New details have emerged about this year's American Bocuse D'Or chef team, to be coached and managed by Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud. Keller, Boulud and other chefs have created a non-profit organization to take care of the details of making a team that can beat the world's best chefs. Some of those details: a special training facility next to Keller's French Laundry, $15k for team members, a paid 3-month sabbatical from whatever job they happen to have, and housing during training.
Not only that, but they'll also be paying the expense of the eight teams they choose to compete just to make it to the final team, which I talked about here.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.