Behind Closed (Bocuse) d'Ors: An Inside Look at Team USA

by Joshua David Stein Jan 25, 2011, 7:10am EST

Chef Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud at the All-Clad booth, rapping.
A lady may lick but she never tells, what it is she's licking.
This is the back of Jerome Bocuse's head, FYI.
Michael Ruhlman, so handsome, so serious.
There were refreshments served. Everything fogged. It was like Swan Lake, but with food.
Who cut the cheese? It was Daniel!
The Oyster Leaf tasted like Oyster!!!
Accountant in Chief of Bocuse D'Or USA, Joel Buchman, wore a Paul Bocuse pin. Hard to come by.
At the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie, we eagerly awaited the winner. [Spain won.]
A hint of what the Bocuse will be: Belgians going crazy for their third-place team.
Scott Boswell, he of Stella and Stanley in New Orleans, was there with a badge to support the Bocuse D'Or.
This is what a booth â€” called here a "box" â€” looks like from the back.
This is the glassy tree sculpture outside Paul Bocuse's Le Sud Brasserie. It's real pretty right? I imagine this is what love looks like when made in glass in France.
While Team USA prepared, a documentary crew filmed them and, strangely, me filming them and, in this case, me photographing them filming them.
James Kent and a big B. THE big B.
Tom Allan preps food behind a statue of a lady.
Just in case you never make it to L'abbaye de Collanges, there's a huge organ thing in the back (that's what SHE said!?!?!) with over which a statue of Paul Bocuse presides.
To every All-Clad an ingredient and for every ingredient an All-Clad.
A package from home arrived just in time, greens from The Chef's Garden.
USA! USA! USA! FUCK YES!
The sign on the kitchen in the Restaurant Paul Bocuse reads: Silence We Cook.
The chef, Christian Bouvard, JDS and sous chef Olivier Cousin in the kitchen of Restaurant Paul Bocuse.
There's only two more spaces in the Bocuse d'Or marble.
That would Mr. Beard and Ms. Child on the wall of Mr. Bocuse's restaurant