Working Party of the Senses

One of the highlights of this program was that I got the opportunity to work with my sous chef for her Party of the Senses. The party is held on select nights during the festival and the cheapest ticket is $145 with the more expensive seats quickly selling out well in advance. I would never afford to be able to get in as a guest so to experience it as a Cast Member was really cool!

We did some prep work in our home kitchen before the party started, just getting the materials and stuff together. We had to make sure our jackets and stuff were clean and then we headed to the PEO kitchen to start getting everything together!

Most of the work for the party is done backstage and it was really cool to see how it was put together. If you were to go past the doors from party to backstage you would see a really long hallway with small fold up tables and refrigerators lining either side. Each chef and their team were assigned a table where you could plate your dishes. For example, my chef's dessert was plated out back and we would put the finished plates on trays and take them out to the party. My chef's dessert was a Banana Cake with Coconut Mousse with Milk Chocolate Caramel Ganache and a Cojit Sauce. It was DELICIOUS

 Backstage we would put the chocolate and macaroon on top of the cake and we sauced on stage

 Guests had it as the best dessert of the night!

We got to go into the room early so we could see the presentation of the chefs. Seeing all the decorations and the atmosphere was really cool! and it hadn't even started!

 Looks like a chef party!

 My sous chef is the first girl from the right

 Chef Keegan Freaking Gerhard of Food Network Challenge was there! Majorly fangirled

 Chefs of the night

Don't break anything!

 Party of the Senses 2013

My sous-chef had her own table for the night. She would stand outside of it to tell the guests about it and we would stand behind it saucing the dishes and making sure the table was full. She also made a chocolate centerpiece for it. It was cool to go from seeing my chef with paper templates trying to build it to seeing the finished piece on display!

Very official!

My chef's chocolate showpiece

Colored sugar

The table, pre desserts of course!

Me and my sous-chef

The whole gang!

I had a really great time working the party. I was missing plating desserts since that was one of my shifts at the Polynesian so it was a nice change. This was in the middle of the festival so it was nice to work with a mousse that wasn't pistachio or top something that wasn't hazelnut cheesecake. We rotated between plating out back and saucing up front and while I was up front I go to see some of the performers from La Nouba, the specially made Cirque Du Solei show in Downtown Disney. The whole atmosphere was just really awesome. Seeing guests come up to our table to take a dessert and then coming back a few minutes later to tell my chef how delicious it was was really neat.

When the party was nearing an end, we were allowed to take our nametags off and eat around the party. I'm a really picky eater so I wasn't loading up plates of stuff (except for the Kerrygold cheese, give it here!) but I definitely hit up all the desserts! What really was the kicker, I got to meet Chef Keegan Gerhard! He was the MC for Food Network Challenge back in the day. When I first started getting into baking, I would watch Food Network as soon as I came home from school and pretty much go all night. FNC was one of my favorites so to see someone go from my tv screen to right in front of me was really cool! He was busy of course but I mentioned to him how I had been a fan of his for a while and that it was a pleasure to finally meet him. He was so nice and humble and really appreciated me being a fan and noted that I was meeting him as a baker for Epcot which was pretty cool! He was a really great guy to meet, and his dessert was delicious!

 Contemporary's chocolate showpiece

 Dessert from the Contemporary

 Chef Keegan Gerhard busy at work!

 Chef Keegan Gerhard's crumble dessert

Strawberry Dessert

Epcot Food & Wine: Taste Your Way Around the World..as a Guest!

While I do spend most of my time baking for the Food & Wine Festival, I also make it a point to enjoy it as a guest of course! It takes a bit of time (and quite a bit of money) to do but it's worth it. Everything I've eaten so far has been delicious and you get a pretty nice sized portion. You can easily hit up a few booths and keep it at $20.
I usually fit these in before work or on my days off. Since I'm not hitting up too many marketplaces in one day, my credit card is ok. But if you come with full intentions of hitting up as many as you can in 1 day (which people do believe me!) it's advised that you get a gift card and use that around the kiosks. You can even refill them at the register if you run out. Saves you from ordering a delicious meal and getting excited then finding out your bank is on the phone wanting to talk toyou!

The festival has been open for almost a month already and here are the dishes I have tried since the opening! Get a napkin ready, you might start drooling!

 Garlic Shrimp from Australia-delicious! I was getting as much meat out of the tail as I could!

 The Banoffee Tart we make for Scotland (the Whiskey Cream is my favorite!)

 The Dessert Trio we work so hard on!

 Gourmet Chocolates from Desserts & Champagne. Nah, we don't make these

 Chicken Pot stickers with Lychee soda from China. I wish there was more since it was $4

 Warm Pudding Cake with Bailey's Sauce that we make for Ireland

 Altmunster Oktoberfest with Apple Strudel from Germany, das good!

 California Roll and Teriyaki Chicken Hand Roll from Japan. Of course I used my chopsticks!

 Frozen S'mores from Desserts & Champagne

 Lemongrass Chicken Curry with Coconut Rice from Singapore, one of my favorite things so far!

 Craisin Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier Sauce that we make for Hops & Barley

 Vegetarian Chili Colorado with Cashew Cheese Sauce from Terra (the Vegetarian/Vegan marketplace) SO delicious that I am most definitely going back for another and want the recipe!

 Ravioli with Bolognese sauce from...Mexico? Italy of course! The portion on this is nice!

 Chocolate Cannolo from Italy (technically canolo is the singular for cannoli, fun Italian fact of the day!)

 Fried Shrimp with Dole Sweet and Sour Sauce from the Refreshment Port

 Black Pepper Shrimp with Szechuan Noodles from China, delicious and a great serving!

 My beloved Kerrygold! A trio of Irish Cheeses with Chutney. Kerrygold Dubliner is my favorite. I'm not a cheese person but I could eat a whole block by itself if calories did not exist!

Pavlova with fresh berries from Australia. We make the pastry cream that goes inside.

And there's still so much I haven't tasted! We still have quite a bit of time to go so my taste  buds better get ready! 

I'm Alive! oh...and Food & Wine!

Running all of these blogs at the same time is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Especially lately since I'm working from 2-10:30 and by the time I get home all I want to do is eat and go to bed. I will keep posting those dining reviews periodically (I mean heck, the vacation is long over!) but I just wanted to kind of fill you guys in on a few things, mostly about Food & Wine!

A few weeks ago I switched from morning production to Food & Wine training. We had to get more training to learn all about the festival, the menus, alcohol policies, and all that jazz. It was actually kind of fun though. We got to take a different tour of Epcot, we did different memory tests on our recipes, played a spice game and really got into the start of the festival. We also got our new hats which was exciting!

 You can buy our hats in the festival marketplaces this year!

Packets of all the dishes for Food & Wine that we had to study

Then eventually, Food and Wine started and it was time to bake for it! It has been fun and definitely a learning experience. We've already run into a night where we ended up staying til midnight and dealing with busy nights. I was placed at our PEO bakery to make lava cakes and we pump out thousands of those a day. I think 1 tram made us nearly 1,300 cups or so. There are so many different components to each dish but they are all great fun and delicious too! Here's a look at some of the things we are doing for the Desserts & Champagne, Ireland, and Scotland Marketplaces so far:

 The Dessert Trio available at the Desserts & Champagne Marketplace

 Banoffee Tart: Chocolate Tart Shell, Bananas, Toffee Sauce, Whiskey Cream, Chocolate Curls and Shortbread Crumbles at the Scotland Marketplace

 Look at all the Chocolate Orange Cupcakes!

 Hazelnut Cheesecake with Frangelico Sauce

 Chocolate Orange Cupcake with Cream Cheese Butercream (I put Hidden Mickeys on some of my cupcakes so keep an eye open!)

 Pistachio Mousse with Morello Cherries

 Chocolate Pudding Cake with Bailey's Ganache from the Ireland Marketplace

Cut Open

I really do enjoy baking for the festival and the crew that I do it with for the most part. While on this program I have learned how mature I am compared to some and what it's like to bite your tongue just to work with someone. A few weeks ago shortly after my mom and brother left my depression hit a wall and I found myself having a mental breakdown fully dressed in my costume in an empty tub. You have rough days in Disney and everyone you work with isn't a Princess or well mannered Prince, that's how it is everywhere. But I've grown and learned from it all, it's never a total 100% negative thing. I can already tell that at the end of the festival I will look back on it and be proud. When you go to our marketplace most of us making these desserts are interns. There's us and our 2 chefs, we are students cranking out these desserts and that's cool. It's an experience I will already cherish, and this is just working, I haven't even gone to eating around the world as a guest yet!