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It's no secret how much we love Sherry Yard, Grand Mlle executive pastry chef at a little restaurant called Spago. It's kind of embarrassing, actually, how unabashedly infatuated we are with her: her skill, her taste level, the seriously rad way she rocks a tiara.
So it should come as no surprise that when her second cookbook was due out in November, we bought ourselves an early Christmas gift. We weren’t disappointed. Not only is it lovely and so pretty in cotton-candy pink—not unlike the author herself—and generous with recipes, tips and calorie-inducing photos, the book is also a mini memoir. Each chapter of sweets represents a segment of this very “sweet life” which started in New York, worked in the iconic Rainbow Room in 30 Rock (initially as a cigarette girl!), then on to San Francisco, Napa and Europe before holding court at Spago, the growing Wolfgang Puck empire and the Governors Ball for the Oscars.
“It’s very Forrest Gump!” the pastry chef laughingly suggests in our interview. Oh, Ms. Sherry, Forrest’s got nothing on your box of chocolates.
We’re so in love with the book, and we love the format. Was a cookbook-memoir something you wanted to write for a while?
When I wrote the first book [“The Secrets of Baking”], it was all about teaching people how to bake, and having anyone from my mom to even pastry chefs understand baking in a new way. But when I first went to the publisher, it had a lot of the recipes from this book and the previous book, and all these stories, and I talked about farmer’s markets and the holidays. And [the publisher] looked at me and said, “You have five books here.” So I thought, “Well, what’s most important.” Back then, it was to teach. Second most important was this [book]. It seemed like a perfect follow-up because, true, it’s about me, but it’s really about all the wonderful people and places that have inspired me over the years. To share these stories with young people who are coming up in the industry and to [let them] know that it’s not easy sometimes, but it can be so rewarding.
What kind of advice would you have for the baking-challenged?
Oh, there are so many easy things, and you can be resourceful about it. Yesterday, I made the no-bake cheesecake filling [from the book], but [instead of the cakes] I stuffed these giant raspberries with it, then sat them on top of chopped chocolate. From the same filling, you could do absolutely anything. If you have leftovers—let’s say, coffee in the house, you can reduce it down and make the Café Glacé. Take any ice cream you got, the coffee, mush it around in a bowl, then top it with whipped cream and pirouette cookies—you know, you can get those from Pepperidge Farm—and it looks like a dessert you worked on all week. I said in the last book, it only ends where your creativity ends.
Would you please start a baking hotline?
I have my website, www.sherryyard.com.
Wait—are you encouraging us to contact you with our baking problems?
Yes, absolutely! Absolutely. I check e-mails all the time.
You must hate this question, but we’re going to ask: Do you have a favorite recipe from the book?
Oh, that’s hard. Mmm, if I had to eat one, if I had to eat just one...the rainbow cookies, honestly, probably, would be the answer. They’re in the earliest part of the book and represent everything I grew up with. Even as an adult—it’s classic, it’s fun, it’s colorful. It’s just about got everything you’d ever want: It’s a petit four, you’ve got some cake, and yet it’s like a cookie. There’s chocolate and some fruit. And it’s the right size, so you’ll wind up eating 10 of them.
Do you eat something sweet every day?
Oh my god! Breakfast, lunch and dinner! I always cover the four food groups: chocolate, ice cream, cookies and cake.
We noticed that there’s only one peanut butter–based recipe in the cookbook. Is it because your sister forced it on you when you two would play with Susie Homemaker?
Yes, only one recipe, and only because Cameron, Wolfgang’s son, is just a peanut butter freak. But, no, I can’t even…it’s my kryptonite. I don’t know if I actually break out, because just the smell alone turns me. So I’ve never gotten to the point of going into shock. I just know to stay away. And, yes, it’s all [my sister’s] fault. Gotta blame somebody, it might as well be her.
How does an executive pastry chef celebrate the holidays?
[My boyfriend and I] are going to go back to New York for holidays with my family. I always make the chocolate cherries [also in the book]. That’s a big thing for me. And we have a big breakfast. Christmas dinner is good—we make lasagna, of all things—but it’s the breakfast that morning where I make homemade doughnuts and waffles and there’s ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate sauce and all that. My father pulls out the omelettes, and I'd bring Alba truffles from L.A. We have an amazing Christmas breakfast.
We give you mad props for wearing a tiara for your James Beard award. [photo above]
[Uncomfortable pause.] Right, yeah, yeah. I feel…you know, I did not wear that to the Beard awards. Gail Gand [pastry chef and partner of TRU in Chicago]—I have to give her credit—put it on my head when I won. Of course, I did not take it off all night long…or the next morning or the next morning or the next morning!
But you always bring an element of the fabulous to everything you do—like this year’s American Wine and Food Festival.
Oh, were you there?
Oh, yes. You looked glorious in your feathers and sparkles. Is there ever a bad time to wear a boa or tiara?
Never! One question people ask me: What’s the worst thing about being a chef? I’m afraid it’s the wardrobe. It's a form of expression; and aren’t we all princesses? My mother says, “If you don’t treat yourself like a princess, who’s gonna?”
Jiyeon Yoo is Restaurants editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
