Grasping ripe Meyer lemons off a sturdy tree branch on the grounds of the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa in California, pastry chef Karine Moulin smiles as the warm Coachella Valley sun shines through lush green leaves that wiggle back and forth lightly in the breeze.
"I was definitely that typical 'crazy tourist' when I first arrived in the Palm Springs area," Ms. Moulin admits about her first sight of local citrus trees and laughs loudly. "I honestly ended up making 10 litres each of orange, grapefruit and lemon marmalade. I just couldn't resist myself."
Born in Quebec City, Ms. Moulin has spent the majority of her culinary career in Calgary. She received her education at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1996 and 2001 – first for culinary arts and later for pastry arts – and she worked in the city afterward. She has had a variety of positions over the years, but she is most recognizable for her years spent as the executive pastry chef for the Hotel Arts group.
Ms. Moulin competed in the fourth season of Top Chef Canada in 2014, which helped cement her as one of the city's most familiar culinary faces.
She is also among a number of chefs who have honed their craft in Alberta and then taken that experience with them abroad, whether to the United States, as she did, or farther afield.
Last summer, Ms. Moulin shocked Calgary's food community when she announced that she would be heading to California in search of new ingredients. "I felt that working abroad was missing from my résumé. I wanted to learn more," she says, adding that the Coachella Valley was particularly enticing because of the vibrant farming industry in the region.
"The idea of 'local' is so different, depending on what part of North America you're in. It's interesting to see those differences."
Different is right. These days, Ms. Moulin can find fresh dates just down the road and almonds grown an hour or so away. Sometimes, her creations are composed with unique ingredients such prickly pears, rambutan (a tropical fruit similar to lychee), black sapote (a cousin of the persimmon) and even cactus.
Still, Ms. Moulin has also managed to take a little bit of Canada with her. "I love using flax seeds," she says, referring to a seed of which Canada is the largest producer in the world. "I use them in baking and breads. It's not something that you see commonly down here."
In Toronto, Kira Desmond, a born-and-raised Calgarian, sits in the test kitchen of dipndip, going over some potential items she is in the midst of recipe-testing before she catches a flight to Belgium. Not yet a household name in Canada, dipndip is a growing international chocolate café chain that has locations in places such as Cairo and Dubai.
Ms. Desmond, who was educated at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in the Napa Valley, worked in Calgary at Mango Shiva, as well as owned her own bakery, Sweet Provocateur, before heading to British Columbia to expand her horizons.
Her refined skills and overflowing creativity landed her the coveted position as executive pastry chef at Mission Hill Winery near Kelowna, B.C. After spending a season creating desserts with on-property ingredients such as mulberries, peaches and plums (she even made a birthday cake for Tony Bennett), she jumped on board with dipndip for the promise of international growth.
While the test kitchen is in Toronto, Ms. Desmond finds herself overseas every few weeks. "One of my favourite places I've [been able to visit] is Beirut," she gushes. "The food in Lebanon is incredible, and the people are so welcoming and friendly. I really enjoy experiencing other cultures and learning about the traditions and customs of these places."
The chocolate café's menu is composed of crepes, waffles and an array of other inventive dishes, such as the chef's pistachio crepe cake, a wedge of layered crepes filled with pistachios and cream.
Ms. Desmond conceives these dishes, then travels with her team to locations around the world to help execute changes and train staff, always with regionality in mind. "Flavour preferences, portion sizes, culinary trends, environmental factors and ingredients can all vary, depending on the region," the chef says.