Viktoria

I'm tentatively in as well! I would love to see some sugar work this time if at all possible! Maybe something to build upon Rob's great showpiece demo? Or making candies, or pulled taffies?

Bob, What was in your amazing blue bonbons? I managed to bring 2 home, and after the first was shared, possession of the 2nd was hotly contested! The stout ganache, and the raspberry filling were widely appreciated as well.

There's a lovely shot of said flop-eared flocked bunny on page 1

Finally, here's what's left of my take home stash after my children got done with it. That's Han Solo in carbonate from Star Wars, for the geek-crowd. I made it for my husband as a thank you for taking care of the kiddies and letting me play chocolate! For those of you who were at the conference, this is the mold I have (works for ice or chocolate) I think you can also find it on amazon. http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/e845/?srp=4 I can't thank Bob and everyone else for such an amazing time. I can't wait till next year. It was so wonderful to meet you all in person.

Haha. This has got to be confusing with so many photos going up! Chris posted a photo of the hand dipping with hands of all things. That was kind of fun. Ruth has some great stories! Not long after lunch there was a mad scramble to finish filling all of the shells, capping them, plating them etc. Then clean up began. Chris posted some awesome photos of the lovely finished chocolates. I won't duplicate, but here is a closeup of the bonbons on the showpiece Several of the students and staff hung around to look at the chocolates and took pictures. Here's a shot of the Dean of the school taste testing and chatting. He said later that while they were expecting people who were passionate, they didn't expect the level of expertise they saw.

On the next day people just jumped right in. Someone had the brilliant idea of having Ruth sign our copies of her cookbook! Steve did his airbrushing and decorating demo. This is Steve's dehydrator setup. I've always admired the splatter patterns The finished mold ready for filling Keri took over the 2nd kitchen and began her demos. When I caught up they were making pate de fruit. I believe it started out port with a base of pear puree. But there wasn't quite enough of the port, so we found some more booze! Something with hibiscus and some tasty warm spices. In the other room Ruth was showing how to make tulip bowls and such.

So some people picked one thing or other, but I ended up bouncing back and forth between everything, since it was all so interesting. At some point, Ruth began showing Sarah and others how to make a cream fondant. Then we made about 4 different flavors, rolled them and let them sit On the other side of the room people were making flowers out of modeling chocolate (which is chocolate and corn syrup, I believe) which Joe made for us to play with. Joe had one method, which involved pressing small balls of chocolate between parchment paper and flattening into petal shape with an offset spatula. Patti had a different technique, in which she used the end of a dipping fork to push an oval of chocolate into shape. Her roses were lovely (as were everyone else's). I took lots of photos while she was doing it. I am sure I was really annoying! Then it was time for dinner! Chris already posted photos. All I can say was that the corned beef and potatoes were especially amazing (I would never have said I loved corned beef before this). Most people at our table had seconds of the potatoes, and would have had more if we could have fit it in!

Ok, I don't want to duplicate people's photos, plus I'm not very good at photography, so consider mine "action shots"! I missed the fun on Friday, but got there bright and early on Saturday. Everyone was saying Hi and getting ready. Others have posted pics of Joe and his demo. I just wanted to post one to show how cleanly he was able to cap his molds! no chocolate down the sides, no mess, nothing!! Rob also showed us how to do piped flower petals. Some of us did quite well (not me ) After Rob's demo one of the chefs at the school demonstrated making a hazelnut feuilletine torte. She was in and out all day as well, peeking at what we were doing, and helping. Meanwhile, Steve made some mint fondants, and then dipped them with a setup I thought was particularly clever. In case you're wondering, the technical term for the method used to remove the excess chocolate, according to Erica, is "bouncy bouncy scrape" Edited to insert better pictures

I was so inspired by this thread that I went and made some flour tortillas to go with dinner tonight. I followed the recipe in Diana Kennedy's "Essential Cuisines of Mexico" cookbook. I used whole wheat flour, and real lard and cooked them on my cast iron skillet. They were tasty, and the whole family loved them, but they really didn't turn out right. I don't know whether I didn't roll them thin enough or didn't cook them correctly. Either way, no one here complained!

I can come to a Friday afternoon activity! Are there any supplies that we might need?

I can probably attend some of the fun on Friday during the day, though I'm not actually sure I'll be able to do Friday evening.

Robert - I'm in the definite category now. Not staying at the hotel, but planning on being there! Kerry, I would love one of those thermometers. I absolutely can't wait to meet everyone!

I haven't posted in a while as my life seems to have gone crazy. But I have approval from the Mr. to attend. (we have two little ones, so it's only fair to be nice and ask ) I live just north of woodbridge, so I'm happy to fill my car with what few pieces of equipment I have. I have molds, some texture sheets, a couple of transfer sheets, some powdered colors and other odds and ends. I can also bring some pots and pans if necessary. Oh, and I can cart the books I have as well.

Not long ago, I tried to make chicken liver pate. I made so many mistakes that it was not only unpalatable, but I'm afraid I've given myself a liver phobia

So now the holidays are over (in the US) and it's back to healthy eating for me. Unfortunately family and holidays derailed things more than I had hoped. The transition back to healthier eating wasn't hard though, for the most part, because I felt terrible when I wasn't eating well. But I noticed a few things. Much like people upthread said, if it's in the house I'll eat it and I need to stop kidding myself about that. And if I make it for dinner, and other people are eating it I will want to eat it too. I do not have the ability, yet, to eat small portions of the less healthy components of a meal, and feel satisfied. It's something I have to work on. One of the things I'm focusing on right now is greatly increasing our veggie intake. We love veggies in our house. I could eat vegetables all the time and be happy. If someone else were doing the prep. It's not that I don't like cooking. I love it. But time is an issue, and with two little kids (5 and nearly 2) it's hard to prep enough for what I want to have particularly during the week. I'm prone to perfectionism, and I like complicated, multicomponent cooking, which makes weekday and night meals a challenge. I tend to be an all or nothing person (it's a flaw I'm working on) and so if I don't have everything ready to go, we often default to take out (hence the need to lose weight). All of this is a longwinded way of saying I need a new strategy. So this weekend I cooked a large volume of mostly-green veggies on Sunday to be able to scoop and incorporate into whatever meals we're having during the week. This time it was just cooked with olive oil and some salt. Actually lovely on its own, but flexible for anything else. I've put it in breakfast and dinner so far, to great effect. My kids adore broccoli and zucchini, and will happily eat this. So here's the question: Does anyone else do this? How do you keep from getting bored? Do the veggies get nasty by the end of the week? How do you plan your meals for the week?

ok... I've also used boxed falafel mix (and boxed latke mix)... *she says sheepishly*

I take pre-peeled garlic, whop it in the food processor with a little oil and freeze the results in small amounts. Do it once every 6 months or so. However, I just recently found pureed garlic, chili, dill, and cilantro in convenient squeeze bottles in my local market! I don't preheat my oven for savory cooking, either, particularly roasts and stuff. Every once in a while I'll use the food processor to grate/chop a ton of mirepoix. Then I sauté or sometimes roast it and let it cool. I throw it in the freezer in flattened freezer bags and cut off chunks when I need it. Trader Joes also sells pre-chopped mirepoix in plastic containers in the refrigerated veggies section! I use premixed "poultry seasoning" in my stuffing and gravy... When I make falafel, I make large batches of it. I then flatten it into freezer bags about an inch thick, and freeze. When I want falafel, I pull out the big square block, and cut into squares as much as I need, and fry it as is. Spatters a little more because it's frozen, but the insides get cooked just fine. mmm.... falafel cubes. I also do the frozen block thing with cookie dough too. Cookies come out a little less than round, but who cares.

Was it me, or did Tom look unwell towards the end there? Or was he just really disappointed, do you think?

Thanksgiving in America is evocative of a harvest festival. We tie it to a meal described in accounts of early settlers. I believe that some form of harvest celebration has been held since, but I think Abraham Lincoln made it an official holiday. Activity-wise, the only constant is that copious amounts of food are made and eaten. Many families have some additional traditions. Growing up in my family, we watched the Thanksgiving day parade in the morning, and the men would gather after to watch football. In my family now, when I host, I cook and the men-folk clean up. (how's that!) but no sports to speak of. Mostly, though, I think the important thing about the holiday is family and friends. Friends who are alone on the holiday are often invited to join into family celebrations. For me, it doesn't matter what other activity might occur, but that the family gathers for a meal and enjoys and gives thanks for each other.

This emerged from the need to use some kabocha squash and some lamb, though I started with no specific plan: Lamb curry with methi, shaved squash with garlic and olive oil. Very tasty. But a little goes a long way... The smell of fenugreek always makes me start to salivate...

Last year for Christmas my in-laws gave me a book called "The Food Stylist's Handbook" because they thought it would have some food photography tips, which was something I was interested in at the time. It turned out to be a very practical and detailed book about food styling as a business. It is a well written book, filled with little behind the scenes anecdotes. In one of the anecdotes the author tells about working on the photography for a cookbook and working on attempting a particular cake recipe. They tried several times to get the recipe to make a decent looking cake, but couldn't. So in the end they went and got a box cake mix and faked it. The author contacted them and said something along the lines of "Wow, it turned out so beautifully. I can never get it to look as nice when I make it..." or something similar. I'll never looks at cookbook photos or cooking shows the same way again. Especially after I heard Paula Dean say in one of her shows that she was making a recipe out of her latest cookbook. She'd never made it before, so she was delighted that it tasted good... edited to make a sentence make actual sense.

those look fantastic! What's in the crunchy frogs?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and just say it: I love green bean casserole. Ok, maybe not the canned green beans. But fresh steamed green beans... yum! And my husband will snack on fried onion topping by itself. This year I'm making a ton of food. Ok, every year I host thanksgiving I make a ton of food. I'm genetically programmed to cook too much food. I figure we'll have to start before noon to eat it all. Starting with: hot cider with a choice of alcohol cheese olives Savory sour cream apple and brie tarts with bacon and chestnut crumble, and whisky whipped cream. Walnut and pear soup. Then main event: Roasted turkey with citrus and rosemary butter gravy green beans with brown butter and hazelnuts sweet potato casserole challah stuffing cranberry and citrus jam (also the canned kind, because my father in law loves it) braised Brussels sprouts pear, pistachio and blue cheese salad mashed potatoes and for dessert: Jefferson Davis Pie Pumpkin custards maple pecan pie lemon supreme parfaits and bitter caramel chocolates... ok, now that I type it, it sure does seem obscene.

After thinking about the menu for a while, I think that I would also feel like something was missing from thanksgiving if I didn't have stuffing, potatoes, etc. So I'll make sure that there are lots of healthy veggies to eat and indulge in small amounts of the others. The in laws will be happy, I will be happy, everybody wins.

Hi Scoop! I have been reading this with great interest. I'd never been to Vegas so I found your description fascinating. But some last minute business travel has brought me to the Mirage this week! So now all of your fascinating intel suddenly has much more context for me. The scale here is absolutely amazing. The Mirage has probably 8(?) restaurants, some casual and some fine dining. Because I'm here for a conference I haven't had much time to visit anywhere else, though I had dinner last night at a local tapas place called Firefly. I did have breakfast at the buffet this morning (my excuse is that I was running late!). It made me think of several questions I wanted to ask. Is there a difference between the staff that works in the main kitchen vs the buffet or restaurant kitchens? I saw some kitchen staff doing things behind the scenes in the buffet and I wondered if this was considered being on show and therefor regarded differently than regular kitchen duty. I know you said that the fine dining is different and somewhat separate from the main staff. How separate? Does the main kitchen ever support them or is it held as a completely separate enterprise? Quite a few of these mega hotel resorts seem to be owned by the same company. Are they each run as completely separate, or is there motion between the staff when hotels have the same parent company? Thank you so much for this topic! So much fun.