Neil has been kind enough to share his story, following the insights Henry and Bruce offered earlier this week. I asked him to pin down the exact moment he realized he could never go back to "grocery store" standards. Here is what he had to say: Neil’s Story "Crossing the line for me was when I started working at the Dorchester under Anton Mosimann, way back when Moby dick was a sardine. I had been working in a few undesirable places and got the opportunity at the above mentioned Hotel. It was here where I learned so much. The produce was top notch and it was a joy to work with such amazing ingredients from all over the UK and Europe. But what struck me the most was the way Mosimann conducted himself, he was/is a perfect gentleman. He always wore a bow tie and everyday he would come and shake everyone's hand and ask how they were? how was their family and he knew everyone's name. He taught me respect, from the Farm to beyond the plate and more. He never raised his voice or threw his toys out of the cot. He built confidence in the team and we all benefitted from that. He taught me what quality produce was and how important it was to have good communication with the people who produced the ingredients. I was lucky to be invited to a local farm and see how much work went into one of the products we were using and how the purchase of that product benefitted a whole community of people's livelihoods. In a world full of process foods, GMO's, foods that have ingredients you can't even pronounce. My personal view is we need to get back to basics, grow our own food, trade with others if we have too much of one product and make life simple again and where better to do it than right here in NZ." Thank you for sharing that, Neil. Having worked alongside him as fellow tutors in Auckland - Neil in cuisine and myself in patisserie - I can personally attest to the incredible depth of knowledge he brings to the table. Neil is a fantastic character, blending expertise with a great sense of humour. I am honoured to have him leading within our community and look forward to the wisdom he’ll continue to share.

Let’s be real. In the world of patisserie, things go wrong. A ganache splits, a macaron hollows out, or a croissant refuses to laminate. Usually, a "fail" feels like a waste of ingredients. But from today, your fails are the key to our growth. I’ve just opened The Master Patisserie Technical Archive in the Classroom tab. This is - and will always be - a 100% FREE resource for this community. It is a living, growing encyclopedia of solutions designed specifically for you. How the "Fail-to-Fix" Process Works: Whenever you have a bake that doesn't go as planned, don't throw it away! Follow these steps: 1. Take a Photo: Capture the "fail" (the crumb, the texture, the split). 2. Post it Here: Post the photo in the Community tab. 3. Give me the Specs: Tell me your temperatures, your process, and what you think happened. 4. The Solution: I will dive into the science, troubleshoot the error, and create a permanent Technical Solution page in the Classroom. A Growing Legacy. In years to come, this archive will hold hundreds of solved problems. Whether you're struggling with choux at 2:00 AM or chocolate tempering at noon, you’ll be able to search the Archive and find the fix in an instant. This is YOUR library. Let's build the ultimate technical resource together, one "fail" at a time. Go check out the Classroom tab now to see our new folders!

Within the Skool ecosystem, we are incredibly fortunate to have direct access to experts across every niche. For our community, the focus remains on the crafts we love within the wider hospitality industry. I reached out to a few community owners in Skool, all with diverse backgrounds, to ask one pivotal question: Could you tell me the specific moment you realized you couldn't go back to "grocery store" standards? Here are the responses from two of the experts. Bruce Nollert - Chef, Coach & Entrepreneur. Bruce is the creator of the Cultivated Cooks community. His evolution from the professional kitchen to holistic advocacy is a masterclass in culinary purpose: "My journey has led me from starting out learning how to properly prep, clean and cook through really great systems. Then I got really interested in fine dining and all the fancy molecular techniques. Then I realized those were more for me and vanity metrics. I then shifted into fermentation and foraging and started to feel reconnection to nature, that led back to the farms. Then I got into feeding the community during Covid wand working with foodbanks and teaching underserved folks how to cook. That’s when I started to reconnect to the power of food for connection and keeping us connected to Mother Nature. I became interested in holistic nutrition and began to study that. I also became aware of the corruption behind food with the big corporations and how them so well engineer food to hijack our biology and psychology to keep us hooked and also saw from my time as an R&D chef how much shit goes into food to save money and increase shelf life. Now I focus on how food can literally shape your reality and how it impacts your gut and brain and more importantly brings and keeps people together in world that is designed to keep us isolated while tricking us to think we are connected." @Henry Hunter - Author & Founder of Crust & Crumb Academy. The legendary Henry Hunter manages a community of over 50,000 bakers and authored the compelling book, The Loaf and the Lie. His "threshold moment" began with a humble apprenticeship in Germany: