WINNER WINNER CHICKEN PUTANESCA DINNER

After a long interval, the Maya Kitchen Culinary Arts Center has brought back its Elite Gastronomy Series, which features cooking demonstrations by renowned chefs.

- NORMA O. CHIKIAMCO

Chefs Rhea and Jayjay SyCip at the Maya Kitchen

This series embodies much of what the Maya Kitchen stands for: product development, innovation, and engagement with the community through cookbooks and the sharing of recipes.

Those in the past who have conducted cooking demonstrations at the Maya Kitchen include luminaries such as chef Manuel Ariel (of Lolo Dad's fame); chef Tatung Sarthou; chef Noel dela Rama; and Nina Daza Puyat, who now heads Maya Kitchen herself.

In this recent reincarnation of Maya's Elite Gastronomy Series, the focus was on farm gastronomy, which explored rustic cooking and sustainable dining. Appropriately enough, the demonstrators were chefs Jayjay and Rhea Sycip, chef/owners of The Fatted Calf in Tagaytay and the bakeshop Flour Pot.

Young, idealistic and full of vibrant energy, the SyCips make it a point to source their ingredients only from places that practice sustainability and ethical ways of farming. Jayjay himself personally visits and checks the farms where they buy their free-range eggs and hormone-free chickens. They also source their ingredients from as far North as Benguet and as far South as Bukidnon.

A baker who traces her ties with Maya to her first cooking class at age 13, Rhea demonstrated her recipe for Mixed Berries Tres Leches, which she described as the restaurant's "pahabol" cake — one which she can whip up easily when they're running out of dessert. She emphasized the role of baking powder in the recipe, which she said helps relax the gluten of the flour and makes the cake rise better.