James Beard award-winning pastry chef Gale Gand talks about her new restaurant, her new cookbook and other red hot irons she has in the fire.

Gale Gand wears a lot of toques. A co-founding partner of Chicago’s Michelin-starred Tru, world-renowned for its contemporary French tasting menus, Gale hosted the Food Network series “Sweet Dreams” for eight years, the first nationally televised all-dessert show. She appears regularly on TV shows like“Good Morning America,” “The Today Show” and “The Rachael Ray Show.” She produces her own artisanal root beer, volunteers, teaches, speaks and does cooking demonstrations. Gale also lists “mom” in her description on her website; she and her environmentalist husband Jimmy Seidita have a teenaged son and twin daughters.

Most recently, Gale opened a burger joint, SpritzBurger, with the Hearty Boys, Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh. And her eighth cookbook, Gale Gand’s Lunch!, hits bookstores this week. It seemed like a good time to check in with her. Continue reading “In Conversation: Gale Gand on dessert, simplifying things and her new book Lunch!” →