After the meal, the members of the Bocuse d’Or USA piled into various vehicles and headed to the Eurexpo site. Hollingsworth, piloting the Team USA SUV, decided to follow Boulud. Before he knew it, he was treated to a firsthand glimpse of the chef’s notorious driving style, as Boulud wove through lanes with abandon. Hollingsworth, matching the chef maneuver for maneuver, found it hilarious.
At Eurexpo, Boulud’s car was stopped by a guard, but moments later was waved through. Hollingsworth followed and they parked.
“They said, this is for VIPs,” Boulud yelled to Hollingsworth and company as he disembarked his car. “And I said, ‘I am as VIP as it gets!’ ”
Everybody laughed, but not for long as Boulud was suddenly off in the distance, his leather jacket dancing up ahead. Everybody raced to catch up.
Eurexpo was impossibly sprawling and crowded. Boulud kept ahead of his crew, like a celebrity inexplicably trying to shake his own entourage, though he did stop for a moment, having picked up a newspaper off a stack along the way. Turning around, he flashed a story about the Bocuse d’Or, with a profile of him in a sidebar, and beamed: “No matter where you go in the world, it’s good to see yourself in the paper.”
The team arrived at the Mondial du Pain presentation just in time for the announcements. Team USA did not win, but Daniels nabbed the Best Commis prize.
That afternoon, in Hall 33, home of the Bocuse d’Or, the team met in the media center on the second floor, along with the famed Monsieur Paul himself, and were interviewed by the New York Times’ Elaine Sciolino, who was blogging from the event. As had been the case from the beginning of this endeavor, there was always time for the media.
ON MONDAY, AT L’ABBAYE, Hollingsworth finally got to see his platters, which had arrived via FedEx in huge, museum piece–worthy crates. They were exactly as he had imagined them and they got him excited for the competition. But their communion was brief, because the team had to get to the Sirha. Two other American teams met with disappointment that day: in Caseus, an international cheese competition, the Yankees placed fourth, while in the World Cup of Pastry event, held in the same hall as the Bocuse d’Or would be in the coming days, the American team’s chocolate sculpture collapsed just before the judging. Hopefully, these would not be omens for the Bocuse d’Or squad.
After the pastry awards were handed out, in a small meeting room adjacent to the auditorium, there was a briefing meeting for the Bocuse d’Or candidates and judges. Scannell and Rosendale met up with the team here, and Scannell handed the new pieces he had brought over personally. Finally the team was in possession of all the elements of their platters.
The judges drew lots to determine if they would evaluate fish or meat, and the rules were reviewed. (The president of each competing nation’s foundation or organization served on the jury, so Keller was among them, and found himself judging fish.) For Hollingsworth, it was an uncomfortable meeting. He found it strange to be sitting there with people he’d be competing with, even his old housemate Lundgren; the old friends sat next to each other, but Hollingsworth felt the Swede had his guard up the whole time. When Hollingsworth tried to trade notes on how much they’d practiced, Lundgren nodded back, but offered nothing. Other teams, Hollingsworth felt, exuded arrogance; in particular, he was put off by the Norwegians, seated near the dais in white jackets with sky blue lettering, who evidenced no desire to talk to anybody else.
That evening, Team USA had dinner at Paul Bocuse, a special meal to welcome them and their spectators. Dinnertime traffic clogged the roads that encircled Lyon so by the time the team got back to Hotel Beaux-Arts, cleaned up, and donned Bocuse-appropriate attire, it was after nine o’clock, and many of the spectators had been waiting for hours. But that was all forgotten at Salon Fernand Point, their virtual home away from home, which had been overtaken by a gargantuan table that extended almost its full length. Keller and his (personal) partner Laura Cunningham (who had been The French Laundry’s Director of Operations until 2006) sat alongside Hollingsworth and Laughlin. Alain Sailhac and Arlene Feltman were there, as were the Bocuse d’Or’s attorney Joel Buchman and Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm, there with his fiancée.
In the midst of a pressure-cooker week, it was a fantastical reprieve, the evening highlighted by toasts from Boulud and Keller, and the meal headlined by Lièvre à la Royale, royal hare, rolled out on giraudons and carved tableside by Bocuse himself, up well past his usual bedtime, as was Adina Guest. “I was amazed that I stayed up that late,” said the commis. “I really enjoyed the food, the people, the speeches.”
The evening was a personal high point for Keller, who called it “an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime moment to have. To be sitting in that dining room, in a historic place, with that group of people, telling stories, living stories inside yourself.”
For the Francophile chef, who spent the final minutes of the evening taking pictures of the pictures that lined the walls, it was a journey to the very heart of his career. “For me, looking at pictures of Fernand Point or Paul Bocuse, remembering when I first heard about that chef, first read the book, how much of an impact that’s had on me, being there and watching that food come out, so classic and so true to form, so true to Chef Bocuse, so true to France, the linens starched perfectly, the glasses, the butter, every little detail about that experience was so French and so traditional and so classic and so perfectly executed, you had to be in awe.
“Your life is about those memories,” said Keller. “You have to embrace those memories and those moments.”
“Why isn’t somebody doing this now?” he wondered. “This is a dying art … the rouget crusted in potato with a vin blanc sauce and a little design in the sauce. You would call that contrived today. If I did that in my restaurant, or Daniel did that in his restaurant, people would say, ‘What is that?’ But you’re there and you eat it and you go, ‘My god. Amazing.’ The rabbit royal, exquisite.”
He added a word he doesn’t use often about food: “Perfection.”
6
Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie
Listen to those with experience, but also know when to follow your own instincts and desires. You have to pursue your own ideas, do what you feel is right, and give it one hundred percent during the preparation and the big day, so that you have no regrets.
—SERGE VIEIRA, BOCUSE D’OR CHAMPION, 2005
GAVIN KAYSEN, FUELED BY FANTASIES OF VICARIOUS RETRIBUTION, marched through the predawn streets of Lyon on Wednesday morning, January 28. The last time he had been awake at this hour, in this city, was on his own day of judgment. Back in what now seemed like the dark ages of the Bocuse d’Or USA, there were no team jackets like the one he
TIMOTHY
ADINA
0:00
Oxtail / Cheeks Roast
0:00
Sous vide / Oven / Stock / Water / Fry oil
0:15
Fillet Freeze / Rib Rack
0:15
Truffles / Cream / Butter SALT!
0:30
Sauce, Scallops
0:30
Bacon Chips / Peel Potatoes
0:45
Clean / Confit Scallop
0:45
Turn Potatoes
1:00
Cod / Scallop / P. Meyer Lemon Mousse
1:00
Mille Feuille & Pommes Dauph IN OVEN
1:15
Shrimp Cook / Roll Cod
1:15
Dice Bresaola, Orange Peel
1:30
Roll Beef / Celery Root
1:30
Chestnuts, Fennel
1:45
Beet Tart × 3
1:45
Apple, Onion, Turnip, Carrots
2:00
Hollandaise / Horseradish & Shrimp Foam
2:00
Jalapeños, Grapefruit, CELERY SALAD
2:15
Cod / Cheeks / Scallop Dice
2:15
Celery, Cabbage, Broccoli, Leeks
> 2:30
Start Prune Sauce / Chestnut Redux / Cheek Redux
2:30
Shallots, Endive Marmalade
2:45
Cod / Mille Feuille / Pommes Dauph
2:45
Temper Cod & Beef PUFF PASTRY & 2
3:00
Portion Cheeks
3:00
Melbas, Croutons
3:15
Portion Potato × 2
3:15
Fennel Marmalade, Yuzu Gelée
3:30
Saute Mille Feuille / Quenelle Leeks
3:30
Hachee, Finish Croutons, Skewer Carrots
3:45
Assemble Smoke Bowls
3:45
Heat Chestnut Puree
4:00
Fire Beef / Shrimp Avo Tart
4:00
Smoke Bowl, Bread Pommes Dauph
4:15
Yuzu Gelée
4:15
Custard, Foam in Bag, JALAPEÑO, CONSOMMEE
4:30
Fire Cod 4:35 / Caviar Platter / 911 PUSH
4:30
Drop cod at 4:35
4:45
Cod Plate!
4:45
ORGANIZE Linen / Cod Plate
5:00
FISH PLATTER
5:00
FISH PLATTER
0:15
Sear Beef / PLATTER 911
0:15
Fry Pommes Dauph, Glaze Cheek & Chestnut
0:30
Beef Plate
0:30
Heat Turnip, Dauph, Smoke Ready, Beef Plate
0:35
BEEF PLATTER
0:35
BEEF PLATTER
Note: check bain water
Note: check bain water
pulled tautly around him that frigid January morning. There were no industry giants, no half-million dollars in sponsorship funds. There was just the team. And ironically, on this day, there was just the team again. After all the money and media that had been stirred up over the past year, it all came down to the same thing it always came down to: a core group rendezvousing before sunup to head to Eurexpo and cook. At various points in and around Lyon, similar scenes were playing out as eleven other bands were coming together for the same purpose.
Day One of the Bocuse d’Or had come and gone the day before, and Team USA had taken advantage of their spot on the schedule to catch their breath, sleeping in before heading out to the event site to soak up the atmosphere and watch the platters go by. The setup of Hall 33 was very much like that of the event in Orlando, writ large: twelve kitchens, twenty-four judges, plus a table between the fish and meat juries at which Daniel Boulud, Paul Bocuse (or, in his stead for much of the afternoon, Jérôme Bocuse, representing the Bocuse name), and President of the Jury and 2007 Bocuse d’Or champion, Fabrice Desvignes, would sit. The jury area was flanked by two carving stations at which the food on each platter would be portioned out onto plates for the judges.
Hollingsworth, Guest, and Laughlin spent most of the afternoon with Laura Cunningham, seated in the front row of a sponsor box—slightly closer to the action than the general-admission spectators—getting their bearings: About three hours before the first platter was set to be marched out, Vincent Ferniot, a paunchy, mustachioed French television food personality who had served as the French-language emcee of the Bocuse d’Or for many years, and Angela May, an actress and model making her Bocuse d’Or debut, replacing Jérôme Bocuse as the English-language host, took the stage. The pair began several hours of commentary, amplified throughout the auditorium itself where they were visible on a large screen suspended over the competition kitchens, and transmitted around the world through streaming video on “Sirha TV,” the host event’s Web site. Throughout the late morning and into the afternoon, Ferniot and May interviewed coaches and sponsors, narrated the action in the kitchens, and introduced the judges, which included several world-renowned culinary figures: Anne-Sophie Pic of France, Lea Linster of Luxembourg, Eyvind Hellstrøm of Norway, Matthias Dahlgren of Sweden, Philippe Rochat of Switzerland, Juan Mari Arzak of Spain, and of course American’s own Thomas Keller.
Day One of the competition was strangely anticlimactic as the much-vaunted noise level didn’t live up to its legend. Not even close. Hollings-worth and Guest were both encouraged by what they heard—after months of being warned about the tympanum-traumatizing audience, the reality was startlingly mild. So, too was the size of Hall 33, routinely described in the media as hosting thousands of spectators when in reality there were just about one thousand people in attendance at any given time, including media who were allowed to roam the area outside the kitchens in the first hours, then banished to a pen between the sponsor boxes and the competition floor when the judges took their seats shortly before the tasting began.
The line-up on Day One included Australia, Brazil, Finland, Mexico, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Historically, Day One has not produced many medalists, but with Lundgren in the mix, it was not a group to be dismissed. There wasn’t much audacity on display that afternoon, no eye-popping surprises, but there were points of interest, as when the Brazilian platter came out with a unique solution to the “keeping the food hot” challenge: a small fire had actual flames licking the beef centerpiece as the platter was paraded before the judges. There was also a moment of heartbreak, when returning candidate Croston of Australia—there with hopes of bettering his twelfth-place finish of two years prior—sliced his cod fillet with its prawn “crocodile” skin (the shrimp that enveloped the fish gave it a croc skin appearance), only to have it go to pieces on him, the flesh all but disintegrating as he brought his knife blade down through it. As most candidates found out that day, the cod had a larger flake than what he was used to. As it turned out, the fish provided was a different variety of cod—skrei, instead of the promised torsk. “It’s a little trickier because the fish is soft, especially if it is stuffed,” said Odd Ivar Solvold, coach of Norway’s Skeie. “We Scandinavians know the fish well—you just need to salt it a bit and be a little more gentle with the heat, but I’m not sure everyone else knows how to work it.”
In his first time at the Bocuse d’Or, Thomas Keller found that judging detail came with its own sets of stresses and challenges. Boulud’s concerns about the jury not having time to read Team USA’s descriptive packet proved well-founded as Keller barely had time to take in each dish, often tasting one team’s plates as another team’s platter went by, and trying to make written notes at the same time. Before too long he had created his own shorthand system that he later transferred to the official scoring sheets. As for the packets the United States and other teams distributed, he quickly developed the belief that they should be distributed to the judges the night before the competition so they might have a chance to anticipate what each team is preparing and to know what they are going for to guide them in their evaluation and appreciation.
None of the platters seemed especially intimidating until the fish platter emerged from the Swedish kitchen. As it was carried past the jury, bobbing in the handheld frame on the large-screen TV, Hollingsworth saw what might have been a harbinger of doom. The platter, from his old housemate Lundgren, positively reeked of confidence: cross sections of cod poached in its own skin, with lemon-marinated prawns aligned in its center, scallops filled with scallop roe crème, flavored with algae and topped with caviar, little pea custards topped with three perfectly spherical peas. On the edge of the platter was etched, in letters appropriate to the credits of a Terminator movie: lundgren SWE 09. That’s my name, it said. And don’t you forget it. Thirty minutes later, Lundgren’s meat platter made an equally daunting impression: a centerpiece of a ballotine (roll) of grilled fillet of beef stuffed with its own fat and oxtail braised in red wine and veal bouillon. Standing up on their sides were circles of pickled golden beets, filled with foie gras and topped with a graduation cap of four-spice bread. One component was titled “Tastes and S
cents of the Forest,” featuring porcini mushrooms in an oven-baked onion, set atop a potato pedestal. The platter was clean, perfect, and fanciful, brimming with identifiable flavors rendered in spectacular fashion. Nobody else on Day One would touch Lundgren, and by day’s end, it was clear to Hollingsworth that he was the front-runner.
Kaysen, who had been watching the competition intermittently as he roamed around the Bocuse d’Or, catching up with old acquaintances and competitors, had come to the same conclusion. When he connected with Hollingsworth at the end of the day, they were in total sync.
“Jonas’s stuff looked good, huh?” said Kaysen.
“Yeah,” said Hollingsworth.
“Good for him,” said Kaysen. “He deserves it.”
BY WEDNESDAY MORNING, KAYSEN had put Day One out of his mind and his attention was firmly on Team USA. A few nights earlier, he had been relocated to the plush Sofitel because his room at the Beaux-Arts was needed for spectators. It wasn’t a long walk to the Hotel Beaux-Arts, and he took it briskly. His sense of purpose was unmistakable, a man on a mission if ever there were one.
His momentum was momentarily stalled, however, when he spied a small passenger van parked across the street from the Beaux-Arts, rather than the passenger bus they were expecting, the same one that had been chauffeuring spectators to brunches and dinner, with its crucial cargo holds underneath for all of the team’s food and equipment. Why the transportation company had sent them this van was anybody’s guess, but there was no time to place a complaint call, and nothing to be gained. Coach Henin, veteran that he was, was already in the lobby, waiting. Pelka was there, too. On seeing Kaysen, she yelled out, “Hey, GK!” The night man, clearly ready for Team USA to find a new base of operations, shushed her sternly.
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