Broken & Melted Thought Process Day

It's so hot....Puppy jumped over the bank to get into the creek this afternoon. She's usually better behaved than that.


I broke down and put the little window air conditioner in tonight. I smashed my pinky finger in the process. It's not severely damaged, just throbbing.


I feel like I am going nowhere. It's too hot to figure out where to go.


I'm kicking myself for not acting young when I was young. Now I'm middle-aged. Yes, I said it. Middle-aged. How the fuck did this happen? Obviously, it happened because time passes, unless you die, which really isn't in my 5 or 10 year plan.


That's about the only thing in my 5 or 10 year plan. I'm not much for life planning. I tend to drift along, moving from one thing to another without really plotting a course. Maybe I should try that. Having a direction. What a concept.


We have a client who wants 9 cakes for her wedding. Which is now 2 weeks away. Weddings are usually planned way ahead. We gave her a bid, 3 flavors, 3 of each - 9 cakes at the regular price of $18. She got back to us a week past the deadline, and she wants something much more complicated. For the same price. This demand was sandwiched in between over the top compliments. Compliments so excessive it was clearly an attempt at manipulation. I don't appreciate that.
The kitchen is so damn hot. It's almost impossible to work after 11 or so. Chocolate won't go into temper, buttercream melts....it's vexing.


SPOILER ALERT: For anyone who didn't read Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, or hear about the plot when the book came out, skip this paragraph.


Going to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow. I don't remember much about the Half-Blood Prince. Except that it was dark, a bit tedious in places, and Dumbledore dies. I don't think there was anything as scary as Delores Umbridge, her pink tweed suits, and her office full of kitten plates.


Puppy has decided that 4:30 is a great time to get up in the morning. She has no concept of weekends. So we'll be up with the sun. And probably at the park shortly after. The air will be fresh and cool, the wooded trails by the creek will be inviting, and stillness will be giving way to birdsong and the whirring of the early morning cyclists. And after about 20 minutes or so, my brain will stop spinning, and there will be nothing but the rhythm of my steps, the sound of the water, the touch of the breeze. This is the real reason why I walk in the park. Not for fitness, not because I should, but for those moments when movement and stillness become one and the same.

The Indignities Continue....

I ask you, does anything in this case say "ballerina cake for a three-year-old"? Do any of these elegant, decadent, chocolate drenched and sometimes boozy cakes suggest toddlers or ballerinas?

I suppose it's a compliment that parents want a cake from us rather than the grocery store. I suppose it's great that parents are encouraging palate development at a young age. But a ballerina cake? For a toddler? Ack. It's so not what we do, so not what we are known for. Ballerinas. WTF.

I have some ideas. I want it to be pretty, something that won't be a source of shame. Just because she's three doesn't mean she has bad taste.

Defending My Honor

Today I learned that recently several people have come into the shop and accused us of purchasing our truffles from other chocolatiers. And from Whole Foods. I wrote these people off as ignorant. Yes, there are some molds that we have in common. Given that a finite variety of molds are manufactured, it's inevitable that cool and attractive molds will be used by more than one chocolatier. It's the fillings that sets us apart; it's what's inside that counts. We do not now, nor have we ever, purchased truffles from our competitors.

But today, Chef told me that someone came into the shop and told the counter person that we obviously bought our cakes from Gateaux and were trying to pass them off as our own. As the person who makes most of our cakes, this idiotic notion insults my craftsmanship, my professional pride and my personal and our company honor. For about twenty minutes, a righteous smiting seemed like a reasonable option. I considered adding twit-en-brochette to the menu. ( that's fancy for ninny on a skewer).

I have nothing against Gateaux. They do beautiful work. Beautiful work that is completely different from anything that we do at Wen. In a twisted, nit-wit kind of way, I suppose it's a compliment, although it clearly was not intended as such.

It's a few hours later. I can see the funny side of it. I no longer want to run the impugners through with the point of my sword. I'd be happy just spanking them with the flat of it.

Holiday Pastry Madness 2008

These are our spiffy new cases.

11 straight days of 10-13 hour days.

Here's Saturday's pile o'cakes - all made by yours truly.

There are no photos of the thousands of truffles we've gone through in the last two weeks.

Here's what we did today. 11 regular cakes, 12 Battenburgs and 3 Buche de Noels. It will take a parade to get everything down to the shop.

Tomorrow, we take all our cakes and all our truffles down to the store. Then we come back and deep clean the kitchen. And then go home. We're off on Christmas. I haven't looked forward to Christmas this much since I was about 5.

Blood & Chocolate

The yearly blood sacrifice to the the pastry gods was duly made during the waning of the Hunter's Moon. It involved a frozen red velvet cake, a cake slicer that is just shy of being a short sword, and of course, blood. My blood. Rather a lot of my blood, but not so much as the previous two sacrifices. Three cuts on two fingers of my left hand ( a feat that can really only be accomplished with a serrated knife, for those of you playing at home). No need for stitches this year, although one cut is still oozing a bit. As if anyone really wanted to know.

I'm rather tired of cake just now. I made three round red velvet cakes, three square chocolate cakes, and two half-sheet chocolate and white cakes. The half sheet cakes are for Wen Chocolates first anniversary, which is being celebrated tomorrow (Saturday the 25th), although the actual anniversary was September 29th. We've been a bit busy. Cake is free, and there will be other little treats as well, so if you are in the Denver area, come down to the store between 10am and 5pm, and say 'hi' to Will and Loren. I won't be there, I'll be in the kitchen with my 13 year-old apprentice.

I'm housesitting this weekend, this time it does not involve opening and closing the store. Just feeding Najah's dog and fish, and having a house completely to myself from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.

Just a few more hours of work tomorrow (starting at 6am so I can put the finishing touches on al the cakes) and then just solitude. Yay.

Wine, slow cookers and cake

Beouf Bourguinon - beef with carrots, onions, mushrooms, garlic, thyme and wine. Burgundy wine. Have you tried to find Burgundy at the liquor store? Yeah, no.

So I was wandering, carrying two bags of groceries and a twelve pack of toilet tissue, looking for Burgundy. The shopkeeper came over to help. He didn't look like a wine guy. Crewcut, piercings, celtic necklace, black teeshirt, Doc Martens, long black apron..... Another lesson in not judging. He knows wine. He explained that the Burgundy wine is made from Pinot Noir grapes, that the wine from the Burgundy region of France is priced way out of the reach of most people, and that Pinot Noirs from other parts of the world are really good. He asked my price range and steered me toward Parker Station 2006; he said it was the most 'drinkable' wine in the price range. He wished me luck with the recipe. If he didn't smell like a smoker I might take him some. The wine is certainly tasty. One bottle provides the two cups for the stew and one generous tumbler for the cook. It's a bit on the tannic side, (it sort of curdles the edges of my tongue) but I like it.

And I needed a glass of wine with this recipe. Every ingredient needs to be browned, sauteed or simmered before going into the slowcooker for 8-10 hours. So it's simmering overnight. Because trying to pull this off before going to work is just not going to happen.

Total change of subject - go to http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com. Let the schadenfreude begin.