This pastry chef could whip up a fantastic school PR workshop! – SCN Encourager

You can never go wrong with beignets, assorted chocolate delights, and ginger snap cookies, right?

Imagine.

Wouldn’t her handouts be the best?

Sweet and edible… my favorite kind!

I heard Katie Walts on the “Behind the Mitten” radio show Sunday night.

The show usually features peer-to-peer (er, mug-to-mug) conversations about unique microbrew establishments all around Michigan.

I can’t say I’m a regular listener (thanks to the NFL), but when I heard Katie introduced as “the pastry chef” who graduated from Purdue, I was hooked.

Both of my parents were proud Boilermakers and I mastered “Hail, Hail to old Purdue” before I learned “Old McDonald’s Farm” when I was little. (…not my choice, mind you.)

Katie is the pastry chef at Brewery Vivant, a one-of-a-kind French and Belgium cuisine microbrewery in Grand Rapids.

The hosts of the “Behind the Mitten” had challenged Katie earlier in the week to come up with her most delectable dessert fare and see if she could pass their test.

Of course, during the course of the Sunday night show, Katie exceeded the hosts’ expectations by far, and they asked her how she was able to be “so spectacular, so consistently?”

Katie evidently is very comfortable on the road less traveled.

“I strive for simplicity done well, ” she said. “Not much more.”

“Really?” the hosts gushed. “Nothing more?

“Really,” said Katie. “That’s about it. And I also learned that to be great at something, you had to become a master at the basics. The fundamentals are everything.”

Whoa.

Katie sure served up some pretty good advice for us to chew on, don’tcha think?

Simplicity done well.

I like this phrase.

A whole lot.

And the fact I even remembered it 30 hours later is proof.

But as much I like it, I’d trade it in a heartbeat for one of those beignets.

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