20 Foodie Questions: Chef Gary Gutierrez

For the New Year’s edition of my 20 Foodie Questions, I am featuring Figaro Coffee Company’s R&D Chef Gary Gutierrez. 🙂

Name: Gary T. Gutierrez
Age:32
Nationality:Filipino
Country of Residence:Philippines

1. Your Restaurant/Business:Figaro Coffee System Inc. / Bite Me!
2. About Your ideal Kitchen: 60’s Diner Contemporary
3. Your Favorite baked Item: Coffee Cake
4. First Job: Bank Teller
6. Your Awards: Food Showdown Silver Awardee – Wedding Cake category
7. Your Cooking Inspiration: Gale Gand/Martha Stewart
8. Your Specialty Cakes: Tablea Blackout Cake / Tropical Carrot Cake
9. Favorite Dish To Eat: Polynesian Chicken *Tinola 😉
10. Weirdest Thing You Ever Ate: Sea Urchin
11. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Coffee Crumble
12. Favorite Drink: Red Iced Tea
13. Favorite Dessert: Ube Jam *Purple Yam
14. Who Would You Most Like To Bake For: Love Ones *family *relatives *close friends
15. Who Would You Least Like To Bake For?.. Odd-Air headed People? Ahahah
16. Favorite Things to Do When Not Baking: Grocery Chore
17. Your Latest Project: Cake Line Up of Bite Me!
18. Favorite City/ Country and Why: Auckland, New Zealand. Why? Simply Laid Back 😉
19. Your Greatest Indulgence: A Jar of Nutella
20. Your All Time Best Baking Tips: Know your ingredients well. And always Bake when you are in a good mood not the other way around Hehe 😉

The 20 Foodie Questions: Chef Jo Javier

For this edition, I am featuring Pastry Chef Jo Javier

Name: Jojo Cuesta Javier

Age: 39

Nationality: Filipino

Country of Residence: Philippines

1. Your Restaurant/Business: Sweetielicious Homemade Goodies

2. About Your ideal Kitchen: A big kitchen that has a plenty of work space to accommodate more students for my baking class.

3. Your Favorite baked Item: Cakes

4. First Job: Sales Representative

6. Your Awards: Loyalty Award…(hahaha!)

7. Your Cooking Inspiration: Heny Sison, Judy Uson for local

8. Your Specialty Cakes: Cheesecake, Mango Cake and Strawberry Shortcake

9. Favorite Dish To Eat: Tapsilog, Pasta, Tacos

10. Weirdest Thing You Ever Ate: I don’t remember…

11. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Mango

12. Favorite Drink: Coke

13. Favorite Dessert: Cheesecake

14. Who Would You Most Like To Bake For:  I want to bake a cake for the President

15. Who Would You Least Like To Bake For? My detractors..(hahaha!)

16. Favorite Things to Do When Not Baking: bonding time with my unica hija and my husband.

17. Your Latest Project: Aside from my cakes orders weekly, I was recently featured at Woman Today Magazine for their May issue, and latest is Cook Connecting Foodies Magazine volume 14. Last May I was chosen to be one of the judges at IFEX Modern Chef Competition and at the same time conducted some demo. I’ll be featured again for the 2nd time in Celebrity Recipe July issue so watch out for it…

18. Favorite City/ Country and Why: Jerusalem because it is a city that promises a religious and spiritual experience, excitement and pleasure, interesting tours and entertaining adventures.. it’s everyone’s dream….

19. Your Greatest Indulgence: Baking tools and equipments

20. Your All Time Best Baking Tips: It doesn’t take having a special gift or a magic touch to work wonders in the kitchen. The secret is practice, practice, practice! Some people seem to be able to toss things together and achieve wonderful results. This is a skill they achieved by many years of cooking and baking. Always Remember – skills and confidence comes with practice. And most important is you do it with passion.

The 20 Foodie Questions: Chef Mark Infante

Welcome to my newest concept “The 20 Foodie Questions”.

I always believe that before you go global, one should be able to harness the particular and therefore it is just proper to recognize our home grown talents. So every month I will feature a chef with their answers to the 20 foodie questions.

For the first edition, I am featuring my very good friend Chef Mark Infante.

Name:  Chef Mark Infante

Age:  27

Nationality: Filipino

Country of Residence: Philippines

1. Your Current Job/ Business: Research and Development (R&D) Chef, Event Stylist, Part time Chef Instructor 

2. About Your ideal Kitchen: I would like a modern , granite work tops, a double oven but raised at eye level.

3. Your Favorite cooking Item: Chef’s Knife and My Old hand mixer is definitely my most useful item for 7 years

4. First Job:  Chef Instructor and part-time Chef consultant at my uncle’s Pub house.

5. Your favorite Cookbook: Cook’s Bible, Chocolate Unwrapped by Sarah Jane Evans

6. Your Awards: None that I can remember

7. Your Cooking Inspiration: My inspiration was my mom. She’s a great cook.

8. Your Specialty Dish: Seafood Ravioli in creamy aligue sauce

9. Favorite Dish To Eat: Vietnamese food  (Bahn mi), Singaporean Laksa, Thai

10. Weirdest Thing You Ever Ate:  Durian

11. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Dark Chocolate, Pistachio, Vanilla

12. Favorite Drink: Earl grey Milk tea and Green tea frappe

13. Favorite Wine: Hermits or any Dessert wines

14. Who Would You Most Like To Cook For: I would love to cook for Chef Bernadette Olivares she used to be my mentor when I was in college.

15. Who Would You Least Like To Cook For: People who are on diet.

16. Favorite Things To Do When Not Cooking: Watching TV series, going for a grocery, and shopping

17. Your Latest Project: I prepared 3 course 20 pax menu for friend’s birthday last February

18. Favorite City/ Country and Why: Pampanga is the best for me. There are lots of good restaurants and super delicious foods.

19. Your Greatest Indulgence: Real Belgian chocolates

20. All Time Best Culinary Tip: Cook with your heart