Darling of the pastry world, Dominique “The Cro-riginator” Ansel, has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation as Outstanding pastry chef of 2014. Ansel beat out perpetual runner-up, Dana Cree. This is fantastic news for Ansel, reinforcing the shrewdness of combining his culinary skills with altruism (“culinatarianism”?).

Dom-sel’s recent media blitz espousing pastry innovation as the doorway to global peace was well-timed. Prior to the Beard Award, he was honored with the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award and raised an unprecedented $6,500 – in exchange for 8 cookie shots – at an NYC gala for City Harvest. His bakery’s site proclaims “We love Chef Dominique’s dedication to doing good with the power of pastries”.

If goodwill via pastries is so damn important to him, why doesn’t Ansel “open-source” the savvily trademarked cronut itself to chefs worldwide, with the condition that some proceeds are used to fight hunger, diabetes, or even the rights of sugar-cane farmers? Ansel: just establish a worldwide pastry chef network and take care of business, homeboy.

He may be a superstar now, but winning the James Beard award should catapult Ansel into the ranks of ultra super-duper star. Not surprisingly, Ansel’s staff still finds him to be humble.  “In true Dominique fashion, he was here this morning… opening the door for our guests”. Wow: Think globally, act locally.

Check out the ever-humble Dom-sel in this clip from the Wendy Williams show, in which he says, “French people don’t know how to make good cookies.” Off with his head!