Kelly Jaggers

My most exciting food experience was easily my most unexpected!  I was lucky enough to be a part of a special event to raise money for Ovarian Cancer Research hosted by Kelly Ripa in New York City in January.   It was called Kelly’s Cake-off for a Cause and I, along with 14 other food bloggers,  got to decorate cakes with Buddy, the Cake Boss from Carlo’s Bakery!

The night before the actual Cake-off we enjoyed a special dinner at the Spotted Pig, a gastro pub in New York City.  This dinner included a cooking demonstration by Chef April Bloomfield.

The dinner was held in what used to be an apartment over the pub, has been converted into a super-secret kitchen hide-out where chefs in New York go after hours to cook for each other, drink, and tell tall tales!

When we arrived there were a variety of appetizers for us to sample.


I tried them all and by far my favorite was the Ricotta Tarts which, of course, I did not get a picture of!  There was also an open bar that we were encouraged to enjoy.  They didn’t have to ask me twice!

 
Chef April did two cooking demos for us.  Let me start by saying that Chef April was just fantastic and really comfortable with all the nosy food bloggers shoving cameras in her face.  Throughout the entire demo she remained composed and answered all our questions.

She prepared a Six Root Vegetable Soup which was amazing in its simplicity.  It is simply roog vegetables cooked in broth then roughly pureed.  It is the kind of hearty dish that is perfect for a cold winter evening.  Her second demo was for Crispy Duck Confit with Cabbage.  She explained that confit means to cook in fat, and she gave us tips on how to render the duck fat properly, as well as how to make a cabbage dish that will have you coming back for seconds … and thirds!  Both dishes were fantastic and I feel like I got a few good cooking pointers to play with at home.

The next day was the big event!


   
The event was held at the Chelsea Market, home of the Food Network!  When we arrived we enjoyed a light lunch of finger sandwiches as well as canolis and cupcakes provided by Carlo’s Bakery.  The sandwiches were nice, but the cupcakes were very nice.  Oh, and guess who got the last canoli?  It was by far the best canoli I’ve ever had, crisp and not too sweet.


   
We entered the room for the Cake-off to find a photo shoot taking place.  It was pretty impressive to see all the cameras shooting all at once, to hear the rapid fire of the flash and the shutters clicking.  Once the press left Buddy (You know, the Cake Boss on TLC) did a cake decorating demo with Kelly Ripa.  Kelly asked a lot of questions and Buddy answered then, but (and I am being honest) it had VERY little to do with what our teams actually did.  Oh, what did our teams have to do?  Well, we had to make these:


     
My team was selected to decorate the blue cake with the snowflakes titled the Snow Day cake.

 
My team was made of up me, Jessie from Cake Spy and Erika from In Erika’s Kitchen.  We had an absolute blast!  I had my first real experience with fondant which was much easier to work with than I imagined, and the tips with the crew from Carlo’s Bakery were VERY helpful!  So, how did our cake turn out?
 
Pretty well, I think!

Good food and good times made my time in New York City my most exciting food experience so far … but I am looking forward to more fun food experiences to come!