My 15 minutes of IFT fame I'm back in my corporate kitchen on Persnickety Place now, taking a little time to reflect on this year's IFT in Chicago. This was the third time I attended the annual convention. I have to say, hands down, Chicago is the best venue for this gathering of food technologists. Not only because Chicago is one of the best cities in the world—great architecture, great skyline—but because it's a great food town with some of the world's top restaurants and chefs. (And I'm not just saying that because I used to work in Chicago with some of them.) There's Rick Tramonto's Tru; Grant Achatz's Alinea; Shawn McClain's Custom House, Spring, and Green Zebra; Homaro Cantu's Moto; Charlie Trotter…and too many others to list. I was awfully busy at McCormick Place during this visit to Chicago—we featured a new product called Custom Melts (more on that later)—so I didn't get much of a chance to eat out. The one place I liked that I did go to with some of my Sargento colleagues was Osteria via Stato, which is a Rick Tramonto restaurant. The concept is Italian comfort food—simple, good quality, tasty food. All the food was served family-style. We had a Parmesan-crusted onion that was excellent. Penne with a meat ragu that was also great. I had veal for my main course, which was good, but didn't look as good as the rib-eye some of my colleagues had. Then it was off to Howl at the Moon Saloon for an evening of what you Americans call, 'schmoozing.' For those of you who haven't been there, Howl at the Moon is a dueling piano bar with two people playing grand pianos. My favorite of the evening was a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Back to top My turn as a poster boy As I mentioned earlier, Sargento featured a new product called Custom Melts at the show. Custom Melts is a new sauce concept that is solid at refrigerated temperatures, but that melts quickly with a few moments of heat. It's a great way to add flavor/sauce to vegetables, entrees, skillet dishes or even hot sandwiches. My colleague Chef Tony and I were kept pretty busy demonstrating Custom Melts during the run of the show, so I didn't get to leave the booth much, especially on Monday when the show was at its busiest. As part of the launch of Custom Melts, Sargento advertised the product in some trade magazines, in the IFT Show Program and on the internet. Some of the promotional materials have pictures of Chef Tony and me, and we did an instructional video about Custom Melts that is on the Web. (View the video.) I didn't really think much about this until I was walking through the aisles of the show and all of a sudden I hear, "Hey, Chef Guy!" I looked up to find two ladies - neither of whom I knew - grinning ear-to-ear at me. I guess they recognized me from the video on the Web. I just waved and kept going. It was a bit shocking, really. But for an instant, I knew what it must feel like to be a celebrity chef. All in all, it was a good show that was made all the better because of the Chicago location. Being a chef, I'm looking forward to next year in New Orleans. Now there's a town that takes its food seriously! Cheers, Chef Guy Full disclosure: My love affair with Chicago might just have a little something to do with the fact that it's my wife's hometown, and it's where we met nearly 14 years ago. Back to top