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……...
Collection
The Two Ingredient Lesson
“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……...
The Flan Lesson
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……...
The Chocolate Cake of Your Dreams
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……...
The Lesson in Taste Memory
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……...
Becoming a Chocolate Mousse Master Part 1
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……...
The Marshmallow Lesson
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……...
The Lesson in Old School
Whenever I see videos on social media of a chef putting a shiny mirror glaze on a mousse cake, I am amazed by how many views and likes the post receives. I always think, “Man, people are attracted to that shiny glaze just as easily as fish are attracted to a shiny lure.” I am……...
The Caramel Corn Lesson
I teach classes all over the world and I get to speak to all levels of chefs. Other than coming to me to help their career development and to enhance their skill set, a lot of chefs that I meet want to know how to make more money with their business. Most have small businesses……...
The Lesson in Inspiration
I have always loved chocolate. It is the only food group enjoyed by every culture on earth. You may meet a person or two in your lifetime that may not like it but you’re much more likely to meet someone who hates pickles, can’t eat cilantro (that would be me) or has issues with the……...