Bakersfield, Day Three

Needed my alarm this time - was out late drinking. Gotta say, the Doubletree on Thursday nights seems to be THE place to be in Bakersfield, at least for salsa dancing. After some time (11pm?) they start mixing up the music a bit more.

Anyway, good thing we bumped into the chefs in the lobby -- I hadn't made arrangements for a ride to the Technical Center and my brother-in-law needed the car -- so we hitched a ride with Nancy and Kate. Felt good when Nancy told me the chefs thought I had chosen the most difficult flavor combination. It was purely accidental, but I do enjoy a good challenge. Not exactly sure why they thought this, as I figured I had some proven flavors while I saw some challenges with the other 2 flavors: how to keep the waffle bits from getting soggy; how to incorporate delicate pears and caramelization. I do think with my flavors, though, it is tough to balance the coconut, which I find subtle, with chocolate, which can be overpowering, along with the cinnamon and cayenne pepper.

After breakfast, we went in to face the judging panel. I was definitely feeling nervous -- it's like waiting for your test scores to come back: even though I knew I did well, I was always worried I messed up somehow. At this point, the whole situation was becoming a bit overwhelming. I wanted to enjoy the moment, enjoy tasting the other flavors, look good on camera (notes to self: sit up straight, smile, relax, don't look at the camera, don't say anything stupid,...), and listen to everyone's suggestions. In addition to that, I was trying to nail down what I was going to say to introduce my flavor.

Both Leslie's and Crissy's flavors were GOOD. I would have done combinations of their two respective variants. I agreed with the judges in some aspects, but differed in others. With Coco y Cacao, I agreed with all of the judges recommendations. That's not really a surprise, though, since I presented two ends of the spectrum, so I was expecting the judges to fall somewhere in between. The big question was, where would that be?

Some memorable comments on Coco y Cacao: "sexy", "on trend".

After the judging, we went back to the "labs" to refine our flavors. I felt the judges were leaning toward the bolder end of the spectrum, so from the bold variant I toned down the coconut and lowered the heat. We chopped the coconut shavings to reduce their size, and at Denise's suggestion, added less (by weight) to compensate: the theory goes that with smaller size but same weight, you have more pieces, so your mouth perceives it as having more coconut. Jacques mentioned that he was tasting the cinnamon, then chocolate, then feeling the heat. He said the chocolate should come first and to use a darker chocolate. This reminded me that, yeah, I had used a dark chocolate in my original recipe, but I lost sight of that. I was so glad Jacque brought that up. So, we asked Denise if she could source a darker fudge, not only in the hope of giving it a richer chocolate taste, but also to balance out the sweetness of the ice cream base, which I was finding too sweet.

My sister thought Day Three went much better, that the interaction between myself, the chefs, and Denise was great and it could have been aired as a TV show. Denise was great. She picked up the conversation when it started to die out, and asked very intelligent, relevant questions. I feel part of the improvement was due to the fact that we had a more limited amount of time and also definite goals. Once the judging was done, our team gathered and came up with a game plan, then executed it. Also, with the time pressure, I was more focused on listening to the expert's opinions, rather than interjecting my own. This was crunch time and when you have the best players on your team, you go with them.

My biggest highlight of Day Three was when Nancy invited me to visit her new restaurant. How cool was that?! And, as it turned out, I was heading to L.A. that weekend anyway.

Bakersfield, Day One (4/13/2007)

A camera crew was waiting for us upon arrival at the Doubletree Hotel in Bakersfield, CA. -- my first time being filmed. They interviewed my sister and I, and one of the questions they asked was if I was nervous. Surprisingly, I was not. At least that's what I thought. Turns out, I was a bit nervous, as I completely forgot to follow instructions: leave the keys in the car. Oh well. I wasn't shaking, so I didn't think I was nervous.

Häagen Dazs and Gourmet threw us a cocktail reception that evening -- my first opportunity to meet the other contestants. Up until this point, I had no idea who they were, what they looked like, even where they were from. Ok, I did know they were from New York and New Jersey, but didn't know who owned which flavor. Turns out Leslie (Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan) is from Buffalo, New York, and Chrissy (Blueberry Belgian Waffle) is from Ewing, New Jersey -- see story in the Bakersfield Californian. It was great to meet them and put a face to the flavor.

Along with the rest of the Häagen Dazs, Gourmet, ad agency, and film production company teams, we met Sara Moulton. She immediately made me feel welcome; she's a great conversationalist and I could tell she did her homework. We also had a nice discussion about coconut milk.

If this was a reality show, I'd be portrayed as the hyper-competitive, over-achieving Asian guy. There was a short trivia contest, where I answered the first 2 questions (and could have answered the 3rd, but there was no way I was going to do that - thank goodness Matthew, Chrissy's nephew, answered it correctly).

Day Two to follow...