Crazy Great Weekend

I’ve been working with the Bread Bakers Guild to help select and train a team that will compete in Las Vegas in September. We’re hoping to win this Vegas competition and earn a spot to compete at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris 2012. This past weekend we had Jeremey Gadouas strutting his viennoiserie stuff out at the Culinary Center at General Mills and man, that was a whirlwind weekend. Jeremey works at William Leaman’s Bakery Nouveau in Seattle – William was the artistic champion in 2005 and is that guy who can make you see the ridiculousness when you’re miserable. Jeremey stayed with one of my students and new Guild members, John and Lou Ann Jacobson. That willingness to open your home to a stranger says something about the tribe of bakers.

Jory Downer and Peter Yuen both came up from Chicago – Jory was the viennoiserie world champion in 2005, and Peter was my team mate in 2008. We all know what Jeremey is going through, it’s grueling and crazy and how many different ways can you shape a croissant? Does this dough need more fermentation? Does this filling need some brightness? Try this, then try that, and then throw the whole thing out and come up with a new idea. Jeremey is a very open and mellow guy and his stuff was great, I have all the faith he will come through this process with flying colors.

Philippe LeCorre and John Kraus came out to help as well – Philippe was the pastry instructor at the National Baking Center at Dunwoody back in the day, and John Kraus is the new baker in town. His Patisserie 46 will be opening soon and I can’t wait because it’s very close to my house. As always, Bill Weekley and the entire General Mills crew were overwhelmingly welcoming and hospitable – Bill’s been a huge help to me over the years and is my 5-year old’s best baking buddy so I love being out there any chance I get.

But perhaps the coolest part of the weekend was the Guildhall Gathering we had at Turtle Bread. We have these events every so often and they’re usually reserved for Guild members. But this time I wanted to get as many bakers as I could find, so we had quite the bash of baking luminaries. We ate and drank well and I really hope we can do it again. We all face similar triumphs and challenges and there’s just something so cool about assembling a merry band of bakers.

I hope to make it out to the next all-team practice in San Francisco in July – seeing so many different ideas and opinions is inspiring, but most of all it’s just fun. I consider myself very lucky to work in such a great field of hard-working, hijinx-loving people.