Team USA 2010

The Bread Bakers Guild is hosting the Louis Lesaffre Cup at the International Baking Industry Expo (IBIE) in Las Vegas this September. We have a team competing for a spot in Paris at the Coupe du Monde in 2012. The reason we’re competing is because my team came in 4th in Paris in 2008! Which is a horrible shame across the board, but is indeed a fact. In one way, it’s really great – because for the first time ever, this competition is being held in the good ol’ US of A and it’s going to be an amazing time for artisan baking in America.

I’m involved with the team, helping to coordinate things and coach a bit. We made our decisions a couple weeks ago, and the selectees are people I have worked with over the years and think are great guys with amazing talents. The competition was super tough, and the decision was very difficult – we’ve had 3 guys in each category training together over the last 6 months and while a few dropped out due to personal concerns, the last men standing made that discussion a bit painful. The competing team is Mike Zakowski from Artisan Bakers in Sonoma, CA in breads, Harry Peemoeller, an instructor at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte, NC, in the artistic category (he has to make a big sculpture out of bread!) and Jeremey Gadouas from Bennison’s in Evanston, IL (recently of Bakery Nouveau in Seattle, WA) is in charge of making the viennoiserie (those are yeasted breakfast pastries, like croissant and danish and brioche).

This process means so much to me, and it’s been invigorating to see the honest work and thought put into every aspect by everyone. In fact, the idea for Sun Street happened during last summer’s selection process – I was judging a group at a draft class and realized I missed working on super special breads and thinking about American baking in this very focussed way. So thanks once again to the Bread Bakers Guild for continuing to provide me with inspiration and energy to fun stuff!