It was an early start, with the congress commencing every day at 8:15, but this, the opening day, was an especially important and exciting beginning, with the parade of flags, and our own Francis Lo, carrying Hong Kong’s flag up onto the dais where it sat in auspicious place behind exiting WACS World President Ferdinand Metz.

The day was fully booked with the business affairs of what amounts to the “United Nations of Chefs”, and even chefs must tackle these mundane tasks every few years or nothing else could be accomplished as a global body of partners.

Rudy Muller, graciously asked both Francis and I to take turns sitting with him in the table of honor, as the second seat representing Hong Kong.

I believe I can speak for Francis and Rudy as well when I say were struck time and again with the profound honor of our position.

Of particular note today: During his presentation of the region, our Continental Director, John , in front of the entire congress, praised the outstanding work of the HKCA in web presence, stating to the world that at least in his opinion, ours was the strongest web presence of WACS. Marco Varinga, you make us all proud.

But the WACS is not all about business, we enjoyed a wonderful education presentation on Indonesian spice mixtures (Bunbu) given by Unilever Chef, William Wongso.

The opening diner – Dubai – Modern Flavours & Trends, was held at the beautiful Jumeirah Emirates Towers, a fine affair, and just enough wine (but not too much) for a good nights rest.

Christopher Gallaga

Reporting from Dubai

Monday, May 12, 2008

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Today’s events started out with an exceptional series of presentation from the countries vying to host the 2012 Congress. India, South Korea, Portugal and Sri Lanka all represented their country and their intentions for our congress in an exciting series of 10-minute presentations.

All the countries had significant strengths and benefits and it took the delegates two rounds of run-off voting to finally agree that the Republic of Korea, will host the Congress in 2012. This is especially significant for Hong Kong because it will mean that we can plan to send a large delegation and have significant presence in competitions.

Once the 2012 location was secured we were given a zesty presentation of what can be expected at the WACS congress 2010 in Chile. It would be a tiresome and expensive excursion to be sure, but the look and feel of Chile as presented is sure to excite whichever few lucky delegates we can send from Hong Kong.

During lunch we had a very special presentation of the produce from the ship of the dessert, the camel. We dine on pit-roasted camel and drank the slightly acidic camel milk. Both were delicious, the meat being quite similar to Kalua Pork, and the milk being low fat and similar in texture and taste to a skim yogurt drink. I was excited to see some large bones full of marrow on the camel tray and so just had to taste. I can tell you camel Ossobuco is just as tasty as the veal version.  Perhaps in time some adventurous chef will serve it in Hong Kong.

The afternoon program was a vibrant panel discussion on Women Chefs in WACS. It was very good to see that, rather than segregating women as a special issue, there was an actual pledge and strong current of understanding among the panel and delegates that we should adopt a mission of celebrating diversity of every kind, and allowing chefs to be chefs without need of any arbitrary prejudicial measurement or segregation. A chef is a chef is a chef, and we are all in this together.

Of note also in this discussion was the need to move forward in our care of our employees, communities and environment as well. A special recognition was given that in many was the fast food industry has been beating us at feeding people economically and at community and employee care. We can certainly learn a thing or two from these industries and adding our values for nutrition and real, whole, sustainable cuisines, we can drive our profession into a future with the goal of a triple bottom line of: “People, Profit Planet.”

With the afternoon session drawn to a close we were on our own for the evening and so the Hong Kong Delegation spread to the four corners of the city for our a bit of private time.

Christopher Gallaga

Reporting From Dubai

Tuesday May13, 2008

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Dubai WACS Congress Day 3

After a few days of acclimatizing to the scorching forty-something degree dessert heat, the WACS Congress got to down to one of the primary pieces of business of this meeting – the election of the new Presidium.

Overall the election went without a hiccup and as HKCA President Rudolph Muller has already noted, Iceland, as headed by Mr. Gasser Gudmundson has been duly elected to the prestigious and difficult post of Presidium of WACS, until the next election in 2012.

The HKCA, is proud to serve the new presidium and we will do our best, as always, to help foster the ideals of WACS, in our own small way, though our continental directorate.

Til hamingju Ísland!

With the meat of the mater well settled, the congress moved on to some extraordinary educational presentations, first from the TV Chef Osama (as he says, the good one) who took us through a wonderful lesson in Mezzeh. Not only informative but all available for tasting, and delicious, of course.

After tea we had a stunning, if a bit chemical, presentation of molecular cuisine from Stephen Beholder, who cooked with nitrogen in one segment and gave us a wide overview and demonstration of this trendy chemistry rooted style of cuisine.

 We adjourned for lunch while Rudy and Mak went to support and observe the Hong Kong team in the MLA Black Box Challenge Global Grand Final. We joined them in the evening for the Ceremonial Awards Dinner.

The dinner was an elegant affair and the Hong Kong team, from the Disneyland Hollywood Hotel did and absolutely wonderful job, claiming fourth place and one of only 4 gold medals. South Korea, who has had quite an exciting and successful show, took two top dish awards, and the championship title.

All in all it was another wonderful day ending late at night in the palatial Medina Jumeirah Resort.

Christopher Gallaga

Reporting from Dubai

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We the HKCA congratulate Gissur and we are looking forward to work with him through our continental director

Rudy Muller HKCA President
 

The remainder of the rather long final day was spent awarding the many members and participants for their efforts.  Even our own Billy Yeung was up on stage as part of a large group from Unilever accepting the Global Partner award. The awards ceremonies were accompanied by what must have been a very best of TV and film music CD, as themes from bewitched, star trek, star wars and many similar themes played in the back ground – surreal. At one special moment Bill Gallagher (no relation) noted the interesting music. Of  some special note in the awards were the winners of first the Hans Bueschken's Junior Chef competition won by the Junior Chef from the USA, and then of course the Inaugural Global Chefs Challenge which was taken by Netherlands Chef Toines Smulders.