A Very Sweet Proposal
September 4th, 2009 by HHG
Heirloom Hospitality Group is buzzing over the excitement of the past couple of weeks. First of all, Ted has arrived early from Qatar to help Liz look for a location for the restaurant in Asheville. He is an integral part of our team and we are all excited to have him back in the United States so that we can get this project moving ahead as quickly as possible!
Other exciting news, Katie and Felix got engaged this past weekend! Felix visited Katie in Spain for two weeks and popped the question. Of course, she said yes! He proposed with an amazingly detailed enormous ring made of candy for his pastry chef. It
was a perfect moment, very real and full of the love they have for eachother. The Escriba pastry company is the company that makes the Candy Glam Rings. It is a gemstone too precious to eat.
Apart from her excitment over the engagement, Katie is extremely excited with all that she is learning at El Bulli. After only two months, she is now able to temper chocolate on a marble tabletop with the best of them. She is a master at finessing a deep amber out of a dry caramel in order to make any number of delicious toffees. And amongst other things, she is perfecting the technique of spherifications, ultra light sponge cakes made with an ISI siphon and a microwave, and chocolate air (the most magical manipulation of chocolate made possible thanks to the use of a cryovac machine). She is also really enjoying the creativity meetings and discussing dish ideas and flavor combinations with the other chefs. Last week she recommended the combination of corn with bourbon and guess what´s on the menu this week…a corn leaf made by freeze drying corn, grinding it up with hard caramel, sifting the powder into a mold, baking it, reheating it under a heat lamp and pressing it in between two molds with the imprint of a leaf, it is then sprinkled with a little salt and served tableside with two drops of whiskey on each leaf, hmmm whiskey and corn, sounds really familiar (too bad Katie can´t take credit for the technique as well)! This week the task is to come up with flavor combinations to go with horchata, a traditional spanish drink made with the juice of tiger nuts or chufas. Any ideas?
There are lots of exciting times to come for Heirloom Hospitality Group, January in Asheville with all of us finally together and then a possible late spring wedding in Spain?
Posted in Chapter One: The Four Corners of the World | Comments (0)