Poetry: Entertaining Glances 1

Soft muted colors
make impromptu kaleidoscope
in my pint glass.

Slip past the warm blooded,
flush faced regulars,
the fretting malcontent hands,
fingering empty pitchers.
Salivating mouths,
shout their ill satisfaction.

I catch your stray glances-
a haphazard tapestry of fate,
spilled out through hazy cigarette smoke.

What intentions?
Foamy realizations leave their mark.
As I sip to the tunes,
watching sharks get sharked -
in pool hall glory.

We , full of promise and alcoholic malice.
Closing time paints a weary picture.
Will phone numbers call themselves?

-- Amber © 2002. All Rights Reserved

Poetry: Once The Whistle Blows 1

All these men.
I see their faces,
in these crowded streets.

As if fallen birds -
their hearts like broken bone,
disfigured and misshapen.

Egos are like feathers
concealing the transparent flesh,
which hides the confusion within.

Away from the roughnecks,
jobs keep them civilized.

Once the whistle blows,
Find them clocking out.

from under their bosses'
or fathers' thumbs.

They watch the liquor poured,
throwing caution to the wind.

Their debts and duties---
as if the foaming head
of a lager,
--- to be blown off,
'till morning comes.

---Amber © Jan 02, 2000

The Uber Male Ego : On Baking [#3] 0

Here is another opinion:

Some of my friends give me a hard time about my baking abilities. However I
never hear anyone complain when I'm making a pizza. Below you can see a picture
of a loaf of bread I baked. This isn't any ordinary loaf of bread.. This is
manly bread. A slice of this and a cooked piece of some dead animal (or a
package of ramen noodles) and one is ready to go to battle...or go to sleep.
This isn't like making cupcakes. This is survival food. This is a $0.16 loaf of
bread...

Blogged by : Eric [new blog] The Life of Eric [old blog ] Adventures In Tech Support post : Adventures in Tech Support :Manly Baking...

This post is short to the point & honest. Funny.

Link: Bread Snobbery? Arrogant Baker? You be the judge! 0

"I love to make bread too, but I make the bread, I do not delegate that very
pleasant, calming, almost therapeutic task to a machine. Bread machines were
devised by the Japanese, a culture that has no historic connection to real
bread.

Real bread, of course, is made by hand--it is "artisinal" in the
best sense of that word. Bread making becomes a craft, one works the dough with
one's hands--and arms, and shoulders. You punch the dough, massage it, roll it
under your palms. You look in after it, as it quietly sits and rises. You work
your life and the life of the bread together, so you can be there when it needs
you, to punch it down, to shape it, to bake it.
I have never eaten bread
made from a bread machine. I do not want to. Bread is too closely connected to
the daily life of humans to let a machine do it, and do such a poor job of
it--of bread making--at that.
Do yourself a favor. Make bread by hand. Touch
the dough. Make it live for you. Just throwing flour and yeast and water into a
machine and then eating the results is more than I can stand to contemplate." -- Ron

This comment was left on The food blog : On her first entry in Culinary Epiphanies . She then actually publishes an entry devoted to the comment here , and readers also comment. I myself reacted to this comment. There are too many arrogant bastards in the world.

If you come upon this entry while searching for Arrogant Bastard Ale - you'll find the official website here.

Here is how I responded:

Posted by Amber @ 02/14/2005 02:30 PM PST
Ron's example of "baking snobbery"
is ridiculous. I don't agree with his "breadophile" logic.

I am a
student learning pastry/baking. I have had past experiences in the baking &
culinary industry.

I would like to state a few points:

First ,
most people who purchase "artisan" breads - can't tell infant if it was indeed
frozen bake-off, meaning the bakery /grocery bought the dough from a factory
that was made & pre formed-- gasp -- by automated machines. And the
bakery/grocer proofed & baked it.

Less than 50% of bakeries are
"scratch" - using all their own formulas, scaling by hand etc.

With that
being said what really is baking? Is it the thought and time - whether automated
or not- that goes into creating something? Is it Being able to control the
ingredients that go into your product?

Who is the better person -
someone who enjoys the end product, or someone who is casting stones at those
who can evolve with technology or modern equipment.

I have made bread by
hand, & tasted bread machine bread. And guess what ? The chemical reactions
& fermentation stay the same. The end result, is bread. The fact that home
bread baking in any form, continues to exist is really great.

IF Ron
wants to go after someone - go after the giant corporations - adding chemicals
to their product - like Potassium Bromate[which has banned internationally
except for the U.S, & that is carcinogenic(causes cancer).

--- Amber
(culinary novice)

The Uber Male Ego - On Baking [# 2] 0

"There are certain natural instincts that all men have.
Hunting, gathering, protecting his territory…cooking is not one that you usually
group into this list. I think you would be remiss if you didn’t halfway admit to
yourself that there is something abnormally mannish about Pyrex pans and beating
eggs, though. Baking, I think, is the ninth manly instinct, the one that
directly follows scratching and comes before hot dog eating contests, and the
one that gets overlooked more than any other. So lets just call it what it is:
cooking is manly.

I see them everyday, those masculine chefs that stare
out at me from the covers of their glossy pages in the cooking section. Wolfgang
Puck, Jamie Oliver, Bobby Flay, Jacques Pepin….Julia child's….all of them, with
their meaty muscles and messy hair, all proclaiming for the world to see…I CAN
COOK! LOOK AT ME! They look good on those covers. And then there are the cooking
babes, not your homely mom types of yesteryear’s kitchens. These are pure grade
A fresh meat hotties right out of a sex-laden subliminal Food Network
commercial. They tempt you with their succulent flavors and exotic textures,
Rachel Ray domineering over them all with her toothy grin and golden spatula
saying, bow to me, oh, cooking legions… I am your queen! You will ebb and sway
with every sauce I make, with every crab cake I fry and put in a lovely little
decorative parfait glass over a bed of leafy greens. I can make a complete meal
in under thirty minutes…and it’s not Zataran’s Easy Make Jambalaya, it’s a real
meal! Hahahahaha!

Maybe that’s a bit far, not too far mind you.
Rearranging the cookbook section this last week did make me want to put some
time in the kitchen, so baking does make the In list this week. Time spent
slaving over an open gas flame somehow gets me in touch with those ancient genes
of roasting legs of Wildebeest over crude fires. It’s got to be manly if I do
it, right? Cooking comes in spurts for me and is over with before I even finish
the leftovers, so it’s probably back to Zataran’s next week. It was good while
it lasted. Although, I am fond of the cool little cooking names that all the big
time chef's give themselves. My favorite, is of course, "The Naked Chef",
although I do tend to like "Alton Brown the Science Kitchen Clown" for a chef
name. Since "The Naked Chef" is taken though, I think I'll take The
Promiscuously Nude Chef. That has a nice ring to it and at least makes you want
to tune in to the TV show."

Blogged by Lane : Life and Times in the Fastlane , post : of Cooking and stalin

O.k I love this post. I love the lyrical quality and the words he uses to convey a complete thought in transit. Lane goes to great lengths to describe here. It is honest --- he is not acting macho for anyone. He is simply stating his opinion. Subtle hints of sarcasm . And this post is very masculine. I think quite SEXY!

Culinary vs. Baking --- the icky blue line. 0

I asked a fellow baking student about the separation - the unspoken divide, that exists between baking students and culinary students.

Thin Blue Line by Derbeth

This was his response :

"It has always been there. No one has even tried to end the separation. When I first started, I started sitting over at the culinary table -- to visit with the former chef, he sat alone and I'd offer to sit with him. Everyone WOULD FREAK OUT if I mentioned going there...they told me: See that blue line the tile on the floor creates --- this is a line no-one will cross. IT is looked down upon."

I told him: "I had already committed that "taboo", no wonder I get looks". He laughed uneasily.

Another student , this time from culinary - had this to say:

"Bakers bake, cooks cook. Nothing more to that. We leave each other well enough alone, the only exception - lunch, or when we are hungry for some pastry."

Another culinary student - More brazen, actually came up to us (on our baking "turf"), though it was only the 3 of us, due to an earlier lunch because of the station we were in, he still came up to us and said this :

"I am trying to bridge the gap between baking and culinary. I am trying to make conversation with everyone."

Unfortunately he never attempted this ballsy move with the larger baking crew. He hasn't attempted this since.

It really is quite bizarre. And the main thing is everyone carries on this behavior as if we are rival fraternities. The right of passage for either is one's ability to ignore the other or avert your eyes . Doing this allows you full privileges inside the esteemed circle.

This is truly not what I was hoping to find. We are not part of some large & evil plot in a movie, we are just students learning.

And the funny thing is I have been on both sides. So far my previous culinary classes were so great. I loved the friends I made and all the memories. We had a blast.

So I imagined I would share this again. But it is awkward to try joining in on this bizarre discrimination. The problem is I have already made my stand. And people fear change.

The UBER MALE EGO --- On Baking 0

I came across some blogs showcasing male perspectives on cooking/baking --- The main question> Is it manly? And here were some of the results:

"Several recipes have come into my inbox from caring readers who have been keeping up to date on my News of the Day cooking ventures. 

I am a little off-set by this recent flux of nice mail.

First of all, nine out of the ten recipes I received involved me needing to use the oven. 

The one principle I stand by when I cook is that the oven door never opens. This is mainly because I am easily swayed by peer disapproval, and the moment any of my boys sees me baking, I will never hear the end of it.

Baking, for some reason, is not manly. I assume it's because baking is predominantly a female
thing. You never hear your boys tell you that they spent their weekend baking muffins. No one will come right out and say it, but it's just not done.

When I cook I am only doing two things: boiling or frying. I'm just saying it like it is. You give me uncooked food and I'm either boiling it or frying it. 

I'm not one to romanticize cooking with my friend the thesaurus;

I don't sear, simmer, saute, percolate, or stew.  

If I put it on a pan, I'm frying it; in a pot, I'm boiling it.

I came to this realization when I had a
friend over for dinner one night. 

I made shrimp pesto. My dinner guest seemed
impressed with this. But when a mutual friend called and asked what we were having, my
guest said, "Pasta." 

Pasta. That bothered me to no end. "Anybody can make pasta," I thought. 

"Saying I made pasta is like saying I know how to boil water."

That's when I evaluated what I did to the pasta that was so special in the first place. Nothing. I boiled it. The shrimp? I fried it.

When I realized that the only thing left was baking, life was fine from that point on. "

Blogged by Adrian Fung: January 26, 2005

His response is so "male". Honest but so male. In a small majority of males everywhere this may be what is seeded deep in there heads: Must resist baking ---play video games, bash anything feminine...microwave burritos! YES -- THAT IS It, I AM ALL That embodies maleness!


But I am not convinced this is accurate. Becuase I have met too many male , potheads or otherwise educated , who take interest in baking.


Although the stereo typing came about in the homes and apts across america, for many years, women would be tied to apron strings, getting dinner on, and baking cookies for bake sales & PTA meetings.


But it is not historically accurate - Professional Baking was a male dominated industry --- not too long ago. The first women entered the professional scene mabye mid 20th century.