BriarRosie
<font color=blue>Creator of Tag Fairy Haiku:<br>Cl
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2002
- Messages
- 11,164
Thursday, October 16th, 2008: First food nosh and Kitchen Conversations with Robert "Big Guns" Irvine
I'm back, and I'm ready to start talking about my second day of food and adventures! Before I go right for the food, I wanted to share that I went to the Studios for the early part of my day to catch Toy Story Mania for the first time. Loved it. The line for the FastPass distribution reached past One Man's Dream, but it moved quickly. Glad I got to ride this thing twice.
I met up with Laurabearz (who frequents the DVC boards) and her family. Something happened that day that has never happened since I started visiting the Studios in 1992: We were asked to participate in the water tank scene.
Laura was the patsy that had to have a wall of water dumped on her, and her BIL and I were being attacked on our ship in Pearl Harbor. I was the Captain. Go me. 
The only bad thing is that there isn't a monitor on our side of the action to see the end result. But I had a heckuva lot of fun participating!
That will be the last of my non-food portion of the installment. On with the food! You know I was here because of this:
I looked at my watch, thinking I could grab something to eat at one of the kiosks before heading over for my Kitchen Conversations event at the Festival Center. So I decided to try a kiosk that was close to the Mexico pavilion:
I tried both the beef and corn casserole and the Malbec.
Hey! It's muy macho. It's a manly quiche. Very hot. Very tasty...and oh crap! I better get a move on or I will be late to the event! I had forgotten that it's better to arrive early to the events, because they will start to arrange seating by those who arrive earliest. So I scarfed down the rest of the man quiche and wine and booked it over to the Festival Center.
I arrived about 10 minutes before 2pm, and already the event seemed to have seated nearly everyone. I looked for Brenda and Jason and found that they were seated in the "cheap seats" near the back and the potted plants.
Because I was alone, the event people placed me at a table that was far better in view and such, as the last person to join the table.
Each table had all the chairs on the semi-circle facing the stage area, so that nobody had their backs to the stage. Immediately I noticed that this area felt so out in the open. I really liked the Odyssey set up much better.
We were greeted by Pam Smith, the lady I mentioned who does the MC duties for the paid events. Here she is with Ed, the guy who talked to us about Caymus winery, the Conundrum wine we had.
My seat was not that close. I used my optical zoom for every photo (except one very obvious one later!). But I had a good view of everything, including the TV monitors set up for those in the "cheap seats". Before Pam introduced Robert Irvine, there was a montage of Robert from his TV show, "Dinner: Impossible".
Robert Irvine is not a shy man. He was totally in his element as engaging his audience, very funny and charming. He asked people if they haven't heard of him, and he immediately went over to this lady at a table behind me.
He made her stand up and then sit on his lap.
After this fun bit of ice breaking, he sat up at the front of the stage where Pam was sort of talking with him, interview style in a couple of director's chairs in front of the cooking station. Robert didn't do any of the actual cooking. Instead, he had one of his sous chef's doing the cooking, along with an audience member. I recognized the audience member immediately as one of the food and wine festival "regulars". I've seen her for years at many small events like this.
Robert was working the room like this:
He would describe what the people on stage were doing, but he took lots of time just talking about other things. What were they cooking? I guess I really need to mention it, since we had the recipe sitting at our place setting.
Pan Seared Salmon with Bok Choy Cashew Salad and Orange Soy Glaze
The fingerling potatoes were just a bonus.
There was a glitch when it came to the serving of the fish. A bunch of tables had gotten served, and I was almost not going to get my fish with the rest of my table. But the man sitting with his wife next to me decided that I should have been served first just because I'm a woman, so he gave me his plate. 
I really didn't care one way or another, as I thought the servers just unloaded the plates in the order people were seated. My fish was good, but not great, and the man's wife and I thought the fish was sitting on a steam tray for a while. Other people around the room said they received dry pieces. When the chivalrous man finally got his fish, he said his seemed like it was prepared fresh, and he gave samples to his wife and me to try. We all agreed he had the better prepared fish.
So this brings me to the problems about having this event at the former Wonders of Life pavilion. The cooking areas on the 3rd floor don't make it easy to transport to the event goers on the 1st floor, and they probably did have to prepare half the dishes ahead of time. So that could explain the various levels of food quality.
But what I didn't know from my vantage point was that the people sitting in the "potted plant" areas along the other side of the room were distracted by loud ambient noises from people outside this little venue, making it difficult to hear the event. I was next to a loudspeaker, so I had none of that on my side of the room. Brenda and Jason on the other hand....had a really rotten time because of the poor layout of this event.
I felt the conversation part of the event was great. Robert addressed all the issues related to the bad press, and he hinted at upcoming projects he's working on. My guess is that he'll be like Anthony Bourdain and do stuff on the Travel Channel.
I said "hi" as he walked past my table, and the next thing I knew, he picked up my camera and was going to do one of those self-portrait things with me. Since the lens cap was on and the camera was off, I quickly prepared the camera for a shot. Too bad I was a hot, sweaty mess!
My new BFF Robert Irvine and me
I was excited to get a spontaneous moment like that. Towards the end of the event, the winery gave away a huge, magnum sized bottle of Conundrum to anyone who could name the five steps to making the dish. As I had been in conversations with my tablemates, I wasn't paying THAT close attention to everything. All in all, I had fun, but for the same price a few years ago, I had been able to do a Lunch and Learn that served three courses with wine.
Here, we had one dish, one glass of wine, the recipe for the dish and a signed copy of Robert Irvine's cookbook, Mission: Cook!
I thought the event was enjoyable, but I would probably not attend another of these, especially if they are being held in this location again.
I'm back, and I'm ready to start talking about my second day of food and adventures! Before I go right for the food, I wanted to share that I went to the Studios for the early part of my day to catch Toy Story Mania for the first time. Loved it. The line for the FastPass distribution reached past One Man's Dream, but it moved quickly. Glad I got to ride this thing twice.
I met up with Laurabearz (who frequents the DVC boards) and her family. Something happened that day that has never happened since I started visiting the Studios in 1992: We were asked to participate in the water tank scene.
Laura was the patsy that had to have a wall of water dumped on her, and her BIL and I were being attacked on our ship in Pearl Harbor. I was the Captain. Go me. The only bad thing is that there isn't a monitor on our side of the action to see the end result. But I had a heckuva lot of fun participating!That will be the last of my non-food portion of the installment. On with the food! You know I was here because of this:
I looked at my watch, thinking I could grab something to eat at one of the kiosks before heading over for my Kitchen Conversations event at the Festival Center. So I decided to try a kiosk that was close to the Mexico pavilion:
I tried both the beef and corn casserole and the Malbec.
Hey! It's muy macho. It's a manly quiche. Very hot. Very tasty...and oh crap! I better get a move on or I will be late to the event! I had forgotten that it's better to arrive early to the events, because they will start to arrange seating by those who arrive earliest. So I scarfed down the rest of the man quiche and wine and booked it over to the Festival Center.
I arrived about 10 minutes before 2pm, and already the event seemed to have seated nearly everyone. I looked for Brenda and Jason and found that they were seated in the "cheap seats" near the back and the potted plants.
Because I was alone, the event people placed me at a table that was far better in view and such, as the last person to join the table.Each table had all the chairs on the semi-circle facing the stage area, so that nobody had their backs to the stage. Immediately I noticed that this area felt so out in the open. I really liked the Odyssey set up much better.
We were greeted by Pam Smith, the lady I mentioned who does the MC duties for the paid events. Here she is with Ed, the guy who talked to us about Caymus winery, the Conundrum wine we had.
My seat was not that close. I used my optical zoom for every photo (except one very obvious one later!). But I had a good view of everything, including the TV monitors set up for those in the "cheap seats". Before Pam introduced Robert Irvine, there was a montage of Robert from his TV show, "Dinner: Impossible".
Robert Irvine is not a shy man. He was totally in his element as engaging his audience, very funny and charming. He asked people if they haven't heard of him, and he immediately went over to this lady at a table behind me.
He made her stand up and then sit on his lap.
After this fun bit of ice breaking, he sat up at the front of the stage where Pam was sort of talking with him, interview style in a couple of director's chairs in front of the cooking station. Robert didn't do any of the actual cooking. Instead, he had one of his sous chef's doing the cooking, along with an audience member. I recognized the audience member immediately as one of the food and wine festival "regulars". I've seen her for years at many small events like this.
Robert was working the room like this:
He would describe what the people on stage were doing, but he took lots of time just talking about other things. What were they cooking? I guess I really need to mention it, since we had the recipe sitting at our place setting.
Pan Seared Salmon with Bok Choy Cashew Salad and Orange Soy Glaze
The fingerling potatoes were just a bonus.
There was a glitch when it came to the serving of the fish. A bunch of tables had gotten served, and I was almost not going to get my fish with the rest of my table. But the man sitting with his wife next to me decided that I should have been served first just because I'm a woman, so he gave me his plate. I really didn't care one way or another, as I thought the servers just unloaded the plates in the order people were seated. My fish was good, but not great, and the man's wife and I thought the fish was sitting on a steam tray for a while. Other people around the room said they received dry pieces. When the chivalrous man finally got his fish, he said his seemed like it was prepared fresh, and he gave samples to his wife and me to try. We all agreed he had the better prepared fish.
So this brings me to the problems about having this event at the former Wonders of Life pavilion. The cooking areas on the 3rd floor don't make it easy to transport to the event goers on the 1st floor, and they probably did have to prepare half the dishes ahead of time. So that could explain the various levels of food quality.
But what I didn't know from my vantage point was that the people sitting in the "potted plant" areas along the other side of the room were distracted by loud ambient noises from people outside this little venue, making it difficult to hear the event. I was next to a loudspeaker, so I had none of that on my side of the room. Brenda and Jason on the other hand....had a really rotten time because of the poor layout of this event.
I felt the conversation part of the event was great. Robert addressed all the issues related to the bad press, and he hinted at upcoming projects he's working on. My guess is that he'll be like Anthony Bourdain and do stuff on the Travel Channel.
I said "hi" as he walked past my table, and the next thing I knew, he picked up my camera and was going to do one of those self-portrait things with me. Since the lens cap was on and the camera was off, I quickly prepared the camera for a shot. Too bad I was a hot, sweaty mess!
My new BFF Robert Irvine and me
I was excited to get a spontaneous moment like that. Towards the end of the event, the winery gave away a huge, magnum sized bottle of Conundrum to anyone who could name the five steps to making the dish. As I had been in conversations with my tablemates, I wasn't paying THAT close attention to everything. All in all, I had fun, but for the same price a few years ago, I had been able to do a Lunch and Learn that served three courses with wine.
Here, we had one dish, one glass of wine, the recipe for the dish and a signed copy of Robert Irvine's cookbook, Mission: Cook!
I thought the event was enjoyable, but I would probably not attend another of these, especially if they are being held in this location again.
I really loved that he made that woman sit in his lap. I'm also glad nobody stood in the way of my zoom shot. 
