Teacher Feature: Kristin Egan

By Genevieve Sawyer

As a small child, Kristin Egan dreamed of working in the restaurant and hospitality industry. That dream bore fruit; after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 2004  with an associate degree in Baking and Pastry Arts, she worked at noted locales such as the Four Seasons Hotel and L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in NYC, Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, NY, and the Wequassett Resort in Cape Cod, MA. She owned and operated Egan Sweets, a wholesale dessert and wedding cake business in Cape Cod. When it became too successful for her to have time for a life outside work, she returned to the CIA in 2014  as an Associate Professor in Baking and Pastry Arts. She became a Certified Master Baker (CMB) in 2018  and holds a Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE) as well as a BS from Drexel University in Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Below, we discuss how and why her career grew from a small child’s dream to her real-world success today.

Why did you plan to enter the hospitality industry?

When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered, “I want to be a waitress!” My dad said to me: “You could be a waitress or you could own the whole diner! Then you can wait tables, or cook or be the hostess – whatever you like!” Well, I thought that was a great suggestion, so my plan was to own a diner as a grown-up. Then my new dream was to own a bed and breakfast. I figured I’d better go to hotel school.

What made you realize that the working in the back of the house was what you preferred?

I [was working at a hotel’s front desk in New York City] and it was Christmas time. We were completely sold out. A woman who had just checked in came back down to the front desk. She detested the pattern of the bedspread in her room and demanded that we move her. She wanted to see what other rooms were available and if those bedspreads were more pleasing to her.  The hotel used to issue real keys, not key cards, so I needed to lead her around with all of these keys to each room until we found one she liked.  I had to pretend that this was totally reasonable. I remember thinking: “I gotta get outta here!”

What is the hardest thing about professionally producing pastry in hotels, restaurants, and bakeries?

The hardest thing for me was working holidays. I have a close family and it was very hard to not be with them for holidays.

What inspired you to pursue a teaching career at the CIA?

I started my own business selling desserts wholesale and doing a lot of wedding cakes. [Egan Sweets]  grew rapidly and I started to feel like I either needed to sacrifice my life to my business or I was out! I couldn’t see how to get any balance.  Right around this time Peter Greweling  (CIA Professor and renowned author of Chocolate and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner, Vol. 2, John Wiley and Sons, 2012) reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in taking the instructor’s exam at CIA. I had always planned to come back and teach and I thought “Why not me? Why not now?”

What courses do you teach?

I teach teach Basic and Classical Cakes, Advanced  Baking Principles, and Chocolates and Confections.

What do you like most  about teaching at the CIA?

I recently had a student ask me if I get bored teaching the same thing over and over. And the thing is, I don’t. I love baking and pastry. What really excites me now is getting better at teaching and relating, at getting through to this generation that is so different from my own. What excites me now is relationships between people.  A lot of these younger people are so caught up in appearances and perfection and their grades. I hope I can help them see that life is so much deeper than those things.

What do you do if you have students who fail to produce in the classroom?

If I do, we talk about why that is. Is it their time management? Do they need  to do a little more preparation before class? Write a timeline? I often say “The only way to get faster is to just work faster.  Whatever you are doing, do it a little faster.” Is it their hand skills? Do they need  to practice cutting  cake layers or piping with a cornet? I remind them that repetition is necessary and practice is necessary. It doesn’t  just happen; there is a lot of work involved on their part.

What do you miss most about the restaurant and hotel life?

The camaraderie in a kitchen: all the inside jokes, going out after work and talking about service, the nervous feeling I would get when the tickets started coming. At CIA we have camaraderie and jokes but it’s a bit more tame now.

Have you had a particular friend, or friends that you’ve been able to rely on throughout your career?

I was blessed to meet Pat and Ed Scalone on my CIA externship at the Ritz Carlton in Palm Beach. Every day I would wake up and ride my bike to a bakery in Lake Worth called La Bon Bouche. The owner  made great croissants, so I would buy a croissant and a coffee  and read my book.  One day, Ed sat next to me and said “Are you doing homework?” “Nope,” I answered, not wanting to be bothered. And he said “Are you a student?” and I thought, “Ok I’ll answer this guy’s questions, he’s not going away,” and we have been  great friends  ever since. Pat passed away in 2020.  Ed is one of my dearest friends. I think the most important thing I’ve learned from Ed is that you get “old” only if you act old. Ed is one of the most open-minded people I know. He’s always interested in other people’s stories.

You regularly go on long walks and do Bikram Yoga as well as meditation. What do you think about exercise as a way to relax and energize in an industry that can be stressful?

In my 20s and 30s, unfortunately I really bought into the belly-up-to-the-bar-after- work culture of the kitchen.  But alcohol was getting in the way of my life, it was keeping me from being the woman I wanted to be. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, as they say. So now I meditate! Life is a million times richer than I ever could have imagined. A real game changer for me was when I started taking a no-headphones, no-cellphone walk everyday for about an hour. I am able to work out so many things during that walk. The key is no cell phone.

Photos courtesy of Culinary Institute of America

Genevieve Sawyer is a freelance food writer who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2009.  She is a frequent contributor to Pastry Arts.

(This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)