As I baked
I spent quite a few years as a baker.
I started out working for my brother and his 3 friends at the Real Bread company outside of Detroit at what we called the chicken shack as it started life as a chicken barn at a chicken farm.
Then we moved into Detroit near gratiot and I94 across from the Better Made potato chip factory then down a side street, literally on the corner of two residential streets, to the Italian American bakery which at the time was abandoned.
The grandpa was coming out to leave for the day and was met by a thug with a gun demanding his money unfortunately he had none so he was shot dead, as soon as everyone (all family members) inside heard and came out to find him dead they shut all the machines off and walked out the door.
A few years later Real Bread bought it and after an extensive cleaning we starting baking, bread, muffins, cookies, sesame crunch, granola, and various other things.
I left Real Bread at one point to go to Boston to study Macrobiotics, a lifestyle type thing that believes in balance in all things, I ended up as a dishwasher for a while but moved up to baking for them, Mishio Kushi tried to tell me I didn't need any leavening in my muffins (just put them in the fridge overnight and the contrast between cold and heat from the oven would raise them) but I didn't have time for experiments. After a while we left there and came back to Michigan and I went back to Real Bread.
After that I spent some time baking at the Inn Season, making chapatis, some desserts, etc.
Then I started working at the Panda bakery which was in the front part of the Panda tofu/soy milk shop where a lot of these recipes were developed.