Peach Cobbler, Squalor & Sons

The wide variety of species infesting the bakery is innumerable, but alas, even more food is spoiled by the humans.  Each workday begins by me grappling with an overflowing trash, swirling with flies, recklessly stuffed and blithely ignored by teenage employees and managers alike.  Both sinks are buried by crusty pans, greasy silicon muffin tins, and plastic containers still holding globs of mayonnaise and handfuls of pasta that were too...fatiguing, I guess?...to have emptied, which then proceed to clog the drains, which then begets the next round of "Not It!" as everyone continues to use the sink, filling it to the brim with swampy dill-scented bacteria-water.

Back at the prep table, I sort through necrotic raspberries, wipe off lids evidently cursed to eternal stickiness, hold my breath to search the mold-ridden fridge, and am spiritually deadened, again, to find raw chicken on a shelf high above all the pastries.  

Like the man throwing starfish back into the sea despite the futility of saving them all, I try to at least gesture towards actual sanitation.  Some people fear civilization will be done in by nuclear war, or a supervirus, or the apocalypse; I believe the tragedy of the commons will eventually utterly erode humanity.  So grinds on the summer of cutting melon for minimum wage.

Fortunately, the contrast between work and home life could not be starker.  We've had so many fun guests -- thank you for visiting, fabulous Carissa from Antarctica, by way of Greenland!

And JF's friends going back to medical school, who also love talking literature 

Monsieur et Madame

We got married!  It was a wonderful weekend with many lovely friends and family all managing to speak bits of French and English together.  I bought nearly ten pounds of cheese; I bought way too many baguettes, but most of the rest of the food was spot on.  But even better than nailing the meal prep, we were filled with joy from everyone's support and enthusiasm.

Two of our neighbors very kindly lent their houses, so our families and friends from afar got to hang out for a few days with the easiest of logistics.  This also afforded me the fridge space to shuffle around all the watermelons and beer and wine and pans of moussaka and carrot cake and more for three big meals.  Don't worry, I didn't have to cook after the ceremony -- we had a rather nice lunch at a restaurant in our village with fancy little bites of dazzlingly garnished delicacies between courses, and a bold, successful savory cherry glaze on sea bass.

How I am lucky enough to have stumbled across such a delightful person to share life with is impossible to understand.  One day while hiking, fairly early on in our relationship, I asked more from general curiosity than in reference to myself, "Would you ever get married again?"  Jean-François thought a few moments, broke into a grin and he replied with a chuckle, "Sure! Why not?"  His warmth, his openness and optimism are like a magnetic field, whose force silently pull me in his direction.  

we kept it classy and did not smash cake in each other's faces

mom and me savoring our strawberry tarts

 JF's brothers and their wives serenaded us before dinner

 

Questions for the Big Day

-How much smoked salmon dip will fifty people eat at 11 o'clock in the morning?

-How do I put on lipstick again?

-If I ace-bandage the rest of my arms and exclusively sun my shoulders for two weeks will my t-shirt tan equalize?

-Which French family and friends herald from regions where cheek kisses start on the left side, and who starts on the right?

-At what point does shedding tears go from "awww..." to "uh-oh..."?

-Back deck lizards: friend or foe?

-Where will everyone pee?  (See: limited bathrooms)

-Will I be emotionally overcome by the poetry of mandatory French vows, such as: "spouses owe each other assistance;" "neither spouse, without the other's consent, may dispose of the household furnishings;" and "If one spouse fails to fulfill their obligations, the other may compel them to do so through procedures in the Civil Code"?

-Will the brownies be as good as the ones at my previous wedding?

the groom, also working on a non-traditional tan

These are the dried remainder of poppies, which are fascinatingly reminiscent of sand dollars and starfish.

Hot Cakes

We have officially abandoned the forlorn head of lettuce, four beets, and solitary bean sprout that survived the first heatwave a few weeks ago.  Yesterday, and today, and for at least three more days, it's 100F.  The plants on the back deck are within hose range and thus succorable.  As I finished my workday yesterday, the fridges were failing one after another; the building is quite old, with no industrial ventilation, and we run the ovens from 3am to noon most days.

At least at home I can swell and perspire in peace.  Jean-François has taken on a castaway/drunken tourist vibe, his customary short-sleeve shirt now completely unbuttoned, heat-induced torpor slowing his rhythm and drowsing his eyes.  We closed the shutters to shield the house from the relentless burning sun.  Padding around our murky cave, subsisting on chilled gazpacho and self-melting cheese, we await the relief of the setting sun on these longest days of the year.

we planted a lemon tree(!)

"Sing, oh Muse!" begins The Odyssey, the masterful ur-classic of literature, a beguiling swirl of entertainment, fact, fantasy, tradition, religious ritual, and the brutality and cunning of man.  Like the ancient bard-singers of epic poetry who re-told time-honored oral histories throughout generations, we too transmit our cultural heritage, recalling through vivid imagery the essential elements and treasured details from one person to the next.  -Since there was no one working who had actually decorated one of these cakes that I could ask for directions, I had to refer to a photo one of the cashiers had taken, and now I have a photo of the photo to guide me.

Go to Bread

Back: To the Bakery!  When I didn't know what to do after a stint in a fancy restaurant thirteen years ago, I strayed across the culinary divide to the world of flour and butter, where we proudly cut with dull knives directly on metal countertops because a baker's phallic symbol of prowess is a perfectly crafted baguette.  My first bakery was (and is) a nonprofit that trained immigrant women of color to be artisanal bakers, with English and computer classes to boot.  They came from Mexico, Bangladesh, Haiti, Albania, Guatemala, Pakistan, Morocco, as well as one quite memorable Englishwoman.  Colorful accents abounded as we ladies meshed our wildly different experiences and personalities.

I've been thinking about those women a lot the last couple of weeks as I again quizzically search the faces of my coworkers for clues to the garbled words that drift elusively past my ears, like a school of a thousand fish turning away at the last second, evading apprehension. Certain practices I take for granted in kitchens out me as not just foreign but almost extra-terrestrial -- or so it feels from the marked French reactions.  Actually, it's not just kitchen stuff, but cultural differences in general, which really do shock.  For example, the unlevel playing field when meeting people.  The first week I was greeted by no one, not a soul came up to tell me their name or ask mine.  I concluded that that must be normal, if disappointingly unwelcoming.  Week two, a bread guy walks up and says, "Hey, why don't you say hi in the morning?  Wave to us, come to the oven and ask how we're doing?  We don't bite."  Well sure.  Maybe if anyone ever did, I would?

The work itself is pretty basic: decorating tarts with fresh fruit, making meringue to pipe in curlicues and singe, shellacking flan with preserving glaze, breaking down endless cardboard boxes.  Little by little I progress, suppressing my Midwesterner's anxiety over perceived conflict when people yell at each other (jokingly...?) about little things, and cry out with the frequency and singsong of roosters, "Oh WHORE!" which to be fair is the equivalent of "aww, crap."  

the secret of the curl is to not think about it

our pretty vines are flowering

Miss Interpretation

It was with marked trepidation that I pedaled off to work three weeks ago.  I put on my feeble costume of white shirt/black pants/black shoes, set out my new razor-sharp knife, and promptly cut myself using the potato peeler.  My boss and two other cooks were pleasant, if reserved, and moved with the alacrity of NBA players.

In fancier kitchens, no attention to detail is great enough, no precision is left unarticulated or unanalyzed.  I stretched my powers of observation, absorbed beyond saturation complicated and lengthy discursions in French on such topics as the most "beautiful" quantity of salt crystals with which to adorn a pat of butter and how much more delectable breadcrumbs are when placed off-center atop a cold soup, and employed the submissive "oui" that means "Sir, yes sir!"  There's nothing wrong with this world, but my place is not in it.  Well over a decade ago, I promised myself I'd never again work a job necessitating tweezers to place tiny garnishes and flowers on food, nor multiple varieties of micro-herbs to convince customers to pay five bucks extra for a fistful of cold fish.

The entire economy of our island is based on summer tourism.  The population booms tenfold in July and August; every business hustles to squeeze the most from the season.  There aren't enough permanent residents to staff everything, and housing for seasonal workers is limited and pricey.  My boss just converted an art gallery into a brand new restaurant, and waited for me to get back from Alaska to start work, so I felt extra shitty about quitting.

Indeed, my boss was disappointed, nay incredulous when I gave notice.  He maintained a bizarre amnesia/denial until my last day, when he thanked me and hoped I'd be back sometime as a guest.

Thankfully I had one guiding light: François, a talented and lighthearted cook not unlike the Weasley twins, who constantly joked, was subtly clever, sang little songs, congratulated me on realizing what I didn't want my life to be, and encouraged our eating of dessert "mistakes."  

I tried to get outside and enjoy all the lovely spring flowers

Flowers: For Nature, Not Your Dinner Plate

End Notes

Our last few days in Alaska again proved its bountifulness.  We skied up a new creek, flowing open in the middle but bordered by thick shelf ice, and ascended into ever more rugged and narrow passages.  Every angle of light newly cast into relief the rocks and trees and water.  Just days after the equinox the sun seemed a dozen times brighter, warmer, and everlasting.  Along with the sun returned old coworkers, punctuated by hesitant, awed new ones.  The seasons wax and wane, and we with them.

We went south by van, which although time-consuming allows the enormity of the landscape and the change in one's circumstances space to unfold.  Passing the Arctic Circle, Finger Mountain, the Yukon River, the Enchanted Forest, the old trading post, and winding down into the foothills of Fairbanks is a sort of ritual, and each stop serves as an observance of past markers -- other springtimes with their own anticipations.

Fairbanks flaunted its grunginess (as always) but Jean-François is a man not easily discouraged.  When the bus refused to come he suggested we thumb it, for which optimism we were promptly rewarded.  Later, we repeatedly circled a metasticizing strip mall before finding the unmarked door of an actually charming wine bar.

I had been increasingly nervous about Jean-François staying through the 90th and final day of his tourist visa, given recent events.  So, we cut short our visit with his cousin in Salt Lake City, but managed to hike surrounding canyons, revel in blooming flowers and leafy trees, and thoroughly enjoy each other's company, in a mix of French and English.

Thus my re-immersion began, and continued with a week in Montreal.  Now, way back when, Jean-François and I met about the tenth day of walking the Camino.  But he already had buddies, including wonderful Fiona, a young nurse from Alsace.  She was tiny, her backpack was enormous, and her wildly mobile face was cartoonish with expression.  We were thrilled to see her again, and she and her boyfriend made us perfectly at home.  We cooked together, walked all over the city, and ate gratuitous amounts of maple syrup for a solid send-off from North America.

sugar shack with Fiona and Théo

Emma Creek, just after a section of boulders

the melting commences

a wedding invite collaged by our pals