yet, but I’ll know when I go in tomorrow.

On a sad note, in a slip, the chef said something to me that totally set me off. He told me not to over think something “like a woman”. I couldn’t believe it. I spent the next 24 hours livid, but then spoke to him the next day about it. I think he got why I was upset, and he apologized, but I also had to explain to him that the reason I was so mad was probably also because not only had the Turtle tried to grab my ass last week, but that I was getting overwhelmed at work with all the responsibility and wanted some help getting more organized. To have him say the woman crap was just the icing so to speak, and it got me really down that day. So much so that I finished up what I was doing and went home to get drunk almost immediately, not something I normally do. I was just so pissed that the person that I relate to the most of all the owners had then said something so thoughtless.

Brunch has almost been conquered. This week I was finally able to be totally prepped for brunch by the Saturday night before it, and I was able to come in and bang everything out relatively quickly that day. My only problem is that I need to get some cool Danish type thing happening. I have this Danish dough already, that all I have to do is roll it out, but I have a hard time knowing exactly what to do with it, such as how to make it stick together when you make a little packet out of it, and how large to make it so that you can fit a good amount of filling in there. So, now I’m calling for all favorite Danish fillings, if y’all have any!

The cream cheese frosting that I made last week for the carrot cake actually worked out, so that’s good. But it needs to be stiffer; I wonder how I can achieve that besides leaving it in the fridge for an hour or so.

I also made my first loaf of bread from the new starter. It didn’t rise very much, but it was definitely edible and had a good crust, light colored as it was. As I understand it, the loaves made with a new starter only get better and better, as in, the 5th loaf is always better than the 1st. So I’ve got only good things to look forward to as long as I keep my little pet bread alive. I think I’ll call it Fatima, just because I know Salena would like that.

I saved the big news (even though it’s really small) for last. I had two different Westchester Magazine situations this week. On Thursday, I had a writer come in to do the tasting for the kiddie desserts all grown up story. She was super cool, and I was able to give her the oreo napoleon and the milkshake flight. Honestly, I had designed the milkshake flights only an hour previously, and while I was happy with the peanut butter banana one and the strawberry one, I thought the pistachio and pepper one could have been way better. She seemed to have the same opinion, at least from the amount of each that she had, and she also seemed to like the napoleon. The weirdest part was when she asked me specifically why I was doing these types of desserts. While the real reason was that I just need the publicity, I told her that it was just for fun, and that everybody experiences food in such a personal way, but this can be nostalgic, even for people of different generations, blah blah blah. Man, there is still so much bullshit in life. Even though I would’ve loved to be straight with her, you just can’t write that in an article, and I knew that was the purpose of even posing that question. I’ll have to work on my bullshitting so it’s more of the upfront me and less what I think journalists want to hear. I also got a call last week that they were doing a tasting at the magazine offices of chocolate chip cookies. So I dropped some there today on my way to do my laundry, on my day off! I really hope those cookies make a good impression, as I need to get my name out there to get people excited about the retail end of this place. The owners have been pushing me to come up with some cakes we can offer to the old wholesale people, but I haven’t had time to experiment and I have to admit that I’m not interested in that, even though that seems to be where the money comes from, at least on a guaranteed, regular basis. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want it though, as it seems I’m finally getting a handle on the rest of the stuff, at least in theory.

Alright kids, I’ll try to bring in my camera this week and take some photos of the stuff I’ve been making so y’all can see it.

Have a great week!

Baby Cakes are the Stupidest Thing on the Planet!

2006-06-19T11:58:00.000-04:00

So I made the baby cakes. While doing so, I realized this was the one and only project I had worked on so far that I truly hated and felt like I was betraying myself. The fact that we'd only be charging $15 per cake was devastating to me. While admitting that this was my first time doing this, so therefore I would be slower and everything would be more frustrating right off the bat, I spent 6 hours of my time making up 6 sample cakes. This was time that I could have spent getting ready for brunch, or making bread or whatever, but something valuable to the restaurant and to me. At least I expressed my extreme dislike of this project to the chef. I insisted that this woman must pay at least $15 per cake, and maybe more, as far as I was concerned. While I was researching these cakes, I came across the way that certain people advertise this product. Very key ideas were that baby cakes were marketed as something special for the wedding party, not all the guests! Also, the people who make these cakes tend to make ONLY these cakes, nothing else, so they have lots of time to practice and perfect the technique that goes into them. For me it would basically be a two shot deal, since we just did the sample and the only other time I would agree to this would be for this wedding the woman is planning for September. It also makes it almost worse that she has no idea what goes into making a cake. She came in to pick up her samples on Saturday. I had finished them maybe 10 minutes before she walked in the door. She looked at them and said they were gorgeous, but rather large for what she was thinking. I said we could definitely make them smaller, but I don't think the price should be reduced at all! The same amount of labor is involved, and that's how we're costing this one. To top it off, she then asked IF she owed us anything for the samples. Luckily the chef was also standing there and he immediately said yes, and $15 per cake please. Her face changed immediately to an expression of surprise, and I think that might have been the moment when she might realize that buying 125 of these for the wedding is kind of stupid.

Not really much else happened this week, Oh, the Turtle tried to grab my ass, for which I severely yelled at him and kicked him out of the room. I either need to talk to the chef or attack this guy physically next time.

Also, I managed to come in on Thursday for only 6 hours! Yea me! Oh well, I'm sure I won't see that again anytime soon.

Thanks for all your lovely comments on the wedding cake from last week's post. I apologize if I bring anything to your events that is not as beautiful, however, it usually has to be a mistake for me to even get it out of the restaurant and not feel like I'm stealing. The subject has come up in recent weeks that with the loss of the wholesale accounts the bakery has been draining the restaurant instead of paying for itself. That means both product, rent, and my salary are not being covered by what I make every day. While the discussion also made me feel a little better about the fact that they weren't shopping for anyone else, it still puts pressure on me to make a better product and something more dazzling that you can't get anywhere else. My problem is that I don't really have time to screw around with new stuff while I'm just trying to be fast enough to finish the old stuff.

I'm also working on a new carrot cake. What do you guys think about carrot cake with something other than cream cheese frosting? The problem is that cream cheese frosting is pretty damn hard to smooth out, and it tends to crack when it gets dry. Any suggestions/ideas/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great week!

A Possible News Story

2006-06-12T23:14:00.000-04:00

So here's the wedding cake from two weeks ago. Doesn't look like a different type of cake does it? The good news is that we got referred to another wedding couple from the Sleepy Hollow Country Club that wants us to do another cake sometime in September. While I'm pumped about being referred again, I'm not pumped about the idea. It's basically individual wedding cakes for 150. They're tiny tiered cakes, and that means a whole bunch of labor and a whole bunch of fondant, plus a whole bunch of beading. This means assembly line style cakes. Something just doesn't feel right to me about this, though it might be good for the portfolio. This is the site that the couple is looking at, specifically the black and white cakes, and they only want to pay $10 per cake, which I think is crazy. I don't know if they realize how much work will go into this type of setup instead of a usual wedding cake.

Sorry I've been so late to post today, but I've had a crazy weekend and I needed some recovery time! Let's just say I was up for more than 24 hours and had to see an ex that I totally didn't expect to, at the same time as drinking up a storm, smoking too much and eating damn good food.

It didn't leave me much time for thinking about this story that Westchester Magazine is doing about kiddie treats all grown up. Their reporter called on Friday morning, which was a terrible time for me to talk, as I was just finishing up a 20 hour long shift. Mt. Kisco Country Club had ordered 14 cakes on Wednesday for delivery Friday morning at 10 am. I had to stay up all night to do those cakes in addition to the cakes I already had orders for, totaling 17 cakes and 5 lbs of cookies overall. So I told the reporter I'd get back to her. I came up with the brownie/blondie tini thing, the Oreo napoleon that I do, and I spoke with a friend's sister about a flight of milkshake shots she had had recently in California, so I told the reporter that we did that too. She's super interested in the milkshake shots and the napoleon, so I'll have to get them together asap so she can come in for a tasting. Flavors I'm thinking about are Pistachio & Pepper, Peanut Butter-Banana and Balsamic Strawberry. Any other ideas?

Also thinking about doing a play on a Moon Pie. That means I need to go find one!

The event I attended this weekend was a wedding, and the highlight of the food (which was fantastic) was the chocolate sausage. That's right kids, chocolate sausage! The meetup of two of my favorite things! I'm now on a mission to find out how to make it.

Wedding Cake Over- Phew!

2006-06-05T13:59:00.000-04:00

Alright kids, the wedding cake is finally finished, and I'm so friggin relieved! While I planned and orchestrated the whole thing beautifully, I was still apprehensive about the result when it really came down to it. I'd say this is just from being inexperienced, and maybe with a little sprinkle of control freakness, but there's also a bit of "that's just life" to it too. Okay, so I started out last week right after I wrote the blog entry for the week, doing some research on my favorite food site, egullet. I really needed to figure out how much cake to make to make sure that 250 people were going to get fed. I found the answer to that question, but then ended up reading all these horror stories from cake decoration pros about transport issues, leaving things to the last minute and of course, bridezillas and their complaints about things that weren't the cake maker's fault but they were blamed for anyway. So I went back to my giant kitchen (did I ever tell you, dear readers, that my kitchen is huge? it really has a great amount of space for just one person to do all the projects I get to work on, so much more than the average pastry chef, and certainly more than the rest of the kitchen staff gets.) and started figuring out how to execute the plan I had made for the cake baking and decoration process. For me, the entire week was about this cake. I didn't want to get caught with my pants down about ingredient amounts, or finishing things on time, or anything getting screwed up enough that I had to do it over again or running out of something. I broke it down into a couple of pieces and attacked each one as it came up. Of course, the restaurant was also running at normal pace, so I had to keep up with that while constantly thinking about the cake process. To top it off, the entire bakery case that people buy things to go from, had been cleaned out by the staff after the wedding that Sunday, so I also had to fill up the case while I was completely obsessed with the cake! Whatever, it got done.

I baked an entire 3 extra layers, one of each kind, just in case something broke. On Thursday night I ran into the only hitch, the hexagon. Please, just take a moment right now and try to figure out how to draw a hexagon.

If you've got it already, where were you when I needed you on Thursday night? A very good friend of mine and I ended up spending about 2 hours figuring out how to do this. I never could have done it without her. It involves drawing 120 degree arcs that meet in the exact center of a circle in order to figure out where the corners should be so that all the sides are the exact same length. We had to go to my house to search for a compass, which I surprisingly had, but had never used in my life. The only reason I had it is because I went through a brief period where I wanted to learn how to draw. Well, I did learn the basics, and to take my time, but I also learned I didn't have that instinctual talent, and as everyone knows, I don't like to work hard at learning something. But I never got rid of my drawing supplies, and there you are. I would have been lost without a compass....(I know, bad pun, but sometimes my dad just climbs up and out of my throat and just can't stop it.) So the templates for the cake bases got formed and I went home for the evening, totally set.

The next morning, I set to work cutting all the presentation cake pieces. Then I filled, frosted and glazed them and they went to live for a day in the fridge to harden. The sheet cakes were attacked next, and they were filled and frosted but not glazed by night's end. Those fuckers were heavy though, like at least 20 lbs a piece. I almost dropped one while putting it away in the walk in fridge that night. Saturday morning saw me glazing the sheet cakes with the last of my white chocolate. I had no more chocolate, so I really needed to stretch it. The car got packed up just fine, and we left for the country club where I would assemble the cake and put on the finishing touches.

Now here's where the control freak in me came out. We couldn't take my car, because it just wasn't big enough for a cake like this. We took Greg, the chef's car, which is a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but it had no a/c. It was raining, and I was glad for the coolness in the air, but I was also freaked out because it was raining, and also because I wasn't driving my very first wedding cake to its star appearance. Whatever, I closed my eyes and didn't watch the road, even though Greg assured me that he transports food for a living and that I just needed to relax and exude confidence.

So we arrived. The place where the wedding was taking place was amazing. It was in a truly drop dead gorgeous building, very Rockefeller-esque to me. Gigantic entry doors, a very uniquely shaped grand staircase, probably 15 or 20 foot ceilings. Just beautiful, but also extremely pretentious. Now I don't know if I told you how this gig came about, as I am not prestigious, let alone pretentious in any way about myself or what I do, (I may think the whole idea of foams in the recent trends of food is ridiculous, but I don't take myself too seriously about it, and I'd never turn down trying them.) The point is, my bosses have been trying to get this country club to buy their desserts wholesale on a standing order for a while. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the country club referred the wedding couple to us when they mentioned they were in the market for the cake. I met the couple, and even though they hadn't tasted any of my products, they fell in love with me and decided that I would be their cake baker. Later on we had the tasting and their suspicions of me turned out to be right, so it all worked out. But there were other things going on besides a happy wedding couple. As I mentioned, the bosses have been trying to woo the country club. As part of a thank you sort of, they offered the price of the cake at a $100 discount, but not even knowing what the cake would cost us. So there was a lot riding on this cake, if the wedding party was happy, and the cake was beautiful, maybe the country club would consider buying more stuff from us for themselves. I tried to put it out of my mind during the whole process, but it was still there, laying on a little pressure. This translated to a bit more nerves being wracked than I think normally would have been, for me. I don't remember if I mentioned it earlier, but I lost a few accounts for the bakery earlier in the month because even though I'm sure the cakes I baked for them tasted great, they weren't the same height the customer had been buying, and they would have had to change their prices and they were very upset. Given, it wasn't exactly the same product, but something else was going on here too. The boss who is Tony Danza's doppelganger (and basically a jackass) is the sales rep for these accounts. He never mentioned to his clients that he was going to be getting a new pastry chef until they got pissed. I'm sorry, but if I were Evil Tony, I would have prepared them and asked for their feedback and support. What an asshole! So for me to score big with this new establishment was exrremely important.

But back to the cake assembly. Even though y'all probably think I'm comfortable in almost any situation with strangers, sometimes I'm not. On meeting the catering director, who was very "Jackie O" I won't say that I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, but I definitely put my foot in my mouth like it was my thumb. We assembled the cake, which to me was huge. We had just enough whipped ganache to fill in the spaces between layers, and the cake was a tiny bit lopsided because I didn't insert the dowels in the layers evenly, or enough. You have to put dowels in a cake to support the weight of it, otherwise one bump or maybe even no bump at all and the cake may collapse in on itself or worse, topple onto the floor or someone else. Then you've got a big mess and no cake! So we just decided to tell them that one particular side was the front. We finished the assembly and took some photos, which I promise I'll post when I get them from the restaurant. Then I wanted to talk to the person who would be cutting the cake to warn them about the cookie crust.

In some places, the crust was brittle, and might be a little thicker than in others. The cake appeared to be a regular wedding cake from the outside and I didn't want there to be any surprises. So I went into the kitchen to find the sous chef, Felix (I don't think I've ever met a Felix, I was so excited to finally meet one who wasn't a naughty cartoon cat), who I was told would be cutting the cake. This was where the pretentious air hit me like a ton of bricks. Every single person in that kitchen was wearing the culinary condom, or the big, giant toque, even the minions. Now I completely don't wear those, and neither does anyone else at our place. We wear baseball caps or bandanas. The whole toque thing sets up an attitude that just doesn't jive with my existence. I know, it's just a hat, but you know what? It's not just a hat.

So Felix was nowhere to be found. The minion I was speaking to asked me if I wanted to talk to the executive chef instead. I figured that was my only option, even if I didn't like it, and accepted. Tom, the exec chef, looked at me pretty funny when the minion brought me to his attention. I was feeling lucky that I was wearing my chef's jacket, so at least I looked professional. Once I told him who I was a look of recognition of my status came over his face and I felt a little better. Then we went to go see the cake. Now I had brought those two extra sheet cakes as backup. I'd say that the presentation cake had about 140 portions going on, and each sheet cake could feed 70 at least, so I bet we could have cut about 280 portions. I told the chef my concerns about the slicing of the cake, and he looked at my presentation cake and said,

"Wait, you said you brought two sheet cakes?"
Me: "Yep."
"Two full sheet cakes?"
Me: "Yep."
"Okay. For a minute there I was worried that you weren't giving me much to work with with this little cake."

I immediately thought "No you didn't!" I couldn't believe he called my cake little! Okay, so the bottom tier was 15 inches across, and the cake was on a 36 inch table, so it may have been a little dwarfed by the table, but come on! It was certainly NOT little. I was infuriated, but I smiled and replied that I was sure everything would be fine, and we jetted out of there. I was so relieved. But there was still the matter of how everything went over.

Today, two days later, I called over to the country club to find out. While I didn't reach Jackie O, the catering director, I did leave her a voicemail to let her know I wanted to follow up on how the cake went over. She left me a message about 15 minutes later, telling me that she had actually tasted the cake, and that she never tastes cakes because they do a hell of a lot of weddings there, and you know, they're usually just normal, ass, wedding cakes. She said the cake was great, that it sliced beautifully, and that there was plenty. So much in fact that the bride's mom had just left with the top tier, which the couple had said they didn't care about when we discussed it! Jackie O also said that she lived in a town right next to the town my place is in and that she would definitely be stopping by to say hello sometime. That last comment right there is what this whole thing was really about. I'm so super happy. I did it folks!

The numbers for the cake are as follows:

30.6# sugar
4# egg yolks
12.5# whole eggs
39.66# butter
2 cups + 7 tbsp vanilla extract
15.75# white chocolate
4# heavy cream
100 g salt
240 g instant coffee
6.16# sour cream
33.29# all purpose flour
3.52# cocoa powder
40 g baking soda
70 g baking powder
13# 2 oz light brown sugar
6.25# chocolate chips

Crazy!

On a completely different note, a few exciting things. If you drank anything alcoholic with me last summer in Westchester, you'd know I'm completely into the mojito. I'm not talking about just any mojito though. I put together a few different mojito recipes last year with a friend and we came up with one that's made with mango rum, mint and basil, simple syrup, and you make the ice cubes out of lime juice, so that as they melt, the drink gets better, not watered down. The same friend brought my attention to an article in Gourmet last month, featuring a dessert that's basically a passion fruit gelee with a basil cream. You put the gelee by itself into a glass and then let it set up while you tilt the glass so that it sets up diagonally in the glass. Then you pour the cream into the glass and voila, you've got a super cool looking dessert. I want to put my mojito spin on it, so that's in the works for this week.

Ever since I put that brownie-tini on the menu, dessert sales have been up, and even though it's a gimmic, doing things in a glass that look cool is part of what sells more desserts. Now here's where my business sense is a little different than that of the owners. The owners are always focusing on the wholesale end, trying to get standing orders. I think that's a mistake. I think we should focus on the retail arena. You make more money per unit, and you get more recognition overall instead of someone else taking the credit. I think we need to be pushing dessert sales more in the restaurant, and I think we need to call a few local rags and make them think that there's something to write about here. Goddam, if I can write about it, why can't they? It would be great pubilicity for the restaurant, and instead of dessert sales making up only 10-15% of overall sales, it could be more. It could be people coming in because they read a story about the desserts, but having dinner just to get to dessert. Or maybe we should have a backwards dinner. The same friend who helped on the mojito told me recently about when she was a kid, her church used to do "regressive dinners." A few families would make all the food for the church group. One family would be charged with each course, and they'd go to each family's house for each part. The twist is that they would start with dessert, then go to the entree house, and then the salad house, then the appetizer house. Damn, I think that's the best idea a church has ever had, you know, besides homeless shelters and do gooder stuff. Anyway, there's a lot to think about here. I need to present my ideas, I really do. There's also this part of me that's way more interested in the individual dessert stuff and the breads than the wholesale business. I'll admit it, I think the cakes are cool, but a lot of effort for little money. I guess the trick is to present my ideas without sounding like I think I know everything, cause I know I don't, and it's not my restaurant.

Exciting thing #2:

Started making a daily cobbler. It's been a great product and the owners are pumped. I'm pumped too, you know I love a cobbler more than most desserts.

Exciting thing #3:

Made the best focaccia of my life this week. If you like focaccia in any way, make sure you stop by sometime on a Saturday, as I always make it then.

Exciting thing #4:

Made sticky buns for brunch this week. They ruled, and someone on the floor commented that she's usually very particular about her sticky buns, and that mine were yummy.

Thanks for reading, and if you don't comment, I don't know you're out there reading the blog!

You guys rule!

Another Week

2006-05-29T21:03:00.000-04:00

So yeah, this week was pretty darn good!

I can't remember much, but a few choice things come to mind. To start, I made this Pain de Mie, which is a milk and butter enriched bread, and decided to add roasted garlic to it. This turned out to be a terrific idea and the owners have now insisted that it become a regular on the bread rotation. I also scored big with a new dessert I introduced on Thursday night, involving brownie and blondie scraps that I always have to cut off when I make perfect squares for the portions we sell. I borrowed the basic idea from a place I worked at for one day when I was trying to figure out if I wanted to take this job or not. The other place was doing a "brownie martini" and using only brownie bits and adding chocolate sauce and maybe chocolate liqueur, but I'm not sure about that, served in a martini glass. The dessert had a lot of potential, but I don't think they had made it really what it could be. My "brownie-tini" has both brownie and blondie bits, chocolate creme anglaise (creme anglaise is ice cream before you churn air into and freeze it) and then topped with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. I made 8 servings on Thursday. When I came into work the next day, there was only 1 left! That day the chef told me to make 10! When I came in on Saturday, there were only 3 left. I'm pretty sure this will be a good seller, and that's awesome because the scraps were being given to the kitchen staff before, and now we're actually making money on them. Now don't think that I'm putting together stale brownies and blondies, they're totally still moist, which is the best part!

Also made one of my favorite desserts that I haven't made in a long time, cobbler. I was going to make apple-ginger, but the chef told me at the last second that he had overordered pears, so I changed it to pear-ginger. It made a nice contrast and the biscuit dough on top came out great. I love cobblers so much, as they are ridiculously simple, easy to make, and delicioso! I realized how much I am completely different from everyone at the restaurant though while I was making the cobblers. I was maybe a little too excited over them, knowing how great they turn out and having some feelings brought up by the memories of events happening during cobblers gone by (I know, it's cheesy, but it's completely true). I expressed my excitement about the cobblers to the chef while he was in the middle of a very relaxed service, and he said "you know Cyd, you really are a freak." He totally said it with a smile though, so I had to respond that I couldn't work there if I wasn't. But I could tell he still didn't get it. But you know what? He tasted the cobbler when it came out of the oven, and he said, "Put this on the floor (meaning out for sale on the menu) right now, cause it rocks." I was overjoyed, and I bet he knew right then what I meant about cobbler.

Other highlights were that we had a wedding in the place on Sunday. This meant no brunch, and 300 mini pastries instead. That must sound like a lot of work to most people, but it meant only relief to me. I chose to make blueberry tartlets, chocolate mousse and white chocolate mousse cups, chocolate covered strawberries, and tiny petit fours that looked like dominoes. It was so much fun. I know I can do those petit fours better the next time around, make them flatter and all the same size, but they still tasted good and the effect was totally there. They gave me an idea for a whole gaming theme next time around, like making little red dice, some type of cookie that looks like betting chips, and maybe pool balls or darts! It could be cool to make a cake like that too, like with a green top and tiny balls, or a dart board! I love the art part of this job! Oh, and the strawberries were pretty silly. Since it was a wedding, I dipped them in white chocolate first, then dark chocolate, to create a "jacket" effect, then I added bow ties and buttons on the exposed white so it made it look like the strawberries were wearing tuxedos. It was so cool and fun. I'd seen them in books before but never done them myself and they were much easier than I expected. Some of them turned out a little messy before I added the ties. This was because I got an unexpected slave who wasn't so good at dipping them. His name was Tom, and he had showed up that morning to assemble and decorate the wedding cake that he had made as a gift to the bride & groom. He wasn't a professional cake baker, and ended up needing a LOT of help. While some of his stuff was waiting, since he cooled down his frosting a little too much, he offered to help me, so I took him up on it. Let's just say I could definitely tell the difference between mine and his, but thankfully he didn't do too many of them! So I decided to be funny on the messy ones and do a couple of un-tied bow ties, giving that, after the wedding type of look. I also made a few with some regular ties. I hope the wedding party got it. But I'll bet they were too drunk anyway. At least, I hope they were!

Last but not least I have two non-food subjects to talk about. This week I think I bumped way up the "girl who knows her shit" scale. Basically what happened is that one of the new chefs, Joe, burned the shit out of something in a big pot. He then put the pot out of the way, but in the back of the restaurant. While going back there to sharpen my knives, I was almost choked with smoke, it was so bad back there. I wondered why he hadn't just put it outside. It turned out that he couldn't because the back door handle was malfunctioning and you couldn't get the door open. Luckily there was another door on the side that could be opened without going through the restaurant and the chef put the pot outside that way. We then both went back to look at the door and couldn't make head nor tail of it. We both walked away, and I went back to preparing my cobbler. I thought about it, and I started to get really pissed, because that door was a serious safety issue. What if there was a fire and no one could get out that way? I immediately found some tools and went to work on that door. I discovered that there was a piece of the handle that wasn't gripping the latch correctly any more, and I fixed it as best I could, but warned the owners that it would break again. No one said anything about it at first, but the next day, the chef told me he was pretty impressed to see me out there. I gotta say, I don't think anyone expected me to do it, let alone a girl. I think that even though I'm getting my shit together in the baking department, it's things like this that are going to save my ass later if I royally screw something up, like I'm bound to do!

The other thing that's been going on is that I want to throttle one of the dishwashers. I don't think I even know his real name. He's from Ecuador, as are most dishwashers and the like in the restaurant. I think there's one dude from Liberia, but he's a chef, so it's a totally different story. Anyway, this particular dishwasher told me his name was Jonathan, when I met him about two months ago. Every time I talk about him with someone else, they have a totally different name for him, like Turtle, or Gremlin. He totally looks like a turtle! Anyway, Turtle has been harassing me since day one. I thought maybe after a couple weeks he'd give it up, but I think he just likes to push my buttons now. He's not at work every night, but when he is, I just don't want to be there because he's always telling me that he loves me and asking why I don't like him. Why I won't just give him one kiss is uncomprehensible to this idiot. I want to kick him in the balls, but I also don't want to alienate him. He does a decent job at all the things he has to do, and I wouldn't want a backlash to happen, such as leaving my pans and bowls to the last to wash and such. So first I told him I had a boyfriend, and I told him that it was Papi, another guy in the restaurant. Papi is probably the oldest dude who works there, and he's totally awesome. I'm always happy to see him, and sometimes he stops in for coffee in the morning on the way to his other job. Papi is also from Ecuador. Well, Turtle didn't believe that for one second. So then I told him I was into girls. This may not be true either, but he doesn't have to know that. He took it seriously for a tiny bit more time than me going with Papi, but in the end, he didn't believe that either. So on Sunday he came back at me with more advances, and I finally had to put my foot down and tell him that it made really uncomfortable and that if he didn't stop, bad shit would happen to him. He apologized, but I wonder if he really understood. I didn't hear anything from him for the rest of the day, but I wonder if this will come up again. Somebody I was talking to about it this weekend said that if I had to, I should get him fired, as there was no excuse. Another guy at work said that Turtle was pretty stupid, so he probably wouldn't get it. Argh, my faith in society and people at large was finally starting to be solid again, and now it is being tested. Lame.

Okay, starting the hex cake construction this week. Wish me luck folks!

I think I've killed my pet!

2006-05-22T09:54:00.000-04:00

So, another week in the bakery passes. Twas a crazy one at that. To start with, I believe that just as I starved my hamster when I was 10, (I know, horrible, but devastatingly true, and I've since realized that I hate rodents anyway), I have also starved my pet sourdough starter. I'd been using it to make some breads lately, and they always turned out like little rocks. I've been doing some reading lately on starter maintenance, and there is one highly respected baker who insists that unless your starter isn't going to be used for a while (i.e. dormant and therefore refrigerated), you should probably be feeding it 3 times a day! I don't think I was feeding it even daily, cause I usually just don't have time! I was only feeding it when I used it, to make up for the loss of starter. So there you have it folks, I will have to start from scratch I think, and that means 2 weeks to build a new one. Well, I learned something, that's all I can take from this.

Also, the bride to be and her mom came for the wedding cake tasting on Thursday. There was some miscommunication at first about the timing of our meeting, as she kept wanting to come in later and later in the afternoon, and I kept trying to stress to her that I could make a special work schedule for that day but I'd just need to know what would work for her, and then I realized she must not have understood when I had written that I come in to work at 2 or 3 AM, not PM. So I threw that her way and she immediately got it and told me she'd come in at 12 PM. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant to point the misunderstanding out to her, as I might come off as not caring about meeting her (I know, why?) but she got it, so great. Anyway, both mom and daughter loved the cake, and they picked the easiest finish for the sides of the cake so great. The wedding is now in two weeks, and they're going to have me go over there to assemble it too! Very exciting! Now I just have to figure out how much cake to make for 250 and how much of that needs to go into the actual presentation cake. Don't forget, it's a hex-shaped, (meaning 6 sided) cake! I also have to figure out how to make sugared flowers in a jiffy. Sugared flowers are real, edible flowers, that you somehow coat with sugar, and then stick all over the cake. No one actually eats them, but they could if they wanted to. They're also great because you don't have actually construct them like gum paste flowers. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me know and I'll explain next week. In the meantime, you can see a little of what I'm talking about (in the gum paste arena) by going to: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=68445

And if you didn't know about egullet, it's amazing for anyone interested in food, from amateurs to pros. The people there are super friendly and very helpful for anything they might know anything about. For instance, I had to ask somebody out there about the steam injector situation on my deck oven for getting that really cool crust on breads. People were very helpful.

Also, last week was Mother's Day. I should have written about my experience on that day last week, but I think I completely forgot! Anyway, Mother's Day is the BIGGEST day of the year for all restaurants. Some might say Valentine's Day, but I insist, Mother's Day is bigger! First of all, Valentine's Day is for couples only, so you only get dueces as reservations. Mother's Day usually involves the majority of the nuclear family, so you usually get at least a three top, but often four tops or more as reservations. For those of you who don't know restaurant lingo, just think about it for a second, you'll get it. Anyway, the higher volume of people automatically means bigger tickets and more food, plus more work. The other point I wanted to make about it being bigger is that people usually take their moms out because the moms usually do the majority of cooking at home. Most of my friends cooked for their moms this year, but they're unique and awesome! So at the place where I work, we also do a Sunday Brunch. This meant that in addition to the usual large amount of work that brunch entails for me, I had to do everything multiplied by 3. Now as timing worked out, I had a huge amount to do the day before. Lots of cakes to make, and filling up the restaurant dessert box. I just didn't have time to prep the brunch stuff (of which almost all can be prepped the day before so all I have to do is bake or slice) on Saturday, and I had to leave that day by 4.30 because I was going to a friend's surprise party in NYC. So I decided to prep everything on Sunday morning, and that I would come in around 3 am to have everything done by 11 am. I also had two cakes due on Sunday at 10 am, and the person who had ordered them had also ordered a week earlier and her cakes were late that day and she was super pissed about it. I went to the party, had a great time, drank a single beer, and was in bed by 11 pm. I have no idea what happened, either my sleepy self, which cannot be trusted with anything of importance, or my alarm was set to weekday alarm status, but I didn't wake up until 7.30! I freaked out and got to work by 8. The chef came in at 9 and was all friendly as usual, and I told him immediately what had happened and he did the complete opposite of what I had expected. He said, "Just get it done" and walked into the next room. I did indeed get it done, instead of losing my job, and I was super proud of myself, though exhausted. Of course this week I worked all day Friday, left around 7 pm, went home and showered, watched a lil tv and then went to another birthday party. Had to go because he had gotten a mousse recipe from me that he had called about during the day of in crisis mode. I love taking on the food 911 role. Anyway, I had to know how the mousse had turned out. So I went to the party, armed with the caffeine of two lattes, and had a fantastic time, and passed out on their big purple couch for about 2 hours. Then I went to work around 3.30 am. By the time I left work that day, as you can imagine, I was dead. I was definitely bolstered by more caffeine, which has become one of my best buddies as of late, and I passed out around 5 pm. My father called around 7.30, and the sun was setting and the light that filtered into my apartment looked to me just like the morning light. He scared the crap out of me, as I opened my eyes and got to the phone and thought it was morning already and I had fucked up the timing for brunch prep yet again! Then I realized it was still Saturday and all was good. I got up at the right time, after sleeping for about 10 hours total, and got everything done in time. Yea me!

Last thing is that we got these awesome transfer sheets in this week. These are pieces of acetate (flexible plastic) that have patterns on them. The cool thing about chocolate, is that if you temper it, and pour it onto almost anything, it will take on the pattern that you pour it onto. So we got some cool patterns, like stars and waves, and I tried out the waves this weekend. So cool. The chocolate will also take on almost any color, and also the texture of the pattern, like shiny or matte. So fucking awesome! One of these days, I'll bring my camera to work, I promise. Also, for anyone who would like to spend a couple hours in the bakery, watching me work with giant mixing bowls and hot pans and buttercream, you are totally welcome.

Alright, that's all for this week. Smell you later folks. I have to go design some signature cakes of my own, so no one is expecting the bullshit that the previous baker was producing.

Any suggestions of your favorites are always appreciated!

From Out of Nowhere!

2006-05-15T09:24:00.000-04:00

Okay people, I'm so sorry for being away for so friggin long! Many of you have commented on my recent lack of posts, and I appreciate your love! The main reason that I stopped posting was that the theme of this blog has been totally blown to smithereens. I quit my job at the inn, so I thought there was no more to write about. But as it turns out, some of you are interested in my new job, and I'm still getting up mad early, so here's the update!

I became the pastry chef at a lil place in Pleasantville called Jackson & Wheeler. I usually end up going in to work somewhere between the hours of 2 am and 5 am, so my new position is even earlier than my last one! Luckily the hours aren't a set schedule, so technically I can go in whenever I want, as long as the product gets made. In another month and a half I'll start getting health care, so I think the job is pretty damn sweet. I'm making all sorts of cool shit, some not cool stuff, and I'm also slow as molasses. This has largely contributed to the fact that I've been spending 12 or 16 hours there at a clip! If the owners of the place had any doubts as to how hard I work when they hired me, they couldn't have any doubts now. I'm always the first person to arrive, and usually one of the first to leave, but after putting in a huge a workday. The chef (one of the three owners, named Greg, and one of the coolest chefs I've ever worked for), actually asked me when I was going to get out of there yesterday like I should leave soon. He said he was wondering if I was going to be the first person in and the last person out. It was very cute.

I spent the first month there training under the most bipolar French man named Jean. He's one of those authentic Frenchies that actually took "Le Bac" and was assigned to baking when he was young. By the time I met him, he'd been doing this for 20 something years, and had been working at J&W for 2 years. The main reason that he was leaving was that he was completely irrational sometimes, and communication with him was exceedingly rough for the owners. (There are 3 owners, so that part of communication can be tough in itself, but I digress.) Jean agreed to stay on for an undefined period of time to show me the basics of what he does, and to give me the low down on baking overall, since the owners knew I was totally green in the field of pro baking. At first, Jean was pleasant, qualifying the experience right off the bat with the statement, "I am not a teacher," and things went pretty smooth. By day 3 he was telling me that I didn't know how to use a spoon! Things were tedious because his accent is so thick that understanding what he says is very hard about 50% of the time. If I asked him to repeat himself more than once, or any question just out of nowhere, he acted as if I had slapped him in the face and said something about his mother. Some days he was great and funny, but I never knew what to expect, so I was always on my best behavior, and kept telling myself it was all worth it because someday he would leave. After two weeks, I was telling myself that someday he would die. I wouldn't have to have a hand in it, but it didn't mean I couldn't still be happy about the event. In the end, he left after a month.

I've now been by myself for two weeks, and while the hours are exceedingly stressful because of my slow speed, I'm loving it! I learn something new every day, and even the most mundane tasks are exciting and challenging for me. My creativity level is getting better every day, and I'm getting really good at taking criticism. I get both positive and negative feedback from all the owners daily, and I've completely lost that defensive mode when someone tells me something didn't work or they received a complaint. At this point when I hear something like that, I see it as a way to make something better. It's fantastic.

So what have I been making you ask? Well, my day starts with bread. Most people probably don't know this, but in this industry one is usually either a baker or a pastry chef. Bread is a totally different world than dessert. I am slated with doing both. While I don't make any doughs that are commonly referred to as laminated doughs (croissants, danish, or puff pastry, think layers of dough and butter) because they are time consuming and difficult to get perfect, and you can get a great frozen version of said doughs, I make bread all the time, and different types of bread! I am responsible for making two types of bread daily for the rolls and loaves the restaurant sells. Jean had previously been making only two types of bread every day. A white and a whole wheat. Very rarely, he would add something interesting to the bread, such as sundried tomatoes or olives, but mostly it was the same. The owners were sad as they had asked him to change it up and he never did. I still don't understand why they kept him on for so long when he didn't do what they wanted. He told me that I shouldn't focus on breads, that the pastries were more important, but I'm very interested in bread and where you can take it, so Jean's advice is totally out the window on that. I've been trying all sorts of different breads and I've also started a sourdough starter. It's like my pet bread. I have to feed it daily, and it takes a little while to get strong enough to really leaven the bread. For those of you unfamiliar in the ways of bread, sourdough bread gets its distinctive taste from using a starter. Instead of using commercially grown yeast, which most people use when they want to make bread or beer at home, sourdough uses the wild yeast that is in the air. Wild yeast is present in most places, such as your home, but you need a whole hell of a lot of it if you are going to use it exclusively to make bread rise. If you bake a lot, there's a lot of wild yeast in the kitchen, I guarantee it. A sourdough starter takes about a month to really get going, even in a bakery! The really neat thing about using a starter though, is that as long as you take care of it, it can basically live forever! Some places in San Francisco have been using the same starter for 150 years! A friend of mine just started working as a tour guide in one those places and he said they keep the starter locked up with heavy security. I think that's so cool. So anyway, I make a lot of bread. I need to find 6 breads though to get into a routine and keep on a rotation. Focaccia is definitely one of them, as is some version of cranberry walnut or apple walnut. Any other favorites out there? I also make bagels on Sundays. They are a very strange bread folks.

Other things I make, in no particular order are: creme brulee in various flavors, cheesecake, brownies, blondies, napoleons, key lime pie, chocolate mousse, strawberry shortcake, blackberry shortcake, flourless chocolate cake, macaroons, cookies of all sorts, from linzer tortes to gingersnaps, chocolate chip to mudslides, plain old sugar cookies, black & whites (who the hell eats black & whites anymore), rugelach, fruit tarts, pound cake, mousse cakes, panna cotta, special ice creams like peanut butter banana, muffins, pie, scones, danish, croissants, challah, truffles, etc. You name it, I make it. I recently came up with an Oreo napoleon. I think it's pretty slammin, and I don't even like napoleons. The really neat thing about this is that I can make almost whatever I want as a dessert. i have total freedom as long as it looks great and tastes great. So, as usual, any favorites you just can't resist?

Also, I do tons of cakes as special orders for wholesale and one time customers. I've had to learn how to write on the cakes and it was pretty rough there for a while. If you fuck up, you usually have to remove the writing substance, resmooth the frosting, and then start over. So the key is to practice practice practice! I'm getting pretty good, and one day I'll go in with my digital camera and take some photos for y'all.

To end this post, I'd like to tell you about a wedding cake that I have to make in about two weeks. It's a hex shaped, four tier cake, and there needs to be enough for 250 people! The couple wants a brownie/blondie swirl cake with a chocolate chip cookie crust and the whole thing to be covered in white chocolate ganache and sugared flowers. I'm so friggin into this cake I can't believe it. I usually hate wedding cake, but this one is just so cool. Wish me luck folks!

Breakfast Meltdown

2006-01-31T09:26:00.000-05:00

Okay kids, I'm having a breakfast overload. At this point, I'd have to say that I've now cooked over 3000 breakfasts during my time as official innkeeper. I'm getting a little tired of breakfast. My repetoire needs help! Here's what it already includes on a day to day basis:

Poached Eggs
Basted Eggs
Coddled Eggs
Omelets
Baked (Shirred) Eggs
Toad in the Hole
Toast
Muffins Galore
Blintzes
Crepes filled with Fruit or Eggs or Savory Veggies
Biscuits
English Muffins
Bagels
Killer Scones
Ham
Bacon
Sausages
Hash Browns
French Toast a myriad of ways
Pancakes a myriad of ways
Deep Dish German Style Pancakes
Oatmeal
Fresh Fruit
Melted Apples
Poached Pears
Hot Couscous with Dried Fruit

Okay, so that's the main body of the stuff I bounce back and forth through all the time. What I'm looking for is some ideas from you! What's your favorite breakfast?

dutch people who rule, and others

2006-01-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

Jeroen Lemkes & Jose (but it has an accent on it) Dohle. obviously those are the Dutch people. They came here a couple of weeks ago and we had a great time, even if it was short, like 3 days I think.

This past weekend, we were full to the brim, and everyone was unnaturally cool, but a few people need to get the shout out:

Michael & Christine
Mari & Marcelo
Justin & Jenny

So one thing everyone needs to know about innkeeping is that when holidays happen, you work, unless it happens to be your already scheduled day off. You work because someone is always there on holidays, especially the possible perceived as romantic ones. Lots of people ask me if we are closed on days such as Christmas, and I look at them in wonder. As if people didn't need somewhere to stay when they come to visit their families in town, or maybe they want to get away from their families and have a quiet weekend alone, drinking champagne and talking about what they missed that year. That's where we come in, making both those scenarios a possibility.

Last year I went out for New Year's Eve. This year I was only able to do it halvsies. But it was an especially excellent turnout. During holidays like New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, we take advantage of the fact that people want to do a little somethin special. We offer guests who book a room that can accommodate it a four course candlelight dinner in their rooms. It's a great package, especially because you get both a bottle of wine of your choosing and a bottle of champagne as part of the deal. You don't have to go out and worry about the drunk drivers, and you can drink yourself into a stupor if you like and stay safe. Since there is no server to pay, (I do all the serving and cooking myself,) we can charge a decent amount for it and everyone is still happy. Well, I had only one couple who took me up on the dinner this year, and while I could have made more money if more people chose to do the dinner, it was still totally worth it because they were so very cool. It made it like I was cooking dinner for friends instead of strangers. Of course, they added to that by offering me a martini before dinner, so that solidified the good feeling I already had about them. To my surprise, they said that it was one of the best meals they'd ever had. I knew it was going to be good, but I never would have expected that specific comment. So, I'm glad I made them happy.

On another note, the topic of cancellation policy is back in the mix. But this time it wasn't on my head. I had a couple who booked my last room just 3 days before the big weekend. I made a reservation for them, by their choice, at a place about 15 minutes away from the house. When I secured the reservation, the restaurant informed me that they had a 24 hour cancellation policy and required a credit card number to seal the deal. Now this isn't normal, but I figured since it was such a big night, and restaurants count on these kinds of nights just like I do, I gave them the guest's card number he had given me for the room and then called the guest to let him know what I had done since he had ample time to cancel should he feel uncomfortable. Fast forward to the big night and it snows. I ran into the couple about 2 hours before their reservation and they asked me if I had a relationship with anyone at the restaurant whom I might talk to in order to get them to waive the cancellation policy since they didn't want to get caught in the dangerous snow. They had already talked to the owner of the place and he had agreed to only charge them for half their prix fixe dinner. I told them unfortunately not, and that they were already getting an extremely good deal, as I would do the same thing or charge them more. I don't understand why people forget that it snows in winter in the Northeast! Then when it does, they expect to be the exception to the rule. I advised these people that most of the drive to the place would be on a major road, more likely to be cleared, and that if they left an hour before their reservation, and drove like they were blind, old people, they'd probably get there on time. At least, that was what I'd do. They decided against it and ended up getting pizza and a bottle of wine and staying in. Their room happened to be right next door to the room I did the dinner for, so they had to smell all the great aromas coming from my kitchen and the dishes as I walked past their door. I'm sure they were kicking themselves for not taking me up on my dinner offer.

The next morning, I had to fight to not call the rest of the people who hadn't gotten dinner from me fools as the guests who had my dinner regaled the experience. There's no sense in rubbing someone's nose in it. I hope they'll think twice next time. Of course, most people didn't care about the snow and went off and had fabulous evenings, so I was happy for them. I even got to go to a local party and managed to leave after the ball dropped but still sober and able to work the next day. A good time was had by all.

More Shout Outs to Great People & A Recent Pyromaniacal Experience

2005-12-16T11:51:00.000-05:00

I don't really know what's up with people sometimes. I know I said there would be a positive tip to the blog, but man, I have to share some of the stuff that goes on here. Otherwise there'd be nothin to write about.

So this couple calls from the road yesterday on their way here from the city. They arrive, choose a room, pay cash, and I tell them to have a pleasant stay. The next morning, after the scary ass freezing rain/hail storm, I come up to make breakfast. Their welcome book is sitting on the kitchen counter, their car isn't in the parking lot, making it appear that they left before 6 am. I went upstairs to check and see if they were possibly still here, as they had signed up for 7 am breakfast. They were not here, but the coconut scented candle they had brought was, and still burning at that! Now, I recall not seeing their car in the parking lot last night, when I came back from tap class, so it's possible that they left sometime before 10 pm the same day they showed up! Why on earth would anyone leave a candle burning and then leave? The whole house could have burnt down! Fucktards I say.

Also, a shout out to more great people:

Donna Sheffield & Doug Green, who are getting married here this weekend. I've been talking on the phone with them for a few months, arranging everything with the justice of the peace and coordinating places to eat and train schedules. They finally arrived last night and I'm so happy that they totally rock. It makes doing all this stuff for them completely worth it.

Bill & Carol Lee out of Kentucky. I can't remember when they stayed here exactly, but it was certainly in the last month or two. I had many conversations with them cause I remembered they stayed for a week or so. One or many of these was most certainly about Kentucky cooking, and wouldn't you know it, but a Kentucky themed cookbook we had talked about arrived in the mail last week! I love those people.

Lastly, sorry for the recent lull in writing, but it's been due to the fact that I went to South Beach for a couple of days. It was awesome, more in future posts. Hope everyone's not going insane around this holiday jazz...

Repetition Ethics & Shout Outs

2005-11-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

Hey all, sorry it's been so long! I've had so much to do in the last month, what with starting a business, selling scones & soup to some locals and the holiday that I've been too busy cooking to write something of note. I'm not a habit blogger, so I only write when I've got somethin to say, so as not to waste my audience's time. I hate reading whiny drivel daily blogs, so there.

First off I'd like to state right here and now that more positive stuff and ethical questions will be part of the blog. As stated above, whiny isn't for me, so I'd like to avoid having the blog be completely about people who suck. So, here's a shout out to the guests who don't suck, and remarkably rock, in my book:

Daniel & Alyssa Sanchez
Rita King & her man
Michelle Kupper & her man
Roy Morton & his lady
Joe & Barbara Hourigan
Anna Slepecky
Mary Beth Hewitt
Hugh Castles

That's right people, I do in fact remember names sometimes, but only when you are extraordinarily cool. Which brings me to today's topic: Hospitality Ethics in Remembering Repeat Guests.

This past weekend I had a man come by who when he originally booked his room, wanted to let me know that he had been here before, but that we shouldn't mention it because he was coming this time with another girl. Then he went on to explain that he had gotten engaged to the previous lady while staying here, but that it didn't work out, so he'd be there with someone different. Obviously this could work out to be an awkward situation for him if his relationship hadn't hit that stage yet. It was funny though, because at first I had no idea why he'd be worried about us mentioning that. He said it was because sometimes at hotels and b&bs the hosts check their records and say something like "Nice to see you again Mr. So & So" when a repeat guest checks in. This guy wanted to avoid that at all costs. So I agreed and laughed a little to myself and looked forward to meeting this guy.

By the time he had checked out this week, the man had come clean to the woman he had whisked away to the inn, and we laughed about it together. I was happy for him that he didn't have to hide the fact anymore. While I don't think it's a big deal, this made me really think about what it means to be second.

I was watching a program last night where a character who was separated from his wife was eating dinner at a fancy restaurant with a new woman he was dating. The wife shows up with another man and the two couples exchange small talk. The wife mentions that she & the husband had come to the restaurant before, and she had wanted to try it again. The wife couple sits down across the restaurant and the new woman is super mad that she was second to come to this place with the husband. Now it wasn't like the guy's separation/marriage was a secret, so why would the woman be angry?

Is it suddenly that a restaurant isn't as special? How does that apply to a place like our inn, where romance is basically our specialty? Wouldn't it be easier to not lie about seeing the place but change the situation, for instance saying he had stayed here on business? Given, there are times when you don't want anyone to know you stayed here with the person you did, such as adulterous moments. But how do hotels differentiate when it is and is not okay to welcome someone as a regular customer? We've all seen movies where rich & powerful guests are welcomed at hotels without ever having stayed at them, or when the guests are repeats. How do they know the appropriate behavior right off the bat? Do they feel it out? Do they have protocol? I'm very confused right now.

The Importance of Diplomacy

2005-10-27T00:10:00.000-04:00

People! I am seriously proud of myself! I've come to learn the lesson of how important diplomacy is and how it can be really easy if you just take a second to organize your thoughts. I learned this over a few specific episodes this past week.

#1 How to get people to get over themselves and not be hurt by their incredibly rude actions and/or comments

I have a group staying at the inn this week composed of two couples. They checked in last Saturday and will be here until this Saturday. El Momm-o checked them in, as she's been on duty during the weekends for a while, and I didn't get to meet them until Monday morning. I was warned by her that they had had a problem with the heat in their rooms (which took me until yesterday to resolve), and that one of the women only wanted fresh fruit for breakfast on Monday morning. Being the ex-stoner that I am, I forgot that she only wanted the fruit and made her a coddled egg that day, but remembered at the last minute that she didn't want the egg, so I left it off her plate and started to have thoughts of eating it myself. The only time I eat things I actually make for breakfast is if no one else eats them. I was about to chow down on this egg when this particular woman, let's call her Skinny Ass Freak (SAF for short) runs into the kitchen and asks if she can change her mind and eat food that morning. I rose above my selfish desires for egg & cheese and smiled warmly, telling her it wasn't a problem and brought the egg out immediately. That day, many people checked out, and I was left with the foursome and another foursome of women only. The women were great and delightful, no qualms there. Both groups signed up for the 9 am breakfast seating. I then had a group of identical twins check in. These sisters were lovely and they wanted to eat at 9 am as well. Unfortunately, my table only fits 8 people max, so when more than that want to eat at the same time, they're either out of luck, or I can fit two people at the "chef's table" aka, the kitchen counter. This doesn't bother me, I just feel bad that the people eating at the chef's table miss out on the breakfast banter. When I told the twins it was the chef's table or nothing they looked crestfallen, but agreed to it. Tuesday morning, I set up everything for the 8 people at the main table and the twins in the kitchen. The next thing I knew, the foursome (including the SAF) was leaving for the day without eating breakfast. I was pissed, really upset that the cool twins got shafted for people who weren't even going to eat breakfast. As the foursome were leaving through the kitchen where the twins and I were chatting, I struck up a conversation:

Me: "Are you guys taking off? I wish you had told me you weren't going to eat breakfast!" (Cheery, I swear, not negative at all)
SAF: "Well, we're not eating breakfast. We're leaving for the day." (Bitchy, real freaky bitchy.)
Me: "Well, have a good day, but please let me know ahead of time if you decide not to eat, as I had these two women who would have taken your seats with no problem, but they had to eat in the kitchen today because the breakfast table was already full."
SAF: "To tell you the truth, we were planning to eat breakfast, but we didn't like the crowded feeling that 8 people at the table was going to give us. So we decided not to eat."
Me: (Furious, thinkng, isn't the amount of people at the table MY call? and I've never had a complaint about it before. This is not to say that no one else in the history of the B&B has ever felt that, but that no one has ever said it.) "Well I can't take care of problem if you don't tell me there is one. I wish you had told me!"
SAF: "Well, breakfast wasn't ready on time, so it goes both ways!" They left after that, conversation over.

What the fuck? What was her last comment supposed to mean? If I had known they needed to eat and get the hell out of there I would have made sure everything was ready on the dot of 9 am, but usually I've found people like to take a few minutes to get their coffee and sit down and get to know people at the table. It helps to introduce yourself without food in your mouth.

I was so mad. When the SAF foursome walked out, one of the twins, who had witnessed the whole thing, said that she thought those people were very rude, and how could I take that shit from someone? I asked her if she thought I had been harsh at all, and she said no. I then explained to her that in my business, you take shit from everyone if you can; only when it's straight up offensive or physically harmful do I not take shit. Even though the twins were on my side, I was boiling about it over the next few hours. I tried to think of some way to turn the whole thing positive, and it never came to me. I called my mom for advice, but her suggestions just didn't make sense for this situation. I didn't think making chocolate covered strawberries and randomly leaving them in these people's rooms was going to make the situation any better. I had to figure out something to do, as these people were going to be with me for such a long time and I couldn't just throw them out on their ears! I hemmed and hawed about it for another couple of hours. I had to sleep on it to solve this one.

This morning I figured out a solution. I thought about exactly what they had said was their problem. They felt crowded. I called them at 8.30 to find out if they would like to have their breakfast in another area of the breakfast room, usually reserved for lounging with coffee, but not a formal breakfast "arena". They said they'd have to discuss it and I told them to let me know. They waited until the absolute last second, which I knew would happen, cause that was a possible screwing me moment if I wasn't prepared, and then agreed. From the second I served them their scrambled eggs, they were friendly and outgoing with me, as if yesterday had never happened! The twins were happy too, as they got to eat breakfast at the main table with the other foursome today. I'm so happy I only have to cook breakfast for these shitheads one more time. While I'm still appalled at their behavior, I know I got them and I'm super proud of myself because I always kept shit under control. Which brings me to my next point:

#2 It's all about keeping your shit under control.

I have to throw in some personal stuff here. I know this blog is supposed to be about the inn and what's happening, but you don't get my perspective if you don't get me. So here's a big lesson it's taken me about 2 years to learn. People respond to you if you keep your emotions separate from your feelings when you express them. No matter how offended you might be when someone tells you they don't like the way you did something, you have to "out-nice" them. You come back at them with smiles and solutions, compliments and courtesy. And you keep it simple. You don't give excuses, and you try to be as honest as possible in a positive way. Now, if you know me, (which most of you people do, since you're my friends and no one but my friends reads this blog), you know that I am divorced. I made a bad choice when I was 20 and married a very depressed person who freaked out and caused all sorts of strife (the ugly restraining order type strife) when I decided not to be married anymore. Ever since then, I had a hard time finding someone cool to date, even selecting someone and being able to trust myself to make that choice, since I had done such a good job of it to date. I dated some horrible guys, a few good ones, and some big losers. The good ones glazed over and took off at the mention of making things more serious. Now I know why. I never took one second to ask them what they wanted out of the relationship portions of their lives at that moment. When the relationships would go sour I often wondered what the hell I did wrong, and I think now it had nothing to do with me, except that I was "ready" for more serious and they just weren't. So now, I'm single again, and it's been real hard to meet new dudes ever since I've been throwing myself into work. I've been working long hours and dedicating myself to dog training so my bar time is quite limited. I don't get a chance to meet my friends' guy friends, (I don't know why this is Salena!) so I decided to try the online dating thang. I met an utter dud. Then I met another. But the second guy I was able to tell immediately that nothing was happening there. I found myself able to say out loud to him, "I don't think this is going to work." I was scared to say something like that, as it's kind of hurtful. But I think it's better to say something than to lead a guy on, especially with the way this guy was trying to touch my arm all the time and basically communicating to me that he was interested. It turned out not so bad. He totally covered up and said that he felt the same way. So I went home without a guy, but felt good about my eloquent honesty, aka diplomacy. Then I went on another date with a different dude, and the same thing happened, only this time, I got to tell him he wasn't my cup of tea right off the bat, (I spent two hours with him, definitely gave him a chance, don't worry, I'm no frigid bitch). Now I don't have to worry about that guy calling or emailing me. I'm ecstatic.

#3 Now I'm stuck about what to do.

I've given up on the online thing. I don't want to pay to see the same dudes over and over again. I also just feel like I want to meet someone more organically. I'm not searching for my future husband. I just want to meet someone down to earth who has a job, doesn't live with his parents, and eats meat. Goddam you vegetarians out there are crazy. Anyway, I went on a "hurrydate" tonight. It's one of those speed dating things where you're supposed to meet between 12 and 20 people, and have 4 minute mini dates with each one. At the end you decide whether or not you'd like to see any of those guys again and if you both said yes, you get each other's email addresses and you can take it from there. I did this speed date a few months ago with my friend L, (a completely different ball of wax, not enough space or time to discuss here), and we had a great time but all the guys we met were losers, BIG TIME. By the end of it, I was drunk as a skunk and saying inappropriate things to the guys. Maybe I was the loser by that time. The company decided we hadn't had the requisite number of dates, since we only met 10 guys, and they offered us another free date to use up to a year later. We finally took them up on it tonight and got another friend to come as well. The Hurrydate took place in a larger city (but not The City) and parking was a little difficult to find. My friends went to park the car and I went into the bar to check us in, as we were skidding in only just on time. I met a guy who was doing the Hurrydate too, and it was his first time. He actually bought me a drink, and he was cute, so I was excited this time. The date started, and it was a ball. This time most of the guys were losers too, but not as many of them were, and I even talked with one guy I had met last time. Let's call him RePeter. Even that time he had mentioned that he does this a lot, so I can only guess he just hadn't met the right lady yet. That mini date was fun, cause we remembered each other and I remembered that RePeter had said yes to seeing me again but I had said no. Here's how our conversation went:

Me: RePeter! What's up? How've you been?
RePeter: Hi! I forget, where are you from and what do you do? (I hate these questions, they're so run of the mill and unoriginal)
Me: Like it matters! I'm an astronaut and I'm from Texas.
RePeter: Oh....I'm a kung fu instructor and I'm a 10th degree blackbelt.

I can't remember the rest, but it was one of the funniest conversations I had with the 10 guys from tonight. So finally the cute guy who bought me a drink rolls around to my table. He buys me another drink, refuses to let me pay for this round, and then tells me that buying him a drink, or even paying for my own would be just wrong. I forget what we talked about, but he finally told me he owned a pizzeria and then the whistle blew and it was time to change tables. I said "fuck. Are you going to be around later?" He said yes so I figured I could catch up with him. After the event was over I still had some beer to go. I left my beer inside, went out to have a smoke and when I came back in, the cute pizza guy was talking with some other chick by my beer. Now, I don't expect this guy to be waiting for me, so I wasn't mad or anything. I rescued my beer and introduced myself to the girl, who was totally great. My friends came over and we all started hashing over the date experience. Then some blonde came up out of the blue and snagged the cute pizza guy. She walked away and he got up and said something about some sisters at the other side of the bar wanting to tear his clothes off and do a girls gone wild type of thing with him, and if any of us wanted to come, we were welcome. We all gave him that side long questioning glance and he went over to talk to who I can only guess were the sisters. I ended up talking to the girl, and we exchanged numbers, and that was that. Now I never even looked at that guy again, and I think I was attracted to him all the way up until he said the girls gone wild comment. I started writing this section with an "I don't know what to do" now statement, but I know now that I've written it all out. That guy is totally into something I'm not into. He's toast. I guess the question is, what comes next?

Indians & Cheaters

2005-10-18T15:43:00.000-04:00

Every so often, I get customers who want to pay in cash, as they are visiting the inn with someone they're not supposed to be with. These people are called Dayfuckers. It's none of my business, but I do feel a little funny knowing there is at least one other someone out there who probably cares! But I can look past that, it's income after all, and I bet we'd lose at least $8000 per year if affairs never happened. But then the couple that showed up today puzzled me. They called about 5 minutes before they arrived, asked if I had a room available right then, saying they were visiting friends in the next town. They showed up almost immediately, brought in one tiny bag, and couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces as they didn't listen to anything I said while I checked them in and showed them the room. When I told them the price of the room they didn't bat an eyelash, which makes me think I should have charged them more! They couldn't wait to get into that room and start fucking! They gave me some story about having to leave very early the next day, so no breakfast for them and that they would be leaving to go out soon. Then the dude charged the stay on his credit card, and ripped up the receipt immediately after I gave it to him. I knew exactly what was up when that happened, and figured I'd let them get to it. I started to take care of my other duties, including picking up a group from the train station, walking the dog, etc, and maybe 2 hours went by. I went into the kitchen and there was their key! They had left already! I guess they got what they came for! Now if only I could rent the room again tonight!

Also, the people I went to grab at the train station are the sweetest Indian family. I checked them in, and they have all sorts of dietary restrictions other than the no beef no pork thing. I listened to what they needed, told them I could take care of it, and showed them their rooms. They asked if they could make some tea, then if I had any pads, which I don't, so I had to send them to the pharmacy in town, and then they decided to give me a little present! I'm sure they carry around a whole bunch of them to give to various strangers as custom, but the jewelry box they gave me was beautiful. I'm sure it cost them 50 cents, but whatever. I still appreciated the idea, and they're only here for one night, so this surprised me. Okay, back to work now. I've got one more group to check in and then I can do whatever!

Sorry folks, it's been a while

2005-10-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

Okay so I learned some valuable lessons this past month. First of all, sorry to all you folks who've requested more blogging. Thanks for your love, I certainly didn't expect it! Things at the inn have been really busy, as it's October, our highest traffic month, and I've been working like a dawg. Not too many wack happenings as far as the guests go, though lots of new things for me.

#1 Pleasing People Isn't That Hard
It's taken a while for this to sink in, but I've noticed that people will work with you if there's something wrong and you approach it in a practical way. For instance I have this Canadian couple here this week who have a baby. The baby's schedule has turned theirs completely upside down and they haven't made it to breakfast even once. Sometimes the dude comes down to have coffee, but I've only seen the chick once, and that was at midnight as we were all getting off the train from the city. The first morning they were here he came down from the room and asked it we could turn the heat up. If you're reading this and you're not in the Northeast, it's been raining for a week and I'm starting to wonder if anyone else is getting that winter depression from light deprevation thing like I am. So, the heat's being turned on for the first time this fall. The room where Canadians are staying has its heat controlled by the room next door. That's right, the room next door, (old houses, go figure), which is smaller, so their room heats up faster and then they turn the heat down to prevent their own roasting. I asked that room to keep their heat on for the baby and thought everything was fine. Well the next morning the Canadian dude came down, had some coffee, and then told me that his wife was upset and that their whole trip had been ruined because of the baby being chilly and waking up every hour. The thing is, they saw me on the train so late the night before, they knew I was awake, and they could have called and asked me to make sure the heat was on! I am not psychic. I only know when something is wrong when people tell me. So I told him that they could have let me know and I could have solved the problem. But they were switching rooms that day anyway, so I showed him the new room, told him they could move in right away if they wanted to, and where to control the heat in that room. And what happened? They moved right in and changed their minds that they wanted to stay. I'm always surprised when people take a stance that nothing can be done, but that when you approach their problem and attempt to solve it, they usually appreciate it and forget about it. In fact, it even seems better I think, since they see you are willing to make things right and take responsibility. Case in point, this helps out even when it's not YOUR fault. This leads me to the next happening of the week:

#2 People Are Fuggin Stupid!

The same couple as above did something really dumb the night they checked in. See, sometimes people are late checking in, way later than they thought they would be, and later than I'm awake. These people were coming in from Canada, and they got in around 10.45 pm. For someone who has to cook breakfast at 6 am, I certainly don't want to be seeing people that late, and given, even though we've already established that I'm a night owl, so therefore would be up, they don't have to know that! Right before I was done with work, I had to move another couple's car so that someone else could leave. I left the keys to the rental car on the kitchen counter so that they could be gotten at the next morning. I left the Canadians a note and went off duty. The next morning, the people who left their keys were looking for their keys, and they weren't on the counter. I spent about an hour going batshit looking for the keys. I looked in the clothes I had worn the night before, all over my apartment, the office, outside near the car and on the way to the house from the car, etc. I even called everyone who had left and asked them if they might have taken the keys by accident. I knew I had to find these keys, as this couple was booked in all week and this was just their second day here! I was finishing up a contingency plan which involved calling the rental company and getting another set of keys issued while giving the couple my mom's jag for the day when my brain started to think all sherlock style. I asked myself who had been in the kitchen from the last time I saw those keys. The only group I hadn't talked to was the Canadians. They were still asleep, as a matter of fact. So I went up to their room and knocked ever so softly on the door. The dude answered it all bleary and I apologized for disturbing them but could they possibly have picked up an extra set of keys last night? He actually remember picking them up and went to fetch them. I couldn't believe it! I had rescued the keys and happily presented them to their temporary owners. They asked if this had ever happened before and of course it hasn't. That's what got me so tense. The weird part was that after everything, the Canadian dude said he had picked them up thinking they were his room keys. But come on, doesn't a car key look a LOT different that a room key? What a dumbass.

Oh, and I started writing this blog this morning. I'm finishing up now that it's the end of the day, and I need to update you. The dumbasses left this afternoon, without even saying a word to me.

Lastly, let's talk about cancellations. This weekend is a BIG weekend at West Point, you know, the military academy that everyone goes to for free? Well I've been booked solid for weeks. Today I had a million check-ins, some people for this occasion, and some for this big blazing pumpkin shindig at a local historical house. It gets to be about 5 pm, and there's only one room that hasn't gotten here and they're supposed to be here between 12 pm and 2 pm. I called them up, and said I was checking to see if they were okay, since as I mentioned before, it's been raining cats and dogs for a week, and what time should I be expecting them? The woman was dumbfounded. She said they didn't know they had a reservation here! Now I know I sent her a confirmation email. I also know that these people had stayed with us over the summer, and that they had made their reservation then when they checked out for today. I went back and checked my sent mail in Outlook and there was her email, sent July 19. Our policy is usually that when someone cancels with more than a week ahead for us to rebook the room, it's no problem. If someone cancels with less than a week ahead, they get charged for one night. If someone doesn't show up, and they don't cancel, they get charged for their whole stay. We take a credit card number to guarantee the whole thing. Now for this woman to say that she just didn't know, and for me to take her at face, sorry voice value, that would just be stupid! Then she said that the reason they weren't staying with us was because our inn was lovely but that it was too expensive. She remembered me and the inn, so how could she forget her reservation? Then she laid one on me saying that they just couldn't afford to pay for the charge I was going to put on her card. I'm sorry, but they don't even pay for college. They could probably afford this, even if they had to pay it over the next month or so. And honestly, she's costing me over $500 and saying she's paying for services she didn't get to use. Sorry honey, it doesn't work like that. I then told her I'd try to book the room and that she'd have to pay for the difference if it doesn' get booked. That's a compromise on our end. I then called some other inns in the region and told them what had happened, and one innkeeper told me that the same thing had happened to her only last weekend, but instead of just one room, it was four! What is wrong with people? Why don't they realize what a B&B is? It's NOT a hotel. It's a small place, and we count on people to do what they say they will, just as we do on our end. Is that too much to ask? What would you do?

Cookies & Petrified Guests

2005-08-24T23:21:00.000-04:00

So I have to make cookies every day at the inn. I don't make the batter, which I think is lame, but I scoop them from a big tub we buy at Sam's Club. The key to making the good ones is how long you cook them, whether they will turn out soft and chewy or crispy. I had one of a group of women who suck tell me that I should add more flour to the batter to give them more structure. I didn't even want to admit I scoop them from a tub. Anyway, she's one of those people who really annoy me by asking me if she can ask me a question, before actually asking the real question, every time she has a question. When people check in I always tell them that the cookies are for everybody and they're there until they're gone. Well, I got a call from somebody at 5.50 pm (when I go off duty in an hour) telling me that there were no more cookies. Of course while I wanted to tell them to fuck off, I realized I'd rather bake more cookies than have a crisis any day, so I made more cookies.

Another woman from the same party as above also told me she was severely afraid of my dog today. She also asked me why people get pitbulls and basically went over every stupid pitbull stereotype there was. I replied that I had gotten Pig from a shelter, after someone else tied her a mailbox and left her there for the ASPCA to find. I then added that any dog can be turned into the vicious dogs that newspapers are always reporting about that bite small children and turn on their owners. If you raise a dog to be fearful of people, to fight with other dogs, whatever, it will respond. If you train it to be a gentle dog, they also usually respond. This woman was obviously not a dog person, and had no clue what owning a dog that's not a fucking chia pet sized animal is like. I hate it when guests talk to me like I'm fucking crazy for owning a pitbull. I don't let her out without a leash, she doesn't live in the inn, and no one meets her who doesn't ask to meet her. I respect when people don't want to meet her, but they never seem to respect me when I don't think it's a good idea, like around kids for example. She's a rambunctious puppy herself, and I don't trust children to remain calm instead of freaking out and running around, egging the dog on. The most frustrating part of this is that guests think because they're staying in my house they have access to my person. It's things as little as commenting on my smoking habit, (always outside, never on a first meeting, etc) to questioning my life choices. None of them seem to understand that I might have very good reasons for the things I do, ways I feel, policies I follow, (and yet I'm not supposed to judge them about things they ask for, disgusting messes they leave in the rooms, stupid things they say to others, etc). For instance, they don't accept that I don't want to take over the business when el momm-o retires. I don't feel like I should have to back up why I don't want the inn, but they always want to know more. I need to make up a good lie. Like I'm engaged to a Nigerian multi-millionaire murderer who is getting out of jail in April and then we're off to Majorca to get married and live happily ever after. Where the fuck is Majorca anyway?

We Hate Her, Right?

2005-08-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

This week I met a lady from my past, again. She called up, established she was a local, told me her name, which sounded really distinctive, but also familiar. You may not know this already, but the town I live in is crazy small. For the probably 66% I already know in some way, whether by name, face, annoying child, bad driving habits, mischief made, or crazy haircut, I remember about 10% of immediately why I remember them. The others I have to ask about. And then she hits me with an experience I had almost pushed to the limits of memory and the whole feeling of who I was at 19, and how different I am now.

Children, close your eyes, and harken back to your 19 year-old self. I personally was living with a dude and two cats in a duplex in a house. At this particular time I was taking a summer class in creative writing. I was also smoking copious amounts of weed with a good friend every day. On our way to class, we would often decide we should just go to the movies instead. When we did attend, we were usually high as shit, and would get very excited for our nightly pee-between-the-cars-in-the-parking-lot after class ritual. I can only imagine the number of times I probably came home with urine on my cuffs from cement splashback and never realized it. So chic. So this woman, the one who called up and booked rooms at the inn, was in this class. Not only was she in the class, but I remembered that she was maybe one of three people who still stand out in my memory, and she was the super weird, kind of bitchy, terrible writer. She had been a lawyer, then become a 3rd grade teacher in the Bronx, and every time she opened her mouth we were all reminded of her career change. She always wrote on legal pads, is that what lawyers do? I thought she was a teacher... Anyway, when she told me where the hell we should know each other from I knew there was no playing like I had a clue of what was happening during that class. I have no idea how I was able to summon the short story I actually wrote for the class, but I totally remembered her and how much I severely hated her. But hey, she was booking at least two nights, maybe more, meaning money for me and only a few short days of her, even if she turned out to be as annoying as I remember. She commented that she remembered me being both in my "camouflage phase" and as "pretty wasted". I'm so glad I made a good impression. And now she was coming to stay at my house, where I would be her "host." I immediately called said "good friend" and asked her if she remembered this woman's name. My friend couldn't quite remember, but she said "Hmm, we hate her right?" So, I held my breath and greeted this woman with open arms. She's actually not that bad. And she even admitted herself, (no help from me), that she was a terrible writer.

In other news, I've decided to take a tap class. Yes folks, tap. I took many years of dance as a child, forced my friends and relatives to go to annual, 4 hour recitals, and dressed up in garish costumes for showtunes numbers and ballet. It was completely ridiculous, but fun all the same. The dance school I attended had all sorts of body types, not just the muscular, dancer type. So no one felt like they had to be perfect and there were all sorts of girls with big boobs who had a terrible time bouncing around a lot. There were also strange-hipped girls, cheerleaders, hippies, morons and the like. It was a very well-rounded studio. But it was also strict about uniforms and I never realized how disciplined we had to be for that type of thing until now. It's been about 8 years since I took a dance class. A fellow alumni from dance school asked if I might be interested in taking a tap class together and I decided it was about time to get my cheese on again. We immediately went shopping for tap shoes. It was mad fun, but it also made me feel 16 again. We got a bit concerned when we didn't know what we were supposed to wear to class and called the teacher, and she sounded so relaxed and nice when she basically said to wear whatever we wanted, just to make sure she could see our feet. It was a nice feeling, like this could be actually fun and not stressful at all. Can't guarantee I'll make it to a recital though.

This weekend, I'm headed up to a Hudson Valley themed dinner at another inn. It's called Buttermilk Falls. I'm getting comped by a friend I know there who used to work here. Ex-coworker friends are good.

creepy guys and my oversensitivity

2005-08-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

Okay, I know it's been a while since I posted, but life's been pretty hectic at the inn. Among the melange of things that happened, here's the stuff of note:

Creepy guys are out there girls, even in a so-called nice establishment. My first boyfriend always used to joke that my mother's place was a brothel. This pissed me off to no end because my mom's business partner at the time was totally an easy lady, but I don't think she ever slept with the customers. To this day I've only slept with one, and that turned into a 6 month relationship. The point is, this is never something I try to make happen, and it's never something that I advertise as an amenity we offer. Most of the people who show up here are usually with somebody anyway, whether that person is present or not doesn't really matter. Last week I had my first run-in with a creepy, sleazy guy. When he arrived I checked him in and everything went swimmingly. The dude turned out to be about 30 years my senior, and after checking in, he wanted to know about a nice bar where he could watch the game. I sent him to an out of the way place and then I went off duty. Now, I tell all the guests where to find my cell phone number, in case of emergency. Dude calls me on my cell phone that night to thank me for the bar recommendation. I say no problem, and I figure that's it. Then he proceeds to ask me if I want to go and get a drink with him. To this I politely say no that I don't fraternize with the guests. I don't think I've ever used that word in common speech before. This gets him off the phone and we hang up. In the morning he gets ready to take off for the golf tournament he's in town for and asks if we have a room open for that night. I want to sell rooms, so, overcoming my repulsion, I tell him of course, since we happen to have one left. I don't hear from him until 7.45 pm, at which time he shows up drunk and sunburned. I charge him, give him the last room, and while I'm showing it to him, he not only touches my back several times, but also asks me to go out and get a drink with him again! At that point I told him I had to get up early and I ran for the hills. There was no more trouble from him, and the next day he was perfectly nice, but what the fuck? Why do I have to put up with that kind of shit from people? Once is enough. And golf sucks.

That phrase, What the Fuck?, has been a common occurrence in my brain over the last couple of months. I don't know if I'm just jaded, but it seems like almost any time someone asks me for something, or tells me something's wrong, that phrase runs through my mind. I'm stuck here until April, at which point I will be heading for the West coast, but until then I realized I needed an attitude adjustment. Even though there are plenty of jobs in which I think many people have that phrase ring in their minds, I always wonder if it's as common as it is in my industry. Service is definitely one of those arenas in which customers will often ask for extra stuff, try to get it for free, and then get upset with it after you give it to them. I will never understand this. For instance, we did a wedding reception here for 50 people back in July. The whole thing cost about $3500, including food, and putting up about 20 of the guests for one night. The day after the wedding, the father of the bride asked for a refund of $50, and when we told him it wasn't going to happen, and the fact was that he was arguing over $50 out of the $3500, he told my mother she must have some jew in her! What the fuck?!!! The guy was from Louisiana, and I have never experienced anything like that down there. What made him bring it to that level I have no idea. Now, this is one of those bigger events that made me think this, but even something as little as needing skim milk can make me feel this way on the wrong day. This makes me wonder if maybe it's not the people I deal with every day, maybe it's just me. But come on, why the fuck would you ask for our phone number after you called us?

We held our first charity tea party in a very long time. We get asked for room night donations to local charities' silent auctions all the time. Of course, this takes way more out of our income than I think the charities realize, so we offer a tea party for 8 people instead. It's worth about $320, and it's a big tax write off too. We only hold them on Sunday afternoons, our least busy time, and we make everything from scratch. Let me rephrase that, I make almost everything from scratch. Moms makes a bit too. Now because we changed the schedule a couple months ago, she gets to do all the tea parties, since only she works on Sundays. This suits me just fine, as I am really starting to dislike the interaction with these people. The tea party guests are often people with lots of money to burn, and can tend to look down on those in the worker role. I'm not saying that all rich people do that, it's just the ones at our tea parties. This one was a ballet charity. I'm all for ballet, and these people turned out to be very cool despite their one special need. 4 out of 8 of them didn't eat gluten, so that meant no wheat whatsoever. Usually I make a scone course, with two kinds of scones, and tea sandwiches, a bunch of chocolate items and some pastries. Luckily these people brought over two loaves of millet based bread, on which I made their tea sandwiches (chicken with olive oil, chives & lemon and sweet & sour cuke/radish). Moms made some deviled eggs with smoked salmon inside. For the scones I completely cheated cause I didn't have enough time to fuck around and find a good scone recipe using rice flour and whatnot, so I bought gluten-free scone mix from a local health food store. I added apricots and it totally rocked. Served those with three kinds of jam, butter & sour cream (sorry, no clotted) and the guests were mighty impressed and getting towards full. I broke the bank when I rolled out the dessert cart with flourless chocolate cake (only three ingredients mind you), Mom's chocolate covered strawberries and Key Lime Custard Fool with Fresh Berries. The last dish was really my crowning achievement. I'm always the first to admit that I'm a recipe dependent person. Once in a while I break out and make something from nothing, but when it comes to serving people who pay, I try not to fuck around. I wanted to make a Key Lime Pie, since it's summer and all, but then I realized that graham flour probably wouldn't work for these folks. So I decided to make the custard filling from Joe's Stone Crab (the best key lime pie I've ever had and after tasting it a good friend told me it changed her life) and mix the custard with whipped cream and fresh berries to make what is called a fool. The Fool is apparently a derivative of the Syllabub, which if you've never heard of it, is kind of a precursor to ice cream in the UK. Elizabeth David writes about it somewhere. So, the wheat free fools loved the fool. I know, it's cheesy, but at least it wasn't wheaty. (My god, sometimes I just can't keep my father's sense of humor inside me.)

That's all for now, I'm tired.

2005-08-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

My dog Pig. She don't get up early for no one.

2005-08-04T11:53:00.000-04:00

Me, in all my late-night glory.

Moms, Taiwanese & Mr. Magoo

2005-08-04T11:38:00.000-04:00

So I still haven't gotten this rising at the crack thing down yet. I've been at this for about 3 years now (not counting the previous 20 years of living with the biz) and I still have a difficult time not destroying my alarm clock in the morning. I think I hit snooze 6 times today. I don't get it; I went to bed by 11 pm last night. I shouldn't have had any trouble getting up at 6 am but instead, I ended up rolling out of bed in a rush at 6.41. Apparently I need more sleep to deal with life.

Last night we had some Taiwanese people. Very nice, but no English speakers except for one. Makes me wonder what it must be like for them to be here. I wonder if there's a different level of confusion for them here than for Westerners who go to Taiwan. I seem to think there are more billboards in English there than there are in Taiwanese here. I'd think they'd at least be more used to western language characters than we are to theirs. Well, I got one of them to play the super out of tune piano, and that was cool. I can't play for shit because my fingers are too short.

The boss came back to work today and managed to piss me off as usual. It's very hard to work with your own mother and not get pissed off sometimes. It's also hard to hide the argument we're having when simultaneously entertaining the guests at the breakfast table when all you want to rip each other's heads off. It makes me understand what must have been going on when I was a wee Cyd. I'd be ready to head off to school and need my mom to sign a field trip permission form or some such nonsense. It would usually take about 10 minutes for me to get her attention to sign the form. This was because I had to tear her away from the breakfast table conversation in order to get my stuff done. I think I definitely resented her a lot of the time for that, when I now realize it was just her doing her job. Charming people, keeping the conversation flowing, it's hard work, and it must be done at a b&b to help people fall in love with the magic of the place. I mean, it's all we've got compared to a hotel. Well, I can't fault her for it now, especially since I have to do the same stuff, but I also know it still really irks me when I'm talking to

Today's Breakfast & Name Recollection

2005-08-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

Made Blackberry Jam Muffins today with Coddled Eggs, Biscuits & Fresh Fruit. Everybody seems to like it, but they're having a hard time keeping the conversation going. One of the coolest things about staying at a bed & breakfast is that there's a big variety in the guests who might turn up at the breakfast table. Today we've got two older couples touring the area, another couple looking for real estate, an American physicist who insists he has an American passport but a British accent, and a totally white trash(I know, harsh, but true) couple that seems to be in love with me. I really have no idea how this last couple interacts with people on a regular basis, but they stayed here last year and apparently I was so good at taking care of them that they returned and constantly mention my hospitality skills. I guess that's a good thing overall, but they totally don't belong here and I tried to tell them that everything was booked for the dates they were looking for only to have them try other dates, and I just coudn't possibly be full every day in the summer. That would be crazy and insulting. So they're here. Luckily they won't be eating with (or scaring) other people today.

Today the life of the innkeeper is a dull one. Gotta file a bunch of things I've been putting off filing, gotta return some tables to their owners, pick up a scrip for the boss and drop off the dry cleaning.

And now, today's little story of strange happenings at the B&B. I meet and talk to over 50 people daily. Remembering names and faces has become a skill that I can only seem to keep going for 2, 3 days tops. Two summers ago I had a couple stay here for the weekend. I don't remember their names, but let's call the chick Denise. Denise comes up to me during her last breakfast, pulls me aside on the auspices of the table needing more milk, but takes the opportunity to thank me.

Denise: "Cyd, I just wanted to tell you how amazlng this weekend was!"
Me: (Thinking, you make your own fun, I just give you a place to fuck) "Great!"
Denise: "No, I don't think you understand. My husband and I got together about 8 years ago. At the time, we were both married to other people and when his wife found out she attacked me and bit off my finger and things have never been the same until this weekend!"
Me: "Which finger?"

It turns out Denise wears a prosthetic pinky! She also has really long fingers and the fake pinky starts almost at her hand. I can only think she either did something really special with that pinky, or the attack just ripped something inside of her to make things between the philanderers different. But apparently, I helped them with that. Fast forward to about 6 months later and I get a call from her.

Denise: "Hi Cyd, it's me, Denise! We want to come back to the inn since we had such a good time."
Me: "Who? I'm sorry, I don't remember a lot of names."
Denise: "You know, the finger lady!"

That got me right back to it. So now I still remember her as the finger lady and still don't remember her name.