SoBe it! 2010 - Final Shots II

Hey there! Well, it's taken me a bit to post the final shots from the SoBe Food and Wine festival because I took a few extra days in Miami to relax. I ate out, hibernated in my room a bit and went out to clubs with friends. If you are in Miami, Club Louis at the Gansevoort South is perfect on a Tuesday night for a good party! I went out with some friends and didn't even get to sleep before my 7AM flight. That's good for chef/restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, because I sat next to her on my flight home and slept the whole way. If I weren't so tired, I may have talked her ear off or at least gushed to tell her how proud I am as a business woman. I did get a chance to edit it down to just a few minutes while we landed. Turns out she watches Cooking for Real and she's very, very nice! I'm not saying it because she watches though, you can just tell from chatting with some people that it's all about the passion and not the ego of the whole thing. She's such a hard worker and has great things on the horizon. Nice to get a seat next to her and spread some smiles. Now I'm home and back to work! Tomorrow, I leave for a quick tour of Publix grocery stores in Florida and Georgia for some cooking classes I'm hosting. Yep, right back to Florida and I can't wait! Gonna see if I can get people Cooking for Real on the road! In the meantime, here are the rest of my pics ...

Back stage in the green room for the cooking demonstrations I caught a show being taped for Food Network. Can you guess which one??
I know you see Pat Neely in the background, but the crew is there to tape Ace of Cakes! Looks like they'll have an episode following the team to the festival and watching what happens when they take the stage for the cooking demonstration. After they cleared out and went on stage, look who got off stage and made their first stop the green room to relax ...
That's actually my first time chatting with Paula Deen! We've met very briefly, but she is always so busy and surrounded by friends and family that it's hard to chat. She is just as sweet as you can imagine though and after I told her about specific shows of hers I loved and how I can be brought to tears just by her tearing up over food ... she invited me on her show! I immediately said yes and I look forward to pulling all the loose ends together now that I'm home. If you would have told me a few years ago Paula would ask me to be on the her show, I would've exploded lol. It's neat to me that she comes on right before me on Saturdays too. A great lead-in as the TV people say! I just totally respect her path in life and it wasn't an easy path to where she is now, I'm happy all her efforts payed off. Ok, then I went back out to the fairway area and chatted it up with some more people at the Viva Towels Booth ...

The camera man behind me is shooting video for an internal Food Network video they'll use to showcase at the cable network up fronts. Ever hear of those? More on that later ... back to Miami! You can tell by looking at the different outfits in the pictures that it wasn't super warm down on South Beach, but it wasn't cold either. A very nice middle ground around the mid-70s all weekend was perfect for sipping wine. Last year it was about 20 degrees warmer and there were surely more people stumbling out than walking out. Heat just magnifies everything. Take a look at the tents on Saturday ...
I have to tell ya, it seems impossible to power through all of the vendors in one day and because of that many people bought tickets for the entire weekend. Wanna know the price of that?? Check Jacob's blog ... the saving grace for the ticket prices is the charity attached. Young culinary students get grants for school in exchange for working at the events. Pretty cool and each student I spoke with was super excited to not only get the grant, but to work side by side with people in an industry they plan to join. Here's someone I worked with side by side before I got on Food Network ...
Back then I was a radio DJ that catered for music industry even and he was ... well, Emeril Lagasse! Nuff said! He gave me my start here on Food Network when I cooked with him on Emeril Live back in 05 and every time I get to give him a hug ... I take it. He has a new cooking show on the way he told me about and I can't wait to see it. After I said hi to him, I let him get back to work. He was signing cookbooks and taking pictures for what seems like forever. I made that the last stop for the day and headed back to my hotel. Just as I was walking up to my room I caught a store in the lobby I didn't remember seeing last year. I think I'd remember seeing these huuuuuuuuge cupcakes. Or are they mini cakes???!!!
Well, it's not all about cupcakes ... the place is called SoBe Scoops and I tasted the purple flavor in the top right. It was raspberry chocolate and then I tried the cookies and cream, the peanut butter and then settled on not ice cream, but a 100 Grand bar, a Kit Kat and a bag of Poppycock popcorn - Pecan lovers.
Here's store manager Gianna and coworker Ebonique. Thanks for letting me sample waaaay too much ice cream ladies!

Here's a wide shot of the store ...
Colorful and inviting, eh? They've only been open a few months and I think it's a smart store for a hotel lobby. I always need a sweet note at the end of a meal and how many Key Lime pie slices can you eat? :-) Well, I could actually eat many so that's a bad example, but you feel me. Ok .... that was Saturday.

The next day, I started the same ... at the Viva Booth. Only this time I met the winner of the Viva sweepstakes! Take a look!
That's Randy and his wife. they both entered to win and Randy was the lucky one. They got a year's supply of Viva Towels and a trip down to the festival to hang out. I actually met them Friday night at the Bubbles&Q party so by time we took this picture ...we were old friends :-). I kept telling everyone they were the winners because don't you always wonder IF there are winners of those things?? We had a good time chatting and hanging out. Right after we took this we both had to head back to the hotel so we hopped in golf carts and sped off. Randy and his wife were headed home and I was checking into another hotel to lengthen my stay in Miami. My first order of biz was a quick birthday hello to one of the reader's of this blog ...
That's Heather, aka "Dolphinfanhq" on blog comments. I put the call out for bloggers that wanted to meet up while I was in town and she replied, so we met and hung out for a few minutes before I headed off to a meeting. I also met "reyna" that Sunday night at Guy's party. What a nice surprise that was!! The weekend was almost over and I hadn't really hung out with my bloggin buddy Jacob so I invited him over for a Monday brunch on my patio along with a couple other friends. Here he is right before he headed off for the airport ...
We're smiling cuz we made it through the weekend with out a hitch and we are full. Just look at my plate ...
Well, that's it! All my stuff to share from the weekend! Catch me tomorrow night on Best Thing I Ever Ate - Guilty Pleasures @10 pm ET. I won't ruin it, but mine is from New Orleans ... home of the guilty pleasure if you ask me :-).