Knives at Dawn (6 page)

Honor Mr. Bocuse with your affiliation.”

With the request coming from Boulud and Keller—and with the reference to paying homage to Bocuse himself—the response from many of the country's most celebrated chefs was—what else?—“
Oui, Chef.
” Boulud also pulled off the rare feat of convincing the editors of the three top competing American food magazines—Dana Cowin of
Food & Wine
, Ruth Reichl of
Gourmet
, and Barbara Fairchild of
Bon Appétit
—plus Martha Stewart to sign on as the Media Advisory Board.

In mid-April, with the first members of the committee (in time it would be renamed the Advisory Board) secured, Boulud approached the all-important sponsors with a letter inviting them to participate in the undertaking. Again, the yeses came fast and furiously: All-Clad Metalcrafters LLC, Krups, Diageo, Enodis, and Moët Hennessy USA all ponied up what Pelka refers to as “substantial financial support” as well as in-kind contributions of goods and services, for either training, hospitality in Orlando, or both. For example, Enodis, the company that installs the competition kitchens in Lyon, would furnish the equipment for the team trials and the Yountville training facility. Other sponsors followed in waves: Avero, which sells data-tracking software to restaurants, and American Express
made financial contributions; Brandt Beef, a Brawley, California-based purveyor popular with top American restaurants, provided meat for the candidates to train with, and Pierless Fish, also a favorite among acclaimed U.S. chefs, did the same with the seafood; Rougié, the Périgord, France, foie gras company and a sponsor of the Bocuse d'Or mothership in Lyon, provided foie gras for events; Chefwear came through with jackets for candidates and judges; Petrossian Caviar provided caviar for a planned gala dinner at Epcot; and on and on.

Finally, after nearly three months of accelerated preparation, the Bocuse d'Or USA went public on May 28, 2008, with the launch of a Web site that greeted visitors with thunderous music (a hymn composed especially for the Bocuse d'Or in Lyon by Serge Folie in 2003) and a video montage of Bocuse d'Or moments. It was more ESPN than Food Network, depicting screaming fans, a media pit packed with photographers, and a medal ceremony.

Press attention was swift: By two thirty that afternoon,
New York
magazine's Grub Street blog was up with a post entitled “Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bocuse d'Or Competition But Were Afraid to Ask” detailing the involvement of Boulud and Keller, partially listing the Advisory Board, and linking to the application. “If you think you have the stuff to represent the United States in the so-called cooking Olympics,” wrote blogger Josh Ozersky, “just fill out the application, send it in to Bocuse d'Or USA, and cross your fingers. You might be the one who brings the glory back home.”

Not all members of the inner circle welcomed the attention. Kaysen, who knew what was required to win, place, or show at the Bocuse d'Or, was concerned that it raised expectations that would be difficult, if not impossible, to meet. “If we didn't walk out of that stadium with first, second, or third, people were going to take their shots at it,” he recalled later. But Boulud insists that publicity was essential to raising money and attracting the best candidates. To that end, the same day the Web site launched, a call for applications went around as Boulud disseminated e-mails and letters
to about three hundred restaurants—James Beard Foundation award winners, top
Zagat
-rated restaurants in key markets, possessors of Michelin stars, and so on—not necessarily urging the executive chefs themselves to apply, but rather asking them to encourage a talented staff member to get in the game.

The application itself was much more than a name-rank-and-serial-number affair—it was the first elimination round, contested on paper, and it was a daunting document comprising several parts: biographical information on the candidate and the commis, plus a one-page resumé, a four by five-inch matte-finish recent photograph (in chef's whites), two letters of recommendation, and a “letter of motivation” (750 words or fewer) described as “a personal statement for representing the United States at the Bocuse d'Or World Contest.”

The applicants were also directed to share descriptions of the food they planned to prepare for the competition if they were selected: fish and meat dishes, each featuring the main protein plus three garnishes. “Harmony of flavor will be deemed very important, but we impose no constraints on competitors' creativity in terms of preparation or presentation.”

So that the Orlando event would double as a dry run for the Bocuse d'Or in Lyon, the teams were to use many of the same proteins that would be used in France. The selections change every two years. In 2009, they would be seafood from Norway (Norwegian fresh cod, Norwegian king scallops, and Norwegian wild prawns). The beef would be Scotch Beef Aberdeen Angus (oxtail,
côte de boeuf
, beef cheeks, and one whole fillet [tenderloin]). The Bocuse d'Or USA candidates would not be using the same brands of fish and beef, but they would be required to employ a similar combination of types and cuts.

The last page of the application was a pledge form in which the candidate promised to be available for all events related to the Bocuse d'Or, and to “train intensely” for the Bocuse d'Or, working “closely with chef coaches (provided by Bocuse d'Or USA) to perfect all aspects of my dishes, including their timing, presentation, and taste.”

O
N COMPLETING HIS REMARKS
, Keller turned the floor over to Michel Bouit, the man who had served as the executive director of the Bocuse d'Or USA for the past twenty years, and whose energetic stride to the center of the room concealed a bruised ego. If the new Bocuse d'Or USA had jettisoned anybody on its way to the future, it was Bouit, who was not consulted about the change of stewardship until things were well under way. Although he later said that he had no hard feelings about how things played out, Bouit didn't appreciate that the first moves were made without his knowledge while he and Bergin were gearing up for the selection of the next American team. He was also outraged when he found his name slotted in alphabetically with the other members of the newly formed advisory board, which he took as a slap in the face, albeit an unintentional one, after twenty years. According to Bouit, he made his upset known and was elevated up away from the pack and listed as “Honorary President,” a role in which he would advise the new guard and assist with logistics and lodging on the ground in Lyon.

French-born but an American citizen since 1975, Bouit put the politics of the past few months aside as he greeted the room with the unbridled enthusiasm of a ringside announcer: “Good evening!” he exclaimed. “Are you excited?” Then he summarized the twenty-year history of the American effort at the Bocuse d'Or. In 1987, there was no competition to represent the United States; Chef Fernand Gutierrez of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago had simply tapped a sous chef from one of the hotel's cafés, Susan Weaver. “Fernand went to her and said, ‘Susan, guess what, you are going to Lyon.' That is how it happened.”

In reality, Weaver's Bocuse d'Or saga was a bit more complicated than that. According to Weaver, who today is chef-partner in several restaurants owned and operated by Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago, Gutierrez's vision “was for me to be able to prove myself as a woman.” To avoid any pushback from the event organizers in those unenlightened days, Weaver
and Guitierrez filled out all of her candidate paperwork under the name S. Weaver.

“It was the only way to do it,” recalls Weaver. “Because if they had known that I was a woman chances are it never would have happened … they did not know I was a woman until I went.”

In preparation for the Bocuse d'Or, Weaver did five practice runs of her fish platter (salmon was the main protein selection) but only three of her meat (Bresse chicken), because “I never expected to go to the final.” (Whereas today all teams present both fish and meat platters, in the first year the fish platters served as the initial round, dubbed the “semifinals”, and only the top eleven chefs went on to prepare their meat platters in the finals the next day. This was changed after many eliminated candidates groused over rehearsing two courses only to serve one.)

“Honestly,” Weaver said, “I thought,
Okay, this is the semifinal; let's really work this and make it really strong and if by some fluke I get into the finals I have something prepared
. But it wasn't detailed and finessed.”

When she arrived in Lyon, although nobody outright dissed her, Weaver remembers that she wasn't treated seriously. “But I think at that point in my career, it wasn't new to me. It was part and parcel of how things were. For me, it was put your game face on, put your head down as best you can, and try not to embarrass yourself. At that time I was a sous chef at the Ritz-Carlton. I was making burgers and French onion soup. I was up against the top chefs in the world … I was working hard. I did not have the experience or the position of the [other] competing chefs.”

When Weaver shocked the Sirha and landed in the top five on Day One, qualifying for the finals, “all hell broke loose.… It was hilarious. It was almost like—
gotcha!
” she laughs today. “Paul Bocuse and all the disciples were all of a sudden with me, getting their pictures taken with the utmost respect.” For Weaver, the mission was already accomplished. “I wasn't doing it to win; I was doing it to gain credibility and validity as a woman chef, and sticking my head outside of the kitchen.”

Of the first Bocuse d'Or, Weaver recalls that at the time, it was a bigger
food event than anybody had ever staged. “It was more like a hockey game,” she said of the bleacher seating and boisterous crowd. There was even a home team—the French, in the person of candidate Jacky Fréon. Weaver didn't mind at all; because all eyes were on him in the final, virtually nobody noticed when an oil spill in her kitchen caused a
fire
.

“Once they got past the fact that I was a woman and that I could actually cook and beat out the majority of these guys, they had a twinkle in their eye for me. They were like, ‘Okay, then!' They nicknamed me
La Petite Américaine
. If you see Paul Bocuse today, and ask him about
La Petite Américaine
, he remembers.”

Weaver was followed by Jeff Jackson from the Park Hyatt in Chicago in 1989, then by George Bumbaris from the Ritz-Carlton, who placed seventh and received the prize for Best Fish in 1991. (Best Fish and Best Meat are Bocuse d'Or consolation prizes, somewhat misnamed because they are handed out to the top-scoring platters in those categories
outside the top three
.) In 1993, the first non–Windy City candidate was fielded, Ron Pietruszka from the Hotel Nikko in Beverly Hills, California, who placed ninth. From there, the results were an up-and-down affair: in 1995, Paul Sautory from The Culinary Institute of America placed thirteenth, and the next three candidates placed eighth, ninth, and tenth, in that order.

In 2003, Handke's sixth-place finish (and Best Meat booby prize) set the high-water mark, but the Sisyphean American history next logged an eleventh-place finish by Fritz Gitschner in 2005, followed by Kaysen's fourteenth place result.

Bouit concluded and proceeded to introduce the chefs and commis who would be cooking and competing over the next two days …

A
MONG THE APPLICANTS WAS
Rogers Powell, for whom the Bocuse d'Or represented an opportunity to sweeten a sour moment from his past. An instructor at The French Culinary Institute (FCI) in New York City, Powell
was one of the few who wasn't immediately put off by the rigorous nature of the application and the short turnaround time of just four weeks.

In 1996, Powell had found himself in a perhaps-permanent hiatus from his culinary career. To pay the rent, he worked for his uncle's business, promoting a man-sized robot with a pivoting head at trade shows around the world. (The robot was immortalized in cinema when Rocky Balboa gave one to brother-in-law Paulie in
Rocky IV
.) One day, while waiting to board a flight to an expo in Portugal, Powell's friend Jean-Jacques tapped him on the shoulder.

“Look who's over there!” he said.

Powell turned to see Paul Bocuse and another legendary chef, Joël Robuchon, recognizable even without their chef's whites and toques. “We all knew Bocuse,” said Powell, whose childhood was spent shuttling back and forth from New York to France. “When you go to culinary school, you
study
him.”

Deciding to have a little fun, Powell discretely worked the robot's controls, causing it to slide across the terminal's slick floor and up to the chefs. Arriving at Bocuse's side, the robot (actually Powell via a tiny remote microphone that he cupped in his hand) spoke to them in its tinny, electronic staccato: “Hello, Mr. Bocuse. Hello, Mr. Robuchon. I like my steak medium rare.”