Cake Rape

I can't stay long. As many of you know, I have been hard at work on a paper about a spice that I genuinely despise. I've never liked anise and I certainly don't like it now but that's what's been keeping me. Blame it.

In the meantime, I thought you'd like to know I've been cake raped. This is a phrase coined by a classmate of mine who aptly noted that pastry was screwing us all out of time, valuable time, that could be used to make actual food. You see, in addition to creating three or four culinary masterpieces a day, we are also expected to produce one pastry item.

I hate baking. No, I mean that I really really baking. I dislike baking so much that I will often refrain from roasting meat because it also occurs in an oven and closely resembles the act of baking. Furthermore, I hate putting dough into pastry bags. I dislike putting pastry cream into pastry bags. I dislike piping both of these substances into other vessels and hoping that whomever should have the misfortune of eating them doesn't choke to death on the sawdust that I have produced.

You see, I make good food because I love to make it. Heck, I don't even mind throwing together a nice pate brisee every once in awhile and having a nice quiche for lunch. But for several minutes the other day, I seriously considered quitting school because of a cream puff. Actually, I didn't think about quitting but looking back on it now, I'm really surprised it didn't cross my mind considering how irate I was at the genoise dough. And don't get me started on my pastry cream. I don't have the time to list the ways I loathe that entire process.

The fact of the matter is, I don't mind making desert as long as it is infrequent, not an interference with my ability to serve food on time and specifically requested by someone I like because 1) they are dying and 2) they also have a birthday coming up. The trouble is, I love the pastry chef who teaches us. She's hilarious and Thai and says "Doing!" a lot. ("Doing," by the way, is an especially effective way of conveying a range of points and emotions. Anyway, I just don't have the heart to tell her that I hate what she teaches me. And maybe I'll learn to like it. I probably won't, but in the way captives are inclined toward Stockholm Syndrome, it is always possible I will at least get used to being cake raped.