so good.. magazine – The magazine of the haute pâtisserie

Good and productive. The sustainability of a crop which is also source of richness and life entirely depends on the balance of this binomial. GranjaLuker has spent half a century doing research and seeking the best, most resistant and most profitable cacaos, as well as updating the production methods, but one of their greatest achievements is even more important than this – the persuasion and training of the local farmers, who have realized that, economically speaking, cacao is as interesting as coffee, bananas or palm trees. For Juan Carlos Arroyave, director of the farming department of this institution, quality and productivity not only do not oppose each other, but need each other.More info

Introducing new, advantageous ingredients; simplifying the processes; increasing the uses and performance of each product; in short, optimizing the technical side of pastry and bringing it to its best: this is what smart pastry is all about – a concept which Jordi Puigvert practices and teaches all over the world as a technical advisor for several companies. And this will actually be the main topic of a book which will come out next November, written by Puigvert himself and published by Grupo Vilbo and So Good..More info

When back in the 60s of the last century McLuhan coined the term global village to describe the new situation the radio and especially television were beginning to cause, he could not imagine how this emerging globalization would reach present terms. Today there is little left to discover, or rather, to portray, record and disseminate. We know what happens at the other end of the world with the same immediacy and the same detail as if it were happening in our own city. This is a process as integral to humanity as inevitable. It is true that globalization may end up standardizing almost everything, but you cannot deny that exchange is always means knowledge and wealth.More info

‘A championship organized by and for the pastry chefs’, this is the explicit definition the organizers of PastryLive use to refer to the second edition of the National Showpiece Championship to be held in Atlanta on Sunday, August 5th, within the framework of PastryLive. More info

Andy Chlebana, Christophe Feyt, Stephen Durfee and Roy Pell will make up the team representing the USA in the next edition of the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie (Lyon 2013). They all qualified in a test held in The Grand Rapids Community College, and were chosen out of a group of eight finalists.More info

The Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas will host the next 8 and 9 July the Amoretti World Pastry Team Championship finals. A total of eight teams from China, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, South Korea and the U.S. will compete for this international title, also accompanied by a hefty $25,000 prize.More info

For its second annual L’Art du Chocolatier Challenge 2012, sponsored by Cacao Barry and Chicago’s Chocolate Academy, a few changes were made to make it better, said Alexandra Urbe, Cacao Barry’s brand manager for the Americas. But one thing remained the same: “Our strong passion for this industry.”More info

With more than a hundred guests from all over the world, Dobla has recently opened the Pacific Pastry Academy in Vungh Tau (Vietnam). More info

The French pastry chefs’ talent has no limits. Pierre Hermé, Christophe Michalak, Arnaud Larher, Jean-Paul Hevin, Pierre Marcolini, Pascal Caffet, la Maison du Chocolat, Stéphane Glacier, Patrice Chapon, Patrick Roger, Emmanuel Ryon… They all have worked hard to design a new line of chocolate eggs and figures for Easter.More info

The latest edition of the US Pastry Competition has showed that pastry is a long-distance race in which one can never renounce a dream to come true. In proof of this, you can ask Anthony Smith, who had already tried to win this prestigious competition on several occasions before, being the first one 8 years ago. His perseverance and effort have led him to win the Gold Medal and have turned him into the new Pastry Chef of the Year 2012.More info