Saturday, October 9, 2010

It Must Be A Dream

The shop is very nice. It's clean, large and new. 


They make French bagettes, various flatbreads and pita bread.


The woman that owns it is not from here. She has an accent that I cannot place. I don't know where she is from, but if I had to make a wild guess? 


Well? She reminds me a lot of a woman that my brother Marvin used to work for... She was from Trinidad. I don't know about this woman but it is just what I think of.


This woman is quite dainty, very well kept, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and very, very beautiful. Her eyes sparkle as you look into them. There is something about her that is just magnetic. I instantly liked her. 


She's commissioned a couple of other bakers to make muffins, danish and other sweets. That is a whole separate deal.


She's wanting to get this place up to producing in volume for commercial sales... She doesn't know anything about baking. She got the idea from reading books she said... She opened the shop, bought equipment, hired a baker and a sales clerk and here we go... the place just took off... now she wants to do more but she really doesn't have the time nor the desire to run it herself... 


"Dis, is not wut I do," she tells me as she waves her thin arms in the air and flips her dark hair from her eyes. "I am a business woman. I can market dis... but I cannot make dis work by myself. If you want dis job, it is yours!" she said, and I took her extended hand to receive a limp handshake... I instantly felt like an athletic bakery brute standing before a petite lady.


"I can run this," I told her as I was feeling very bold and confident. At the same time I could barely contain my excitement... 


I'm going to be in charge of this place. 


I make the schedules, I order the product, I plan what products we will carry. She wants me to bring in my own recipes. Everything!... She wants me to tell her what equipment I need to make it work and she will buy it for me! 


(#1... we need a cooler)


It's like having my own bakery without having to finance it!... Could I REALLY be this lucky? Could this REALLY be happening? Am I dreaming? 


Some of the product is different than what I am used to but I learn quickly and I am an excellent baker.


There is so much to do! I am already making lists in my head... 


She really wants her equipment to run... She bought it. It was expensive. She has no one that knows how to use it. 


I agreed that I would come back and work on getting her equipment running the following afternoon.


That night was when I worked at Twilight and found my reprimand whateverr-de-flippet in writing flat out in the open and had my freak out.... Then I went  down to my new shop to see what I could do. 


My goal was to get the sheeter and rondo working. The boss came in and met with me for a moment, told me to do what I could do and call her when I'd "made" something... (huh? She expects me to MAKE something?) Well, okay... I'd planned to just get the machines running. These things can be tempermental anyway, and when they are out of use they can be really knarley to get going correctly... but I can certainly "make" something too... 


I only had a couple of hours so there was really no way to start from scratch with something AND get the machines in working order... So, I went to pull dough from what the baker had left there in the fridge. There was croissant dough, pizza dough and butter bread.


I chose the butter bread and took about a third of the dough... thinking the baker is probably going to want to kill me... oh well... 


I was sure I could get the rondo to work so I chose to work on the sheeter first. I was really not sure that I could get it going correctly. I've never seen one like it. It is the smallest one I have ever seen and the knobs to adjust it are in different places. It was just all weird to me...


I quickly figured out what adjusts what, cleaned the oil from it, covered it in flour and started running dough through it at all different settings... metallic dust was coming out of it and going into the dough... it's brand new... I guess that's what brand new sheeters do... it's what this one did... I just kept running it until the dough was coming out clean and nice. Tossed all of the dough into the trash... yeah the baker is gonna want to kill me... haha! 


I ran a few more pieces through to make long strips and made some basic foccosia , brushed it with olive oil, sprinkled some Italian seasoning, rosemary, garlic, a bit of salt, some cheese and popped it in the tiny proofer. I considered doing some butterflake rolls but could not find any muffin pans.


With the sheeter working like a charm I set my sight on the rondo... I figured I'd have no problem with it. 


It was an older model but new as it appeared to have not been used much at all... except the previous owner had broken a plate, which is unfortunate. So there was only one good plate to use for it and most rondos come with three plates. (the plates you put the dough on to put in the machine and squish and come out as little rounds of dough.) 


It was dry and seized up... I oiled it... and still... arghhh!!!!


An hour later I was sweating and wondering what the @%#% is WRONG with this thing!


It seemed to be working properly but it was NOT cutting the dough! Maybe an adjustment is wrong... the cutters aren't coming all the way down? Here again you must think logically when working with machines... what makes the cutters release and go down... ah this spring attached to this handle, hey there! The spring is hooked up wrong, how did that happen? Switched the spring around... BINGO! Cutters came down as they should, the dough was cut and "rounded" into little balls. Woo Hoo! It works!


Then I went to bake off my foccosia bread. That is when I started feeling like a total boob. I could NOT get even ONE of their ovens to work! Maybe I was being too impatient. I recall convection ovens being very quick to heat up. These were not heating. I switched on their pita oven thing... it never heated up either.


I was pretty much exhausted with fixing things and burned out mentally for figuring out how things work... and I have had a very long workweek already too... 


Oh dear heavens... WHY aren't the ovens working?


A baker that cannot operate an oven... this is going to be embarrassing... 


Then my boss walked in. She was leaving for the day and wanted to see what I had accomplished. 


I showed her the sheeter. It worked like a charm. It is too SWEET really... I love it. I thought it was just my excitement rubbing off until she patted me on the shoulder and I realized that this was the first time she's seen this thing actually roll dough out of it. She was thrilled. 


Then I showed her the rondo and the dough rounds I finally got it to make as I explained that it took me a long time to get it working right. She nodded in understanding and seemed to be amazed and asked me to explain to her how it worked, which I did as I showed her. Her hands fluttered to her face in surprise. 


Then I showed her my foccosia in the proofer. "Oh, yes, yes.. " she said as she waved that away... She was only interested in the fact the I got her machines running. 


I sighed in relief and shut her (cold) ovens down. "I'll leave that for your baker to bake off in the morning," I said with as much confidence as I could muster.... oh boy... thank you thank you... oh dear heavens please don't make me look foolish... and she seemed fine... I got her equipment running and that is what she wanted. 


She went over again what her plans are and what she wants me to do. I told her that I will do it. She told me that she has very much confidence in me.


She wants to see "things" on the walls. She wants a "plan"... She wants a "routine" set in place. She needs recipes for mass production. She wants a solid recipe book put together. She wants exact costs of what the product takes to make. She wants production to increase now. She can sell it. We have to make it.


I know exactly what she is talking about. We need a bulletin board to post the schedule on, along with the production list, stales list, and supplies we need to order. I have some and can get more recipes. I can figure out costs. We can double or triple production the first week just having this equipment running. 


She knows exactly what she wants but not really how to do it. She does have a clue though. She IS a business woman. She is MUCH more professional than ANYONE I have met at Twilight (including the folks in executive positions) 


I looked into her deep dark eyes and was in awe as she waved her little arms widely and said, "Dis is YOUR kitchen!... RUN IT,"      

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