Flashback @ 2013 – top 5 dining/food experiences

Hello followers, Here is a flashback at the top five restaurant or recipes of 2013 (I have posted about some, but not all):

5) Tavern at Table One – Park City, UT

Table One, is a beautiful upstairs restaurant. Downstairs below it, is Tavern, a ski lodge mimic with a great little bar and some high tables to catch up with friends or have a drink. We went to The Tavern on two of the nights we were in Park City, once for a meal and once for just some appetizers and drinks.  The two nights combined we had ordered a variety of dishes. Some of which included a jumbo shrimp cocktail and carnitas tacos. Definitely recommended!

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail with classic cocktail sauce and lemon.

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Carnitas Tacos with crème fraiche, cilantro, pico de gallo, and flour tortilla.

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4) Cake Decorating

As many of you know, from an earlier post, I have taken up cake decorating. This new hobby is a great way for me to relax, while getting to eat yummy cake 🙂 For x-mas, I received two great little tins, to make layered cakes, which I am looking to start in the new year. Here is my first cake that I did without any help.

This is a vanilla cake decorated with frosting, and the snowflakes are made out of fondant and decorated with a special mixture that includes blue sprinkles.

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These are some little flowering details I did at the edge of my cake, made out of frosting that I dyed pink.

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3) Dinner with Russell Jackson – Flashback of Food Network Star

Even though I have already posted about this fabulous dinner, I will always remember it. See older post for pics and more info.

2) Raclette – New Years Eve meal

This New Years Eve we celebrated with some friends and had raclette. Raclette is a Swiss dish were you melt cheese and then put it over potato or bread. Then you add on some spices and it is great. I recommend for family dinners and get togethers. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to take some pictures, although here is a link that will show you some pictures of raclette:

A Raclette cooker (image credit “The Cheese Shop”).

1) Dinner with Russell Jackson & Stacy Poon-Kinney

This was definitely my top food experience this year. Russell Jackson was there of course, but on top of that Stacy Poon-Kinney, another contestant on Food Network Star, was there as well. She did cook as well as talked with all the guests and it was great hearing her experience of being on the show. I was also another big fan of her throughout the show. It was a great birthday surprise and I’m definitely  going to visit Stacy’s restaurant in San Diego (The Trails Eatery). Here are a few photos from the dinner:

Nice slice of bacon with a great BBQ sauce.

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Russell preparing some dishes.

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Russell pouring liquid nitrogen into a bowl.

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Chocolate eclair on top of pig blood ice cream and some breadcrumbs.

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Russell, Stacy, and I: What a great dinner, thanks so much Russell and Stacy!

I hope you liked my flashback of my top 5 food experiences.

Coming up next: Such an simple yet yummy pancake recipe!

 

Thanks,

Tina

Cake Decorating – My new Personal Odyssey

I never had a particular interest in cake decorating until my school offered a cake decorating course during the afternoon for one week. During that time we decorated two small cakes, and one final 10″ cake. I fell in love with decorating cakes. I always took the longest in my class, but I was very patient especially with spreading the frosting. Although getting prepped and cleaning up are tasks that can take up to 30 min each, its well worth the finished product.

I loved to make my own color of frosting by mixing dyes. I always enjoyed using bright colors on my cakes. We unfortunately didn’t get to work with fondant, which I was really looking forward to. I surprised myself that I enjoyed decorating cakes, because I really don’t like frosting at all, and cakes are not my favorite kind of sweets. In my school we also have something called Personal Odyssey. We do it in eighth grade throughout the whole school year. I decided I wanted to do cake decorating as my personal odyssey. I enjoyed it so much that I want to keep working on it especially learning how to work with fondant and improving my decorating skills overall. Here are some photos from the cake decorating class that I made:

My first cake that I ever decorated! This is a yellow cake.

This is a cute playful chocolate cake I gave to my friend as a belated birthday gift.

My final and favorite cake: yellow cake layer on top and chocolate on the bottom!

Thanks for reading!

~Tina

PS: Stay updated from my latest dinner with Russell Jackson and Stacy Poon-Kinney – it was yummy!