…to The Bear and the WSDA

Warning: this post contains gentle spoilers about The Bear.

I was late to The Bear. Since season one came out, people have been recommending it to me. I mean; Italian food, Chicago, kitchen intensity, unhinged family members; this show has my name all over it. It took a while to finally get around to watching. For one thing, I had heard it was stressful, and since I spend much of my day with tiny humans, and much of the day cooking for them, for work, and for any other number of friends and family who happen to be around, the intensity of my day, and my kitchen, is already pretty high. When the kids are finally (finally) asleep, and I sit down to unwind, immersing myself once again in cooking and family stress is maybe not my first choice?

But, this show is definitely worth the heightened blood pressure. We finally dug into season one a couple weeks before season two came out. So, we had the pleasure of rolling right through the whole thing in one go. And yes, this show is right up my alley. In fact, I’m obsessed.

Where else in “the culture” is generational trauma and grief portrayed in a way that is so completely intertwined with food?

Season two’s Fishes episode shook me. Not only because it was a television tour de force, but because (and I know I’m not alone when I say this) it struck some troublingly familiar chords.

Most, actually, I’d venture to say, all, families are touched by cycles of addiction, resentment, tension, and HOLIDAY STRESS. All families grapple with grief. And, in Fishes, all of it, all, is trapped in the meal. For someone like me, who’s part of a family for whom food is; a love language, a coping mechanism, a means of processing, an art, a science, a compulsion, a way of life; this episode landed more deeply close to home than anything I’ve seen in a while.

And also, we need to talk about the hotties. Every person on this show is on fire. Now, I know the internet was obsessed with broody chef Carmy in season one, and season two brought with it the frenzy over pastry chef Luca. And, yes, those guys are a couple of real smoke shows. But, I’m a Richie gal, myself. Liking Richie is not a hot take now, since we’ve all seen him realize his potential in season two. But, I’ve been a Richie stan since episode one, when he was wearing track pants and poppin’ off at the Ball Breaker nerds about recycling. I mean, seriously, give me a gangly, blue eyed, loose cannon with a cute accent, loud mouth and a soft heart and it’s over, I’m done. And, while you know I love a man in track pants, I am NOT MAD AT ALL that he “wears suits now.” Not to mention his transformational journey towards purpose in season two. Chef’s kiss.

But enough about Richie…

We have to get to my other favorite character, our sweet donut king, Marcus. I love watching his process (and, let’s be real, watching him, I said it was a show of hotties). Marcus gets space to be inspired; to create. He’s out there doing R&D. As someone who worked as a product developer, I love seeing all the fun parts of the job, and Marcus’s growth, through this show. The second season’s, Honeydew, was a sublime look at his process and his journey. I loved every minute of it. To be fair, they do show some of the not-fun parts of Marcus’s job too. Who else was crushed just as badly as his donuts when Carmy smacked them to the floor??

I could go on and on about why I love every character (can we talk about Tina’s world-peace-bringing smile and her unwavering commitment to “Jeff?” And I cannot not believe that Ayo Edebiri is a chef in real life. She plays Sydney so. damn. well.), and every episode (but that’s what the internet is for, right?).

Season one was a delight. Season two was a revelation. Of course, I’m dying for a season three. At the same time, I have a tendency towards a “there’s always another shoe” mindset, so I’m terrified it won’t live up to the dreamy first two seasons. We can only hope!

Ok, we gotta transition from The Bear, though, Because I’ve got news on my hot docs.

I’ve mentioned, in a previous post, some of the many steps involved in becoming a bona-fide baker under Washington state’s cottage industry law. By far, the parts that have taken me the longest are documenting all my recipes and developing labels for each product. A challenge here is that all recipe development has to be done way ahead of any actual bakery launch. Recipes need to be final to to submit with my application, and to make accurate ingredients labels. Now, I can submit recipes and labels after the fact. But that costs money… so, best to get things done now. But, just when I thought I was done, a little labeling sticky wicket popped up: net weights.

Net weight: it’s that little statement on the bottom of every food label that tells you, well, what the thing weighs. To be honest, I kind of forgot about that part of my label. I didn’t know what my cookies weighed, or how many to put in each bag, or how much each package would weigh.

So, I endeavored upon a bake off of all my products. And, this ended up being good, because I not only got finished weights for my products and ran packaging tests, I also timed myself for each stage of production, for each product.

I almost never make one thing, beginning to end, in one go. Because, as I’ve mentioned: tiny children. When you have them at home, you don’t tend to get large swaths of time to do anything. But, I find that baking really lends itself to being done in stages. For example: I can weigh out my dry ingredients at one time, set that aside, to deal with, say, a crying child. Come back later, mix up a dough. Set that aside, to say, make dinner. Then shape and bake, later that night, the next day, or whenever I get to it.

The info from my timed bake-off will inform my production schedule for my eventual (eventual) first pop-up; when I can fit each stage, for each product, into my life. Like they say, in our favorite show, “every second counts.”

And what powered me through the full bake? Why, coffee, of course. And The Bear soundtrack. It’s fire. Is there nothing this show can’t do?