LIVE Magazine Issue #250 Jan 4-13, 2017

summer of 2013 Gale was the guest chef for 2 weeks on A-Rosa’s Rhone River
Cruise through the south of France. This summer she will sail to Tahiti to take a
group to a vanilla plantation. She also does Food Innovation with The Hyde Park
Group in Chicago for large and small food companies.
March 24-26, 2017
Celebrity Chef
LIVEMAGAZINE
EXCLUSIVE by Juli Ragsdale
Gale
Gand
Returns to the Desert
Even in a large format magazine like LIVE Magazine it would be a daunting
task to outline in entirety the achievements of celebrity Chef Gale Gand. She
is a nationally acclaimed pastry chef, restaurateur,cookbook author, television
personality, teacher, entrepreneur, and mother. Chef Gand has been recognized
as Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year by The James Beard Foundation and by
Bon Appetit Magazine and has been inducted into the Chicago Chefs Hall of
Fame.
In March of 2017 we will have the pleasure of a returning visit when Gale Gand
kicks off the Palm Desert Food & Wine 2017 festival, presented by Agua
Caliente Casino Resort Spa from March 24-26, 2017. First, Gale will hold “Pie
Camp” on Saturday giving us Pie Baking tips. She will demonstrate again on
Sunday at 1pm (VIP Tent 1).
For 8 years, Gale hosted the Food Network series “Sweet Dreams,” the first
nationally televised all-dessert show anywhere. Gale has made appearances
on “The Martha Stewart Show,” “Oprah,” “The Dr. Oz Show,” “Baking With
Julia” (Child), “Good Morning America,” “The Rachael Ray Show” and “The
Today Show.” She competed on “Iron Chef America” and has been featured as a
celebrity judge on “Food Network Challenge,” “Last Cake Standing,” “Top Chef”
and “Top Chef Just Desserts.”
Gale is the founding pastry chef and partner of the beloved Chicago restaurant
Tru, opened with long-time culinary partner Chef Rick Tramonto and
restaurateur Rich Melman in 1999. Tru quickly became a sensation among
Chicago’s fine dining community and has earned ecstatic praise from reviewers,
receiving accolades from the James Beard Foundation; the Michelin, Mobil
and AAA guides; Relais Gourmand; Wine Spectator magazine; and was named
Chicago’s Best Restaurant by Chicago Magazine. Prior to opening Tru, Gand and
Tramonto earned increasing acclaim at their Chicago area restaurants Trio and
Brasserie T, and at Stapleford Park, an historic country house hotel near Melton
Mowbray in Leicestershire, England, where in 1991 Tramonto and Gand became
the first American chefs to earn a Michelin Red M.
Gale is a prolific cookbook author with eight titles to her credit, including her
most recent “Gale Gand’s Lunch!,” released in April 2014. Earlier titles (written
with Rick Tramonto) include: American Brasserie (1997); Butter Sugar Flour Eggs
(1999); and Tru: A Cookbook from the Legendary Chicago Restaurant (2004). On
her own Gand authored Just a Bite (2001); Short and Sweet (2004); Chocolate
and Vanilla (2006) and Gale Gand’s Brunch (2009), in it’s fifth printing.
Gale also produces her own artisan root beer, “Gale’s Root Beer,” which is
available nationally. And each year in the spring months, Gale and her son Gio
supply local restaurants with wild ramps foraged from wooded areas near their
suburban Chicago home.
Gale was the Chef in Residence in 2011 and 2012 at Elawa Farm in Lake Forest,
Illinois, a beautifully preserved and restored early 20th century “gentleman’s
farm” that is now home to an organic community garden, an ecological learning
center, and a meeting space for community activities and private events. Gale
hosts a series of events and cooking classes in the Elawa farm kitchen.
In addition, Chef Gand frequently teaches cooking classes at such places as
Eataly Chicago, Blackberry Farm in Tennessee, King Arthur Flour in Vermont
and Zingerman’s in Michigan, to name a few. Gale has 2 classes on Craftsy.
com available, one on Meringues which won an IACP award in 2016, and one
on Custards. She also does public speaking, cooking demonstrations and book
signings. Gale also appears frequently at national and international Food and
Wine festivals such as The Epcot Food and Wine festival at Disney World, The
Aspen Food and Wine Classic, The World Gourmet Festival in Bangkok, The San
Diego Food and Wine Festival, Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, etc. In the
In the summer of 2008, two of Gale’s desserts were featured at the USA House
at the Beijing Olympics. In 2011 Chef Gand was chosen by Mayor Daley to create
the desserts for Chicago’s welcome dinner for China’s President Hu in 2011.
Gale participates in many national and local charities. In 2010 and 2011, she was
a mentor in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools initiative, which
helps fight childhood obesity through nutritional education.
Gale holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rochester Institute of
Technology, majoring in silver and gold smithing, and attended culinary school
at La Varenne in Paris. She resides in Riverwoods, Illinois with her husband,
Jimmy Seidita, son Gio (19), twin daughters Ella and Ruby (11).
For even more information about Chef Gale Gand, visit www.galegand.com.
Juli Ragsdale: You are known for your great desserts as well as your
many entrees. What kind of exciting things do you have planned for your
demonstrations this year?
Gale Gand: I’m making one of the earlier courses in the meal so I am doing an
appetizer course. Usually I wait to see what the other dishes are to pick what
works with them. But I’m thinking Sweet peppers stuffed with shrimp, wrapped
in bacon. I’ll also be leading Pie Camp where I teach you how to make the
perfect pie crust, and then doing a talk on vanilla after going to Tahiti this year
to lead tours at a vanilla plantation through Paul Gauguin Cruises.
JR: Because your brother Gary and his wife Joan winter in Palm Springs, we
know you have been coming to the Desert for many years now. Have you
acquired any favorite venues or activities?
GG: I always go for a date shake at Shields...I’m actually drinking tea out of a
mug from there right now! I love the Shrimp and Linguine at trio with a glass
of chilled rose, And last time I was in town cooking for Desert Trip (Though I
like to think of it as Dessert Trip!) Gary, Joan, my sous chef Kathy and I went to
eight4nine for fish tacos and their Ahi Tuna Poke, and there’s an apricot Danish
at Peninsula Pastries that makes me weak in the knees.
JR: There is nothing like a night with a bottle of wine and no cork screw to bring
out the appreciation for the simple things in life. I love tools! Could you name
your favorite high-tech and low-tech gadget in the kitchen? Any outstanding
favorites? Low tech would probably be the
current lemon squeezer, the hinged kind with
a dome shaped body that has holes in it and
handles coming from it that you put 1/2 a lemon
or lime in to press out the juice.
GG: For high tech probably my hand blender for pureeing thing right in their
container. Not sure that’s really high tech but I definitely can’t live without it!
JR: I see that you were a judge this
month for the 5th annual South Side
Pie Challenge, a fundraiser for the
Hyde Park HungerPrograms (Chicago).
Any stand out pies?
GG: There was a delicious Mixed Nut Pie with a chocolate ganache layer on
the top. Very professional looking too. I think we ended up giving that one first
place out of over 100 pies. When I asked who made it, it was the same woman
that had won last year. She’s got a gift!
JR: What are your favorite charities?
GG: We sponsored the bathrooms at the Architecture and Design Museum in
Palm Springs. Look for the sign that says “Gand Rest Stop” above the entrance
(though we call it “The Gand Cans”). I do fund raising through cooking (dessert
for large multi coursed sit down dinners) and then just give on my own to a
place called Lydia House. It is a foster home in Chicago for 40 children whose
home life is just not conducive to thriving, though they have programs to help
the parents change that with the hopes of the kids returning to the home. We
sponsored an 8 year old girl this year for Christmas, buying her needs and wants
from her wish list. It was simple things like she needed a winter coat, boots, hat,
gloves, scarf, and an Easy Bake Oven! My kinda girl! I have my kids shop with me
for all her gifts. We are doing a cooking workshop with the kids at the home too.
There’s also an organization called Selah Freedom which helps end sex
trafficking and brings freedom to the exploited providing safe houses for them.
I donate personal items to them to help women restart their lives once they’ve
been extricated from their captors. They are based in Florida but have safe
houses in the Midwest.
JR: Any current private obsessions you are willing to reveal?
GG: Well, my son Gio is doing his junior year of college abroad at the London
School of Economics and so London is one of my new obsessions, though I lived
there in the 90’s for a year. And I’ve started reading. I know that sounds funny
but up until this year my husband would kid me that I’ve written more books (8)
than I’ve read. I have dyslexia and so reading is a challenge. But something just
switched on in my brain this year (I guess you can still learn and grow in your
60’s!) and I’m enjoying reading! Which is great since I find myself on planes a lot
for work. I mostly read historic fiction and mostly stories that take place during
WW2 involving Nazi’s, occupied France and Germany, from the Jewish and non-
Jewish perspective.
JR: Thanks for your time. We will see you soon at the Festival!
Palm Desert Food & Wine 2017
SAVE THE DATE! March 24-26, 2017
The seventh annual Palm Desert Food & Wine
presented by Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa,
takes place March 24-26, 2017 in Palm Desert, CA.
www.palmdesertfoodandwine.com