old house in Yountville, which he had been planning to convert into a research and development facility for his company, as a training center. His vision was to install equipment identical to the competition kitchen so Team USA could practice with the same stoves, ovens, and other equipment that theyâd be cooking on in January. The house also had two bedrooms where the team could stay while they trained. Jérôme Bocuse, meanwhile, had suggested making the team trials part of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, a forty-five day celebration that takes place in the late summer and would provide a built-in audience to cheer on the competitors as they vied for the honor of representing the United States. He phoned Nora Carey, director of the event, who had
just
left a planning meeting for the next year when he reached her, and had no room in her budget for another event. But this was the Bocuse family asking; she just couldnât say âno.â So she forged an alliance with some like-minded members of the Disney food and beverage team, and made the rounds until they had secured all the necessary executive buy-in. (For Keller, it would be the second âcollaborationâ with Disney. The creative team behind the Disney-Pixar film
Ratatouille
spent time working with the chef at The French Laundry as part of their research, and Keller designed the
confit byaldi
âthe elegant interpretation of ratatouille assembled in thinly sliced concentric rings instead of rough-cut vegetablesâthat Remy the Rat prepares at the filmâs climax.)
Bouludâs next step was to approach a whoâs who of famous Americanchefsâor at least chefs who worked in Americaâto ask them to become members of the âUS Committee for the Bocuse dâOr.â In the last week of the month, Boulud sent out e-mails, âsignedâ by himself and Keller, asking fellow luminaries to affiliate their names with the effort. âBy having your association as a US Committee member,â it read, âwe will gain lever-age to:
Support fundraising and sponsorship efforts
Increase awareness of the Bocuse dâOr among our peers
Encourage young chefs to apply to compete
Honor Mr. Bocuse with your affiliation.â
With the request coming from Boulud and Kellerâand with the reference to paying homage to Bocuse himselfâthe response from many of the countryâs most celebrated chefs wasâwhat else?ââ
Oui, Chef.
â Boulud also pulled off the rare feat of convincing the editors of the three top competing American food magazinesâDana Cowin of
Food & Wine
, Ruth Reichl of
Gourmet
, and Barbara Fairchild of
Bon Appétit
âplus Martha Stewart to sign on as the Media Advisory Board.
In mid-April, with the first members of the committee (in time it would be renamed the Advisory Board) secured, Boulud approached the all-important sponsors with a letter inviting them to participate in the undertaking. Again, the yeses came fast and furiously: All-Clad Metalcrafters LLC, Krups, Diageo, Enodis, and Moët Hennessy USA all ponied up what Pelka refers to as âsubstantial financial supportâ as well as in-kind contributions of goods and services, for either training, hospitality in Orlando, or both. For example, Enodis, the company that installs the competition kitchens in Lyon, would furnish the equipment for the team trials and the Yountville training facility. Other sponsors followed in waves: Avero, which sells data-tracking software to restaurants, and American Expressmade financial contributions; Brandt Beef, a Brawley, California-based purveyor popular with top American restaurants, provided meat for the candidates to train with, and Pierless Fish, also a favorite among acclaimed U.S. chefs, did the same with the seafood; Rougié, the Périgord, France, foie gras company and a sponsor of the Bocuse dâOr mothership in Lyon, provided foie gras for
Angela White, Kim Fillmore, Lanae Morris