You Will Be Found

Chapter Nineteen

The new head pastry chef/baker was at the door of the coffee house when I arrived. He was a larger man in his mid thirties. Straight away I knew he would be fun to work with.

"Hey New Girl. I loved your breakfast egg cups you brought in yesterday. Did you use white truffle oil in them? Where did you find find fresh truffle oil at this time of the year? You have to keep it between four to six degrees or it will go off." 

I looked up at the guy as he let me into the building and shut up and locked the door behind me. The room was dark, but I could see the lights were on in the kitchen already. He kept talking about the history of truffle oil and the fact it wasn't actually extract from truffles, but an olive oil infused with truffle flavour. His words were full of scientific facts, interesting to learn, but I was wondering the whole time who he was and what his name could be.

"Oh, sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm your supervisor here in Brewed Awakening, head chef and bottle washer." He passed me an apron, hair net and lead me to the kitchen wash room and instructed me to thoroughly clean my hands.

"I'm Charles Swain, but you can call me Charlie. I'm local born and bred right here in C City and I've been baking for close to ten years now. I've just moved back to the city from where I trained as a pastry chef so that's why I'm here now. How about you?" He finally interrupted himself to give me his name and a brief run down of his baking background.

"Hi." I smiled. "I'm Lina Laruna. I've just finished high school exams. Um. I just moved to the top of the building across the road." I pointed to the direction of my apartment building.

"I bet you're a science buff." He said. "The flavours in all three of your pastries were spot on. That takes a fair understanding of the process on dough and pastries. If you don't mind me asking? What did you score on your sciences exams?"

I shook my head. "Exam marks haven't come out yet," I replied quietly.

"What do you believe your marks will be?" He grinned and pointedly stared at me. I turned around a bit to place my hair in a kitchen hairnet.

"Um. Full marks, sir." I responded shyly.

"I knew it. We're going to have so much fun in here." He rubbed his hands, excited all of a sudden, which perplexed me. "Come this way."

He lead me into the kitchen proper, showed me the different parts of the kitchen and their functions, then showed me the huge bags of ingredients for everything we would need for this morning's baking. Sugar (three different types), flour (five), yeast (two), oils (four) and many, many more. Starting off with what each ingredient was named, how it was used, it mineral properties, reacting processes and how it interacted with other ingredients used with it... His descriptions were very scientific. He made me smile.

We spent the morning going over the pastry and breads recipes for the shop's main menu. Everything was written in precise measurements and timing. He had me watch every step of his workings then made me emulate his actions in the mixing and kneading.

I was covered in flour before the shop even opened. And it went on from there. I was tired, but happy when ten AM came around. The manager, Mr Leigh, arrived in the kitchen, asking Mr Charlie how it went for the both of us, since we were relatively new to the shop staff. Charlie praised me on my resourcefulness and work ethic and encouraged me to continue doing what I was doing and we'd all get on just fine.

I came home, still on a high at being praised so thoroughly. First thing I did was shower, as both my kittens sneezed when I walked in. I really was dirty with flour and stuff. I think I may need to buy my own white kitchen uniform – the double-breasted jacket, I think. I don't own enough clothes for me to be washing them every day.

I slept with the kittens until after lunch time. I wasn't hungry as I'd eaten so much this morning when Mr Charlie had me try everything he'd made so I could learn exactly how it was supposed to taste. I came home with a few savoury pastries that I'll probably have for dinner.

Writing, composing, catching up with reviews and painting for my freelance clients. It was a fun day.

The week went really well from there. Coffee house first thing, followed by mid day nap with the kittens. Writing and composing or painting and drawing, then dinner for me and my babies. If I felt like it, in the evenings I went out onto my balcony to watch the world go by. I've started to move my plant babies out there too, the plants that need more sunlight or fresh air. I picked up a few gardening supplies and a watering can from the local supermarket, but I think I need to go to a garden store to pick up something better.

At the end of my first week at work, something new happened, which excited me, then something scary happened that nearly gave me a heart attack. I was doing science with Chef Charlie, when Mr Baxley junior turned up demanding to know what the heck we were doing. He used a worse word that that though. He just came, out of no where, right there in the coffee shop kitchen, scaring me half to death. It turned out that the Baxleys owned Brewed Awakening Coffee House and I hadn't even known.

Hang on, let me explain. It was a busy morning, being a Sunday, and many families and old folks had come out for brunch, when our menu is usually extended with a few more items that the head chef has created. They were usually placed in the cabinet display under 'Chef's Special'. Usually the items are what ever Chef Charlie is interested in making that day. Yesterday and today, I stayed after my ten AM finish time to watch what he was doing. Today, I happened to ask him if sugars could caramelise at different rates depending on the PH level. His eyes widened at my question and I could see 'Mad Scientist' mode kicking in.

He finished off a few of the breads and passed the rest of the preparation onto another kitchen worker – who had more experience than me – and pulled a bench top double burner from the store room and set it up. Then he explained the scientific process of caramelisation, the Maillard reaction, and which professional recipes require what PH levels for their sugars. My first assignment from my supervisor was given – test PH levels of sugars, test caramelisation times and at what temperature and length of time it takes for each type of sugar to burn.

Obviously, Chef Charlie had me working under an extraction fan so when I did burn things, it didn't affect things too much. But the smell of warm sugary goodness permeated the whole shop, and by lunch time, everything sweet in our display cabinet had sold out.

We had finally moved on from the whole caramelisation processes and into creating and exploring sugar dust explosions using a turkey baster and a lighter over the large stainless steel work station in the middle of the kitchen. Seriously, fine sugar particles can light up really fast. Perfect little kitchen flame thrower. We were enjoying ourselves, laughing as we tested how fine the sugar particles had to be to get a larger flame explosion when a very loud, very shocked voice yelled throughout the kitchen.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" I turned to find a rather angry looking Mr Jaique Baxley, followed by the store manager, Mr Leigh standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Chef Charlie started laughing, walked right up to Mr Baxley, thumped him on the shoulder, then explained very casually to the irate boss that we were: "lab testing the thermal properties of monosaccharide dust particles when introduced into commercial environment."

The whole kitchen froze in stunned silence. I started shaking in my new chef jacket and hairnet, wondering if Chef Charlie was about to get both of us horribly and terribly fired. Then he spoke again and I nearly choked on my spit.

"Come on, Jaique. Loosen up a little. I haven't seen you in five years and you're still a stick in the mud. By the way, where did you find this little Firecracker?" He asked, then pointed to me, who was still holding the sugar dust flame thrower and lighter.

I had no where to hide.