This week is busy for me. I will go to my brother’s pastry shop and help him today, although it is not the weekend. March 3rd is the little girl’s festival called Hinamatsuri in Japan. It is a busy day for pastry bakers.
Today, I will introduce an enjoyable experience at his shop: trying to discover an effective method.
Chopping macadamia nuts
Last weekend, I experienced chopping macadamia nuts for the first time.
Since the macadamia nuts were used in the pound cake, they were too large as they were. They must have been chopped.
In my brother’s pastry factory, the nuts were crushed with a knife by hand, not by machine. There was no suitable food chopper that could crush them evenly into equal sizes. Nuts are light, the blades of the food chopper are on the bottom, and it crushes the nuts by gravity, so it makes separate nuts into fine powder and large pieces. It doesn’t make them the same size.
In addition, food choppers would make their appearance terrible. Imagine peanuts coated with peanut butter and their roughly ground dust. Nuts contain much oil, which makes ground nuts buttery and messy. It has an ugly appearance.
Although there may be other tools for this problem, like nuts chopper for commercial use, he didn’t seem to consider it.
That was why nuts were chopped by hand at my brother’s shop. While there might be other creative solutions, I had to complete the task using a knife.
Discovering more efficient methods
A new experience is enjoyable. Trial and error in the midst of chaos is surprisingly fun for logical people.
In my case, my brother didn’t give me proper instructions. He cut a few of those nuts for reference and only said, “Make them all about this size with this large knife and finish as quickly as possible.”
Although I first guessed I could do it soon, I realized it was a difficult task. The macadamia nuts weighed 2.3 kg! Even after chopping for 30 minutes, not even one-third is finished.
To be honest, it was a traumatic experience at that point. I wondered why he decided to bake such a time-consuming cake in the midst of a labor shortage.
However, creativity helped me. I discovered that modifying the position of nuts is more efficient to cut than moving my knife. Then, I noticed that by putting chopped nuts in a bowl and spinning it, I could separate the fine nuts from the large pieces. That made it possible to cut even sizes.
That enabled me to finish the task in a bit over 1 hour.
Although it was exhausting work, I realized it was fun after finishing the task. Struggling to discover a good method on my own is logically entertaining. I would never thank my brother, who didn’t give proper guidance, but that made it fun.
An environment with a detailed manual is not necessarily enjoyable for logical people. A chaotic place, like my brother’s pastry factory, might be more fun.
Conclusion
Anyway, I will go to his pastry shop today as well.
A series of unexpected events is enjoyable for logical people.
Trying such an environment may entertain you.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
