Sugar Rush
I got a little nostalgic Sunday afternoon after attending Dessert Fantasy, a dessert competition at the Pacific Beach Hotel. Mari Taketa and I were at the cerebral palsy benefit for about 20 minutes, when she said that Melissa Chang had just told her that I had won the People’s Choice award at this event when I was in culinary school. I nonchalantly informed her that KCC won it three years in a row, and that back then, it was called “Sugar Rush.” Mari asked for a few photos to include in her gallery, so I scanned a few old photos from my college days.
I was in my final year of the pastry program at KCC. The program had just been accredited as one of the top pastry programs in the country by the American Culinary Federation, and the school had just established the Culinary Institute of the Pacific. The department head, chef Ernst Hiltbrand, had gathered his top students to represent the school at Sugar Rush ’99. We spent a few weeks learning the basics of how chocolate and sugar work. Then, during the week leading up to the event, we came in early to make various cakes, candies and desserts that we planned to feature on our table. By the day of the event, we had a full display ready to go. Going into it, we had no idea any voting was involved, so we were all surprised when we were awarded the People’s Choice award, which we proudly put on display in the school display case.
