Read Online The Semi-Sweet Hereafter by Colette London - Free Book Online Page B

broad-shouldered in chef’s whites. He’d tied a bandanna on his head. “Don’t see the point, me.” He frowned. “We’re all bloody doomed anyway.”
    â€œNo, we’re not!” disagreed the petite, plump baker beside him. No longer an apprentice, Myra had been through the fire. Her grit and experience showed. “Phoebe will set things right.”
    There was a general murmur of agreement over that. Except for Hugh, who was the newest apprentice, they all seemed to have the opinion that Phoebe would be able to right the ship.
    Largely, I figured, with my chocolate-whispering help.
    â€œIt’s a matter of time. You’re all a bunch of blind idiots, if you can’t see that.” Hugh’s sinewy muscles flexed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his whites, showing off multiple tattoos. Beneath his bandanna, he had wild hair and a pierced eyebrow. In his combat boots, he carried a knife. I’d seen it when he’d hoisted some trash. “I never should have come here.”
    He whipped off his apron, untying it with nimble fingers. He hurled it away. His knuckles bore multiple tattoos, too.
    On a stream of swearing, Hugh stomped toward the back door.
    Myra nudged me. “Shouldn’t we go after him?”
    â€œNope.” Hugh needed time to cool off—time to regain hope that his apprenticeship would work out. “He’ll be back.”
    Everyone looked dubious, but I was certain. I’ve known people like Hugh Menadue—proud, hotheaded, and impervious to the dangers of fire, knives, and 115-degree heat—for years now. He was born to work in the restaurant business. He was family now.
    We all were. That was my rule. When consulting, my first order of business was diagnosing interpersonal problems in any given environment and dealing with them. Only after that did I tackle brittle cookies, failed viennoiserie, or fallen gâteaux.
    With Hugh momentarily left to his own devices—and, most likely, the comforts of a cigarette in the alleyway—I set about assigning tasks. One baker chopped chocolate with a sharp chef’s knife, turning it from a solid block to uniform tiny shards. Another cracked room-temperature eggs, kept that way so they’d blend uniformly with the batter and not “curdle” it—basically, overchill the butter in the mix, and make it harden into small lumps. Another sifted flour. A fourth added hot coffee to cocoa powder, melting the cocoa butter trapped within those particles and enabling them to meld smoothly with the brownie batter.
    That’s a trick you might not have heard of. Although it seems efficient (and obvious) to combine dry cocoa powder with flour, it’s almost always better to mix it with a liquid first. Otherwise, you’re leaving flavor untapped. Just take one whiff of the resulting slurry—as I did then—and you’ll be a convert.
    As the (lackadaisical) business went on in Primrose’s front of house, we went on with our (umpteenth) brownie lesson in the back. I might have despaired of ever teaching the beginner staff the best ways to grind almonds for macarons or beat eggs for genoise, but their mistakes were the best way to learn.
    I can tell you twenty times not to overbeat the sugar and butter for chocolate chip cookies, to substitute part bread flour for cakier results, to add more salt than you think you need, to chill the dough before baking, and not to reuse a sheet pan before it’s cool . . . on and on and on. But until you’ve spent forty-five minutes laboriously mixing chocolate chip cookie dough—only to scoop it, bake it, and wind up with a lavalike spread of greasy, flat, sadness-inducing cookies—you just won’t get it.
    While the resulting (refined) brownies baked, I got busy checking with Primrose’s resident chocolatier. To my relief, the department that handled truffles, fudge, and handmade bars full of cacao nibs,