News & Events
Alumna Sherry Yard '89 Among Those Honored at 2003 Best of New York Award Dinner
Brooklyn-born, award-winning pastry chef Sherry Yard with Martin Jaffe, chairman of the City Tech Foundation.
Top from left, Best of New York Award Dinner master of ceremonies and Fox 5 newsman Ken Rosado, City Tech President Fred W. Beaufait, City tech Foundation Chairman Martin Jaffe, celebrity chef Michael Lomonaco and City Tech Foundation Treasurer Jonathan Ingham; bottom from left, HFTP Vice President Calvester Legister, restaurateur David Emil, City Harvest Executive Director Julia Erickson and City Tech alumna and award-winning pastry chef Sherry Yard.
Foundation Chairman Martin Jaffe introduced Class of 2003 Valedictorian Jed Gelber.
Sherry Yard, a 1989 graduate of City Tech's hospitality management program and the James Beard Foundation's 2002 Pastry Chef of the Year, was among those honored at the College's 2003 Best of New York Award Dinner on May 22 at Tavern on the Green. Also saluted at this year's dinner were restaurateur David Emil, City Harvest and Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals. Fox 5 newsman Ken Rosado was master of ceremonies.
Sherry Yard first acquired a passion for baking in her grandmother's Brooklyn kitchen. But it was her formal culinary education at City Tech and the Culinary Institute of America that took her to several of New York City's top restaurants, including the celebrated Rainbow Room, Montrachet and the Tribeca Grill. Later, she moved west to command the pastry kitchen at San Francisco's critically acclaimed Campton Place Restaurant. A later move to Napa Valley brought her to Jan Birnbaum's restaurant Catahoula as pastry chef.
Yard joined Spago Beverly Hills as pastry chef in 1994 and quickly made her mark on the Los Angeles restaurant scene. Her advocacy of searching out locally grown ingredients from neighborhood farmer's markets impacted her innovative desserts. In addition to creating the dessert menu for Spago, she is also involved in pastry menu development for other Wolfgang Puck restaurants.
David Emil's Windows on the World was the country's highest grossing restaurant before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, decimated it. In the aftermath of that tragedy, Emil and celebrity chefs Tom Valenti (Ouest), Waldy Malouf (Beacon) and Michael Lomonaco (Noche), also a City Tech graduate, established the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund, a national charitable effort that has raised some $20 million to benefit the families of the food-service workers who lost their lives at the Twin Towers. Noche, Emil's new Latin-theme nightclub/restaurant located in the heart of the city's Theatre District, has reunited scores of former Windows employees who were not at work atop the World Trade Center that tragic September morning in 2001.
City Harvest, established in 1982, is America's
oldest and largest food rescue operation in a nation in which 96
billion pounds of food go to waste each year. It delivers 16 million
pounds of food annually to agencies that help feed an estimated
1.6 million New Yorkers who are at risk of going hungry each day.
From its origins as a volunteer-based organization connecting a
handful of neighborhood restaurants and agencies, it now regularly
distributes food to more than 800 local emergency food programs
and helps provide healthy meals to some 200,000 New Yorkers weekly.
Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals (HFTP) is recognized
by the global business community as the source of information on
finance and technology for the hospitality industry. Its roots stem
from a number of state-centered accountant associations that joined
together in 1952 to create a national network. HFTP was established
to respond to the professional needs of hospitality accounting.
Through professional development seminars, a speakers series, an
annual convention and trade show, and various publications, it fosters
the exchange of information and ideas among accounting associations
and hotel accountants nationwide. It also actively promotes an array
of scholarship and internship opportunities for college students
coast to coast who are pursuing careers in the hospitality industry.
Following the presentation of awards, Class of 2003 Valedictorian Jed Gelber expressed to the audience the thanks of a grateful student body for the scholarship assistance provided through corporate and other support for the Best of New York Award Dinner. Gelber is graduating with a perfect 4.0 index in legal assistant studies and will be attending CUNY School of Law in the fall. His father, noted playwright, director and college professor Jack Gelber, whose controversial 1959 play "The Connection" won three Obie Awards and helped to redefine the boundaries of American theatre, passed away suddenly earlier in May.
The Best of New York Award Dinner is sponsored by the City Tech Foundation and honors individuals, corporations and organizations that are making outstanding contributions to the economic, educational or cultural life of our city, state and nation. Proceeds help fund City Tech's student scholarship programs and faculty professional development programs.
Photo Credit: Ken Brown
