2012 Personal Chef Summit
February 10-12 in SAN DIEGO
Agenda
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10
8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. APPCA Half-day Accelerated “Boot Camp” Seminar
Aspiring personal chefs who want to acquire the tools to start their own successful businesses AND attend the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit in San Diego in February can save more than $200 by purchasing APPCA’s special Summit/training bundle. The Home Study Course is regularly $505, but by purchasing a full registration at the 2012 Personal Chef Summit, you can receive this never-before-offered training opportunity for only $194. This special accelerated training delivers an immersion in the APPCA’s most popular training package (Option A: Home-Study Course) with all the benefits of APPCA membership. This fast-paced special session at the Westin San Diego prior to the Summit will provide you with a detailed analysis of getting your business up and running in the shortest time possible with optimal return of investment. The APPCA’s founder and executive director, Candy Wallace, will cover the concepts, details and tricks of the trade. Prepare to learn from the foremost expert and founder of the personal-chef industry.
Fee: $699 includes personal-chef training/APPCA membership and full registration to the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit. (Contact the APPCA if you wish to purchase the Boot Camp Seminar at $505 without the 2012 Summit bundle.)
1:30 p.m. Personal Chef Office Basics (OPTIONAL CLASS)
Want to learn how our web-based Personal Chef Office (PCO) can help you manage your clients and your business? Getting stuck on the "how tos" of PCO? Haven't had time to check to take PCO for a 'test drive'? Now is your chance.
Lead by Jackie Alejo, long-time successful personal chef and personal chef process consultant-member of the PCO Developer Team. Jackie will walk you through the software tour pointing out tips and tricks along the way. Class duration will be 90 minutes with Q&A.
Fee: Not included in full registration. Guest fee: $10.
2:15 – 3:45 p.m. Olivewood Gardens & Learning Center (OPTIONAL TOUR)
Olivewood’s 6.85-acre property serves as an interactive, indoor-outdoor classroom for San Diego County’s 3 million rural, urban and suburban residents. It’s one of the few school-garden programs in the nation that emphasizes food preparation along with garden cultivation, teaching children and adults in need how to grow, cook and enjoy tasty, healthy whole foods. This tour will include garden and kitchen class observation and provide an opportunity to meet other people interested in edible education, gardening and school-lunch reform. Transportation, provided, will depart the Westin San Diego promptly by 1:30 p.m., and will return to the Westin by 4 p.m.
Fee: $20 (not included in full registration form.)
6 – 7:30 p.m. A Welcome Reception to honor healing.
Join your colleagues and peers at the first official event of the 2012 Personal Chef Summit at the Westin San Diego as we pay tribute to Eastern medicine.
Tibetan medicine provides a holistic approach to healthcare. It is a science because its principles are enumerated in a systematic and logical framework based on an understanding of the body and its relationship to the environment. It is an art because it uses diagnostic techniques based on the creativity, insight, subtlety and compassion of the medical practitioner. And it is a philosophy because it embraces the key Buddhist principles of altruism, karma and ethics.
The Tibetan Healing Center in San Diego preserves and perpetuates the traditional wisdom of Tibetan medicine, which is an integrative healing art. The center works to combine Tibetan with Western medicine and alternative healing practices to form a treatment program for each client. (Pictured left, Dr Lobsang and Dr. Namgyal with Sondra Buschmann, executive director.) For more info, visit www.tibetanacademy.org.
Grab a glass of wine and enjoy delicious hors d’oeuvres among friends and peers. Following this opening event, your evening is free to explore some of the nation’s best dining located within easy walking in the Gaslamp District or within a short taxi ride to nearby locales.
Fee: Included in full registration. Guest fee: $50
The remainder of the 2012 Summit agenda through Sunday, February 12, is included in full registration at no additional fee. Inquire about a la carte/guest pricing per event and specially priced one-day passes. All events are at the Westin San Diego.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
8:30 – 9 a.m. Welcome to the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit!
Candy Wallace, the APPCA’s founder and executive director, officially welcomes guests to the most comprehensive and meaningful convocation of personal chefs in the country. During this opening presentation, Wallace will share the critical thinking behind this year’s Summit theme—“Chart a Course for Success: Today’s Culinary Entrepreneur in the New ‘Interaction Economy’”—and what it means to YOU and your business in 2012.
9 – 10:30 a.m. “The Power of YES”
Keynote Presenter: Lee Silber
It’s time to stop making excuses and start finding ways to build our businesses and culinary careers regardless of the obstacles in the way. In this presentation we will look at all the things we think we can’t do and find a way to get them done. We will focus on finding ways to get to “Yes” despite how many times we hear (or say to ourselves) “No.” You will hear stories of how others (just like you) took the next step and made it big despite obstacles standing in their way. You’ll learn creative ways to not focus on potential problems and limits, but rather, find ways to make the impossible possible. (Hint: It was never impossible, we just sometimes think it is.) Everything is easier to do with positive thinking (“Yes!”) versus a negative approach (“No”). For those who believe, success is right around the corner. So, enough with the doom and gloom. You have made it through the worst of times, and now it’s time to put yourself in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that lay ahead. Attendees will also receive free copies of the following resources to help take these ideas and put them into action: 1) Life Planner (goal-setting system), 2) Creative Careers (free book) and 3) The Ripple Effect (free book). Silber is the best-selling author of 17 books including his popular “Creative Person” series of books for Random House. He is also the founder of five companies including a chain of retail stores and a corporate training company. Silber is a frequent guest on radio and television and has appeared on CNN and NBC and was recently featured in U.S. News and World Report. To learn more about Silber and to get free stuff, visit www.leesilber.com.
10:30 – 10:45 a.m. Refreshment Break
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Special Presentation by Diane Phillips
Phillips, known as the Diva of Do-Ahead, is the author of more than 14 cookbooks, including the James Beard Foundation Award-nominated Perfect Party Food. Phillips is a traveling cooking teacher, teaching her easy, elegant, do-ahead entertaining classes to sell-out audiences across the country. She also consults for the food and beverage industry and has been the spokesperson for Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry and Lipton Recipe Secrets. Phillips has designed food and beverage standards for Hilton Hotels and developed menu items for Foodmaker and General Mills. Her recipes have appeared in national newspapers, Traditional Home magazine, Readers Digest, Womens Day, Prevention magazine and Bridal Guide. Additionally, Phillips has been featured on Turning Leaf Vineyards’ entertaining hotline, giving tips and ideas for stress-free holiday dinners. Catch her on Comcast’s new on-demand Digital Cookbook and on Lifetime TV’s Web site. Phillips teaches at LaCombe en Perigord in the southwestern region of the Dordogne in France, and spends time with her family in Italy every year. “Good Morning America” selected her newest book, Slow Cooker, the “Best Cookbook Ever” as one of the best cookbooks for 2009.
12:15 – 1:30 p.m. Luncheon & Book Signing
During lunch, presenters at the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit will have their books on hand for purchase and autograph.
1:45 – 3:15 p.m. BREAKOUT SESSIONS (Choose 1)
“Asian at the Speed of Light”
Presenter: Dane Mechlin
From Korean to Thai, from Japanese to Indian, expand your Asian repertoire exponentially by attending this fun, informative workshop and tasting. Mechlin, co-owner of Nadine & Dane’s Personal Chef Services in Northern California, will show you how to take common Asian pantry items like bottled fish sauce and sweet-and-sour sauce, prepared bean paste and packaged glazes and marinades that serve as bases to take you as far as your own creativity will allow. “The Chinese don’t make their own soy sauce,” Chef Dane says. “Yet that one bottled sauce is the basis of myriad entrees and side dishes.” Just a little boost from a ready-made product and you’ll create dishes that taste as if you just disembarked from a Pan-Asian culinary tour. And your clients will thank you. Or, as they say in the Philippines, salamat.
“Charting Your Course”
Presenter: Lee Silber
Silber’s breakout session on Saturday following his keynote speech takes the positive energy from his “The Power of Yes” keynote in the morning and turn it into a step-by-step plan for personal chefs who wish to reach unprecedented heights in their businesses.
“There’s an App for That”
Presenter: Carol Borchardt
In 2011, The American Dialect Society named “app” the Word of the Year for 2010. An app is a software program for your mobile device—cell phone, camera, video recorder, Internet and e-mail access point, game system, PDA (personal digital assistant), MP3 player, bar-code reader, etc. But an app is not just any old software program. Thanks to apps, personal chefs can maximize the power of their mobile devices to execute critical business functions such as marketing, client management and communication, payment and expense tracking, getting help during grocery shopping and on cookdates, recipe management and much more. By the way, what is “cloud computing” that everyone’s talking about? Borchardt, owner of A Thought for Food based in greater Memphis, Tenn., and 2010’s APPCA Personal Chef of the Year, will demystify what mobile devices and apps can do and help you unleash their potential to make you stronger, better and smarter at your business.
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. Refreshment Break
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. “Transforming SAD to GLADD for Your Clients”
Presenter: Nancy Banner
Banner believes that inflammation is a primary cause of most everyday maladies and general un-wellness. And foods that cause inflammation—and all the physical woes that accompany it—are more prevalent than you ever knew. SAD, the acronym for the Standard American Diet, can be blamed for the inflammation we experience on a daily basis. GLADD—Guilt-free, Lip-smacking, Anti-disease Diet—is the antidote. Banner, owner and founder of The Holistic Kitchen, LLC, and author of the newly released Chef Nancy’s Recipe for Health, began her personal-chef work to help cancer patients stay nourished during treatment and heal after. Today she blends her classical French culinary training with her lifelong fascination with nutrition to help eaters lessen their dependence on processed foods and move toward health—with delicious and comforting whole-food preparations that maximize nutrition and aid the body’s own healing mechanisms to feed mind, body and soul (www.TheHolisticKitchen.com). This general-session presentation will instruct on anti-inflammatory cooking, geared toward personal chefs and their businesses.
5:00 p.m. EVENING ON OWN
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
8:30 – 8:45 a.m. Welcome to Day 2
Candy Wallace reviews what guests may expect to experience and learn on this second and final day of the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit.
8:45 – 10:15 a.m. “The Honest Meal Project”
Keynote Presenter: Dana Cox
For 12 months that ended in September 2011, Cox, a chef-instructor at the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago and owner of a personal-chef business, Old Stove, LLC, successfully consumed ONLY foods and beverages that could be traced to family farms. Her “Honest Meal Project” is the basis of an upcoming book on how she elected not to live on bio-engineered produce and hormone- and antibiotic-laden meats—while living in a major metropolitan city. Cox’ idea to embark on the project was born following a week-long tour of Southern Illinois University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and its farms, dairies, slaughterhouses and food-processing facilities. She returned home disenchanted by the reality that “Big Ag” meets most consumers’ food demands at the expense of heritage, variety, nutrition and the joy of consuming natural, highly flavorful foods. Her response? An extreme experiment to see if she could eliminate all processed foods from her diet. Not only was Cox a satisfied eater, but without even trying, she lost 50 pounds. In this keynote and cooking demo, learn how Cox thrived during her experiment and of the many epiphanies she experienced concerning responsible, wholesome food sourcing. Says Cox, if she can do it, so can you.
10:30 a.m. – Noon BREAKOUT SESSIONS (Choose 1)
“19th-Century Classical Techniques Deliver 21st-Century Sauces”
Presenter: Dr. Jerry Chesser, CEC, FMP, CCE, AAC
The classical Grand Sauces have been the “Holy Grail” in teaching sauces since the 19th century and the time of Carême, Dubois and Escoffier. Today, being “on trend” with sauces MUST include and give equal attention to the light and intensely flavored sauces created and used in top kitchens around the world. Classical technique, however, is still the key to sauce perfection. In this exploration and tasting of sauces, participants will review time-honored techniques for sauce preparation and apply those principles to preparation of contemporary sauces for your clients thanks to a highly accomplished chef and culinary teacher. Leave this breakout session with a revitalized and improved knowledge of sauces and how they can help add new life to your culinary repertoire.
“Can a Personal Chef Can? Add-on Services for your Personal Chef Business”
Presenter: Debbi Dubbs
Your clients might love the idea of a kitchen garden-in containers, on a wall or in a small, raised bed—but don't have the time or inclination. Debbi Dubbs, owner of Chef Debbi’s Culinary Adventures in Southern California, is an avid gardener and food preserver. Author of the acclaimed What’s In Your Pantry?, Dubbs is currently working on her next book, What’s In Your Garden? Her passion for gardening and preserving stems from her grandmother’s tutelage and time spent in her own organic garden. What does this mean to you? That you can add to your personal or client’s pantry, grow a kitchen garden and put up fresh ingredients for your winter service. Learn quick gardening and “putting up,” or canning, techniques to increase your add-on sales. Committing just a few extra hours a week will help you enhance your business’ bottom line. Either way, it translates to additional income for your business. And, says Chef Deb, it’s easier than you might think.
“Social Media for Culinary Professionals”
Presenter: Caron Golden
According to a recent article in The New York Times, the original “six degrees of separation” between any two people on the planet is now, thanks to social networking, down to 4.74. And if you live in the United States, it’s even fewer: 4.37. Did you know there are 721 million Facebook users? That’s more than one-tenth of the world’s population—and an opportunity you should be tapping to realize ultimate success. Enhance your visibility and enrich your professional contacts through social-media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Golden, a celebrated food writer and social-media consultant based in San Diego, will teach you the basics, including strategies and best practices. You'll learn how to attract followers/friends, develop useful contacts and promote your business in a thoughtful and attractive way. A valuable handout is included. Bring your laptop, set up an account, and follow along!
Noon – 1:30 p.m. Luncheon
1:45 – 3:15 p.m. “Get Motivated to Succeed in 2012!”
Presenter: Dr. Jerry Chesser, CEC, FMP, CCE, AAC
If you enjoyed his breakout session on 19th-century sauces for 21st-century menus, this après-lunch presentation will offer a completely different treat. Chesser is known far and wide as a gifted motivational speaker. As a professor at The Collins College of Hospitality Management at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona (one of the top hospitality-management programs in the United States), Chesser’s presentations on how to communicate more effectively and reach for the stars in business are the stuff of legend. He’ll wow us in the final hours of the 2012 Summit by motivating us to reach even greater heights in our businesses and personal lives.
3:15 – 3:30 p.m. Refreshment Break
3:30 – 4:45 p.m. “Commercial Kitchens and Food Trucks: Next Steps in Your Personal-Chef Journey”
Ah, the dream of a commercial kitchen ... owning one and operating from it could expand your personal-chef business exponentially. Or perhaps your desire is to join the growing fleet of food trucks traversing the nation with fresh, artfully prepared, restaurant-quality food for the masses. Maybe yours would be the first in your community, even. Don’t think you have the experience or wherewithal to launch either or both? Pshaw! Julie Darling, chef and owner of Just Call Us Kitchen Rental in San Diego, and Kevin Ho, cofounder of the truck that would sow the seeds to bring a national street-food phenomenon to that city, will team up during the last official presentation of the 2012 Personal Chef Summit to reveal how you can expand your business horizons by living your vision.
4:45 p.m. Questions & Answers, Closing Comments
We hate to see you go! Everything must end eventually, and despite more than two days of networking with peers and learning from top experts in their fields, this brings us to the conclusion of the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit. For the final 15 minutes, Candy Wallace will address your questions about best practices for your personal-chef business in the new “Interaction Economy.”
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13
8 a.m. – Noon APPCA Interactive Booster Session
Don’t go home just yet, because we’ve got more! Personal chefs who want to expand their marketing tool kits to enhance their businesses in 2012 will benefit from this half-day Booster Session that will provide you with an updated, refreshed business plan for the year. If you have not attended an APPCA Live Seminar before, this is your opportunity to experience the powerful dynamic of a lively group interactive process—at minimal cost if you purchase the session and Summit bundle. Candy Wallace, the APPCA’s founder and executive director, will lead an open brainstorming session at the Westin San Diego to highlight new ideas for promoting your operation, with particular focus on what is working well for you and what is not—and how to turn around practices that aren’t producing results. We’ll wrap up promptly at 12 p.m. so you can easily make your afternoon flight. (San Diego International Airport is only minutes from downtown.)
Fee: $499 includes the Booster Session and full registration to the 2012 APPCA Personal Chef Summit. (Contact the APPCA if you wish to purchase the Booster Session without the 2012 Summit bundle.)