I should get plumbers wages

Rough night, after a long rougher day yesterday. In Filemon's absence, Mark Levy stepped up big this week. Doing everything he has needed to and then some. He should be very proud of himself. Something to be said when you create nice product under extreme pressure, and uncomfortable circumstances. People pushing you all day long for product that has been promised to customers. Game ball Marc Levy. The week is almost over.

I arrived at the bakery at 2:45 this morning. I changed into work clothes and upstairs I went. I walked past the spiral mixer only to find a huge mess. Buckets of nasty water, and a sign on the sink saying "Do not use the sink". I really don't understand it, but whenever there is a leak/spill in the bakery, the immediate reaction of a night baker is to throw dirty aprons and cardboard at it. Never once have they tried to find and eliminate the source of the leak. So of course I turned on the water, no problem, for six or seven seconds. Right out of the front of the grease trap, just like a fountain. A hole, a hole in the center of the front of the grease trap about a quarter of an inch. How do these things happen? A hole in the center of a 1/8 inch thick steel. So I turned off the water, and waited for the spewing to stop. I started mopping. More cardboard. I took the cover off the grease trap. Gotta say, most people, when they wake up on a Saturday morning, awaken to the smell of eggs and bacon. Me, not so much. Don't know how many folks reading this have ever emptied a grease trap. Not much equals that, on the potency scale. So I managed to plug the hole with a nut and bolt, two fender washers and a couple squares of cut up garden hose. I only have to make it 'til Monday morning. So far so good. Oh, nothing like picking up dirty aprons, soaked in grease trap fluid, either. Soggy cardboard. I shoulda stayed in law school.

So the floor has been mopped up. During that episode, I had to bake the fruit topped croissants and the brioche for the farmer's market. My plumbing duties kinda backed those things up, so the truck got away late for the market. Just as I pulled the rack of croissants and brioche outside, I felt the first rain drop. I didn't last long and didn't rain very heavy. I'm expecting rain today, we cut down the markets by thirty percent. This day has only one way to go.

In spite of all that, my son Guy made some really spectacular chocolate leaf tortes. He finished them this morning. We use three thin layers of chocolate cake filled with our own chocolate mousse. He cooks sugar and trickles it into whipping egg yolks. Once that is cooled he folds that into melted fifty five percent Belgian chocolate. That, then gets folded into pure unsweetened, whipped creme. He pours the mousse into acetate band, ringed cake layers. He sets these up overnight in the fridge. The next day he pours them with a chocolate glace. Once the glace sets, he covers the sides with broke up shards of thinly spread chocolate. We've been working on getting these right, for some time. Since we are using real chocolate, it's needs to be tempered. Tempering chocolate in a humid, hot, flour strewn about bakeshop, is tricky. He's learning how to use a marble slab to do this. The cakes today, had it all. Nice glace, nice and shiny. The chocolate pieces, on the outside are nice and shiny as well. The sheets of chocolate had a nice "Snap" to them, when broken. These cakes fall into that category of goods my Dad talks about "Get in your car and start driving..........." Good job Guy.

Gotta run upstairs and check my plumbing job. Hope the floor is still dry. Day bakers will, at least tell me, when they're reaching for the dirty aprons. Haven't heard anything yet. Good sign.