Hunter-gatherers and Farmers. Which are you?

There are truly no new ideas so I won't claim authorship of this one. Just rediscovery. I have been thinking a lot recently about who I am in relationship to the work I enjoy and have developed a set of mental models (analogies at best, self-deception at worst) to help me understand this better. I recently read Is the World Half Crazy? and came to the realization that I am a Creator Hare (as opposed to an Advancer Hare, Refiner Turtle or Executor Turtle). This explains why I like creating things out of whole cloth, but enjoy iterating and operating much less. Another distinction hit me today which I call "hunter-gatherers and farmers." An operating role is like being a farmer. You decide what crops to grow (where you want to place your bets and investments), you plant the seeds and nurture them until you can harvest the crop. How well you plant and cultivate, along with the randomness of the weather, determines what your yield will be. The hunter-gatherer, which I believe describes some aspects of what I enjoy most, surveys the landscape and goes after what is already out there that fits the need. My current role involving M&A-type activities fits this model as does my passion for recruiting talent for Amazon. Are these answers? No. But they are interesting lenses to view the world through and understand our place in it.

In Search of the Best of Seattle: Croissants (Part 1)

I am an inherently cautious person. Thus, it would be premature for me to crown the 'Roi de Croissant' from just one sampling from a limited selection. However, I had to start somewhere. I am fascinated and obsessed with finding the 'best' of anything. I would rather have a little of the best than an abundance of the mediocre. For the past year or so, I have been wondering whether it was possible to find a good croissant in Seattle. From our fairly frequent recent forays to Paris, I have developed a better appreciation for French food and wine and want to approximate if not closely replicate my gastronomic experiences there with what I can find here.

So, to the competition. The goal is to find the most authentic croissant in Seattle. If you are like me, you have noticed that what passes for a croissant here is a soft, fluffy, bread-like pastry whose only croissant-like feature is that it is in fact crescent-shaped. Enough is enough and I firmly believe that if you are going to eat a croissant, you are obliged to find a real one. For this particular taste test I chose to compare Besalu, located in Ballard with Cafe Presse near Seattle U, the offshoot and sister restaurant of Le Pichet near Pike Place Market.

Early Sunday morning I drove to Besalu and was pleased to run into my friend Gordon Waddell. I am glad he is well and he has a beautiful 14-month old daughter. I bought a croissant and a coconut macaroon (they looked so good and it occurred to me that I may want to do some early research into 'the best macaroon in Seattle' at some point). The croissant was still warm and they also gave me a little container house-made apricot confiture to go with it. I resisted the urge to tear into the buttery pastry right then and there and carefully raced to Cafe Presse to pick up the other contestant contemplating whether to plug in the incubator that I have been carrying around in the back of my car for a week to keep the croissant warm. The croissant I picked up at Cafe Presse was not piping hot having been prepared earlier in the morning. They also gave me some apple-rhubarb confiture.

Once home, I put on a pot of coffee and prepared my experiment, layout out both croissants, butter, the confitures, coffee cup, orange juice and some sparkling water to 'cleanse the palet' between samplings. The end-of-cycle spluttering of the coffee machine signaled that I was ready to start tasting.

Below is a picture of the matchup. Besalu's croissant on the right and Cafe Presse's on the left. Each came with a little house-made confiture, apricot and apple-rhubarb.

Visually the Besalu croissant was more appealing, having a slight shape but not overdone. The flaky exterior was also more authentic. On the texture front, Besalu won again with the right amount of crunch on the outside with glutenous stretch inside. Cafe Presse's croissant scored higher on smell and 'mouth feel' though with a silkier, more buttery finish. In the final analysis, though, I declared Besalu the winner.

Next matchup will be Besalu and Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle. With this face-off I hope to identify the best croissant in Seattle, though I am happy to also consider other contenders.