Famous at last!

check out pics 38 and 39 !!
http://newyork.metromix.com/restaurants/photogallery/wine-and-food-fest/676248/content

as well as other pics from the events this weekend.

then the best part of the festival - Sweet. A ton of restaurants in the city offer samples of their desserts and again lots of wine purveyors and of course, an entire room dedicated to perrier-jouet. levain bakery cookies were to die for. kyotofu miso chocolate cupcakes were my favorite last year, but this year, ehh not so good. giada was there, gael green, katie lee joel was there...took a picture with duff from ace of cakes (look too fat to post that pic) and johnny iuzzini with all his tattoos. I literally bumped into tyler florence and was like oh sorry, then realized it was him and was like OH SORRY! ran over to TC to tell her that he was there and we ran back to catch up to him. I tapped him on the shoulder and was like, can i please initroduce you to my friend? tyler, tree, tree, tyler. then she went into gigglefest for a good 10 minutes.

i was really not in the mood to do more door duty - literally telling the vips that the car service was ready for them to take them home - aka LEAVE. hanging out with the account executives was fun and got me into the after party upstairs! dancing with bobby flay all night? check. hung out with some executive chefs from highline....it was a pretty fun night all around and exhausting.

we then had to go back to brooklyn to pick up the decorations from rebar - no orlando sightings though.



i then had work duty from 3-6 to sit in the office just in case help was needed. kinda sucked being alone in the office on a saturday so i convinced (more like demanded) mcsneezercough to come and hang out with me and as a reward got the official tour and a fun little super saturday.

OH and I ate a scalllop!! Chef: what's the dilemma? TC: she thinks she's allergic to scallops and i say she's not. Me: I can eat shellfish, but not fish. Chef: well, a scallop comes from a shell. Me: oh. ok then.

We hovered around Rocco DiSpirito until the old women chatting to him about Dancing with the Stars finally agreed to stop talking so that we could take a picture with him. Highlight: after the pic with TC, he goes, "ok and now a picture with just you." i think i'm in love.

Friday...TC and I left work early and went to ReBar in Brooklyn to help set up for another VIP cocktail party - I must say, we did a magnificent job of turning the dusty dive bar into an awesome space filled with tea lights and twinkle lights and lots and lots of folliage. falliage. and the cute bartender looked just like orlando bloom. mmmm

Saturday we scored some hot tickets to the Grand Tasting on one of the piers - inside, lots of restaurants from around the city were giving out free food samples and again, lots of free alcohol. Yes, I picked up a pin that said I heart absinthe. the best were mushroom dumplings from wakiya. there were truffles the size of my head!

So this weekend was the Food Network NYC Wine & Food Festival. As TC says, every 2-3 months there are perks that make our jobs worthwhile. It all started on Thursday 10/9 with the Chelsea Market After Dark - hosted by Bobby Flay. Walking to work that morning and seeing all the FN signage and decorations being set up made me really excited to go to work - a very weird feeling for 8:58am. All the different restaurants and stores in Chelsea Market opened their doors that night and offered free samples of food and booths of flowing wine. Food Network kitchens definitely had the best dish - a plate of grits topped with a spicy tomato and chorizo sauce topped off with a shrimp (Yay for overcoming my allergies!) It got really crowded - especially by Bobby Flay who was giving out huge burgers, which were also delicious. I somehow managed to get him to sign my work schedule sheet (the only paper I had) as well as two of his menus. I had door duty later having to make sure that the VIPs from the cocktail party left to go to the cars to drive them to dinner instead of going into the party. While waiting outside - Guy Fieri was out there and he yelled out my name - I felt pretty cool, thinking that he remembered my name from walking past my cubicle, until TC reminded me that I was wearing a name tag....oh and we hung out with dale from top chef.