Starchefs International Chefs Congress 2007

[BryanZ]

The foie/squab/bacon/cabbage dish looks sooo crazy delicious.

I would imagine one could achieve a similar "vacuum-cooked" leafy green using a FoodSaver through light freezing. Emphasis on the light. I doubt a FoodSaver can pull a hard enough vacuum even through repeated packings. An hour in a home freezer MIGHT change that. This is purely theoretical, by the way, so please don't think I'm doing anything but thinking off the top of my head.

[adey73]

Is it like the restructuring of watermelon/strawberry under vacuum?

does the vacuum break down the cell walls?

Thanks in advance

[docsconz]

Dave Wondrich making "Tombstones" with Woodford Reserve Bourbon.

Two views of Ken Oringer's marvelous Oyster shooters - how did he do it?

Junior Merino used Amerula Cream Liquer and Appleton Estate Jamaican Rum in his cocktail.

Andoni Aduriz with Asbel Reyes and Seiji Yamamoto. Aduriz and Yamamoto have collaborated on dishes.

Subsequent to the Cocktail party I went to wd-50 for dinner and Tailor for an after-party, but I put the camera away.

[The Blissful Glutton]

Thanks for the report, Doc.

Wish I could have been there.

[alanamoana]

i keep coming back to this thread and there's always more!

thanks again docsconz for a wonderful report. i can only imagine the amount of "work" you put in at the conference! what a treat for those of us who couldn't be there.

[docsconz]

Thanks for the report, Doc.

Wish I could have been there.

←

You 're welcome. It is a lot of fun with a lot of great culinary information set in a great location at a very reasonable cost. This year was larger than last to the point that they are thinking of limiting the number of people who can attend to keep it from getting too big. I'm not a chef (obviously ), but I haven't heard of any not thinking it was a great experience.

[docsconz]

i keep coming back to this thread and there's always more!

thanks again docsconz for a wonderful report.  i can only imagine the amount of "work" you put in at the conference!  what a treat for those of us who couldn't be there.

←

The cool thing for me is that it was just all a lot of fun. This isn't my job nor do I make any money from it. I love it because it helps give me some insights into the food I love to eat and the people creating it. Putting the report together on top of my other non eGullet Society responsibilities is a lot of work, but if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. I'm glad that others are enjoying it and hopefully getting something out of it. Unfortunately, because I am not a chef and I spend a lot of time behind the camera, I can't really answer many of the technical cooking questions too well.

[docsconz]

Starchefs ICC Day Three: September18, 2007

Dani Lasa, Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz' assistant from Mugaritz prepping part of the dish called "Vanity" prior to their demo.

[docsconz]

Chefs Aduriz and Gualtiero Marchesi exchange greetings prior to their demos.

[docsconz]

Cocoa Bubbles, Edible Rocks and Vegetables. Andoni Luis Aduriz, the thoughtful and celebrated chef of Mugaritz outside San Sebastien demonstrated some of the techniques he has developed and uses in his intensely personal "Techno-Emotional" cuisine.

From the Starchefs Program notes on Chef Aduriz:

Imagine: you sit exhausted by a day of intense work and great pressure. Slumped in an armchair, with eyes practically closed, you feel surrounded by a cloudy, dream-like sensation. Your body gives in to gravity and your mind abandons you. You are incapable of deciphering what is real and what is not. You hear, you intuit, you smell and perceive what you believe is is happening around you. The impossible appears so real and viable that it appears normal. Then a sensation of lightness, freedom and purity covers you and you smile slightly. You are at the precipice of the border that separates the known from the unknown. There are no judgements, no impossibilities, no norms. You can eat stones. You wonder - who says that vegetables do not smile when we caress them? Who says that vanity cannot be materialized on a plate? You open your eyes, and the world of possibility continues to exist. It is not a dream.

Chef Marchesi and his assistant look on from the wings.

Chef Aduriz started his demo talking about and showing his apparatus for making "bubbles". It is interesting to note the evolution of this technique since last November when he presented it at the CIA's World of Flavors Conference on Spain and the World Table at Greystone. While he also used a fishtank aerator then, his presentation apparatus as can be seen in the photo above has become much more elaborate and improved for generating the airfilled, xanthan gum stabilized films. The bubbles in the receptacle are from beet juice. I tasted them backstage. The flavor was actually quite substantial for such an insubstantial material.

Plating the beet juice bubbles.

Chocolate cakes for "Vanity:. a dish he was working on back in November.

Plating "Vanity"

"Vanity - the bubbles burst with a puff of smoke.

Chef Aduriz also demonstrated his signature "Potato Rocks"

...and showed a video on his Michel Bras inspired botanical salad made with over 80 ingredients.

[docsconz]

Brenda Shick of the Chefs Garden arranging red botanicals for Will Goldfarb's presentation.

Farmer Lee Jones of the Chefs Garden and Will Goldfarb waiting for his presentation.

[docsconz]

The current (October 2007) issue of Food Arts contains an interesting profile of Andoni Luis Aduriz as well as a recipe for "Ripe garden Fruit & Beet Fizz." Using powdered egg whites and Xanthan gum as stabilizers, Aduriz creates his bubbles or "fizz" with a blender.

[molto e]

Doc,

Great coverage of an outstanding event, your enthusiasm for the subject shines thru your outstanding shots and commentary. To pull all of that talent away from their daily duties all over the world shows the place that Starchefs hold in the community.

Molto E

[docsconz]

Thanks, Eliot. I hope to post one more session for the time being, then I will be off to generate some new content for other forums. I will get back to this report as soon as I can.

[docsconz]

Finishing touches for Aduriz' presentation:

Gualtiero Marchesi and Andoni Luis Aduriz backstage

Old friends Aduriz and Oriol Balaguer shortly before Balaguer had to leave for the airport

[docsconz]

Will Goldfarb talked about and demonstrated what he considers Experiential Cuisine. This was illustrated by activities Goldfarb participates with online within Second Life. For Goldfarb, food is for more than just eating. It is for experiencing. This is facilitated by an interplay between the chef and a base ingredient. The chef utilizes specific technique to effect and alter the ingredient, which is then received and experienced by the guest.

For his demonstration, Goldfarb meticulously built a complex, multi-ingredient dish based on the color red. In this dish he highlighted the outstanding quality and variety of produce from The Chefs Garden

Red

[docsconz]

Dani Garcia preps in the backstage kitchen

[artisanbaker]

thanks for posting docsconz

if i were a cook then i would kill to go to such an event

[Pontormo]

As always, Doc, you've done a splendid job documenting this conference meticulously. Thank you for sharing!

I'd love to know more about "Red", should you have the time and memory serves you well. There is a wonderful array of red ingredients spread on trays in the demonstration and I wonder what happened to them all. I am also intrigued by the idea of a chef using an intense color as a source for inspiration. Any different flavor combinations as a result of his experiments?

* * *

It's interesting to see the generational mix of the conference, especially given reported mentoring situations, accomplished masters well into their careers and something one sees in so few professions: confident, inventive young chefs giving presentations based on the solid reputations they've attained eons before they see wrinkles or gray hairs reflected back in the mirror.

Nonetheless, they're all younger and older men. It is all so Athens, 5th-century, B.C.

Did you witness anything afoot at the conference that signals a change?

[tan319]

The last time I checked in the Balaguer pics weren't up yet.

Stunning "Apple Pie"!

Again, great work, 'Doc, I look forward to absorbing it all once this thing with my computer is fixed!

Thanks!!!

PS: Wills "Red" dish is amazing too, 'natch!

[docsconz]

As always, Doc, you've done a splendid job documenting this conference meticulously.  Thank you for sharing!

I'd love to know more about "Red", should you have the time and memory serves you well.  There is a wonderful array of red ingredients spread on trays in the demonstration and I wonder what happened to them all.  I am also intrigued by the idea of a chef using an intense color as a source for inspiration.  Any different flavor combinations as a result of his experiments?

Alas, memory rarely serves me well anymore The dish Will built contained quite a few ingredients, each of which though not entirely of the color contained at least some red. I suspect that he layered the dish as he felt at the time choosing from the ingredients on the palette beside him. Unfortunately, I did not get to taste it, so I cannot comment about new flavor combinations within. I suspect that the flavor was somewhat unique and familiar at the same time.

*  *  *

It's interesting to see the generational mix of the conference, especially given reported mentoring situations, accomplished masters well into their careers and something one sees in so few professions: confident, inventive young chefs giving presentations based on the solid reputations they've attained eons before they see wrinkles or gray hairs reflected back in the mirror.

Nonetheless, they're all younger and older men.  It is all so Athens, 5th-century, B.C. 

Did you witness anything afoot at the conference that signals a change?

←

Correct me if I am misreading your question, but I believe that the question is one of gender balance. Certainly the preponderance of presenters were male, though not exclusively with people such as Carmen Titita Ramirez Degollado, Elizabeth Falkner and the yet to be posted Elena Arzak off the top of my head. There were quite a few women in the audience, though again the majority was clearly male. Is it changing? I think it is, however slowly, per my observation, though that is far from a scientific study.

[docsconz]

thanks for posting docsconz

if i were a cook then i would kill to go to such an event

←

The event is certainly not just for cooks. Pastry has a very strong presence as well, but please don't kill unless it is something nonhuman to prepare for eating.

[docsconz]

The last time I checked in the Balaguer pics weren't up yet.

Stunning "Apple Pie"!

Again, great work, 'Doc, I look forward to absorbing it all once this thing with my computer is fixed!

Thanks!!!

PS: Wills "Red" dish is amazing too, 'natch!

←

Thanks, Ted. I hope to be able to get back to providing more content to the report by the end of the week.

[Pontormo]

←

Correct me if I am misreading your question, but I believe that the question is one of gender balance. Certainly the preponderance of presenters were male, though  not exclusively with people such as Carmen Titita Ramirez Degollado, Elizabeth Falkner and the yet to be posted Elena Arzak off the top of my head. There were quite a few women in the audience, though again the majority was clearly male. Is it changing? I think it is, however slowly, per my observation, though that is far from a scientific study.

←

Yes, I was, indeed, thinking about balance in terms of the presenters as opposed to participants at the conference. Not to make a wild leap from the microcosm of a single conference as you've chosen to document it here, I nonetheless am curious about how representative what we see is.

I am not talking about a perceived bias behind the selection of presenters. Far from it. The organization goes out of its way to promote and encourage women in the profession on its web site.

I am talking about two different things.

1) Youth of Many of the Recognized Movers and Shakers in the Industry

While culinary professionals are by no means unique in this regard, nonetheless, many rise at a young age because they start early, often while still in high school or college. Numbers don't complete high school or bother with college. Working long hours at a young age, if they're gifted, they move up the ranks quickly, and if smart, sociable and savvy about such matters, they make a name for themselves young.

And if they don't slip up or change careers, they continue to grow and develop to become accomplished masters in their own right.

One of the resources at their disposal is an established system of mentoring, whether a close bond between a single chef (or pair in the case of the women at River Cafe in London) and a star pupil who rises through the ranks in one kitchen, or a network of mentors guiding a novice via staging, culinary school or a series of early jobs that serve as apprenticeships.

2) It's 2007, not 1972 and Women Have Accomplished Quite a Bit in Many Professions By Now

So how come, among all the Wunderkinder at the conference, there aren't any Wundermadchen?

I'm not saying the organizers of the conference are to blame. I am wondering about the industry. A few names of female presenters do not reassure me, though I definitely look forward to the rest of this report. There are many, many female culinary authorities in the world of publishing, including those who have left professional kitchens to write cookbooks.

Is the mentoring system--not necessarily consciously, deliberately, strategically--a factor?

Or if Michael Ruhlman is correct in pointing out how the stress on molecular gastronomy at the conference is not representative of the industry at large, is there something about that shiny, tubey, gadgety world that fascinates boys and men more than it does women?

Speaking of Ruhlman, you may recall his article on African-American chefs. Whether or not the culinary world attracted African-Americans was a central question.

Are the long, brutal hours of a culinary profession still a deterrent to young women for a number of reasons, including their plans for the future and traditional gender roles of parents?

We've discussed these larger issues elsewhere before. I was nonetheless struck by what you have shown us onstage and backstage in your photographs.

[Tangelo]

I just wanted to add my thanks for this and all of your reports, Doc. I set aside this evening to read through the whole thing and enjoyed every minute. I'm not a member of the industry in any fashion, I'm just an eater of great food. Industry coverage of these events usually just skirts the surface. You really give great details and I love having pictorial accounts. From all of us who only wish we could attend these things, I thank you for "taking me along with you".