Friday, September 30, 2011

NYC Wine & Food Festival 2011: Meatball Madness!

Hey there! It's New York City Wine & Food Festival time here in the city and like years before, Food Network smartly takes advantage of the abundance of hosts in town and gets us together for some fun. Yesterday Melissa d'Arabian filmed a holiday promo that'll run this fall. I arrived when Giada was wrapping her segment of the promo and headed to Meatball Madness. Check out Melissa recording her lines for Food Network and Food Network UK ...
We finished up and I headed over to Giada's party. I first stopped by to say hi to her, then headed straight for what everyone was talking about ...
This was a juicy, loosely mixed, highly black peppered ball of wonder. Take a close up ...
And then inside ...
I shoulda had two of these. There were too many purveyors to try each meatball or even get to them, imagine the judging!! I turned around and right next to the rabbit meatball was a big and puffy gnocchi with my last name on it. Last name was on it, cuz it meant biz ...
If this was a gnocchi madness party, they'd win. It was like a pillow melting in your mouth. It just spread everywhere instantly. Very smooth. Here's a close up ....
Then, I took advantage of my position in the room and took a long shot. This is just one long room full of meatballs, but there were three in all! Imagine the aroma ... not the heat, that's what I kept thinking. It was hot in there!!
I finally waded my way through the middle room to the last one and caught my extended family :-) ... The Scotto's from Fresco by Scotto.
That's Marion, Elaina, Rosanna, Me :-), Anthony and John. I had their meatball and it was so good I forgot to take a picture. Tragedy, because of the few I ate, it was soooo good. There was a brown sauce that was sweet, but not too sweet and the ball wasn't tight, just really good. Bad reporting, but I was so happy to see my crew. I have plans to get a bite at Fresco by Scotto soon, let's hope that meatball is on the menu!! I said my hellos and headed to the middle room just in time for the announcement.
That's Alex Guarnashelli, Dana Cowin and Lee Ann Wong, the judges. I bet they are pretty full and ready to sleep lol. And I did my best to get a picture of Giada, she looked so cute! But she's blurry and covered up by the other hosts.
If you want to see great photos from the event and all the NYCWFF events as they happen, check out this link.

Ok, that's it. I'm currently doing my best to fast so I can have a full appetite for the Burger Bash tonight. See you there if you have plans to go. Everyone is so sweet, if you see me and you are wondering if it's ok to "bother" me ... yes, it is. It's totally not a bother, I'm there to eat and have fun and meet ya! Best time to interrupt me is when I'm eating ... it's when I'm most happy :-)...

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