[Photograph: Anna Markow]  Continuing with the theme of last
week's post (Nobody Ever Tells the Pastry Chef), here's another
unfortunate, far too common theme in my line of work. I'll call
it Lies We Tell Our Pastry Chefs.  What follows is a list of
lies that myself and fellow pastry chefs have been told. Some
are merely exaggerations or overly optimistic concepts to lure
hopeful pastry chefs into less than ideal situations, others are
lies told by owners to executive chefs to pass down to pastry
chefs.  "Just look at this kitchen! You'll have so much space
here." The truth? The space was shared with garde manger and
pastry was stuck working out of the corner of the service
kitchen. See also: "This is your world down here! So much space
to yourself plus one prep person in the morning. And that lowboy
is for pastry." Up to four prep people in the morning, three
quarters of the lowboy were filled with housemade pickles.  "My
daughter (the old pastry chef) used to make a wonderful [insert
pastry here]..." Nope,