Star chef in Hyde Park

Chef Ferrán Adrià came to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park yesterday, for a rare cooking demo for the culinary college's students. I'd seen the famed Spanish chef at Slow Food's international conference, Terre Madre, in Turin, Italy a few years ago. There, in a hall filled with chefs, food producers and foodies from all over the world, he really did get the "rock star" reception. (I wrote about a local connection to that event in a past blog post.) His CIA appearance created similar excitement.

At the CIA yesterday, he was accompanied by another famed Spanish chef, José Andrés (Cafe Atlantico, Jaleo, Zaytinya, Minibar by Jose Andres, Oyamel restaurants.) You can read more about the visit in the Poughkeepsie Journal article.

Many connections here: Andrés trained at Adrià's world-renowned restaurant El Bulli in Spain. Andrés also appeared on an episode of Iron Chef America where CIA President Tim Ryan served as a judge, and Andrés chaired "Spain and the World Table," the prestigious Worlds of Flavor international food conference held in 2006 at the Culinary's Greystone campus in California's Napa Valley. I wrote about that way back when, in this blog post. Yup, it's about gerbil meatballs too. ;-)