Chef Amanda Haba is the corporate pastry chef at AUI Fine Foods (Albert Uster Imports). Her work in the AUI research and development kitchen includes educating customers, training the sales force, developing recipes, testing products, and menu consulting for our corporate clients. Chef Haba attended Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island, earning her AAS in Baking and Pastry Arts and a BAS in Foodservice Entrepreneurship. She has worked at many of the Washington D.C. area’s premier food service outlets, and has won national awards and critical acclaim for her plated desserts and sugar showpieces.
Category Archives: 2015 Judges
Angela Kim
Per Se
Angela Kim started her career in art history and the arts, before realizing her appreciation and passion for pastry. She started at various establishments in NYC until she landed a position at Del Posto. Soon after, she moved to The Modern where she helped run the pastry kitchen under the guidance of acclaimed Executive Pastry Chef Marc Aumont. In 2014, she was the winner of the Signature Plated Dessert Competition in Pastry Live. Currently, she is the Pastry Sous Chef of Per Se, Chef Thomas Keller’s three Michelin-star restaurant in New York.
Cathy Kincaid
Pulaski Technical College
Chef Cathy Kincaid began decorating cakes as a teenager and later had a business creating wedding and special occasion cakes. After taking several years off to raise children, she enrolled in culinary school with an emphasis in Baking and Pastry Arts. Cathy later went to work for The Blue Cake Company in Little Rock, AR as a sugar artist and worked primarily on figures, flowers, and other modeling. After obtaining her CEPC, Cathy joined the faculty at Pulaski Technical College Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute. She is a Baking, Pastry, and Cake Decorating instructor and loves her job.
Sarah Kosikowski
A graduate of Culinary Institute of America, Sarah Kosikowski’s stellar career includes some of the most renowned restaurants in the country. In San Francisco, she worked at The French Laundry, Citizen Cake, and the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room. In Las Vegas, she continued to hone her skills at the Wynn Hotel; then, as Executive Pastry Chef, at the four-star Fleur de Lys; and then Michael Mina’s Michelin-rated restaurant at the Bellagio. In Chicago, she oversaw the dessert program at the Trump International Hotel & Tower® Chicago.
She is a 2009 James Beard Award nominee and appears regularly in national and local media. Chef Kosikowski qualified for the North American semi-finals of the Valrhona C3 Culinary Competition in Versailles, France in April 2011.
The extremely accomplished Chef Sarah Kosikowski joins Valrhona as its Ecole du Grand Chocolat Pastry Chef Eastern USA, through which she will use the people-skills to conduct classes for professionals; one-on-one culinary consultations; and media outreach, communicating the tastes and tales of Valrhona chocolate.