Thursday, October 16th - Celebrity is as Celebrity Does ... Could You Please Turn Up the Volume???
In retrospect I booked this event for all the wrong reasons:
1) We can actually purchase Caymus wines in Stinktown ... even Conundrum of which everyone seems so fond.
2) We don't collect "celebrity" cookbooks.
3) Generally speaking we're not all that impressed by famous people.
4) Trying new things isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
Epcot officially describes this event as follows:
Discover how an acclaimed television personality enjoys life inside - and outside - the kitchen. Culinary demonstration, single-dish tasting, and an autographed copy of the celebrity's cookbook are included; $75 per person, plus tax (gratuity included).
Yep.
Reading back over that description tells me everything I needed to know about where the Disney Dining Borg are planning to take our beloved F&W Festival in the years to come. Why I was so slow on the uptake is beyond me, but since it provides a convenient excuse I will blame it on a combination of bad eyesight, too many prescription medications, and a burning desire to try a new Festival event.
I realize now that burning sensation was actually a new chronic inflammatory issue making its presence known.
This is one of those rare instances where we actually did enjoy the celebrity guest's show on Food Network and thought the event might be a lot of fun. For those people who got good seats and could actually hear the conversation it probably was fun. For those stinky relations like us, who were stuck in a corner (see ... sometimes Bendy does get put in a corner), it was about as much fun as a screen door on a submarine.
Lemme 'splain what happened. The program was scheduled to begin at 2pm - Jay and I finished up some last minute giftie shopping and then made our way over to the Festival Welcome Center (The Wonders of Life Pavilion) to check in. Since we all paid in advance to attend I did not dream that Jay and I (or anyone else) would need to line up days before the event to be seated at a good table.
How stupid of me.
Our penalty for booking on the first day of F&W availability and daring to show up with mere minutes to spare was to be seated at the very back table of the venue ... tucked amongst the potted plants and the peepers who didn't pay to attend but felt no compunction at sticking their heads through the foliage to take in the "show" while loudly discussing everything from their personal moment of spewth on Mission Space to the merits of boxed versus bottled wine.
There were two other couples at the table with us and it was pretty obvious that they weren't pleased with the arrangement either. To be fair I will comment that there were large flat-screen monitors set up near our table so that we could watch events unfold on stage but we didn't pay $150 + tax to watch a television show, thanks anyway.
You all need some pictures before I continue with my rancorous review.
Table setting
at least the wine glass was fairly generously filled
Robert Irvine makes his appearance ...
How far were we seated from the stage and the demonstration kitchen?
In a galaxy far, far away ...
I'll give Robert Irvine some credit; he was personable and charming and larger than life ... with those tables where he actually stopped to talk to guests. He only wandered so far amongst the tables and never crossed the state line to greet any of us. I wonder if the camera angles were too crappy and if he was told not to go past a certain point? I would like to tell you more about the conversation Mr. Irvine had with the facilitator (Pam Smith?) and all that happy crap but I can't ... it's not even a memory issue this time because we really couldn't hear much of what took place during the 90 minute program. I know the dish he was "preparing" was salmon and he wandered around between tables interacting with guests and there was some discussion of the featured wine for the event - Conundrum - but the finer details are dust in the wind.
Look; it's a conversation! I wonder what they're talking about?
Our fabulous food?
Pan Seared Salmon with Bok Choy and some stuff. I want to apologize to you in advance because the servings we received were not at all appetizing. Furthermore, the quality of the food was not good - most of the guests at our table received over-cooked, dry salmon. It's the irony of ironies that I received a decently prepared piece of fish when I'm not a big fan of salmon.
Salmon Tongue?
This looks like a mistake ...
And this looks like Fancy Feast ...
From what I understand the food quality at this event was uneven across the board and I think that's absolutely unacceptable. There is no excuse for that kind of poor quality from a culinary team that is supposed to specialize in event preparation and cooking. The next time Jay and I want to overpay for poorly cooked salmon at WDW we'll go back to Artist Point - at least there we can drink more than one glass of wine. Yeah, now I'm snarking at Caymus Wineries ... how about a refill you miserly bastiches?
There was one cool aspect of the afternoon and it was this: Caymus was giving away a monster-sized bottle of Conundrum to one lucky guest (
read: not us) who could recite back to Robert Irvine the procedure for properly cooking the dish we'd all been served.
I love irony.
One of the couples seated at our table won the prize! Of course, Irvine couldn't make it all the way back to our table in the forest primeval so the winner had to walk up for the meet and greet and smile for the camera moment. Still, it was pretty cool seeing one of the shunned take home a giftie that every single one of us would have gladly given our pan seared salmon for!
The winners and their big big bottle of wine! I hope they don't mind my using this image here.
How do you explain this to the TSA?
One last picture ... Lori was also at this event but we weren't able to hook up before seating and thus spent the event separated by the vast open space between the welcomes and the not-welcomes.
She got a much better table and was even on the receiving end of a hug from Mr. Irvine. I'm glad someone had a good time!
Oybolshoi & BriarRosie ... bluezoo was better!
For a different perspective on the same event, click on this link to read BriarRosie's excellent review:
Lori liked it just fine!
Our final verdict is that it wouldn't matter who was featured at this event in the future - there is no way we will ever attend a Kitchen Conversation again. The event needs to be held in a private area and attendance needs to be more limited; quite frankly I would have rather been told the afternoon was sold out than pay that kind of money for us to get so little enjoyment from the event. I don't really fault Irvine for much of this, but I do fault the F&W planners who most certainly should have known better than to schedule a program like this in a venue where non-paying guests could wander around to their hearts content unintentionally disrupting the event for some attendees.
I was very disappointed to leave Epcot and the F&W Festival on such a down note, especially since we were going home the next day which was also my birthday. Jay was disappointed too, which is rare ... I'm usually the one with expectations so high that they have no alternative but to come crashing to earth at the speed of sound. But we talked our way through it as we waited one last time for our Disney chariot to whisk us back to the resort. We were having dinner at Citricos for my birthday and we refused to let a poor Festival experience put the exclamation point on our vacation.
Coming soon ... the last review of the trip: Citricos gives Bluezoo a real run for its money!
I love your reviews! That tiny cup of syrup at WPE would have highly irritated me it reminds me of what my mom told me about when she worked at Bob's Big Boy (I know not the same line of class 
Put on your goggles folks it may get ugly!
I missed two reviews! The Blue Zoo looks fab and so nice you got to hang with some new friends. 
BTW, did you guys do LotR and Kirs for New Years again this year? Or were we the only ones? 
