A pastry chef's bittersweet beginnings
“Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.” — Plato
Every once in a while as I mentor and teach aspiring chefs, I come across those who would stand out in a crowd. Most of them are exceptionally skilled while others are equipped with an inner quality that makes them winners even before they know it. I met this exceptional young man, fresh from high school who had a simple dream — to become a pastry chef.
For Pahar Pangcoga, the road from being an apprentice to becoming an accomplished chef was paved with triumphs and tragedies. From his quaint old town of Oroquieta City in Misamis Oriental, Pahar ventured out to Manila to help his mother run their homemade cakes business. With very little money, he set out for my culinary school, and I did not have the heart to turn down this determined young man and quash his dreams of becoming a pastry chef.
After training with me, Pahar (the word means a unit of time in Indian culture) returned home and tried his hand at expanding their home-based business. He proved to be resourceful as he would have to replace expensive key ingredients such as walnuts with peanuts, and lemons with kalamansi, or rely on locally sourced and readily available ingredients. He knew he had to learn to work with what he had, and still maintain his products’ excellent quality.
Baked treat: The spiky calamansi meringue pie After a brief season of popularity in Oroquieta, Pahar still couldn’t make ends meet. But as Providence would have it, a close friend and former classmate from my school, chef Booj Supe offered him a job he couldn’t refuse: to be chef Ed Quimson’s assistant pastry chef in his upcoming fine-dining restaurant Chef Ed’s Cosmopolitan Cuisine. Pahar knew this could be the break he was waiting for all his life; thus, in no time, he was back in Metro Manila’s concrete jungle to begin the most exciting chapter of his journey to becoming a chef.
Day in and day out, he was faced with the day-to-day stress of working in a fully functional restaurant kitchen, Pahar had to learn how to deal with all this, plus the fact that chef Ed was much more strict and fierce, striking fear in the heart of Pahar, who worked himself to the bone that within a week, he was sick with fatigue, his body shocked at the demands of being a real-time chef. But as all great men know, one doesn’t give up so easily in the pursuit of his dreams, so as soon as he recovered, even if he cried every night from the challenges of being mentored by one of the renowned chefs in the Philippines, he followed his dreams and learned to roll with the punches, and ultimately became the youngest pastry chef of the Philippines at 17.
So torte-ful: Chef Hasset Go’s flourless white chocolate mango torte Remarkable things happen to determined people. Pahar was young and inexperienced, but his time under the tutelage of chef Ed afforded him lessons no classroom training could give. His faith proved true, as the once scary chef Ed became his unlikely benefactor who introduced him to influential people, helped him get exposure to local media, and introduced him to the world of culinary consultancy. Thus, did our paths cross again. I trained him further and supervised his newly acquired chef status as we worked together in a team. It was a sight to behold, as I knew that it took a lot to see young Pahar Pangcoga become chef Hasset Go, as he is now more popularly known.
Then came the time when he knew he had to strike out on his own. Perhaps it was the baker in him that sealed his fate. He began making pastries from the small apartment he rented and supplied anyone who was interested. This was how he met Jayson Paul Carlos, a medical technologist who enthusiastically sold and marketed his homemade products so successfully he eventually resigned from his job and became Pahar’s business partner.
The duo put up a now thriving bakeshop on Mother Ignacia St. in Quezon City called MedChef, which recently celebrated its first anniversary, to which I was graciously invited by chef Hasset. Of course, I was only too happy to go, knowing I would be witness to a pastry’s chef’s sweet beginnings.
For goodness cake: White chocolate fondue cheesecake with white chocolate curls I always tell my students that being a chef is a lifelong endeavor. You learn something new every day and become better at it as you continue to challenge yourself. And I always remind them that a good cook is only as good as his last meal.
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For a taste of Homemade MedChef Treats, visit 139 Mother Ignacia Ave., 1128 Quezon City, call 710-4807/0915-487-1332. Facebook page: https://www.Facebook.com/medchef.
E-mail the author at info@henysison.com or log on www.henysison.com, facebook page: Heny Sison.
