While on assignment for a wine country story, I had to stop in ad hoc, Thomas Keller’s newest Yountville eatery. Chef de Cuisine Dave Cruz was nice enough to step into the back garden to chat about the menu and his style of cooking. Chef Cruz graduated from the CIA in New York and worked at various restaurants in New York City before joining the staff at Bouchon. He was instrumental in ad hoc’s opening in 2006 and now leads and supervises the kitchen.
Michael Voltaggio began cooking when he was a teenager in Maryland. He has been the recipient of several awards including the AAA 5 Diamond and Mobil Award while serving as Chef de Cuisine at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida as well as a Michelin Star while serving as Chef de Cuisine of Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen in California. In 2009, he was a finalist for the James Beard “Best New Restaurant” award. He served as Chef de Cuisine at Bazaar by Jose Andres before moving to the Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa earlier this year. He is competing against his brother Bryan, also a chef, on this season of Top Chef on Bravo TV.
While visiting the Phonenician in Scottsdale for a story on golf getaways I was lucky enough to sit down with Master Baker Ben Hershberger. I was there to write about golf, but after tasting some of his bread I had to speak with him. Holding the esteemed title of Certified Master Baker through the Retail Bakers of America, Hershberger is an expert on the “science” of bread making. By manipulating the time, temperature and hydration rate of the dough, he creates the recipes for the wide variety of breads that are baked fresh daily on property and featured at Il Terrazzo, the resort’s signature Italian restaurant, as well as through In-Room Dining and the Banquet Department. Hershberger uses organic flour, natural sourdough (which has been passed down for more than 100 years) and Mediterranean Sea salt for the highest possible quality.
Hershberger, a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, has been baking for more than 20 years. He first started as a young child growing up in Nevada, where he would make home-made pastries and breads by milling whole grain millet, rice, barley and wheat by hand to use in his creations. In the corporate world, Hershberger held the distinctive title of corporate baker and trainer for Ritz-Carlton Hotels, opening bakeries in Japan, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Colorado, here in the United States. Most recently, he was an instructor at the Florida Culinary Institute, teaching students the art of baking. He was also a baker at Maddy’s and Harrah’s Lake Tahoe. In addition to tasting his lovely breads at the resort, he was nice enough to bake me fresh loaves of rosemary, rye, olive walnut, sourdough, chocolate cherry and a huge baget before I took off back to LA. I received many requests on the plane for samples, which I quickly refused, as I selfishly wanted all that bread for myself. Here are some pics of his delicious bread:
Pieces of loaves of different breads
My fave, olive walnut
Chocolate Cherry - very nice as a dessert bread
I highly recommend stopping in to try Chef Hershberger’s breads, or if in the Phoenix area you can pick them up at the Saturday Farmer’s market. I spoke with the chef about his baking philosophy and background – interview is below.
I sat down at Kitchen 1540 at L’Auberge Del Mar and spoke with Executive Chef Paul McCabe before I had a wonderful tasting menu that he prepared.
Chef McCabe’s background includes extensive training in French, Mediterranean, Southwestern, Pacific Rim and Spa Cuisine. A native of Sedona, Arizona, he began his career as an apprentice for Chef Michel Blanchet of L’Ermitage restaurant in Los Angeles. This classical training prepared him for a position at L’Auberge de Sedona and the Sibu Café in Kona, Hawaii, where he added Asian techniques to his classic styles. After stops in both Los Angeles at the five-star L’Ermitage Hotel and Arizona as Executive Chef at Enchantment Resort, McCabe settled in San Diego in 2001 and has been with L’Auberge Del Mar since fall of 2004. Heralded as a “rising star of American cuisine” by the James Beard Foundation, Chef McCabe has cooked for some of Hollywood’s hottest stars, world figures and epicureans from around the globe.
