Star Chefs Conference

I am incredibly fortunate because Ana invited me to the Star Chefs conference last week. For those of you who don't know; the Star Chefs Conference is a conference for chefs (savory and pastry), bartenders, sommeliers and the like held in New York City. There were many big hitters at the event including Masaharu Morimoto, Anthony Bordain, Wylie Dufresne and many more. Overall, it was an amazing event. I attended as many demonstrations and workshops as I could, and I learned something new from every presenter. My favorite presentation on the main stage was the presentation by Candido Lopez and Joan Roca. They were so charasmatic, and they made suckling pig much more interesting to me. I'm usually not one to want to cook meat, but after their presentations, I'm not going to say no if Joe wants to cook one :)

The real highlight for me was I was able to attend a workshop with Michael Laiskonis the executive pastry chef at Le Bernardin. He is an incredible pastry chef, and though my class with him was short, I feel I learned quite a bit. Here are some pictures from his workshop:

Chocolate Corn Petit Four:


Chocolate Menthol Petit Four:


Menthol Crystals:


The three petit fours he presented (two above plus peanut butter cup):


Additional Petit Fours:


If you're interested in learning more about Michael Laiskonis check out his blog at:
http://michaellaiskonis.typepad.com/main/