Goodbye Chefs and another golden moment…..
Last week, UMass Dining hosted the 16th annual Tastes of the World Chef Culinary Conference here on campus. It was the largest turn out since its inception 16 years ago; close to 200 participants from 45 colleges and universities across the North America were present, including 12 Canadians. As you can imagine, we were busy with 26 guest presenters focusing on the theme “Home cooking from around the world”. The theme was timely as we are following the rustic movement of providing simple, natural and fresh foods to our customers. Some of the demonstrations by the chefs were outstanding, and the food was full of flavor. I tasted everything they made and then some more.
I mentioned in my opening address that it is hard to beat mom’s cooking and how many famed chefs or great cooks got their start by learning from parents, grandparents or other family members. It was fun to hear when one of the key presenters told us his mother was never a good cook but his father was much better. My own mom was never a great cook, but there was one dish she made well: breaded pork cutlets with marinated eggs – that is still one of my favorites. Too bad my mom doesn’t cook anymore – it is mostly restaurant or take-out food whenever I go to visit her. Many attendees told us how much they enjoyed the conference with its educational content and also the networking. One executive chef wrote “First of all as if you did not know my team really enjoyed our week in Amherst, we learned a lot and had a great time which made it very hard for any of us to leave.” I think after spending six long days together, we bonded and it was hard indeed to say good bye. I reminded everyone to take what they leaned this week and implement it at their colleges and to plan on coming back again next year. We do miss all of the chefs; they have a great passion for food and the industry, and even though we started early in the morning and some nights we finished quite late, no one complained.
On Friday, we culminated the conference with a team competition. There were 15 teams from 18 colleges and universities across the nation and Canada that took part in the Category W Market Basket Competition for teams of four. The competition was sanctioned by the The American Culinary Federation (ACF). The first team started at 6:00 am and our own UMass Culinary team was one of the early starts. When I arrive at 10:00 am, our team was already
finished. I went to see our executive chef Willie and asked how we were doing. He smiled and said we were ok. I sensed that we must be more than ok since Willie is a very cautious chef. When the head judge Noble announced the our status, I held my breath until I heard the word ‘gold’. The crowd let up a cheer and I got busy taking pictures. Golden moments like this are always satisfying. Congratulations to the UMass team of Chef Chi Cuong Huynh, Chef April Bent, Executive Chef Willie Sng (their coach and mentor), Chef Abigail LaPan, and Chef Anthony Jung. Congratulations to all who received a metal – you are all winners in my eyes and should be proud of your accomplishment.
I hope it was not too difficult a transition for all of the attendees to get back to “real” life again – I am still trying to catch up on sleep and get the grass cut properly. Have a great summer everyone!
This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.
Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu
You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong