Pastry Chef

Chris Ford of Baltimore's Wit & Wisdom has been named "People's Best New Pastry Chef," a national award chosen by readers of Food & Wine magazine. Food & Wine, which has been naming America's best new chefs for 24 years, introduced a category for pastry chefs this year. In an online promotion for the new category, Food & Wine ran a poll in which readers were asked to select one pastry chef in each of the East, Central and West regions. The pastry chef with the most votes overall would win the honor.

Pabu Izakaya is celebrating its first birthday at the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore on Wednesday. The party will include an all-night happy hour, a special dessert by Four Seasons' pastry chef Chris Ford and a special "sake greet" for diners. Chefs Chad Gauss of the Food Market and Opie Crooks of Roy's will join Pabu's Jonah Kim in the kitchen. The birthday party at Pabu will also feature the disc jockey Jay Gray, who will spin from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. #sigshell { padding: 10px; float: left; width: 320px; height: 52px; margin: 20px 0px; display: block; }

Chris Ford of Baltimore's Wit & Wisdom is the People's Best New Pastry Chef. The prize was based on a readers' poll in Food & Wine magazine. Food and Wine, which has been naming America's best new chefs for 24 years, introduced a category for pastry chefs this year. In an online promotion for its new category, Food & Wine ran an online feature called the People's Best New Pastry Chef , in which readers were asked to select one pastry chef each in the East, Central and West regions.

Watch Four Seasons Baltimore executive pastry chef Chris Ford in the first episode of the Chicago Restaurant Pastry Competition, a web-based video series. Ford competes against three other chefs in the competition, a single-day event where finalists are asked to make eight servings of an original, creative, plated dessert. The chefs also compete in a mystery challenge where they are asked to push the envelope of frozen, plated desserts. This is the second year for the competition and web series, which focused on Chicago-based chefs the first year.

Services for Gillie E. Travis, a retired pastry chef at Baltimore school cafeterias, will be held at 10 a.m. today at St. James Episcopal Church, Arlington and Lafayette avenues.Mrs. Travis, who was 79 and lived on King William Drive in Catonsville, died Friday at Levindale after a long illness.She retired more than 10 years ago after working for the school district for many years.She was born Gillie E. Pickard in Reidsville, N.C., and came to Baltimore as a child.She graduated from Douglass High School and the Cortez Peters Business School.

Kornel Korczynski, a retired East Baltimore baker, died of complications from dementia Sept. 8 at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster. He was 88. Born in Baltimore, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, he was raised in Curtis Bay and Highlandtown. He was educated in city public schools and at St. Mary's Industrial School. During World War II, he served as a military policeman and baker in the Army. "When he was in the Army, the Germans taught him how to bake," said a brother, Emil Korczynski of Felton, Pa. After being discharged, he returned to Baltimore and opened the Dutch Oven Bakery on Mace Avenue in Essex.

It's not too far from northwest Baltimore to Washington, but it's a long way from sponge cake with blue icing to Viennese Chocolate Fantasy Cake and Triple Chocolate Terrine. Ann Amernick knows, because that's the path she's traveled since growing up in Baltimore largely unaware of the culinary world (though "I loved Haussner's for the strawberry pie," she recalls) to being one of the more noted pastry chefs in the country.She has baked her famous cakes and tortes at the Big Cheese in Georgetown, Le Pavilion and Jean-Louis at the Watergate in D.C. and she was assistant pastry chef at the White House in 1980 and 1981.

Gerhard K. Kadolph, a pastry chef and baker who worked at Dundalk and Highlandtown establishments and made the signature strawberry pie for the old Haussner's Restaurant, died of an infection May 20 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Dundalk resident was 79. Born in the Pomerania district of what was then eastern Germany and is now Poland, he became a bakery apprentice at 14. He worked alongside his uncle, also a baker, in Eberswalde near Berlin learning the trade. Drafted into the German navy at the end of World War II, Mr. Kadolph was assigned to a tugboat on the coast of the Netherlands.

It's not too far from northwest Baltimore to Washington, but it's a long way from sponge cake with blue icing to Viennese Chocolate Fantasy Cake and Triple Chocolate Terrine. Ann Amernick knows, because that's the path she's traveled since growing up in Baltimore largely unaware of the culinary world (though "I loved Haussner's for the strawberry pie," she recalls) to being one of the more noted pastry chefs in the country.She has baked her famous cakes and tortes at the Big Cheese in Georgetown, Le Pavilion and Jean-Louis at the Watergate in D.C. and she was assistant pastry chef at the White House in 1980 and 1981.

Call it the battle of the soft-shell crab. Quinn Hatfield, chef and co-owner of Hatfield's in Los Angeles, didn't want them on his menu -- they're best eaten simply, he thought, and he knew that they'd be so popular that he'd be cooking crabs all evening instead of artfully plating his signature dishes. But the restaurant's pastry chef disagreed. And Hatfield pan-fried crabs until they sold out. Hatfield's pastry chef admittedly has more clout than most. She's the restaurant's co-owner -- and the chef's wife.

Akis Anagnostou is in the zone. Anagnostou, the pastry chef at Ouzo Bay, Harbor East's new Greek hot spot, holds a saucepan at an angle, rapidly stirring its contents with a metal spoon. Every few seconds, he lifts the spoon, pulling with it a long tail of sugary blue liquid that extends back into the pan. After several minutes, he deems the sugar ready, dropping a dollop of the liquid on a nonstick mat. Dipping a small funnel-like tool in the sugar solution, the chef leans over, blowing gently into the funnel as he carefully and slowly draws the tool, and attached sugar, upward.

As the patient and sympathetic host of shows like "Food 911" and "How to Boil Water," Tyler Florence has been a welcome presence on the Food Network for 16 years. But some fans have trouble pinning him down, Florence said. They'll say, "What do you do? You're not the Italian guy, you're not the New Orleans guy. " The chef will be in the Baltimore area Saturday, signing copies of his new cookbook, "Tyler Florence Fresh," which was to be released Tuesday. Florence's ninth book is a departure from his previous titles.

More than 30 Baltimore chefs have been lined up for the third annual Farm to Chef culinary competition. Produced by the American Institute of Wine & Food Baltimore chapter, the event partners chefs with local farms to create recipes using locally grown ingredients. Formerly known as the Farmer and the Chef, the event is moving this year to the American Visionary Art Museum , where it will take place on Sept. 24 at 6:30 p.m. Farm to Chef is a benefit for Days of Taste, an AIWF program that brings together farmers, chefs and community volunteers to introduce school children to the basic tenets of taste and to teach them how food travels from farm to table.

Fleet Street Kitchen will open on Sept. 20. The 120 seat contemporary American restaurant is the third restaurant from the Bagby Restaurant Group, following Bagby Pizza Company (October 2009) and TEN TEN (November 2011).  The restaurant's executive chef is Baltimore native Chris Becker, formerly of the Wine Market. The team also includes Omar Semidey, chef de cuisine, Bettina Perry, executive pastry chef; Nico Bustos, general manager and Tim Riley, beverage director. Follow Baltimore Diner on Twitter @gorelickingood Got a tip?

It's Titanic time. As the world pauses to remember the great calamity of April 14-15, 1912, two area restaurants are re-creating the last meal — or at least some aspects of it — for the 100th anniversary. Langermann's in Canton is offering a special Titanic dinner Thursday through Saturday night. And in Annapolis, the Flying Dog Brewery is teaming with the Rockfish on Saturday night for a "Ghosts of the Titanic" beer dinner. There will be Titanic dinners all over the world this weekend, and most of them will be informed by "Last Dinner On the Titanic: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner," an attempt to re-create the 10-course meal served to first-class passengers on the ship's last night.

Two weekend of St. Patrick's Day. Truly we are blessed. There is so much going on Saturday. Take a look at the Baltimore Sun's St. Patrick's Day Guide 2012 . Here's our favorite event so far. Down at Mr. Rain's Fun House , Chef Bill Buszinski will debut his “ pre-spring ” menu highlighting his favorite seasonal ingredients such as shad roe, lamb and rabbit, with an optional beer pairing from Perez Klebahn featuring craft...

Even though there's something like 981 cooking competition shows out there (an estimate), we're still intrigued by Food Network's "Sweet Genius. "    The host/judge, acclaimed chef Ron Ben-Israel, is intriguingly mysterious and off-the-wall : ordering the chefs to cook frozen desserts with hard-boiled eggs? OK, then! Each episode features a new group of four pastry chefs competing for culinary glory ... and $10,000. Baltimore's Anisha Jagtap , 26, the pastry chef at Puffs & Pastries and the owner/chef at Baltimore Burger Bar, shows what she's made of on Thursday's episode (10 p.m.)

Former White House chef Roland Mesnier remembers the night that someone stole President Clinton's dessert. Mesnier had made a treat for the president, but it was missing when Clinton went to get it. Even with the Secret Service investigating, the dessert thief was never found. Mesnier related the story during a signing last week of his new book, Dessert University, at Starry Night Bakery in Westminster. In addition to telling stories from the White House, he answered questions and gave cooking tips.

Chris Ford of Baltimore's Wit & Wisdom has been named "People's Best New Pastry Chef," a national award chosen by readers of Food & Wine magazine. Food & Wine, which has been naming America's best new chefs for 24 years, introduced a category for pastry chefs this year. In an online promotion for the new category, Food & Wine ran a poll in which readers were asked to select one pastry chef in each of the East, Central and West regions. The pastry chef with the most votes overall would win the honor.

Chris Ford of Baltimore's Wit & Wisdom is the People's Best New Pastry Chef. The prize was based on a readers' poll in Food & Wine magazine. Food and Wine, which has been naming America's best new chefs for 24 years, introduced a category for pastry chefs this year. In an online promotion for its new category, Food & Wine ran an online feature called the People's Best New Pastry Chef , in which readers were asked to select one pastry chef each in the East, Central and West regions.