When we last left Team USA 2025 on the road to Lyon, France they were on the way to New Orleans for the Americas competition. “The U.S. is now heading to Lyon, France in January 2025 to compete at the Bocuse d’Or, the world’s most prestigious culinary competition! Team USA Head Chef Stefani De Palma and Commis Bradley Waddle secured their spot on the international stage following a 5-hour and 30-minute battle in New Orleans, LA. They faced eight countries from North, Central, and South America.”
“Team USA secured the Gold and was selected to advance along with two-person teams from Canada (Silver), Mexico (Bronze), Chile (4th place), and Colombia (5th place). When they reach Lyon, Team USA will once again face these finalists from the Americas selection, alongside finalists from Africa, Asia, and Europe—a total of 24 teams from around the world are vying for the Gold medal.”
“I’m so proud to be representing the United States. It’s rewarding to see all of our training lead to this result. I’m the type of person who is focused on one goal at a time and now my eyes are set on what we need to accomplish in Lyon,” said De Palma who has spent the last nine-months training in preparation for the Americas selection with Commis Waddle. “We’re so impressed by the final plates and platters presented by the other teams and admire the workmanship and professionalism they showed throughout the competition.”
“Each team in the competition was tasked with completing the Bocuse d’Or’s two iconic tests: the theme on a plate and the platter theme, both featuring the host region’s local and emblematic products, which include wild boar rack, grits, alligator sausage, whole white shrimp, Murder Point oysters, and jumbo lump crab meat. To secure their spot in the finals, Team USA prepared a dish entitled “California’s Celebration of Louisiana Shellfish” and a platter entitled “Golden State Soul: California Meets the Bayou.””
““Our victory in the Americas selection is a result of dedication and commitment. Team USA showcased their innovative ideas for presentation at the highest level. It is important to acknowledge the coaches, chefs, mentors, and supporters who have been an integral part of this success. We are very proud of Chef De Palma and Commis Waddle and look forward to the Finals in Lyon,” said Chef Thomas Keller who is a founding member of Ment’or and President of the Foundation’s Board of Directors alongside chef co-founders and fellow board members Daniel Boulud and Jérôme Bocuse. Chef Keller is also an active mentor for Team USA along with some of the country’s most highly regarded culinary talents.”
Chefs Stefani and Bradley and all the members of Team USA 2025 particularly thank host New Orleans Chefs Emeril and EJ Lagasse and Nina Compton for their gracious hospitality during the Americas competition.
Team USA Head Chef Stefani De Palma and Commis Bradley Waddle are our guests.
Hey there, it's Jet Tila, the emeritus host of the SoCal Restaurant Show and Judge on Food Network's Cutthroat Kitchen with Alton Brown. You're listening to the very best in food full on one on AM830KLAA. And welcome back. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830KLAA app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Welcome, and we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Well, the Olympics are on, but the team USA 2025, I'm talking about, is the emeritus team that is on the road to Lyon in January 2025 to compete in the Bocustor International Culinary Competition, which is often described as the Olympics of the culinary world and happens every other year. And when we last checked in with Team USA 2025, that being Team USA head chef Stephanie DiPama and her Comey Bradley Waddle, they were on their way to New Orleans to compete in the America's competition. And that decided the five teams from North, Middle, and South America that have the opportunity to go on to Lyon. So without further ado, it is definitely a pleasure to welcome chef Stephanie and Bradley back to the show. Lady and gentlemen, good morning, welcome. And we can say congratulations. - Hi, Andy, thank you for having us. - Good morning, Andy. - Good morning to you both. Whoever wants to jump in on this, I think our audience knows that Team USA 2025 is moving on to Lyon in January. But if you could, can you kind of give us one to five in terms of the teams from the America's competition? And where Team USA stood? - Yeah, of course, so for the America's five countries qualified, beginning with us, we created first, very, very excited for that. And then followed by Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. - Any surprises, and obviously Team Canada was very impressive. And I should mention at this point, courtesy of the Mentor of Foundation, and also New Orleans and Company, I was invited as a media guest to be able to observe this competition, which was certainly a thrill for me. There was a lot of talk about Canada. Did you feel going into this, Stephanie and Bradley, that that was your most serious competitor? I mean, I know the level of competition was extremely high. - I think for us, our biggest competition was ourselves, and making sure that we did everything we set out to do and what we practiced and made our time and presented the food that we had practiced. - Well, the precision that both of you executed, that I was able to observe, it's pretty impressive. And we should let our listeners know, I think I have this right. That's five and a half hours, correct? - Yeah, five and a half hours. - Pretty intense, and it's just the two of you with an assistant, correct, that are actually in the kitchen. - Correct, we each team gets assigned a assistant the morning of, and it'll be the same way for the final and the young. So we were very excited to have a local New Orleans chef volunteered to be one of these assistants, and he was really positive attitude. We had a really great time with him. - Wow, now I didn't realize that Stephanie, so this gentleman you had never met until that morning. - Right, correct, yeah, we won't, and the same thing will happen in the young. We won't meet them until they're walking in the kitchen with us. - Wow, now your head coach, Sebastian, actually is a past competitor in the Boku's door. Now he was on the other side of your prep table with a laptop. What is Sebastian's role during the competition? 'Cause I observed him, he's obviously watching everything, but what advice or what direction is he giving you during that those five and a half hours? - So over the time we practice, it's very meticulous in building our, what we call a run, our run of time. And so he has that right in front of him, making sure that we're on track with timing, and checking off the boxes that everything's getting done in the order that it should, so that we're really keeping on track with time. And also, there's times when media comes around and they'll interview the team. And obviously, Bradley and I aren't gonna stop what we're doing to talk to media. So it's really the head coach's responsibility to represent the team and show kind of what we're highlighting and what the overall theme is when these media come around. - Now, bringing Bradley into the conversation at this point, there was quite a rooting section for Team USA 2025 in New Orleans with pageantry and flags and red, white and blue outfits. It was really something to behold. But part of your cheering section, Bradley, was your parents. Tell us a little bit about that experience and how that helped in terms of getting through those five and a half hours. Because again, it was a supportive and a boisterous crowd for Team USA 2025. - Yeah, it was awesome to have so much support. The competitions have ever been helping the United States. So having it here for the first time and having family be able to travel from several different states and cheer us on. Obviously, we're not waking up into the crowd the whole time because we're focused on picking but just the family support and especially when you finished cooking to be able to look up and see just a huge crowd of people that wanted us to do well was really awesome. - No, again, not having observed one of these competitions before, Bradley, it was just great to see the unbridled enthusiasm of the crowd there supporting Team USA 2025. And I'm sure that will be duplicated in Lyon come January of next year. And we definitely look forward to that. Now, as part of the competition, you had to prepare a very elaborate platter and also a very elaborate plate presentation. Before we take our top of the hour break, can you kind of give us the food porn description of that very impressive platter that you put together that took two people, by the way, to take over to the judges? - Yeah, the platter was, I mean, we seemed it golden, stateful, California meets the bayou. And it was really important for us to incorporate our California influence and with a little spin on tying in the region that we were gonna be competing in. So one of the funnest things we did was with the wild boar because we smoked it with applewood for the last five minutes of the competition, which just gave off this beautiful aroma and it kept that meat really, really warm. And that's something we wanted to kind of tie in a typical southern barbecue flavor to this piece of meat. - Now, you also did a roulette of wild boar that was part of that platter. So it was actually wild boar two ways, right? - Correct. Yeah, one of the requirements for the competition was to serve two pieces of the main protein wild boar and you could do it identical pieces or you could do something different. And we thought it would be important to give two different fashions of this protein. So one was the loin itself cooked on the rack and then the other was the roulette with some stewed apples and garlic and thyme, so just really super savory and some kind of softer texture. - Now, Stephanie, one more tease for our audience. Tell us about the Cajun corn dog. - The corn dog was really fun. Bradley was very inspired by doing something super American. So we had to use alligator sausage and we wrapped that in a great base corn dog batter and tried to make it a very, very refined corn dog that would really appeal to and represent the US in a really fun way. - I definitely liked the look of that. And tell us about the white grits. How did that fit in? - The white grits we used in a few different fashions. So the white grits and the alligator had to be used in a side dish that would be served in a separate bowl alongside the platter. So we used the grits as a base, kind of like a, like you would normally eat grits, like really creamy luscious, but then we also ground them and incorporated into the corn dog batter. - Stephanie and Bradley, definitely a lot of creativity that went into the platter presentation. And again, I feel so fortunate that I got to see it close up. The pictures, the photos are wonderful, but being able to look right at it and get some of those incredible aromas, that definitely added to the experience. We are talking to Team USA 2025, not competing in the Olympics, but they're going to be in Lyon, France, come January 2025, competing in the Bocustor International Culinary Competition regarded as the most prestigious culinary competition in the world that happens every other year. We're speaking with head chef, Stephanie de Palma, Comey, Bradley, Waddle. And they came back from the America's competition in New Orleans with first place on the road to Lyon. We're going to pick up the conversation on the other side. It is the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proteus and West Coast Prime Meats. Don't wander far. (gentle music) (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
