Posted April 19th, 2017 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
March 28th, my first book was published, a cook book about ice cream, called Hello My Name Is Ice Cream; the Art and Science of the Scoop. You can find more information about it here! hellomynameisicecream.com I am so honored this opportunity came my way, to be the proud author of a book of my… Read more »
Posted February 26th, 2017 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
The term “annual review” doesn’t garner the same excitement as “staff party.” While I had attended staff parties with regularity throughout my career, I had honestly never had a real review until I came on board with One Off Hospitality in 2012 at Blackbird. I find the these reviews mildly exhausting to perform for my own… Read more »
Posted February 21st, 2017 by Harry Flager & filed under Uncategorized.
If you want to start a lively debate, put a savory chef and a pastry chef in a room and bring up Pacojets. Invented in Switzerland in the 1980s and made available to the U.S. market in 1992, a Pacojet is “a dynamic professional kitchen appliance that makes it easy to prepare high-quality dishes while… Read more »
Posted February 15th, 2017 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
Admittedly, it’s been a little quiet over here at The Pastry Department. A fact that can only mean one thing, we have been anything but quiet in our kitchens! I’ll give you a little update on the team here, as we have all been doing pretty wonderful things in our absence from this blog. Which… Read more »
Posted January 3rd, 2017 by Danielle Snow & filed under Uncategorized.
Chapter Two: The Stage We all know the stereotype: an imposing, mustachioed man outfitted in a crisp white chef coat, dumping all of your mise en place into the garbage while screaming obscenities. It’s almost comically cliché, culminating in a very subdued cook uttering a string of “oui chef“s before returning to the failed task,… Read more »
Posted November 18th, 2016 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
Recently I had the professional privilege of cooking with group of nationally celebrated chefs at a Friends of The James Beard Foundation dinner at The American Restaurant in Kansas City. The restaurant, the crown jewel in the Hallmark empire, was opulently designed by Warren Platner 40 years ago, borrowing stylistically from another of his restaurants, Windows… Read more »
Posted October 25th, 2016 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
As a pastry chef, I tend to chase textures. Unlike a savory chef, who has a wide array of nature-made textures at their disposal, for example, the range of textures in fish and meat, or raw vegetables, pastry chefs have to create the textures they work with. Where as a savory chef can use nuts, raw carrots,… Read more »
Posted September 3rd, 2016 by Danielle Snow & filed under Uncategorized.
There comes a time in every young cook’s life where they start to ask themselves bigger questions. What am I looking to accomplish in this industry? How much longer can I keep pushing myself so hard? What’s the next step? Or, in the case of myself and my friend Jane (also a pastry cook, working… Read more »
Posted August 31st, 2016 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
I visited my friend Amanda Rockman recently in Austin, Texas. She’s taken up residency at The South Congress Hotel, where she fills pastry cases, dessert menus, poolside bars, coffee shops, and an ice cream truck with her brilliant wares. While we were in the kitchen talking she told me a story about a shirt her… Read more »
Posted August 24th, 2016 by Dana Cree & filed under Uncategorized.
I’ve recently taken a new pastry chef position at a collection of restaurants with the same name, The Publican. What was once just a beer hall dedicated to pork and oysters holding down a dark corner of Chicago’s Fulton Market meatpacking district, the Publican brand has since expanded to include Publican Quality Meats, a… Read more »