Today, during work, I was able to take some snap shots of a few recipes from the recipe book in the bakery when I was left alone on my own devices while the rest of my colleagues went to buy ingredients for lunch. It was cool though, being left in the bakery alone, not so much about "borrowing" the cake recipes, the phone in the bakery only rang like once and I didn't pick it up, but it was a bit annoying because it kept ringing and ringing, so much so that I went to the toilet to hide for a good 15 seconds before realizing how ridiculous that was, it's like the person on the other line decided to just let the phone ring until he or she got the....
"The person you are calling now is not available, please try again later."
I'm not the person you are looking for so call again later, I'm too new to know how to take a customized cake order. Probably might start promising things the bakery can't deliver.
"A dozen cupcakes within the next half an hour with fresh multicolored roses for decorations? Yeah we can do that."
'Oh gluten free cupcakes? Yeah sure we do that." <- Probably one of those bullshit people who are trying out the gluten free diet because it's trendy, so I will just skip that gluten free part out and probably get a lawsuit for the bakery afterwards because the person who ordered probably died from gluten poisoning or something.
"You want to have a real life leprechaun seated on a cake with a fondant basket filled with gold dusted coins? Yeah I will just call the Irish central kitchen to delivery it via the Rainbow Express."
So I managed to take a few recipes down and can't wait it try it at home soon, using good quality ingredients because the bakery, for financial purposes I guess, skimps on the ingredients they use, the baker that I was working with on Sunday told me about it and, like me, didn't really like how the company was doing that to save money.
Apparently in the past, they used to use Valrohna Chocolates but because the boss wanted to save money, they decided to just get their chocolates straight from Phoon Huat. Not to say Phoon Huat has horrible chocolates, I've eaten horrible chocolates my Father bought from China before so I have a pretty high benchmark of how terribad chocolate can get and whether or not they are real chocolate is questionable, but going from Valrohna to Phoon Huat, there's definitely going to be a drop in quality. The kind of butter and vanilla extract they use, there are definitely way better brands out there.
So when the other bakers came back from their ingredients shopping spree , the sous chef decided to let me off early, told me I could leave right after I had my lunch because there really wasn't anything left for me to do, the cakes were fully stocked and the butter cream were overstocked, in fact the entire fridge was so pack they couldn't put any more stuff inside, and that was partly thanks to my repacking. I made sure the fridge was slightly tidier and more organized, which in turned lessen the available spaces inside that I think at one point, the head chef had to reorganize it again to free up some space so the other bakers could put their crumb coated cakes in.
While the sous chef was preparing the lunch, I decided to be a good Samaritan and asked the other baker if she needed any help, and she asked me to help her measure out some ingredients for a recipe she was going to prepare later, and of course I was more than willing to help because I'd much rather be measuring out ingredients for her then wander around the kitchen looking at pots and pants like they are the most interesting thing I have ever seen. After measuring and having my lunch, decided to linger a while longer to look as if I was way too hardworking of an employee who needs to be chased out of the kitchen by the head chef otherwise he'd be working the night away... but really all I did was take a cloth that was within my reaching distance and started wiping the table that was already clean to begin with.
While I was pretending to be a hard worker, I noticed the baker whom I had helped measure out the ingredients prior started walking up to the white board and writing out her to-do list, which included 4 different cake recipes, one of which I had already measured out and put aside to let her do later... when I am on my way home, the problem though was that she doesn't write her to-do list on the board, only the sous chef and I write our to-do list on the board and the sous chef was way too busy with his own work to be able to help her prepare her recipes... the damn list she had written down was meant for me.
That was when the sous chef decided to ask me to prepare all the recipes written on the board, conveniently forgetting that he had told me I could leave right after lunch 30 minutes earlier. It was a depressing half an hour before I finally got over it and tried to churn out the batter as fast as I could, it was a really messy affair, the cake started rising like crazy in the oven and volcanoed all over the baking tray, it was really ugly.
After doing 2 of the 4 recipes, and re-measuring out the ingredients for the final recipe because of some last minute changes I was informed of, the sous chef decided to let me leave early. It was probably because I was messing up the recipe, I don't get why they don't want to get a damn ice cream scoop and instead want to rely on a pipping bag, it's so much hassle and extremely messy because we have to re-use the pipping bag to save money.
One thing I have found out recently is that most of my colleagues are very similar to me character wise, they are all quite reserve and don't really initiate a conversation with the new guy... and during lunch, if the new guy is around, rather than start a conversation topic only they can participate in like when their close friend and ex-colleague "Sally got so drunk she went to the beach and starting selling seashells" , they would rather keep quiet so no one will feel left out, everyone will just become friends with the awkward silence.
Every time I go out to have lunch with them, whenever they decide to take out their smart phones to surf their Social Networking Sites instead of actually trying to start a conversation between the people who are actually there physically going, I keep thinking of that picture.
I sort of understand their plight, since I also have trouble trying to include new people into a conversation when I have other friends I know around but the last thing I will do is to take out my phone and start surfing the internet, it's like you aren't even trying to be social with the people you are with ... well the last thing I will do is probably the take the butter knife and stab my neck so I can get out of this lunch choked with awkwardness.
Kudos to people who actually managed to become my friends.
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