Deer Valley Pastry Chef Retires

0After 32 years at Deer Valley Resort, executive pastry chef Letty Halloran Flatt has retired.

I saw the post on her Facebook page, with photos of flowers, a colorful cake and a staff that was  giving her a nice send-off.

“I have shed quite a few tears this last month,” she wrote. “Who knew it would be so emotional after 32 years? I guess tears are part of letting go. Looking forward to the next wave of life.”

Flatt has been at Deer Valley since the resort opened in 1981, and the executive pastry chef since 1988. She has been part of the long-standing food and beverage team that initially raised the bar for dining in Park City, and has kept up its stellar reputation ever since.   She wrote a cookbook, “Chocolate Snowball,” and co-founded the Baker’s Dozen, a group for professional pastry chefs and amateur baking enthusiasts.

Over the years, Letty shared some of her expertise in my newspaper articles with the Standard-Examiner and Deseret News. After baking signature desserts at 8,000 feet, she knew all about high-altitude baking. She also has a passion for vegetarian cooking, and shared recipes for a Chocolate Beet Cake and Chard and Black Bean Burritos. When I was doing a story on the favorite spices of local chefs, she told  her favorite spices are ginger (her gingerbread uses both fresh and powdered ginger); and on the savory side, chipotle chiles in adobo sauce.  That’s where I got the tip of freezing an opened can of the chipotle chiles, and just using a spoonful when needed.

I found the following information about her from a 2003 Deseret News article. (I must have written it but it’s been so long I don’t remember!)  Her climb up the culinary ladder began when she baked wedding cakes and did catering out of her home. She got to know the chef at Deer Valley and asked him for a job. She worked in the bakery there before studying at the French Culinary Institute in New York. She also attended the Ecole-Lenotre in France. She has been the executive pastry chef at Deer Valley since 1988.

But people won’t hear the last of Flatt in the food world. She currently writes a blog, muffintalk.wordpress.com. She is planning to change its name to lettyskitchen.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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