Today on Today

Hey there! Well, in the middle of last week I got a call to return to The Today Show. Although I'm not taping, most of my days are filled with a bit of work. So right in the middle of preparing something for Food Network Magazine, I got the email from my p.r. rep at Food Network about appearing on the show today. The segment was to be about online holiday gifts for the host and I was asked to submit 6 companies. Seems easy, but when they are restricted to just one region, it's hard to brainstorm companies I've ordered from or tasted products from in some other way. With not all my initial pitches making the first cut, I chatted about it instead of emailing and all of a sudden many others came to mind, don't you like it when that happens? So it took a couple of days to settle on the list, but good ol' conversation trumps email when brainstorming. By Thursday all of the companies I wanted to feature were approved and calls were made to get product ordered overnight.

I thought that was it, but if you remember last time I told you about the guys n gals at The Today Show, they like to play it safe and rehearse. Wanna know how serious they are about it? Rehearsal was set for a Sunday! Yep! So, yesterday at 330PM I got in the car they sent with my index cards for notes and headed to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. I headed into familiar territory and checked out the table with all the products lined up and ready to go.

That's a first-person look at the table with my products on it. When I got to the studio, none of them were lined up and as each was put on the table I discussed with the food stylist what I would say and which products I would highlight from each company. I was told I would be in my segment with Meredith Vieira. I thought, pretty cool since I'd never met or worked with her. Once we had the order down and I had my index cards all covered with my lefty scribbles, it was over. I got back in the car and headed home to figure out what to wear. I tried on two options, emailed my bff and got the go ahead ... I'm not one for style so many times like an illness, I seek a second opinion. I studied my cards a bit more, watched Dexter and went to sleep.

At 5AM I popped up and because I had everything sitting out like the first day of school, I got ready and was in the car by my expected 530 and arrived at the studio by 615. After chilling in the green room getting to know the other guests for the morning, an NBC Page showed me to a different make-room from the last time and I got hair and make up started at 710. We were done around 730 ... really fast, then I went to sit in a studio to tape the video you see of all the people in the segment just smiling. We all sat and smiled silently for about 30 seconds and then headed to the green room to wait for our part of the show. BTW, I'm not the only one in the segment. It's just like the last time, it's a segment they call internally "The Whip" ... they whip around the studio from one host to the next in rapid fire ... I guess that's the origin. After all of the back and forth with companies, I ended up getting my section of the country changed to not just the South, but other areas as well. What it really boiled down to is, there were some great companies that deserved attention, no matter the region and I'm happy they allowed me to stretch the boundaries a bit. While chatting with the segment producer before the show I found out I'd be with Ann Curry for my segment after all. That was cool because I felt I knew her timing more from the first experience.

Just before 8AM I was hustled from the green room up two flights of stairs to the kitchen studio for my segment. One day I want to actually cook there :-) ... until then chatting about my recipes on one show and then products on the other, is fine with me! Ann arrived to the set a few minutes before the segment and we chatted a bit about the products and then she asked where I was from. I told her I was a military brat and we found we have that in common. In the middle of us small talking ... we were cut short for the real biz at hand ...



Like a wedding, it was over before you know it. Ann said some really nice stuff when we were done and then In the interest of not hanging around, I put on my coat and was about to leave when I thought ... lemme ask Ann for a picture to put on my blog. She said it would be cool and I threw my coat off and smiled away ...
If you are interested in any of the products, check their website for the product list with links. And if you have 7 minutes, by all means check out the entire video to see the rest of the products on the list. Question, does anyone look familiar in the video to you foodies?