{"id":2638,"date":"2012-04-30T17:59:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T00:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=2638"},"modified":"2022-10-24T14:39:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T21:39:49","slug":"local-chocolate-expert-to-compete-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/chocolate-news\/local-chocolate-expert-to-compete-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Local chocolate expert to compete in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Durfee, pastry instructor at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America at Greystone<\/a>), St. Helena, will be representing the U.S. as the \u201cchocolate expert\u201d on our 3-person team in the Coupe Du Monde de la Patisserie<\/em> in Lyon, France in January 2013.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/a>
Stephen Durfee readies the Batmobile in his chocolate sculpture that includes the Bat Signal. Photo from the Grand Rapids Community College website.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dubbed \u201cThe Greatest Worldwide Competition For Pastry Professionals<\/a>,\u201d The Coupe Du Monde de la Patisserie,<\/em> or World Cup of Pastry, has been likened to the Academy Awards. Each competing country is represented by three experts: a pastry chef, chocolate maker and an ice specialist. They are judged by a 21-member panel of pastry chefs (most with the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France,<\/em> or Best Craftsman in France) on their technical, artistic and performance skills over a single day on a set number of desserts.<\/p>\n

To earn his place on the team, Stephen had to compete against three other top U.S. pastry chefs, April 20-21 in Grand Rapids, Mich. With the given theme of communication, he designed and created three elaborate pieces with a Batman-influence. (Think \u201cthe Bat Signal.\u201d)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen the movie, Kings of Pastry<\/a>, this event is similar. The judges are members of the same organization and wear those distinctive collars. But the World Cup happens every year; and as the name implies, it\u2019s a worldwide competition. The Meilleur Ouvrier de France, P\u00e2tissier<\/em> Competition on the other hand only occurs every 3 or 4 years and is focused on French chefs.<\/p>\n

According to the CIA\u2019s website<\/a>, Stephen is a Certified Executive Pastry Chef and has worked there since 2000. Before that, he was\u00a0 executive pastry chef at the Michelin-rated 3-star French Laundry<\/a>. He won the 1998 James Beard Award for Pastry Chef of the Year and was named one of the 10 Best Pastry Chefs in America by Pastry Art & Design<\/em> and Chocolatier<\/em> in 1999.<\/p>\n

Congrats to SFBA local, Stephen Durfee, for making it through to the final rounds. We look forward to whatever he will make to surprise, delight and impress the judges in Lyon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holy Valrhona, Batman! A local chocolate expert will compete in the World Cup of Pastry in Lyon, France<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[298,300,299,301,305,304,302,303],"class_list":["post-2638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chocolate-news","tag-cia","tag-coupe-du-monde-de-la-pattisserie","tag-culinary-institute-of-america","tag-grand-rapids-community-college","tag-kings-of-pastry","tag-lyon","tag-meilleur-ouvrier-de-france","tag-st-helena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35936,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions\/35936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}