Finale bow of all the Gala Dinner Chefs, assistants and support staff. Much applause to the very entertaining hosts Carla Hall of The Chew and Gail Simmons of Top Chef. Three team secret ingredient chef throw down. Anita Lo’s team won first two and Sherry Yard’s team won hands down making 2 cooked dessert dishes in 20 minutes! The lovely Chef Lynne Ryan serves.
Beautiful ladies Rochelle Huppin and Barbara Lazaroff pose for the camera at #WRC2015. Surbhi Sahni of Bittersweet serves her modern Indian inspired dishes.
Two inspiring pastry chefs Claudia Fleming and Sherry Yard. Michael Crowell and Lesley Hill from Hawaii. They provided fresh heart of palm for the Hearts of Palm & Papaya Salad I was preparing for the appearance later today at the Time Warner cable channel - The Woman’s Connection.
The lucky person Natasha getting the last copy of Vanilla Table Book signed by Chef Natasha.
Post taping tasting with Barrie-Louise Switzen from The Women’s Connection.
Penn Station. Training up the coast next stop Boston.
Gill and I dine at Back Bay’s Mistral – yes that is actually a pizza!
First of the season pea ravioli in roasted chicken broth and divine salmon!
Off to the Coop at Harvard and VT is in the front window! A warm intro in this most hallowed hall that is Harvard … had a few piano and singing lessons in this most revered University! Harvard grad student Alexa all grown up sits in on the vanilla talk.
I always wanted to go to MIT – and here we are Vittorio Paone and I surrounded by vanilla, lavender and books in the café bon appétit at MIT. NormanVan Aken’s Spicy Pineapple – Vanilla Marinated Fish and my Crispy Cornflake Chicken from VT are a hit!
Exciting buzz at Volante Farms in Needham where I teamed up with Meagan McNeill of Nashoba Valley Extract Co. who makes local bespoke pure vanilla extracts. Resisted the scratch donuts and bakery treats but had to take a photo! Head chef Todd gave us a tour and taste of the 80 local cheeses, handcrafted cider syrup and countless local products at Volante. Gill and I finished our visit with a few hero sandwiches so worth the wait!
