Pastry Chef Conference, night 3

I am finally too tired to do a thorough re-cap.
The panel I was on was great. I said a lot of things, some of them rebellious. Yes, I know you're surprised. Bill Yosses was on the panel and my favorite quote from him was,

"I think too many of us are serving our diners our experiments. We need to test out some of our creations on our colleagues first."

Lunch was exquisite. Gorgeous on every level that the senses could experience. Sensual, supple, aromatic, spicy, visually varied in color and hue, texturally eclectic, sweet and salty. Extremely satisfying. Created by the chefs at Devi.

Then we broke off into 5 teams and came up with 4 desserts:

1. Frozen, 2. A Cake Like Item, 3. Fruit, 4. A Dessert of Your Choice.

Our team had a lot of fun throwing ideas out, being sassy, and wrapping it up in time. Then we went into the palatial estate of the CIA Greystone kitchens and got to work. Each team broke up into smaller groups and took on one of the 4 desserts. The kitchen was stiflingly hot, expansive and vast, busy like a hive on cherry blossom day. I tried to take some photos and talk to chefs on other teams, tasting this and peering at that.

Tomorrow we do a little more prep (@ 5 hours of prep, start to finish, in total) and then each team presents.

Tonight we were 15 at Ad Hoc. A loud group, rambunctious and silly, it's good they only had room for us in the crook of the dining room's elbow! We were all insanely happy to be eating beef. And it was damn good.

Bonsoir.

Comments

[misha]

Shuna,

I am so happy you are having this experience. Having been to conferences there before - including a little time at the first pastry conference they had. As usual you are capturing it perfectly and can't wait to hear more about it in person.
Bill Yosses is great. Always has a very interesting perspective on our business.
xo

[cheryl]

How did you find out about the conference and will they be having this again in the future? Us, baker-pastry chefs didn't know about it. But it sounds great and what's really great is that because you are telling everyone about it, more people will know. Also that it's great to netowrk with other pastry chefs in the industry all over.
Hope you are having a great time.

[shuna fish lydon]

Misha. What can I say? it's all true. And does this mean I see you REAL SOON in person?!

Cheryl,
I've heard about the conference before through the blogosphere. But this was the first year I was invited. I feel honored indeed.

[misha]

if in the next couple of months is soon...indeed.

[Tea]

I love this feeling of being a fly on the wall of somewhere I would never get to fly otherwise. It would have been fun to be dining at Ad Hoc that night and seen you all exuberant. I would have enjoyed eavesdropping:-)