The legs in high-tech, the head in desserts: the wonderful story of Dror Cohen
He is now a manager at Microsoft and started cooking for himself when he left Dimona and enlisted in the IDF. After studying at Estella he became a well-known blogger, and the publicity grew following his participation in the "Perfect Dessert" program. Dror Cohen launches a recipe book.
Talia Levin
28/04/2022
Thursday, 28 April 2022, 15:57 Updated: Saturday, 30 April 2022, 08:05
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In an age where almost every joke about "Hitex" ends with one imitation of a great country or a complaint that "there is no ramen on the menu today", another type of hitchhiker also emerges, people with an artistic mind who understand the source of jokes but prove not everyone complains when there are not too many types. Bread in the kitchen.
Dror Cohen
is one whose career path has led him from service in the USSR and the Intelligence Corps directly into the arms of Microsoft, as soon as he was discharged from the army, and for the next 15 years. , "For a decade he made sure to bring up every evening after a tiring day of work, a new baking recipe he invented.
" This is the meaning of the name, and also a take on the Microsoft product line that came out at the time with the 365 logo.
Today he is releasing a new book called "Bakery 365 and Friends", which is not a classic baking book, but one that combines not only baking recipes of various degrees, but also guest appearances by the best chefs and confectioners who agreed to take part in the almost impossible project to perform: Israel Aharoni, Mickey His name, chocolatier Ika Cohen, and baking guru Estella, are just some of the familiar names of those hosted in the book.
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Dror Keren, has been with Microsoft for 15 years and has no intention of turning the pastry hobby into his main profession (Photo: Shani Kittlero)
Baking and distance
What about a senior at Microsoft and such an obsessive preoccupation with baking?
"When I started the blog I was not yet a senior, but from a very young age I had an attraction to the field of cooking and baking, at some point in my life I decided I wanted to start specializing in it, and signed up for Estella Confectionery Workshop. "It was a tear-jerking story. So I just found myself after work sitting and sharing my experiences at Estella's workshop and producing every night after the kids go to bed, a new recipe, a recipe for every day."
The blog began to gain momentum and caught Cohen by complete surprise.
Until then, he maintained relative anonymity and did not connect "Dror Cohen the high-techist" to the baker who maintains Bakery 365. Apart from friends and close family, colleagues at Microsoft did not believe that one of the most viral people on the network, he is a senior development manager in the company's cyber department. Working.
"For the last three or four years I've decided it's time maybe to come out of the closet on the subject of the blog," he says, "and people cheer, my colleagues know I'm dealing with it and not only accept it but also comment on things I bring up."
It does not destroy the distance?
"The truth is I've never had a distance, I'm just not that type. I'm very transparent with my people. It took me a while to come to terms with that exposure, and I'm fine with that. Today if you go to the blog then look at pictures of my kids, ".
The new recipe book: "Bakery 365 and friends" (Photo: PR)
The reality that published me
The exposure peaked when following pleas from the area, he decided to participate in the “Perfect Dessert” program on Rainbow 12, and even got a call from his high school teacher who saw him on TV and was filled with pride.
"There I realized it was, I'm already out, people also recognize me on the street sometimes from the blog and the show, and it's a new reality."
At this point usually, people leave work and start a new career, where did that catch you?
"This is the first question everyone always asks me, when do you leave Microsoft and open a bakery or something like that. So it's not going to happen. Look, it has not happened until now, I love my job and am in a profession where most people are 3 years old and immediately move on. For the next job or company, and I'm already closing my 15th year at the company.
This was my first job after the army and it is a record in terms of high-tech ... but the subject of baking and confectionery also comes to me mainly from an artistic place.
As a painter feels the need to paint, I feel the need to end a day of work in the kitchen and create new recipes.
The publication of the recipes
and everything that goes with it, including the book at the moment, is just extra for me. "
"I do not have such a hidden dream, first of all it is very hard physical work, and secondly because I see in this work art I can not create the same thing all the time. I have to challenge myself with something new until it succeeds and once I succeed I am no longer interested. "Make it more. A confectionery that sells should produce the same cakes to the same standard and it's not me. Maybe in retirement I will open something I will not care about its profits, and then I will bake a different cake according to the mood every day."
Yeast cake, anyone? (Photo: Ronen Mangan)
Cook for himself
Cohen, the youngest son of Moroccan parents, grew up in Dimona until the age of 18, and when he enlisted in the Modiin service, he moved to live alone in the center.
"First of all Dimona is an amazing community city and I had a wonderful childhood. As a teenager I was socially active, in a city youth council, in a local newspaper and on the radio. But military service made me independent very quickly, I had my own apartment already at 19 and I guess it was another trigger to start To cook and take care of myself, when I am a soldier far from my parents. "
Working in high-tech was a kind of dream come true immediately after graduation, and his parents are still afraid that he will leave the permanent and respectable job.
"When I published the book then my mother told me leave what you need, you have a tidy job, and a good livelihood. And do not get me wrong, it's not that they do not support, both my parents respond to me on almost every post I publish, and they took 20 books to .
He is currently married, a father of four and lives with his family in Raanana.
The new book is dedicated to his beloved nephew who died about three years ago of rapid and violent cancer.
"I am a youngest son at home, my brothers are very old by a gap, and my nephew was like a little brother to me. He always saw me as a model, we were very close and he studied computers after me, went to enlist in intelligence and was also a food lover like me. Fast and deadly. "
Between Gina Li and Cake Cake ... From the book (Photo: Ronen Mangan)
A gift from Microsoft: a huge mixer
Shortly before Cohen published the book, he began binding Project 365 and Friends as a kind of digital booklet published on the site.
The nephew died shortly before the first issue was downloaded and Cohen assured himself that from now on the entire project would be dedicated to him.
During the mourning period, the close friends and colleagues whom Cohen turned to collaborated almost without hesitation.
"It was very exciting that everyone enlisted, and no one refused when I approached him. It's not obvious with people of this magnitude with an almost impossible schedule."
The 14-chapter book begins with a short story about Cohen's acquaintance with each guest and his impact on his professional path as a confectioner, recipe and tips for the guest and four recipes from Cohen's feverish mind.
Who stands in the kitchen after a day of work and after the kids go to bed, and creates his creations like Van Gogh, in the home kitchen almost in the middle of the night.
"The book is accompanied by illustrations by Ella Cohen, an Israeli illustrator living in Berlin, in a very Instagram concept. To people's private lives, and we did the same thing only in print. "
What do you think of the high-tech jokes lately, insisting on proving it's not like that?
"Look, I can not say it is not like that. You see it from the outside but in our world very much see it inside. Unfortunately the rabbi has people who complain that there are not enough types of bread in the kitchen or those who will always find what is wrong. But I think it's mostly a matter "Of character, I really appreciate what is there and do not complain. It is a matter of worldview but I think there are many like me. There is a mix of people in this world and I am not at all unusual."
By the way Microsoft,
the chef Haim Cohen
who is in charge of the company's catering suggested to Cohen the confectioner to prepare the dessert that brought him to the finals in "The Perfect Dessert".
"It was my first time making such a quantity of desserts. I made 1000 corn desserts and it was crazy. Microsoft even bought a huge mixer for it, which was not in Haim Cohen's kitchen, just so we could put it into practice."
So if they now offer you such a role in the company do you refuse?
"Obviously, I have no problem teaching people to make the recipes but not really standing in the kitchen."
What is most important to you?
"First of all I started this blog with the aim of creating something different in the Israeli blogging landscape. One of the things I do not compromise on is the level. I mean, I have easy recipes but I do not get stuck there, I sometimes take recipes that can be very complicated and make them accessible to those who have not studied Confectionery.I
admit it is very exciting to me that people take on the challenge of making something they never dreamed they could, not a cake in a sense like a two-tiered cake that requires two days of preparation, and professional things that end up with proper accessibility and patience who definitely want to do it "It's my greatest satisfaction to know that someone did something professional, without any training and succeeded."
The article is also published in Maariv's "Business" supplement
Caution: Staring at a picture for more than a few seconds may make you laugh on your cell phone (Photo: Ronen Mangan)
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Hi-Tech
desserts
Recipes
Confectionery
