: Wow. I'd have to go a long way back. I grew up in a small town and my uncle had a bakery and I used to help him after school ? making cookies, little cakes and stuff. I liked it and so after I finished school, I joined a three-year apprenticeship programme in the next town.

There was a nice pastry shop there and that's where I studied for the next three years. The way it works is that you go to school, but the (actual) restaurant things you learn on the job at the bakery.

The town was in Bavaria, in southern Germany. Not right away. I'd always wanted adventure. I've always wanted to see the world. So I worked in Switzerland. I worked on a cruise ship. I have a brother in America who sponsored me and, at 22, I immigrated.

But I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to stay. So I went back home, and at 28, got my master's degree in baking. I was speaking with an American who had been in Bermuda and he told me he thought there was (a position) available at the Princess Hotel. They weren't in need of anybody (but there was a space) at the Lantana Colony Club. It was very nice. I liked it a lot there.

: I came here in February of 1982 and in September, I met my wife Dorothy. My wife is from Scotland and was working here already. She'd lived here for five years but when I first met her, I thought she was a tourist ? we met at Horseshoe Bay.

I always went there. I loved it there. Anyway we got talking and she told me she lived here and we started going out and a year later, we got married, here in Bermuda.

: I lived in Bermuda for three years. That was through my wife. She was friends with them for many years before she met me and so we keep in contact. Because she'd been here a lot longer than me, she had more established friends than I had.

A lot of my friends were hotel people ? chefs ? and a lot of them left, just like me. When I come back there's maybe one or two left that I know ? except, of course, the Bermudians. It's very nice to come back and be able to talk to the people who were here when you were here ? there's a lot of memories here for us.

I found (out it was closing) just last year through a friend of Dorothy's. We got bits and pieces and we really don't know what happened or why it closed. But I was very eager to visit the property again. We got here on Thursday and on Friday, we took the bus out.

I wanted to visit John Young, he was the owner at that time. We talked with him a bit but he's very sick ? he had a stroke two years ago.

So then we walked around the property a little bit. I used to live right on the property so we went and saw where I once lived. (The hotel) supplied an apartment at that time and I would walk out of my door and the kitchen was just upstairs ? very easy. I have a lot of beautiful memories.

We went to brunch which was very nice. There were a lot of nice pastries. I could tell that some of it was actually home made ? even the dough ? but that some of it was probably brought in frozen and baked. The dough was completely different on some of them. I'm the pastry chef at Epcot. It's a big job and I love it. It's very interesting. I never know in the morning what my day will hold. My wife sometimes asks, 'What will you do today?' I never know. There could be voicemails on my phone. There could be messages on my email.

As the pastry chef for the whole park, I have an office and go from location to location. I have little pastry teams in all of the different locations. So there's 15 restaurants I'm dealing with and a large catering department. We do a lot of private functions ? from ten people all the way up to 15,000 sometimes. With private functions we sometimes close early or, we close part of the park.

: We have a lot of hotels at Disney too. (The pastry chefs there) have maybe 20 or 25 people working for them and they produce whatever they have to produce for the guests. A park is completely different. Because a park has all its individual restaurants and you're trying to deal with all of them.

Epcot is very interesting. It has all of these different countries ? Mexico, Norway, Germany, Italy and so on, situated around a lake. The world itself is built around the lake. Each part has a restaurant and you want every restaurant to be unique. You don't want to be having the same thing everywhere.

In Germany, for instance, we make our famous apple strudel and the amount is very big ? around 2,000 pieces of that apple strudel a day and that's just one dessert. In order to keep up with that volume you need very dedicated people. And we have some very good people working there.

: We have four different bakeries on top of the 15 restaurants at Epcot. I give them the recipes. I show them how it's done. If there are any challenges ? with ingredients or something else ? I help them out. I get calls asking, 'Can you come by? Something doesn't look right.'

And so I go and take a look. I'm like a trainer, a co-ordinator, a consultant. I don't have a crew on hand when I go into the bakery shops, I deal with everybody individually.

We make breakfast pastries, nice little desserts, individual ice cream cakes and what I like is for each restaurant to be individual.

For example, in Norway, we have a bakery where we make traditional stuff, (there's one hotel restaurant where) we make more American desserts ? things like key lime pie and carrot cake, stuff that the (average) person can identify with ? and then we have another where we try to keep the desserts more international.

I don't want to do all the same things everywhere because I think that's boring. For the guests, when they go in the park, they want to go here, they want to go there, they don't want to repeat all the same things.

In the restaurants, of course, we do plated desserts as well so it's not only making up the cakes, it's also the components and the garnishes and putting them together with the sauce so it looks nice and pretty. That's what the guests expect and that's what they like.

It's actually nice to work with all the different cultures. I meet a lot of different people ? they may come from Mexico or Norway or Germany or America. It's just nice to pull from that experience all around the park.

And sometimes we have private parties where everybody's included. It's really nice to see the variety of food. We have excellent talent right there in the park. So it's like a world in its own.

I do but not so much. When I finish at work, when I go home, what I like to do is cook. That, I enjoy. But baking, not so much. It's not that easy at home ? you miss the ingredients and certain tools that you're used to, the oven isn't the same so you get upset, and then you don't have enough space.

I enjoy what I'm doing. I've been doing it for almost 40 years now and I still enjoy doing it so I guess I picked the right profession.

We lived in Chicago, mainly because of family ties but also because I knew people there I knew we'd be able to find something; to get established. We then moved to Florida. We moved down to Orlando because we wanted to live somewhere warm again after all that beautiful Bermuda sun.

I went to Disney's casting department ? we're all called cast members instead of employees because Disney's an entertainment company. Everybody's a member of the entertainment as if you're part of a cast of the show.

It doesn't matter if you're behind the scene or in front of the scene as a character ? and they sent me a number of places before saying they thought I would be a better fit over at Epcot. Once they explained (the position) to me I said: 'This is just what I'd like. This is fantastic.' And it is. I love the challenges. Let's put it this way, I'm never bored.

It's been a long time since I was back here. Before I started working at Disney we made a trip to Bermuda, so we could have a nice vacation before I started working. But that was nine years ago. Before that, we had been back a couple of times and I think we'll come back again. It's always nice to come back. It's a beautiful island. What's very interesting is that in order to keep our park attendance high, we have different events through the year. Right now the Flower and Garden Festival is going on. That lasts eight weeks and so what we like to do is have special dinners with flowers included in the menu.

The chefs use grains and (other interesting ingredients) in their food and then we come up with desserts looking like flowerpots and things like that, to make them interesting.

The guests really like that. But our biggest event is the Food and Wine Festival ? this year marks our tenth anniversary ? which starts at the beginning of October and runs until just before Thanksgiving. It's seven weeks of food and wine.

(Disney's) World Showcase at Epcot has (restaurants representing different countries) all around a large lake. What we do for the Food and Wine Festival is we include little booths, little cabins of different countries, in that.

So we would have maybe Argentina there and Russia and Spain, Korea and so, instead of having maybe ten different restaurants around the lake as we usually do, we now have 30 different locations. It's all bite-sized food and we also do the same thing for desserts.

What is very nice I think for the guests is that they can try little things and, if they like them, go in the restaurant the next day and enjoy the meal. They can determine whether they like Japanese, whether they like Moroccan.

It's very, very popular and at the same time, we bring a lot of representatives from wineries all over the world ? Africa, Australia, of course California and Europe ? and we also bring in celebrity chefs.

It's so funny. Sometimes you get a phone call and you're told, 'It's Mexico on the phone' or, Norway's on the phone'. But it doesn't mean the person is calling from Mexico, it means they're right there, at Epcot.

It was actually quite funny in the beginning when I interviewed ? they said the chef right now is actually in Norway and I said, 'Wow, Norway.' But then you realise he's right there. But it's very nice to work there.

It's very challenging. And like I said, you're never bored. You really can use all the talents you've learned over the years. So I have pretty much a free hand in what I'm doing ? as long as it tastes good and looks good, everybody's happy.