Rick and me in the pantry on the Chopped set.

Our trip to go into the city for our CHOPPED experience was planned perfectly for the day before our big snow storm. I love driving in to the city over the GW bridge. (That’s what the George Washington bridge is commonly called around here.) Built in 1931, it’s a beautiful bridge. It’s a double-decker bridge and carries a huge number of vehicles across the mighty Hudson with no less than 14 lanes of traffic. I like being on top for the view, but then you have to share the road with all the trucks since they are not allowed on the lower deck.

Even more beautiful with it’s lacy trusses, is the Queensboro Bridge. It was completed in 1909. Very grand.

But I’m certain you don’t want to hear about the bridges, so I’ll get on with CHOPPED.

Walking up to the studio I saw a man dressed in a suit standing outside. I whispered to Rick “That looks like him, Ted Allen.” And it was. We walked right by him. I was trying hard not to stare so I just cast a furtive glance his way. He looked exactly like he does on TV. Kind of short, slight of build. Also standing around outside on break was one of the contestant chefs. Once inside the building, sitting right there in a chair texting on his phone was one of the judges, Geoffrey Zakarian. At this point I was feeling a little bit star-struck! Geoffrey Zakarian is quite handsome in person!

We had arrived during lunch break (2:30 p.m.) which was good and bad. Good because we got a private tour of the whole set; bad because we only got to see a small portion of the actual filming.

They take over Jerry’s entire studio, bringing a cast and crew of over 70 people with them. Poor Jerry has to rent out a studio across town if he has any commercials to do himself, and he’s relegated to a tiny shared office space. On the way down to Jerry’s office we passed the makeup and wardrobe room and Ted Allen’s dressing room.

So, let the tour begin! And what better place to start than the judge’s table (sans judges of course). I had to be respectful what I snapped photos of, I’m sure you understand.

The cooking area.

And just look at all the cameras and lights, both on the floor and in the ceiling!

Looking back toward the cooking and pantry section from the judge’s table.

We saw the rooms where they do the little interviews with the contestant chefs which they show throughout the show as insertions. We talked to two of the chefs and asked them how it was going. One said “well at least I made it through the appetizer course and I’m still here!” She looked and sounded familiar with her heavy accent. Hmm… The other chef looked very familiar too, like we had seen him already on the show. I told him I didn’t know how they made anything out of the basket ingredients. He shook his head, smiled and said “it isn’t easy!” We wished them luck and continued on our little tour.

Down in the area where the buffet lunch was set up was Alex Guarnaschelli chatting with some people. She looks exactly like she does on television too.

Also down here is where they photograph the food and the “chopped” plate. Ever wonder why the chefs have to make four plates of food for three judges? Here is the reason: one must be made for the shot.

Lunch break was over and we walked right through the set as they were starting back up again. All the judges were seated at their table and we saw the third and final celebrity chef judge, Marc Murphy.  We walked back to Jerry’s office to give them time to get rolling again. I was telling him how two of the contestant chefs looked so familiar to us, so he checked the filming schedule and sure enough they were filming “Winners Week” where previous winners are invited back to compete against each other. I knew I had seen them before and not too long ago either! I’m not sure exactly when the segment we saw will air, but the following day they were doing “Halloween,” so I’m assuming it’s some time in the fall.

After spending some time with Rick and Jerry talking shop (Phantom cameras), we walked up to the control room to watch. The judges were discussing the chef’s dishes and what they liked or didn’t like about them. This was pretty interesting because the cameras were rolling as each judge just talked. They said the same thing about 15 different ways. How many ways of saying the chicken was too salty can you come up with? You’d be surprised! Obviously here is where the magic of editing takes place in choosing which clip with which phrasing goes into the final cut. After they all had their say (again and again) they took another break. They did a lot of that!

It was very interesting being up in the control room with all the monitors showing all the camera angles. Each monitor had the name of the person behind that particular camera and the director would be constantly telling them what to do. Zoom in here, get a close-up of the chefs all waiting to be chopped, show me the plate, etc. How he kept track of everything was pretty impressive.

It takes somewhere around 17 hours to tape an entire show, and since we were only there for a few hours we didn’t get to see a lot. We did however see the next chef get CHOPPED! Sorry, I can’t divulge any names! I wish we had seen the actual cooking part, but we didn’t. With any luck we’ll be invited back again in the fall when they are taping again.

And here is Rick pretending he’s being chopped by the door the chefs walk by after they are CHOPPED. On the show the door slides shut as the chef who’s been chopped walks by it. Someone must be on the other side of the door sliding it shut because it’s not an automatic door!

As we were leaving they were on break (again) and Ted Allen was just outside the door. Rick was brave and just stuck out his hand and introduced himself (and me too of course). So, I got to shake Ted Allen’s hand and chat for a few minutes until they were called back in to continue with their taping.

All in all, a very fun day! I have so much more appreciation for what we watch on television as the final product! If you haven’t ever watched the show I encourage you to do so. Maybe I’ve piqued your interest just a little bit?

Well, it looks like an entire week has gone by since I last posted. Some things have changed.

Last week:

Today:

Our big snow storm seems like a dim memory now except for all the slushy snow that is still left. Our deck is grateful that it’s melting. The forsythia hedge is springing back (mostly) although it does have quite a few broken branches. The burning bushes in front of the house seem to be very resilient as well. Once the snow is gone we have some major yard clean-up to do with all the big branches that came down.

But ...

The birds are singing in the morning, the squirrels are chasing each other around and around the tree trunks and it go up to 52 degrees with sun this weekend! The air feels different. I think we may have turned the corner towards spring at last. The turkeys are back out walking around too. The other day I saw Bella at the edge of the yard staring into the woods. When I went out I heard flapping noises and squawks. The silly turkeys were airborne and sitting in the trees! Now, mind you, they don’t fly very well at all and are very clumsy off the ground. I have no idea what they were doing, but they kept flop-flying from tree to tree.

My favorite little bird of all is the Carolina Wren. Such a beautiful repertoire of songs! I’m glad they’ve decided to make their home around my house.

Also adding joy and beauty around my house are my Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cacti. Both these cacti are blooming now but they have very different blooms. Beautiful just the same. The first one is a very old cactus that was started from my paternal grandmother’s. It reminds me of a Chinese pagoda.

I got quite a surprise as well when I trimmed back the dying leaf fronds of my amaryllis. A new bud was breaking out of the bulb! This amaryllis was given to me by my neighbor two years ago and this will be the second time it’s bloomed for me. Amazing. It’s not quite out yet, but here it is the first year.

And speaking of differences that one week can make, take a look at the wheel of Blue Cheese that Rick made last week.

Here is the same cheese one week later once the molds have started to take over. Amazing, is it not?

Still to come: Behind the scenes of Chopped and Home Cheesemaking!

Yesterday Rick and I had a planned dinner date in New York City. He goes in fairly often to meet with a business associate and inevitably ends up in the evening commuter rush which isn’t too much fun. We decided to take advantage of the fact that he needed to be in the city anyway, so why not have me go along and have dinner afterwards, thereby avoiding the rush? Works for me!

It was cold and blustery. (Don’t you just love that word? That’s what the weather guys called it: blustery. Really, they meant downright frigid with a nasty, biting wind!) I thought I would be warm enough with what I had on given that we weren’t planning on doing much walking. (We were taking the train in and cabbing it from place to place.) But I was freezing!

You would think that all those tall buildings would shield the wind from you. Oh, no quite contraire mon amie! Those buildings act like a giant wind funnel, collecting the wind and sending it straight down whatever street you happen to be walking down. Brrrrrrrr!

We arrived at our destination and the sign by the elevator said “Louie auditions, 7th floor.” I don’t know what “Louie” was but we rode up in the elevator with a few hopefuls clutching a piece of paper. We got off before them so I have no idea if the line looked like American Idol try-outs or not. Probably not, although one child looked like he had an instrument with him. I took a book and sat in the employee break room and read while Rick conducted his business. I wasn’t bored since being in the industry there were plenty of issues of Entertainment Weekly laying around. I grabbed the issue with Avatar featured on the front and pretty much read it front to back.

We arrived at our choice of restaurant, craft, right on time for our reservation. craft is one of Tom Colicchio’s restaurants. You know Tom—Mr. Top Chef host? We had eaten here once before but not in the main restaurant (in a private dining room) at a business function. We were considerably impressed with the food, so decided we should go back by ourselves. Here is a somewhat blurry shot taken from our table. I took only the baby camera with me and trying not to look like a tourist, did not use the flash.

Upscale and elegant, yet not stuffy in atmosphere. Food here is served “family style,” meaning your plates don’t arrive with your food on it, but in a serving dish placed on the table. Everyone can help themselves if you care to share. Which we did. We ordered two appetizers and shared them, and one main entree to share with two side vegetable dishes and a shared dessert. We had plenty to eat without feeling stuffed and with our “diet” in place it worked well. We want to keep the momentum going with our weight loss (so far I’ve lost 3 pounds; Rick has lost 10, but men always lose weight faster, don’t they?) so we are still watching our portions and what we eat. I can’t say we ordered the least caloric or fat content of any of the items on the menu though. Let’s just say I am a foie gras fanatic (I know! Not very PC, is it?) and their roasted foie gras was just to die for! Probably one of the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve had my fair share in its country of origin. It was a lovely dinner. And sadly, Tom did not make an appearance. Probably out filming the next Top Chef or visiting his restaurants in other parts of the country.

I snapped these photos in the Seacaucus train station on our way home as we had some time to kill to catch our NJ Transit connection. This sculpture is new since the last time I was through here.

Since Seacaucus is located in what they call the Meadowlands, this cattail sculpture is very fitting I think. To me the surrounding terrain looks more like marsh land than meadow land, but what the heck. Going in to Seacaucus from the North the train runs alongside a canal where herons can usually been seen looking for something to catch. A little further along, the land is marshy with lots of little tributaries winding around hummocks of grass, and more herons and water fowl.

The cattails changed color. Very soothing.

I happened to catch a fellow traveler in one of the mirrored bits of the fronds. See him? You can also see part of my coat and scarf in the bottom one.

The bottom of the sculputre was just how it should be, and kind of like I described the terrain above. A winding rivulet of water around the base of the cattails. A very cool sculputure.

Alas we missed the express train and it took forever (or at least it seemed like it) to arrive home. I was worried about the dogs a bit since they were alone for about eight hours straight at a time of day when they are not used to being left, but they did great. It’s probably not something we’ll do all that often, but we hope to take advantage of the city more than we have been. It’s still unreal to me to step off that train in front of Madison Square Garden and have the whole of New York City spread out before me. It’s a heady experience!

Addendum: I almost forgot! They gave us these delicious looking muffins as we left the restaurant for our breakfast. Of course, we forgot to eat them today!

Anybody out there watch the Food Network’s CHOPPED with Ted Allen as the host? Rick and I watch religiously. Mostly because we just like cooking competition shows, but also because this one is different. When we first started watching we weren’t sure we were going to like it. I mean, really, they take bizarre ingredients and have to make something out of them. They start with four chefs. If you don’t make it through the appetizer course you get chopped. The next three chefs move on to the entree and another one gets chopped. The last two battle out the dessert course, and finally one chef reigns supreme. I honestly don’t think I could figure out how to incorporate the things they get in their baskets into something edible!

Did you know it’s filmed right here in New York City? It’s actually filmed in a studio of an industry related friend of Rick’s. I’ve been to the studio before for a gallery event (the reason the little gold dress was purchased!). They mostly do food commercials and Rick has loaned him cameras for various shoots. You’ve probably seen some of his commercials.

Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Because, dear readers, Rick and I have been invited to watch a segment of CHOPPED being filmed in a few weeks! Yes indeed! I am so excited!!! It will be so much fun to see what goes on behind the scenes, and of course to meet Ted Allen in person. I hope that Alex Guarnaschelli is on the judging panel that day. She’s such a ... well, you know ... let’s just say she doesn’t exactly hand out compliments.

Can’t wait!!!!

It’s both of those things out there this morning. Not only is it pouring rain, but the wind is howling and the trees are doing a frenetic dance to its tune. The rain is being lashed against the windows. By looking at it out there you’d expect it to be really cold. But it’s 51 freakin’ degrees! Yesterday it never got above 33 degrees during the daylight hours. Cold and damp, too. If it had stayed cold we’d be having a blizzard.

It’s not really cold enough to have a fire going, but I started one anyway. It makes me feel better. I liked this rather creepy reflection of the fire and the rattan chairs in the sun room. Do you see Mrs. Cardinal on the bird feeder? Poor thing!

I am going to hunker down inside today. No way am I going out in that gale. I’ve already got the ingredients for dinner, (either Chicken Fingers with Chipotle-Honey sauce or Cornflake Crusted Chicken Fingers with coleslaw) so no need to do any grocery shopping. I am almost finished with my slippers and I hope to finish them up. Just one more sole to go (and I am halfway through that already), and then all the sewing up and weaving all the ends in. I have a good book to read too. And ... the Food Network is back!! Thank goodness! The dogs have some tasty filled bones that I bought the other day for such a rainy day occasion to keep their boredom away. Bella just went to the door asking to be let out. I opened it. She just stood there sniffing the air, watching the rain pour down and decided she really didn’t want to go out after all.

Wherever you are today, no matter what your weather is, I hope you stay warm and dry! I’m just glad to be staying home.