Friday Notes, June 21, 2024
Dear Friends —
I’ve written about men’s basketball and women’s basketball. I’ve even written about sailing. But I have never written about baseball. Today’s the day.
Today’s the day because of Willie Mays, who died on Tuesday in Palo Alto, at the age of 93. If you’ve read any of the obituaries and tributes, or followed his illustrious career over the years, you know that Willie Mays was a singular figure in sports: performing at the highest level over 23 seasons, charismatic and charming, commanding respect and loyalty from legions of fans.
Those would be remarkable achievements for anyone, but all the more so for a Black man born into 1930s Alabama, who entered major league baseball just a few years after the color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson. If you read this 2021 article about the impact of racism on his life, or watch this tribute video from the San Francisco Giants, you cannot help but come away inspired. And we all need a little inspiration these days.
As a general matter, I prefer to spend my leisure time not playing or watching sports, but baking. In fact, I’m such a committed baker that my social media algorithms regularly serve up ads for industrial-style bakery equipment. Let me know if you ever need to buy a commercial oven.
My current fascination is with French pastries, especially variations on croissants. As you probably know, croissants get their flaky texture from alternating layers of yeasted dough and butter — a method known as lamination. It’s taken me a while (and a lot of YouTube) to figure out how to consistently make these little golden jewels. And while learning to make croissants I’ve found out that they are a pretty good metaphor for systemic racism. (I bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?)
Three things you have to pay attention to when you’re making croissants are the ingredients, the technique, and the ambient temperature. The ingredients are few, but they matter. I’ve gone so far as to find a supplier of French T45 flour and butter with 87 percent fat content because it pays off in the end.
The technique requires patience, precision, and an ability to keep even pressure with a rolling pin while stretching out small dough-butter-dough rectangles into large ones. This is what the YouTubers spend a lot of airtime teaching.
But it’s the temperature that makes the difference between a flat pastry and an airy one. During early steps in the three-day preparation, you need the dough to be cold so the butter hardens enough to roll; later, you need the dough to be warm enough for the yeast to rise but not so warm that the butter melts. Both my refrigerator and my space heater get a workout on baking weekends, and I even cool down my countertop with icecubes.
So maybe you’ve already guessed how this metaphor works. The ingredients represent “nature”; the technique is “nurture.” And the temperature? That’s the environment all around us, shaping opportunities to realize potential. It is an invisible but powerful force that makes almost all the difference.
The first 2:45 minutes of this data visualization are incredible.
And here’s the best commencement speech I’ve heard in a long time.
Have a good weekend,
-Ruth