COLETTE PETERS REDUX

We actually went and waited in line for Ms. Peters’ free food demo. She was making the same chocolate coconut cake from yesterday, so it didn’t much matter to us that we were so far back in line that we would not get a table. We ended up being the first to sit in the peanut gallery, everybody before us got a table.

This was what the Sweet Sunday should have been. Instead of baking, Ms. Peters showed pictures of cakes she had decorated; some were so elaborate they must have taken forever. Then she demonstrated how to cover a cake with fondant, how to use food colorings to paint on the fondant, and how to roll more fondant into little flowers and curlicues to place on the cake. Fondant is a sugar and gelatin mix (she said you can also get it with flavorings) that results in a smooth covering for cakes, and we got a lot of tips on how to work with it. Fondant is apparently very particular, it doesn’t like heat at all and can give you trouble if the temperature is too high (like if you are working under stage lights). They also have to be particular about the type of cake they use (it must be a dense cake) and the temperature of the cake. And guess what, the peanut gallery got some cake, too. I think the cake’s better after it has been chilled, because this slice had been.

The audience had lots of questions for Ms. Peters and they let her run overtime, but the presentation was well worth staying for. And at the end of it, the host John Ekin (with her permission) gave one of the cakes she was working on away to a woman in the audience who said it was her birthday.

SWEET SUNDAY

I did a Sweet Sunday once when they were first offered. That was held at night, you got three small desserts, and because the chefs were from Canada they had ice wine. You were given all the ice wine you could drink, which I drank a lot of, because the desserts were not worth the price.

We signed up for another one since the concept was changed. This event featured Colette Peters, who decorates cakes (she isn’t a baker). She’s a well known and very popular cake decorator.

First thing they do is assign you a table (probably to keep parties who come late from getting split up) and send you to breakfast, a buffet affair with good food. The fruits were nice, and you could get two different types of frittata (ham and vegetable), chicken and apple sausage, lemon bread, zucchini bread, a bread made with dried fruits and chocolate, and greasy bacon (skip the bacon). So we all loaded up on the breakfast. Martini & Rossi sponsored the event and we got a glass of asti spumante and a glass of white wine. They also had some stuff at the tables, including a little green bound notebook that was too nice to take notes in, and all the recipes that were going to be served.

It was easy to watch Ms. Peters do her demonstration. I was at one of the back tables and the only problem I had was some couple at the table in front of us who couldn’t just sit there without leaning on each other, so their heads blocked the view. I had to push the chair out to see around them.

Colette Peters states she does not bake anymore, she just decorates cakes. I would have liked to see her decorate some cakes. However, there apparently wasn’t time for that. She showed how to bake a chocolate coconut cake, very dense chocolate cake which we then got this big honking slice of:

You can’t really taste the coconut, which is okay, the cake is very chocolatey. I love that but a lot of people might think it was too much chocolate. I am actually glad she served this one first.

Next were lemon sugar cookies, the same type that Ms. Peters says she makes for weddings and cuts them shaped like little slices of cake and little candy bonbons. Then she did some decorating: she showed us how to make royal icing and pipe it on the cookies. This is all the decorating she was able to show for this event.

When they brought the cookies, you were supposed to get one of each shape, already decorated. My mother and I got one sugar cookie on our plate, plus a "stunt cookie." This was a plain food-court issue white chocolate chip cookie with some royal icing glopped on it.

This is where I called the person serving over and asked what happened to the other cookie, since the one we had was most certainly not the one Ms. Peters was demonstrating. They had to go get the manager who said that they were trying to serve a variety. Okay, that’s bull. What happened was (my guess) either they wanted to save some cookies for some reason, or they didn’t want to serve the cookies they had because the icing was too wet (they did bring us the proper cookies, but with very wet icing). The odd thing was that we were the only people at our table or any nearby tables that had a stunt cookie, and the folks at our table all had wet icing on their cookies too.

Forgive me. But isn’t the concept supposed to be that you are served the food that’s being demonstrated? I’m not nuts about sugar cookies, and we ended up eating one each and taking the other home, but it’s the principle of the thing.

The third dessert was a gorgeous carrot cake that we were way too full to eat. Apparently the secret ingredient is applesauce. We ate one slice and carried the other out (we brought it home on the plane and gave it to my father and he ate the whole thing and really liked it).

However, even though the desserts and the breakfast were good (the stunt cookie was just infuriating), I won’t be doing Sweet Sundays anymore. It’s just too much dessert for me.

FOOD DEMOS

We attended a demo by Chef Peng Looie who has brought Asian food to Louisville, Kentucky. He used to be an engineer, but found that boring and switched to food.

He prepared a diver scallop with cardamom tomato sauce and arugula. I think the sample we got was too heavy on the sauce and light on the arugula (when he cooked it onstage he used just a dollop of sauce and the sample swam in it). The scallop was great though.

We also attended the Authentic Taste of Vanilla. This was hosted by Keith Nielsen of Nielsen-Massey vanilla who would not share his top secret chili recipe which included vanilla. It was an educational presentation regarding where vanilla comes from and the different types of beans (they are identified according to where they’re grown). There were cured vanilla beans from each area sent around to handle and sniff.

Then you tasted a little vanilla extract added to club soda, and compared the tastes of the different types, before you were told where you could buy Nielsen-Massey vanilla. You were sent out with a folder containing information about vanilla, and a $5 coupon for Whole Foods (but good only in Florida, go figure). And guess what artificial vanilla flavoring is made of? Strained wood pulp!  If nothing else that will make you go out and buy some of this guy's vanilla.

FOOD BOOTH

This is the butternut squash soup from the India booth, with bread. My friend Marta and I both liked this. It’s both creamy and spicy.

WINE SCHOOL: BURGUNDY

When you sign up for wine school, you are in for an all-day seminar of wine tasting, food, and learning all about a winery and the types of wine it produces. This is my second wine school. I did Italy last year.

This year’s was hosted by Maison Louis Jadot, based in Beaune, France. It was presented by Olivier Masmondet, the director of sales for Maison Louis Jadot and its distributor, Kobrand Wine and Spirits.

My mother and I entered Epcot from the International Gateway. You don’t need a ticket to the park to attend wine school; therefore, they pick you up and drive you to your venue from the gate. We were driven in a car from IG to the back part of the France pavilion, since our school was meeting in the Bistro de Paris restaurant.

First you are sent into the boulangerie for breakfast. You have a choice of plain or chocolate croissant, coffee, or orange juice. That’s it. The croissants were good, but it seemed chintzy compared with the continental breakfast laid out by Italy last year. My mother says some jam for the croissants would have been nice, only butter was available.

Then you get to sit around until the restaurant is ready for you. They have it set up with long tables for 4 and a raft of wine glasses and a Maison Louis Jadot key chain for everybody.

Msr. Masmondet, who is a teriffic presenter, had a presentation for us about the history of Maison Louis Jadot, all about the location of the vineyards, and how Burgundy wines are made and identified. Jadot has 35 individual vineyards. He talked about how the vineyards are named (some have ancient names given them by the monks who lived here and cultivated them) and how wines from specific vineyards get identified. Then there was a bathroom break followed by the first wine tasting.

This was two flights comprising seven wines. One of the things we were told about tasting wines is that it appears left-handed people get a different taste from wine than right-handed people do, and that if you swirl the wine counterclockwise it tastes different than it does if you swirl it clockwise. (Try that, it works). The pre-lunch tasting was for wines from southern Burgundy and Chablis. (Chablis is a location, not a type of grape). In making wine in Burgundy, they use three grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir, and Gamay. And they have several types of vineyards; the most expensive wines are premier cru or grand cru, and they are determined by the location of the vineyards (on the sides of hills), which apparently makes for better wine. There was a lot of information about how long the wines would last, i.e. which are good for aging and which should be used soon after you buy them. They’ve also got their own cellar with really old vintages and there are wines there from the 1800s.

I won’t be going into the different types of wines, there will always be another wine school to take if you’re intrigued.

After tasting the 7 wines we had lunch in the Bistro. There were two wines served with lunch, both 2004 vintages, a white and a red. First course: Frog legs and watercress soup with chicken quenelle (a quenelle is a little mound of ground chicken and seasonings). The quenelle was floating in the soup and the soup itself was loaded with frog thighs. Yes, they taste like chicken. The chicken, however, did not taste like chicken.

Course two: Veal tenderloin, mashed sun chokes, and morels jus (mushrooms in sauce). This was great. I am not big on veal, but the pieces were really tender and the sauce was lovely.

Course three: Warm chocolate cake, gingerbread ice cream and nougat glace. This was great also. They would bring you more of the white wine to have with it.

After lunch you get to taste more wine. How much wine? Well, first we got a flight of three whites to compare with each other. You got plenty of note paper, a nice book with all the wines in it, and a pen to mark your favorites with. That was followed by the big money wines: six premier or grand cru wines (these are all red) and by that time some of us at our table are figuring out which ones are the expensive ones so we can finish all of those. There isn’t any way you can finish all the wine they give you without getting completely plastered, so when you attend wine school you learn to pace yourself so you can at least taste them all. They give you a cup which I guess was for water, but it could be used for spitting out the tastes if so inclined I guess. After lunch people get tired, and the presentation is faster.

When you’re done tasting, you get a diploma (a nice certificate with your name printed on it, signed by the presenter, very suitable for framing). And you have to take your wine book and the cool stuff they give you back to your room somehow.

Wine school is an all-day affair. The advantage is that you’re inside for the whole day, you get plenty of wine, and the lunches have been wonderful. We have been lucky with the two wine schools we have done, the presenters have been very good. I would hate to be stuck all day with a bad presenter and eighteen glasses of wine.

Food booth: This is the causa and crab salad from Peru. I love this stuff. It’s crabmeat salad with a potato cake. It tastes peppery but I love that.

FOOD DEMO

This demo was by Chef Jeff Tonks from Washington, DC. He owns a lot of restaurants there, one of which is across the street from my office (never been there). His preparation was from the menu of another one. And here it is:

Eastern Shore Jumbo Lump Crab Cake with Sweet Corn Succotash and Old Bay Remoulade. OOOOH and this was free.

Here is festival host Pam Smith apparently trying to demonstrate the Vulcan salute for Chef Jeff.

CORAL REEF FOOD AND WINE PAIRING

Coral Reef is wonderful. They let you come in out of the rain and have a glass of sparkling cider and use the loo while you are waiting for the pairing to start.

This turned out to be hosted by Piper-Heidsieck champagne. Most people thought this would be great. I personally don’t like champagne. I did mention to Debbi from Coral Reef, the restaurant rep attending us, that I do not like champagne.

Patricia Murphy from the distributor for Piper-Heidsieck was in charge of the wine section of the pairing. The chef is Ronnie Strickland of Coral Reef. What a great job these two did.

They let us into Coral Reef and guess what? Your table space is assigned. My mother and I were put at a table with a quiet couple.

The first pairing started with the Piper Heidsieck Rose Sauvage, an extremely dry champagne. We were supposed to taste it first, and I had to make faces considering how dry it was (guess what, in the festival center they want 50 bucks a bottle for it). Then Debbi shows up with a glass of red wine for me. She said she consulted with Patricia and they were going to supply me with wine so I could taste it with the food, but I had to promise to still try the champagne. Okay, fine. She brought me a Masi Valpolicella, which is also distributed by Patricia’s company. I have had Masi wine before and I think it’s good.

Chef Ronnie, who says he doesn’t like champagne either but he tried hard to incorporate the champagnes into the dishes he prepared for this event, presented the first food course, fruit salad with dried cherry champagne vinaigrette. Of course the little menu they give everybody doesn’t mention that the fruit salad is served on a plate lined with proiscutto. Really good proiscutto. Surprise! And you’d be surprised how well the dry champagne went with the salty meat. And so did the red wine.

Second pairing was Piper Heidsieck Brut (this I thought was actually pretty good champange) with Sauteed Shrimp in a Brut Citrus Sauce. Here’s the shrimp:

They were sitting in a fried wonton cup with some rice noodles and floating about in the best sauce in the world. In fact when Chef Ronnie came around to ask about it, he got two requests for bread to sop up the sauce with (one of them from me and the previously quiet guy sitting at our table got vociferous in agreeing, he thought a straw would work also). Debbi brought me a glass of white wine, also from Masi, can’t remember which one this time. Ronnie brought us a basket of bread and we tried hard not to leave any sauce.

The dessert course is a Champagne Poached Sickle Pear with Almond Brittle and Crème Fraiche. It came with Piper Heidsieck Cuvee Sublime, a sweet champagne. This was rather good with the pear.

This was one of the best pairings I have ever attended and I’m thrilled to have gone to this. Thanks to Debbi, Patricia and Chef Ronnie, they did a beautiful job.

Later, we did a wine seminar in the festival center, hosted by a gal from Georges DuBoef, Burgundy wines. It was a good preview for the Burgundy wine school but the wines were not that impressive. We did learn about what a Boujolais was.

A WORD ABOUT EPCOT

October 1 was the 25^th anniversary of the opening of Epcot. There was a ceremony and a rededication in the park at 10 am. This featured a speech by legendary Imagineer Marty Sklar, shown here with his bosses.

They had a ceremony where some of the international CMs from the World Showcase poured water from noted bodies of water in their home countries into the Epcot fountain (similar to what was done when Epcot opened) and then there was a little fountain and fireworks show.

FESTIVAL CENTER

Took the time on this day to visit the new Festival Center. This is in the former Wonders of Life pavilion (and the guy who is always seating people at the wine seminars said it cost a lot of money to put it in there, too). This basically means that the wine demos are now located indoors (even the line), so no wilting in the heat trying to get in.

And if you’re drunk enough, they may talk you into buying some DVC points. They have a whole sales area, and the theater that used to show Making of Me has a DVC commercial running in there all the time apparently.

Overview of Festival Center from entry

Festival store

 Wine seminar area (this used to be the entrance to Cranium Command)

 Second wine seminar area (former Body Wars waiting area)

Wine for sale

CULINARY DEMO

I attended a culinary demonstration given by Dominique Macquet of Dominique’s Restaurant, New Orleans. (He is shown here with festival program host John Ekin.)

The demos are held in the Odyssey restaurant. They have capacity at the tables for about 100 people , probably a little over that. They also have a "peanut gallery" where any guests who don’t get a table seat can sit and watch the demo. You’re advised that if you sit up there, you won’t get a sample of the dish being demonstrated unless they happen to have enough to give you one.

He made salt-cured salmon with a salad made from fresh hearts of palm, using fleur de sel (French sea salt). The salmon isn’t cooked; it’s cured by the salt. He put a bit of lime in the salt, and the sample we got tasted rather like a margarita.

This was tasty! So were the hearts of palm. He talked a bit about the difference between fresh and canned hearts of palm. The fresh ones are much better.

FOOD BOOTHS

Chilaquiles from Mexico, with the chardonnay offered at the booth. Chilaquiles are a favorite of mine from the past festivals. However, I think this serving was smaller than I remember. And I really did like the chardonnay. I am not a chardonnay fan usually.

Classic cheese soup from Canada, plus the maple custard with almond crumble. I don’t need to talk about the cheese soup. The maple crumble is pretty good. But wow, is this portion tiny. That goes for the soup, too (the photo is an accurate representation of how much soup was actually ladled out, I had not eaten any at the time it was taken.)

SIGNATURE LUNCH: JIKO

Instead of a signature dinner, Jiko hosted a signature luncheon. This was cool for me because it would mean more time to catch the Otis Day and the Knights show at Epcot in the evening. And no arriving very late at the Adventurers Club. I understand people were reluctant to sign up for this because it was a lunch rather than a dinner, some appeared to think that the offerings would not be on a par with the dinners either in quantity or quality.

I was attending with my friend Amy, and we ran into another friend who was doing the lunch on her own. However, the big events are now using assigned tables (each party is assigned to a table.) The Jiko managers were great about us asking them if we could have a switch at the tables so the three of us could sit at the same one. (Take note of this if anyone is thinking of attending with other people, but making your reservations separately).

The part of this event I did not like was having to stand around the waiting area between Jiko and Boma waiting for them to be ready to start. I don’t know why they could not allow the group into the Jiko waiting area instead of having us blocking the progress of the people going out to the pool, or those coming from breakfast at Boma, which was still going on.

A reception of sorts preceded the lunch. You got as much Mulderbosch Rose as you wanted (hint: don’t overdo the reception wine) and three nibbles for the gathering: sweet pepper, onion and chevre (goat cheese) bruschetta, shrimp balchao bruschetta (balchao is a masala spice mix from Goa province in India), and Manchurian cauliflower. All these items were spicy, especially the Manchurian cauliflower. The photo is of the shrimp. During the gathering you got a chance to meet Jiko’s new head chef, Brian Piasecki, and the guest chef, Suvir Saran. He has a restaurant named Devi in New York City and is plugging a new cookbook, American Masala.

I am not going to waste a lot of space posting about how all the stuff tasted because I would be writing "This was good!" so many times. But here’s the menu.

On the table there was a grouping of sauces to use on your dishes, and pickled onions.

First course: Crispy Okra Salad, paired with Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc

Second course: Goan Shrimp Curry with Coconut Rice (fantastic with the raita [cucumber yogurt sauce]), paired with the same Sauvignon Blanc which means the same wine went with two dishes. Nice idea, seeing as there is so much wine involved with the luncheon.

Third course: Bombay-style "Koliwada" Halibut with Lettuce, Radishes, Tomatoes, Scallions and Nan Croutons (managed to eat all of this because it could not be left behind). Paired with Muderbosch Chenin Blanc.

Fourth course: Masala Fried Chicken, Mustard Oil Potatoes and Fruit Salad, paired with Mulderbosch Faithful Hound (red wine. The winemaker, Mike Dobrovic, said it was named after a dog that hung around the winery). I could not finish this. As you see from the photo, it was frickin huge.

Cheese Selection: Goat and Sheep’s Milk Cheese With Accompaniments, paired with Mulderbosch Shiraz (I did like that this was not a big honkin plate of cheese).

Dessert: Fig Flan, paired with Kanu Kia Ora (nice sweet dessert wine).

I did not eat the fig flan. But they let me take it home with me. It made a great breakfast. And I could probably taste it better without the influence of 9 or 10 glasses of wine.

After all this you can be certain I won’t be running away from the lunches.

No more food after this, but we did attend the Otis Day and the Knights concert (this is the only Eat to the Beat concert I will attend this year since Three Dog Night is absent). Fun! Yes, he finally did perform "Shout."

FOOD BOOTHS

I want chilaquiles, and I want them now. But the lines are too long. So I walked until I found a short line. This was the Oklahoma booth. I ordered the buffalo and onions.

I have had buffalo at Artist Point and California Grill and neither of those had a speck of fat in the meat. So I think all the fatty buffalo are reserved for the food booths. They probably grow fatty buffalo behind the America pavilion just for this. You get two slices of buffalo (one slice in the photo but I had already eaten one) and some pureed onion (that is good if you like onion) for $4.50. Won’t repeat unless they get a better cut of buffalo.

Because I wanted to hang around France before reporting for the pairing, I stood in line for a goat cheese quiche. The line is pretty well managed and moved quickly, though. The quiche is cute, and a pretty decent portion for a sample, but it doesn’t taste much like goat cheese. I also had a shot of riesling (the same riesling they ended up serving at the pairing, it is good with food and quite dry, I don’t know if I’d drink it on its own but with some food, yes) and the whole bit cost $7. Yikes, the pairing is a much better deal.

While I was eating the quiche, some love bugs came along and landed on it. Having insects copulating on your quiche doesn’t make it appeal much. But I think the reason I won’t get another one is that they don’t put enough goat cheese in it for me. And I couldn't even tell it had sundried tomatoes. I have been advised to try the escargot and they’re kind of cute, they come in little bread cups, so look for snail reviews soon.

Bistro de Paris Food/Wine Pairing 9/29/07

There was a little confusion about getting into this event. It was scheduled in the Bistro de Paris, the upstairs restaurant in the France pavilion, and there is an entrance to its lobby through the Chefs de France entrance, yet some of us (like me) were told to go around to the back door. Since a major thunderstorm was threatening, nobody really understood why they wouldn’t open the door until 2:25, especially after there were already people in the lobby when we did go in.

The participants were seated at tables in the restaurant, which I have never been to before. I got a window seat. There is a nice view of the World Showcase if you are lucky enough to get one of these. The guy standing on all the chairs gets a different angle from up here too.

What I don’t like about the pairings is the tendency of the host to talk forever before we get any food. I only had the fatty buffalo and quiche with lovebug topping and I was hungry. The wine was poured first. The host had decided to switch the tasting order of two of the wines, a chardonnay and a riesling, so the placemat with the tasting order on it was incorrect. It was up to us to keep track of which was the chardonnay and which was the riesling.

The host was not French and she didn’t know anything about food, but she did take us through the wines. There was a chardonnay, a riesling, and a gamay boujolais (two whites and a red). She had a map of France that couldn’t really be seen by anyone who wasn’t sitting next to her, but we did get a general idea of which area each wine came from. We went through the rigamarole about smelling the wine, rolling the wine, holding the wine up to the light, by the time this was done I had already tasted all the wines.

We got a platter of meats. The host had no idea what any of the meats were called, so it was a plate of mystery meat until the French guy from the restaurant came around and gave a name to the meat. There was a sausage rather like salami, a garlic sausage, white ham, cured ham (French proiscutto), a duck liver pate, and a pate of chicken, pork and spices. There wasn’t any instruction regarding which meat to taste first, just to try the meats with all the wines. We also got bread rolls. You could get a refill of wine and more bread.

I was impressed by the chicken/pork pate with the boujolais. Now that was good. Stronger flavors go well together.

There wasn’t a lot of talking before we got the cheese plate, but we did get wine refills. The servers wore formal and were quite attentive.

The host didn’t know any more about cheese than she did about meat, so the French guy came around again and named the cheeses for us. We had brie, a hard Swiss cheese, goat cheese, blue sheep cheese (the cheese was blue, it didn’t come from blue sheep) and another cheese I can’t remember because I am not looking at the photo. We were to try the cheeses with all the wines. I am particularly fond of blue sheep cheese with boujolais.

What I do like about pairings is that they give us time to hang around afterward and kibitz with the rest of your table, which I think went on for longer than they wanted it to.