4 A.M. Biscuits and Scones

Appears in

Huckleberry: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes from Our Kitchen

Published 2014

About

I look around the kitchen. The caffeine is kicking in, everyone’s energy is beginning to lift, and the night cleaning crew looks as though they might finally be ready to clear out of our way, which they were supposed to do an hour ago.

Our pastry girl is making possets and starts telling us how her weird blind date last night kept making dirty jokes about how good her “cupcakes” looked after she told him she was a baker. Needless to say, it doesn’t seem like a second date will be happening.

One of our morning bakers is not here yet. I just called her for the fourth time, but she’s not picking up and I’m about to hurl my phone across the kitchen. It doesn’t look as though she’s going to show up, and that’s going to make our already difficult morning a lot harder. Those are the hazards of staying out past 7 P.M. when you’re a baker. You have to remember we have no sun, no trash trucks, and no noisy kids waking us up, so if you hit snooze on your alarm because you’re in the middle of a good dream, you can easily sleep through half your shift and we’re all screwed.