OMG, I was star struck!

At every convention, there are always celebrities that are invited and some do demonstrations or lectures. The International Home and Housewares show is no different. Last year I meet and hung out a bit with Micheal Simon from NBC's The Chew. Super cool guy who is as funny and welcoming as he appears to be on television. Rick Baylis and Duff Goldman were among those who attended.

This year, I meet someone that got me a bit star struck. Without ever seeing any printed picture, I spied a petite woman nearby our both and was struck almost dumb. Rumor had it that she was coming to the show, but I don't bank on rumors. So there I was face to face with a cookbook author to whom I admire just because the use of her book has been very important and reliable. I have had one of her books a good long time and I have not encountered any inaccuracy which is somewhat unusual. I love cookbooks and think of myself as somewhat of a collector. I have been gifted a few cookbooks and inherited a few, but when I purchase one I do so carefully. This lovely ladies book has been proven accurate and well done. I have often used her Cake Bible and loved it so much that I later purchased her Bread Bible which also is a very sound book.

Most of the time, I can read over the recipe and tell if it is workable and plausible. And when I find that I need to used someones recipe I typically need to adjust it to my specifications. With Rose's books I have not found a need to modify them at all. I have used her recipes in different ways other than the printed style but the reliability of her work is phenomenal.

It was such an honor to have met Rose Levy Beranbaum. She was gracious and lovely. She signed copies of her new book and gave them to our C-Cap students, she stayed and took pictures with everyone. I didn't mean to gush but I did. Her recipe for pineapple upside cake and the cheese cake has permanently replaced what ever recipe that I had used before.

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/

International Home and Housewares Show

Hey everybody.  This weekend was very busy and rewarding, and I hope that the days that I didn't post will be forgiven.  In conjunction with Harold Import Company (HIC), a major supporter of our Careers though Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), we have been working very hard. The convention opened Saturday and runs until Tuesday. 

C-CAP staff, students, and alumni manned the HIC booth and provided food to all the visitors conducting business with HIC. The mornings, offered omelets, sweet treats, and coffee. In the afternoon, our stations offered up made-to-order stir-fry.

Friday night there was a great event of drinks and dinner at Bin 36 wine bar. Sunday night was the C-CAP fundraiser where we broke our previous record collecting nearly $42,000! The proceeds go to support our culinary student scholarship program. Super exciting.

I attempted to conduct two live broadcasts on my blogtalk radio channel but apparently doing it from my phone and maintaining a signal did not work out.   Both times I tried it sounded like we were good to go but it ended abruptly without me hearing it stop. Oh well, I deleted the messed up broadcasts.

The show was jammed packed with all the china, glass, knives, cutting boards, small appliances, laundry aids, baking and decorating products available. I love this show. I also try and get out each year to the National Restaurant Association show to see and sample all the newest innovations.

Working a convention is some of the hardest work I have done, and I have worked many. It's full of tons of moving parts, long hours, guest needs, being the most bright and shinny you can be, all the while standing on the concrete floors.  Phew. This show had me sporting my newest item from the Forrest Gump collection of knee braces. I was super styling and preventing some of the damage that the long hours on my feet could create.

Yesterday we wrapped up the event and packed everything away. Many of the vendors at the show often donate their goods to our staff and students along with other organizations within the city. We are always grateful for the shinny new tools. 

http://www.hickitchen.com/

http://www.ccapinc.org/

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search?q=giant+fork+spoon
http://www.housewares.org/show/

Gadget, gadget. Go Go Inspector Gadget!

If you remember where that title comes from then you are true geeky person like me. Although, I won't call myself big fan of the show, I did watch it as a kid. Psst.... we are both showing our age. LOL

So on with my point... This weekend is the International Home and Housewares Show at McCormick Place and I am super excited to see all the new product offerings. I went/worked the show last year and had a ball. I like conventions when I am working more than when I am just attending. I don't really don't know why as it should be the opposite. Who knows?

https://www.housewares.org/show/future

This year will again be stocked to the gills with a ton of innovations and new ideas. While new kitchen gadgets and home products are cool to see before they come to the local stores for sale, I am always very skeptical to buy the next new thing on a whim. For me, since I have a limited budget for the next new thing, and since I don't like a lot of extra clutter, I am very selective about what I will and won't buy for my kitchen. My kitchen space is relatively small and it houses both my cake decoration tools and my regular kitchen tools, so it can get out of hand very quickly.

A kitchen gadget has to do two things for me to be really interest in buying: first it has to be useful for more than one task and secondly must make my work easier or uniquely. If the only thing that I can use the tool for is to peel and core an apple, it is three foot long and two foot wide, and hard to store then I will not be likely to buy it. I am well stocked with the essential items that any kitchen needs, and some more besides. Now if I find a new and improved version of something that is a nice improvement of the model I already have, then I may just trip over my own feet to purchase it. For example, no baker ever wants to be out of measuring cups and spoons. A couple of years ago, manufacturers began producing a lot of items in silicon since the improvement of silicon was put into use. The new material is heat and cold resistant and can be molded into a great many styles. So at first, we started seeing cake pans in silicon, then other items followed like a collapsible colander which is a huge space saver in a cabinet. But my favorite of them all are the collapsible measuring cups. The older metal style measures were too small to put in a cabinet but a bit too large for a drawer so you would end up with them wedged in a manner that would prevent the drawer from opening or the drawer would damage the cups. The silicone ones smash down to less than a third of the size of the same metal version. This made chef very happy. They are durable and versatile.

It is easy to get excited by the new and sometimes the improved, but I try and temper my need to procure them, so that I don't end up with a whole pile of things that I only use once or twice a year, and they sit and collect dust the rest of the time. Stay tuned... I will be featuring some of the new finds from the show. Wish me luck.

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Oh goody goody...

This weekend Chicago hosts one of my favorite conventions, the International Home and Housewares Show at McCormick Place! This convention is the place to be to view all the new innovations in kitchen wares, laundry aids, pots, pans, measuring tools, shopping carts, storage solutions, packaging, cooking demonstrations, baking ideas, decorating tools, gardening new products, and just about anything that you would need to use around the house.

This annual show runs from 3/5/16 to 3/8/16 it hosts over 2,000 exhibitors with everything from Contact Paper to kitchen knives and cutting boards. I will be broadcasting from the show floor on Saturday and Sunday afternoon on our podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/giantforkandspoon so tune in and hear from our C-CAP team members and students. If you can, come on down and meet us in person. Here's the ticket information: https://www.housewares.org/show/register-plan.

This event helps to support our educational culinary program, Careers through Culinary Arts Program, http://www.ccapinc.org/, we will be working the booth, along with their fabulous team at Harold Import Company, http://www.hickitchen.com/. The support that comes from Harold Import Company make our teaching efforts possible so we invite some of our students to work the show and help to feed the clients that stop-by the booth.

Also, there will be a fundraiser event on 3/6/16 where our students from several of the CPS high school's culinary programs will be serving up their unique food fare for our guests. https://www.ccapinc.org/locations/chicagobenefit2016/.

These efforts help to endow our students with the skills and knowledge that will take them into their professional chef careers. C-CAP conducts an annual student cooking competition and awards the winners with scholarship money to attend culinary school.

I can't wait to share all of this from the floor of McCormick Place. Hopefully, I won't have any signal issues and will be able to go live on the air, if not, I will tape and broadcast a bit later on. It's going to be a long week but the excitement of all that is shinny, new, and inciting to chef's everywhere will be at my fingertips to explore.

Oh boy!