I love to travel, I love to read and I love all-things-epicurian. Therefore, there is no surprise to my childlike excitement when the May Travel Issue of Food & Wine Magazine arrived earlier this month. Similar to the way a child paces past the Christmas tree prematurely on Christmas morning, I anxiously waited to indulge in the read until this past weekend.
The crisp, flavor-drenched pages featured tales of Michigan’s Mid-western wine country and the unique paring capabilities of red wine and veggies. However, one piece in particular, "Where Chefs Go to See the Future", stopped me at page 58. Author, Anya von Bremzen (The New Spanish Table) takes readers--like myself-- into the global chefs’ congresses.
Part conference, part trade show, these events are gatherings of international chefs, press and aspiring cooks. These conferences birth new techniques and culinary movements and are held in places like Japan, Belgium and most recently, Collio in 2010.
Sparing a daunting history lesson, Bremzen shares ah-inspiring and laugh-out-loud antidotes from past congresses. For example, in Madrid 2009 when Ferran Adria (el bulli) told a story about the demo stage collapsing during Spain’s first food conference in 1997 or in 2001 when the Roca brothers of El Celler de Can Roca in Catalonia introduced sous-vide cooking in an immersion circulator. From ultrasound technology to neo-naturalism, these are the places according to pastry chef Jordi Roca, “where chefs borrow without shame.”
Suspended Cupcake display during Semana Mesa SP 2008 
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