A Few Lessons Learned in the Kitchen
My first successful sourdough loaf- what started it all.
This month marks one year of working in a kitchen! At the beginning, I truly did not know if I would last a month, much less a year. My current job is my first in a kitchen, and the learning curve was steep, the standards are high, and the work is physical. Those first couple months made me question myself more times than I could count, and I often left work feeling lost. But over the last year, amidst the chaos, I feel like I’ve found myself in the kitchen. I’ve met challenges and completed tasks I never thought I’d be able to on my own- both in baking and interpersonally. I’ve learned about setting boundaries, believing in myself, and taking pride in my work. I didn’t know these would be some of the outcomes of the last year, but I’m grateful for all of the opportunities for growth, even though some of them really sucked in the moment.
There have been other lessons from the last year that surprised me, so I thought I’d share some of those in more depth. I know the list of the lessons that lies before me extends indefinitely, and that’s one of my favorite things about food: you can never stop learning new things. Each ingredient and each iteration of every recipe presents countless opportunities to learn something new- about the food and yourself- and I think that’s pretty neat.
A Few Lessons Learned in the Kitchen (thus far):
I like doing dishes. In a fast-paced environment, where one’s attention is required every second of every task, I can’t help but enjoy the time I spend executing the very clear task of converting a full sink of dirty dishes into an empty one. I tend to be on the anxious side about work things, especially when I first started in the kitchen. During the early days, I found refuge at the sink, knowing I was helping my coworkers by doing this very uncomplicated task. Dish time is also a time to let my brain take a break. That’s probably one of the biggest revelations about baking in a professional kitchen: you have to focus on every aspect of your work. Zone out for a second while mixing a cake batter? You’ve overworked it and it’ll be tough. Distracted while prepping dry ingredients for cookies? Maybe you forget to add the baking soda, but you can’t remember! (Both of these have happened to me). I didn’t realize just how “on” you have to be while baking, so part of me doesn’t mind one bit when I have to do some dishes. Apologies to my mother and father, whom I lived with in my Anti-Dish-Washing Era.
Engage your abs, lift with your legs. I learned this the hard way. And I am still getting reminders from the muscles all over my back that I’m not doing this enough. I love that I don’t sit at a desk for my job, but baking eight hours a day comes with a lot of squatting, lifting, and leaning, and all those activities require abdominal strength if you want to do them correctly. And if you don't do them right, you’ll spend the first couple weeks in the kitchen nervously wondering if you are physically strong enough for this job… like I did. Luckily, I realized the issue and promptly doubled down on my yoga which has helped tremendously. I still experience fatigue in my back and shoulder muscles almost daily, so I clearly have some work to do. Like any physical activity, I think supplementing baking with stretching and other strength-building activities promotes longevity. I think of it almost as cross-training. I want to bake and work in kitchens for a while, so I need to care for my body in a way that prepares it for the work and protects it in the long run.
You are going to mess up. A lot. This is the hardest lesson! But probably the most important. I do not take making mistakes well. I’m pretty sure that applies to most people in kitchens, because a lot of us got into this work to provide people with delicious experiences. And if you mess up, it jeopardizes that experience. Plus, it never feels good to waste food. It’s especially hard for me to stomach making mistakes in the kitchen because of just how intricately linked my work is with my coworkers’. It’s actually one aspect of the job that drew me to working in a kitchen: teamwork. I played team sports all through elementary school to college and feel very comfortable with and inspired by working with teammates. Similar to sports, one mistake made by a team member in a kitchen has a cascading effect, often resulting in someone having to go out of their way to help correct a mistake. Unlike sports, it may result in a loss of revenue or food waste. That hurts a lot. What’s humbling, but also unsettling, about the work is that you will always make mistakes in the kitchen. No matter how long you’ve been at it. The important thing is what comes after the mistake. I learned early to never hide a mistake from coworkers- asking for help is always the best move because someone might have a quick fix that you didn’t think of. Making a literal note of the mistake helps too. Sometimes, I’ll fill in the margin of a recipe with a couple words of advice for the next time I attempt it. It’s hard to strike the right balance between embracing a mistake for constructive purposes and holding onto it in a toxic, unproductive way. I certainly don’t have it all figured out yet. But for some laughs and perspective, here is a by-no-means-comprehensive list of some mistakes I’ve made thus far:
Underbaking a cake
Overbaking a cake
Forgetting to mix a time-sensitive cookie dough
Overmixing pie crust
Adding too much water to baguette dough
Using the wrong amount of starter in baguette dough
Unevenly mixing salt into baguette dough
Overworking scones (they all had to be tossed)
Overmixing cake batter
Undermixing cake batter
Overmixing the butter in scone mix
Baking cookies incorrectly
Forgetting to add salt in cookie dough
I like baking as my job. This was a lesson I was very happy to learn. A month or so into the Pandemic, I- like so many others- began baking sourdough bread. Several months later, I realized that it made me extremely happy and also inspired me in a way that felt significant. I felt a drive to learn more about bread making and baking more generally. So when it came time to leave the farm and look elsewhere for work, I began emailing every local bakery to ask if they were hiring. Fast forward to mid-May 2021, and I began my first baking job. I had conversations, with friends and with myself, about hesitations regarding turning a hobby into a career. I was nervous- what if I was romanticizing the idea of working in a kitchen? What if I don’t like it? There’s so much conflicting information out there about work/life balance, the dangers of mixing business and pleasure, the joy of loving what you do so you’ll “never work a day in your life…,” the list goes on and on. Ultimately, I knew I had to figure out for myself if baking in a professional kitchen was for me. I’d regret it if I never gave it a shot. And I’m so glad I did. While the fast-paced environment is certainly different from homebaking, I enjoy the teamwork, the tactile nature of each task, the smells, the endless opportunities to learn about food, and the music coming from the speakers throughout the day. I’ve come to appreciate the repetition. It is a unique opportunity to get to do the same tasks everyday- the potential for mastery and technical discovery is tremendous. And that excites me in a way that I have not felt before throwing myself into baking. The job is hard, though. And I’m grateful to have the opportunity to understand what it means to bake for a living- the good and the bad of it all. At the moment, the good is so good and it’s something I want to stick with for a while.