Nick Malgieri Visits Manila


It has been such a busy month that I haven't updated this blog for quite sometime. This entry happened a month ago when a popular celebrity chef came and visit Manila. It is none other than Chef Nick Malgieri!

For those who don’t know who Nick Malgieri is here is a short intro. He is currently if my memory selves me correctly the current baking and director of Institute of Culinary Education, formerly called Peter Kump School in New York. He has wrote tons of good baking books such as How to Bake, A Baker's Tour, Perfect Cakes, Perfect Pastry, Cookies Unlimited, Chocolate (my favorite!), his newest book Perfect Light Desserts.

Nick Malgieri came to Manila and held a Two (2) day May 20 to 21, 2008 baking Seminar called Modern Baker. It was held in Rockwell Tent, Makati. A lot of people came from professional chefs, pastry instructors, chefs, business owners to seasonal hobbyist like me. It's like the who's who of the Philippine pastry world was there.

The seminar itself was such an informative one that Mr. Malgieri himself is such a charmer, made everyone laughs and he was open to questions and readily answered them. I even have a picture with him! The second day of the seminar I gamely carried all my FOUR of his books and have it signed! These are my first autograph books! Love the feeling :) (Can you tell that celebrity chefs don't often visit us here?) Rocco Dispiritu once visited us for a brief period of time years ago wasn't able to go, well, that's another story)

He taught us a bunch of new recipes and he is very generous in sharing his techniques. I'm craving to make his Blueberry Crumble it looks so scrumptious. Have scoured the grocery, search for frozen blueberries, and currently haven't succeeded yet. From what I observed from many foreign chefs that I see on TV, he loves to put liqueur in his cakes too! Finally found out what Framboise taste like. I especially love the tales he tells, his past experiences his and with his fellow pastry chefs. I just love those old stories, how a recipe came about, and the stories behind them. Hope he comes back, the two day seminar wasn’t enough for me, and I want more!



I personally have a good time, I’m just so thankful that I paid my fee very early so I got a front row seat. Because I can just imagine how people in the back felt like not getting their money’s worth. I surely would have felt that. Because honestly in terms of the technical aspect of the program, it is beyond poor performance it is downright horrible! I believe that the promoters need A LOT of improvement. They should have put up some mirrors on top of the stage so that people in the front can have an over view of what he’s doing. Like duh! That’s such a basic requirement in any baking demos they should have bothered themselves and put them up! There was this huge TVs in the front however, the man in charge of switching from camera A to B doesn’t listen or much less pay attention to what was happening in the stage, so he/she wasn’t aware that we have to see what’s the other camera is covering. That’s just stupid! I wanted to call their attention with their lack of attention to detail. The freebies of the local food magazines they give out aren’t even complete not everyone got a copy. I certainly didn’t get one, I told people in charge about it and they said they’d give it to me the second day, surprise surprise didn’t get any. The weird this is there are a bunch of people in front of the door as you enter, people there didn’t bother to put 2 or 3 person’s inside to usher people in their seats. When I asked them where my seat is, coz I already saw my seat number, the person in the desk was even rude and said that I should ask their usher inside. I was getting pissed off and answered “I wouldn’t be asking you if there was an usher inside. Apparently, there isn’t that’s why I’m asking you” I mean I paid good money to attend this seminar, I was even downright expensive and I/we deserve a better treatment here. Hopefully, next year it would be better, according to the sponsor they are planning to hold a seminar like this every year.


Mr. Malgieri said everything recipe he taught will be featured in his book new book this September, isn't that exciting! The working title is … guess what? The Modern Baker. Which he said will be suitable for people who love to bake but don’t have a lot of time in their hands. I can hardly wait for the review of this new one.

nikcreate

I'm a nine to five pencil pusher who loves to play with flour and paper during my free time. Dreams of going to Europe and eat croissants and make pastries all day long!

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