First Day

I've just changed jobs. I have been a pastry chef for a good number of years already that I stopped counting. Today I have pressed the pause button for that chapter of my career and decided to take a turn to another field in my profession. Chocolates.

Its my first day as a chocolatier. Yes, I have been working with this ingredient through out my pastry life, making mousses, tarts, cakes, chocolate cigars, little garnishes here and there. But this time, its all I'm going to be working with. Just chocolates. I will be using liqueurs, nuts, fruit purees and sugars to transform chocolate in the hundreds and thousands of ways it can be seen, smelt and savoured. It is not an easy feat. It is both bitter and sweet.

BITTER: First Monday of the month. Deliveries come in and everybody in the kitchen has to help out, check the stock, HACCP standard- check temperatures, lot numbers and expiration dates. Make sure all deliveries are in, count all the boxes. We also have to load it to the chocolate storage room. Heavy stuff? Yes. Need muscles? Yes. Do I enjoy it? No. Unlike hotels where there is a receiving guy and a steward to take care of these things and fold the boxes for us, in here, we don't.

It is also the start of production week. So we need to polish all the chocolate molds. Scrape the excess chocolates and use cotton swab to take out the cocoa butter left from the previous batch using our fingers. 50...100...150... I lost count. We have to do it all. Tedious? Yes. Repetitive? Yes. Why? It is important to start work with clean molds. It ensures the chocolates come out easily from the molds once it is sealed. Shine, contraction, consistency. That's why. It is IMPORTANT. That's lesson number one.

SWEET: It is a dream come true. As a pastry chef I always feel handicapped not knowing chocolates fully. Just using it as a part but not as a whole of what it can be. Working with chocolate now completes the whole picture for me. Like all artisanal skill, this cannot be learnt by just reading books and watching shows. It has to learned by doing.

The day went smoothly, finished cleaning down 4pm on the dot. Oh yes! I have regular working hours now. Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm. For some, this would not mean anything, but for a pastry chef like me who has worked 4 am breakfast shifts all the way to dinner shifts ending at 12 midnight or during crazy nights 1am, this means a lot. Saturdays and Sundays for a pastry chef is near non-existent. So for me to have these working hours, It is one of the sweetest things I can have.

Also, I can see that I am part of a team of passionate chocolatiers, mostly pastry chefs in the past as well who have joined the company with the same objective as me. Its looking good, tomorrow is another day I look forward to.