Collection

I knew that my relationship with Sylvain was beyond repair. I also knew that we couldn’t work together any longer and if anyone was going to leave, it wasn’t going to be him. Other than one other pastry cook, I basically worked the PM at the Ritz-Carlton shift unsupervised. My regular partner, Amanda, was green……...

I am frequently asked what flavor combinations or trends are overplayed and need to be phased out. I think my answer always catches people off guard when I immediately say; “Raspberry and dark chocolate is a horrible combination. That goes for strawberry and dark chocolate too.” I think my opinion shocks people because of the……...

I moved to Las Vegas in 2004 to open Wynn Las Vegas. Vegas isn’t for me; I don’t gamble, smoke or drink but I admit, it was pretty exciting to be recruited to be part of an opening team of a nearly $3 billion hotel. It was unlike anything that I had ever seen before……....

California is the best market to work for any chef. We have microclimates that yield the most incredible produce in the world. I have access to desert grown bergamot, yuzu and calamansi (in fact, I have a calamansi tree growing in my backyard). I have found a ranch in Malibu that grows passion fruit and……...

“Baking” this cake will be the greatest party trick that you will ever show your audience. I say “baking” but it really is microwaving. And no one thinks of microwaving a cake. Well, one person did and that is none other than Alberto Adria, one half of the team that made El Bulli famous. The……...

My mother was a lifetime subscriber to Bon Appetit Magazine and through the decades, the recipes in the magazine mirrored the same trends that chefs followed. When the tiramisu craze was in every restaurant in the mid 1990s, every edition had a version of Tiramisu (in fact, when the magazine relaunched in 2010, they published……...

In 2008, I interviewed in Washington, D.C. with José Andrés to be his corporate pastry chef. He was expanding his small group of restaurants to Los Angeles and he was collecting chefs to secure the front lines of his culinary team. “Kriss, I am a dreamer and when I dream, I dream big. We are……...

In the late 1970s, my new sister in law, six months pregnant and with a son from a previous relationship, moved into my family home. The house went from a family of 7 to a family of 10. It made for a crowded and chaotic home life. But she brought her Thai culture into our……...

Making chocolate mousse may seem like a boring topic to discuss but I can’t express how important it is to arm your skillset with a base of solid fundamentals. Those fundamentals being a combination of solid recipes and using great techniques and methods. And that is all pastry is; it is learning basic techniques and……...

As a kid, I loved marshmallows. We never went camping as a family and to this day, I have never tasted a s’more. I joked with my sister once that we never camped because we were too poor to camp. “Too poor for s’mores!” became our rallying cry. But I did love taking a sack……...