Friday, July 12, 2002 | 8:49 a.m.
Muriel Stevens' dining column appears Fridays. Her shopping and travel columns appear Wednesday. Reach her at (702) 259-4080 or [email protected].
How sweet it was ...
This past weekend there was more to celebrate than Independence Day at The Rio, where the 2002 World Pastry Team Championship took place.
"It takes a year to make a two-day event, such as this, happen," Jacques Torres said. Torres, formerly the executive pastry chef at Le Cirque 2000 in New York and now owner of Jacques Torres Chocolate, was president of the international jury that judged the competition.
Joining Torres were pastry experts Albert Adria (Spain), Olivier Bajard (France), Luigi Biasetto (Italy), Pascal Brunstein (France), Emilia Chiriotti (Italy), Peter De Wit (Holland), Marc Debailleul (Belgium), Fredy EggenSchwiler (Switzerland), Clayton Folkers (Canada), Leopold Forsthofer (Austria), Junichi Gotoh (Japan), Ted Hara (Canada), Makoto Kato (Japan), Matthew F. McBain (Australia), Ewald Notter (U.S.), Jacquy Pfieffer (U.S.), Karl Schuhmacher (Austria), Angela Steinbrenner (Sweden), Francisco Torreblanca (Spain), Rudolph Van Veen (Holland), Jean-Pierre Wybauw (Belgium), Serdar Yener (Australia) and Franz Ziegler (Switzerland).
Twelve side-by-side kitchens were constructed in a large conference room that included seating for an audience. Every team was given the same equipment and space, but according to Michael Schneider, co-founder of the event, they were "free to send as much more as they wanted -- anything that conformed to the equipment supplied."
There were hundreds of rules. Interpreting them was up to the judges (no wonder there were so many).
Competing against the 2001 US National Pastry Team Champions were teams from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Each entry was judged for taste and artistry, how well they managed their kitchens and organization.
The National and World Pastry Team Championships were created by Schneider and his Carymax LLC company co-founder, Norman Love. Schneider is the publisher of Pastry Art & Design and Chocolatier magazines; Love is the former corporate pastry chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel company.
Chef watching is one of my favorite pastimes, but Friday (set-up day), offered only a glimpse of the excitement that would take place on Saturday when the winners were announced. I arrived early in the morning so that I could watch as the two required showpieces, one of chocolate and one of sugar -- pastillage and pulled sugar, were being completed.
The towering showpieces were gorgeous, and fragile. As each team completed their work of art they gently carried it to the display table in front of the judges.
According to Kevin Karl, an exhibitor who attended the competition, the Canadian team drove from British Columbia because they had so much extra equipment that was too costly to ship. This made it especially heartbreaking when their sugar piece collapsed as it was being moved from the work surface to the display table. It shattered as glass would, into myriad pieces.
The Canadian team captain, Dominique Duby, said the dryness of the Las Vegas air made the sugar especially brittle. He heard it cracking when he picked it up and he knew it was going to go. There was no way to save it.
The excitement generated at the awards ceremony was enormous, with hundreds of supporters, brandishing their countries' flags, waiting impatiently for the decision of the judges.
Finally, an announcement was made by Schneider, "All team members and judges please exit the room."
The tension grew. Then the individual teams, carrying their flags, marched to the stage accompanied by a few bars of their national anthems. It was like being at the Olympics, complete with cheers and emotional outbursts.
And the winners were: gold medal, Team USA (Jean-Philippe Maury, Laurent Branlard and Jean-Claude Canestrier); silver medal, Team France (Nicholas Boussin, Alexander Gye-Jacquot and Stephane Treand); bronze medal, Team Belgium (Philippe Rheau, Stephane Leroux and Jean-Philippe Darcis).
Team Belgium won Best Chocolate Showpiece; Team Japan, Best Sugar Showpiece; and Switzerland, Best Sportsmanship Award.
Las Vegas Hilton's Executive Pastry Chef Stanton Ho, who has won every pastry award in every possible category in the U.S. and abroad, was named Pastry Chef of the Year. Somehow his friends managed to keep the award a secret until the announcement was made. What a night for the home team.
Although each team had the same amount of time to complete all of the requirements, their time on the floor was but a small reflection of the time invested before the competition.
Team USA was captained by Bellagio Executive Pastry Chef Maury. With teammates Canestrier (executive pastry chef at Paris Las Vegas) and Branlard (pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta), Maury and his team won the 2001 USA national, giving them this shot at world championship gold.
The nationals take place in odd-numbered years; the championships in even-numbered years.
"Relieved," was Maury's response when asked how he felt about winning the gold. "The level of the competition was extraordinary."
He credits part of his team's win to the exceptional support he received from Bellagio's Vice President of Food and Beverage Bryan O'Shields and to Executive Chef Grant McPherson. The team practiced its timing three times and made the showpieces six times. It took six months of intense training and then Team USA knew it was ready.
"Also key to our success was Bellagio's engineering department who built all of the cabinets and storage spaces for our small competition kitchen and helped in so many ways, including making the tiger mold needed for one of my pieces," Maury said. "That alone took two months."
To learn more about the National and World Pastry Team Championship visit the website [email protected]. The events are open to the public and include many goodies.
More Jean-Philippe Maury: Jean-Philippe Maury's divinely scrumptious chocolate truffles are available at the gelato shop at Bellagio.
Tea-rific news: Discover the power of green tea at a tea cupping at 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Green Valley Ranch Station's Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
Learn how to buy, store and brew tea; how and where tea is grown; how tea is processed and the many health benefits attributed to green tea. For more information or to make a reservation to attend a cupping or to find out future cupping dates, call 944-2326, Ext. 5 or e-mail [email protected].
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf recently opened its sixth location in the Runnin' Rebel Plaza across from UNLV at 4550 South Maryland Parkway, Suite A.
archive
