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Feb. 28th, 2009 09:45 pmI was juuuuuuuust about to post about how the font used for Rosemary Kirstein's bookspines (sans the decorative caps) was the exact same as the one used for Naomi Novik's books, and how I normally lack the eye for that sort of thing and only noticed on account of the rank serendipity of having shelved them side by side... and then I realized that they're both published under the Ballantine Books Del Rey imprint. Publishers using visual unity to establish brand identity?—alternately—house designers possessing favorite typefaces? UNPOSSIBLE!
So instead, here's what I've been thinking about bread.
I just started baking bread a week or two ago. It never really occurred to me to do it, and so I never learned as a kid/high-schooler/college-student/early-stage-bachelor, but I ran into a totally unexpected wall of spontaneous distributed peer pressure (God bless Twitter), and bam, now it's my current Project.
As probably all of you picked up back in '07, I spent a solid span of months working as a cashier for a legitimately world-class bakery. I'm allowed to say that without it counting as bragging, because I really had no part in the breadmaking; I just kept the shop and slung things across the counter. Take my word for it, though: Tammy and Steve were craftspeople of the highest order. (Actually, don't take my word for it, because their results speak more credibly than I will—if you ever end up in Minneapolis, stop by S. 46th and Bryant and buy a levain, a miche, and a 6-pack of bittersweet chocolate cookies.)
Anyway, reason I bring it up is that having their product ready to hand affected my tastes fairly permanently. I'll eat near any French/artisan bread, and I'll enjoy a good seven loaves out of every ten, but I won't really go opening my mouth about how it measures up, if you get my meaning. And now that I'm trying to learn that art myself, my former employers are sort of the mother of all yardsticks for my own efforts.
I mentioned just a second ago: I didn't help bake while I was there. I picked up some random knowledge and principles, but I didn't ask them to teach me Bread. (I felt like it would have been like a lv. 1 priest asking a lv. 80 pally where to grind xp, y'know?) But some things I didn't exactly realize I'd learnt have been coming back, if you get me, and what they add up to is this: the true master is superior on every. Goddamn. Level. Top to bottom. Yes, of course she has superior skill and cognition; that's kind of what the word means in the first place—but she also has better flour than you. She has better water than you. Better yeast, better butter, probably better salt, even. She has better lordship and dominion over time and space—her fridge allows her more control, she has designed her workshop's layout to lend more force to her every action, her tools are pleasing to the hand. Weaken her flour and ingredients—she is still better. Weaken her reflexes and cognition with a hangover—she is still better. Put her in an unfamiliar space, or give her unfamiliar assistants, or switch out her tools for alien or inferior ones—she is still better, because her skill extends to every place it is possible to extend it to, and she will keep improving and refining until she dies. Good fucking luck catching up.
And it's occurred to me that the potential of a man to be the next master is predicted not by native talent or by current level of skill, but by a four-fold sort of wisdom—a full and complete understanding of the master's superiority, the requisite stubbornness and coolheadedness to be undaunted by that superiority, the true desire to grow to one's limits, and the willingness to make all of the sacrifices one must make to do so.
Ten to one odds say I don't have that for the avocation of Bread! Right now, my working goal (subject to revision) is to achieve about 80% of Rustica Quality and then decide whether I care enough to shoot for any better—after all, there are world-class bakeries all over the place, and stellar bread really doesn't cost that much more than mediocre bread. Like I said, this is just my current Project. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the above principles port to other professions, and that they'll probably matter to me a lot sooner that it seems they ought.
So instead, here's what I've been thinking about bread.
I just started baking bread a week or two ago. It never really occurred to me to do it, and so I never learned as a kid/high-schooler/college-student/early-stage-bachelor, but I ran into a totally unexpected wall of spontaneous distributed peer pressure (God bless Twitter), and bam, now it's my current Project.
As probably all of you picked up back in '07, I spent a solid span of months working as a cashier for a legitimately world-class bakery. I'm allowed to say that without it counting as bragging, because I really had no part in the breadmaking; I just kept the shop and slung things across the counter. Take my word for it, though: Tammy and Steve were craftspeople of the highest order. (Actually, don't take my word for it, because their results speak more credibly than I will—if you ever end up in Minneapolis, stop by S. 46th and Bryant and buy a levain, a miche, and a 6-pack of bittersweet chocolate cookies.)
Anyway, reason I bring it up is that having their product ready to hand affected my tastes fairly permanently. I'll eat near any French/artisan bread, and I'll enjoy a good seven loaves out of every ten, but I won't really go opening my mouth about how it measures up, if you get my meaning. And now that I'm trying to learn that art myself, my former employers are sort of the mother of all yardsticks for my own efforts.
I mentioned just a second ago: I didn't help bake while I was there. I picked up some random knowledge and principles, but I didn't ask them to teach me Bread. (I felt like it would have been like a lv. 1 priest asking a lv. 80 pally where to grind xp, y'know?) But some things I didn't exactly realize I'd learnt have been coming back, if you get me, and what they add up to is this: the true master is superior on every. Goddamn. Level. Top to bottom. Yes, of course she has superior skill and cognition; that's kind of what the word means in the first place—but she also has better flour than you. She has better water than you. Better yeast, better butter, probably better salt, even. She has better lordship and dominion over time and space—her fridge allows her more control, she has designed her workshop's layout to lend more force to her every action, her tools are pleasing to the hand. Weaken her flour and ingredients—she is still better. Weaken her reflexes and cognition with a hangover—she is still better. Put her in an unfamiliar space, or give her unfamiliar assistants, or switch out her tools for alien or inferior ones—she is still better, because her skill extends to every place it is possible to extend it to, and she will keep improving and refining until she dies. Good fucking luck catching up.
And it's occurred to me that the potential of a man to be the next master is predicted not by native talent or by current level of skill, but by a four-fold sort of wisdom—a full and complete understanding of the master's superiority, the requisite stubbornness and coolheadedness to be undaunted by that superiority, the true desire to grow to one's limits, and the willingness to make all of the sacrifices one must make to do so.
Ten to one odds say I don't have that for the avocation of Bread! Right now, my working goal (subject to revision) is to achieve about 80% of Rustica Quality and then decide whether I care enough to shoot for any better—after all, there are world-class bakeries all over the place, and stellar bread really doesn't cost that much more than mediocre bread. Like I said, this is just my current Project. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the above principles port to other professions, and that they'll probably matter to me a lot sooner that it seems they ought.