Feature Story – Taste of a Lifetime

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**All the pictures are from the web because they did not allow cameras inside the tents. **

From the cooking pan, an orange flame of fire roared into the sky, caught everyone’s attention. The creator of this excitement was Guy Fieri, “winner of the second season of The Next Food Network Star.” [1] At the Chelsea market, where all the actions originated, Food Network stars such as Guy Fieri, Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, and Martha Stewart worked together to raise money toward a common goal. All the proceeds from this event, The Wine and Food Festival, are going to the Food Bank to help fight hunger. From the different type of foods, it dawn on me that the sensory stimuli of each dish spoke a lot about the hard work a chef had put in.

I was drawn to the herbaceous golden brown object sitting on top of Amy’s bread table. Golden crusted outside with sprinkled spherical oats, this swollen aromatic bread made me want to sink my teeth into them. Once I took my first bite, my senses took over, overpowering reality.

Back to reality, I appeared at the modern Asian cuisine table, Buddakan, and saw the cute fun-sized Edamame dumplings. Carefully examined the dumplings, I had a flashback to the time when I was making dumplings with my mom. She was holding a pleated dumpling skin and was making teardrop shapes to close the dumpling and lock the filing inside forever. After a bite into the soft, thick skin dumpling, a creamy soybean filling oozed into my mouth, there it stayed melted. I can taste the time a chef had put into his work, in creating a dumpling that is filled with rich ingredients in every drop; he did not neglect even the tiniest parts.

Attracted by the excitement level of children, I came to Eleni’s tables in which she was giving out cookies to kids to decorate. Rectangle, square, triangle, circle, all sorts of shaped cookies filled the tables. It was there, where the kids drew pictures on their cookies. It was there, where they drew their idols. On one of the tables, I saw samples. All these cookies were in distinctive shapes; some were faces of celebrities while others were holiday themed cartoon-designs. The set that caught my eyes was the collection of pumpkin faces. Each cookie took the shape of a pumpkin and each pumpkin had a unique facial expression. Each cookie is very special but the process of creating these cookies is tiresome, as I later found out that these cookies were all hand-painted.

With so much to eat, what is there to drink? The smell of rich brewed espresso flew into my nose and guided me toward the Ninth Street Espresso. Each drink with ocean amount of details was brewed for each taster that came by. The intricate design of each espresso gave the espresso itself its uniqueness. Each sip sent vibes down a person’s body, and made the person’s heart ponder for more.

Captivated by the structure of a cone-shaped, plastic serving cup, I moved to the next table where they were serving fire-roasted tomato soup. The color of the soup had a vibrant red color that automatically became the center of attention. It had the smell of freshly picked tomatoes. Though I never liked tomato soup, I couldn’t resist the smell. Thus, I tried it. As the tomato soup was traveling down my digestive tract, it soothed everything it touched. The soup appeased my throat, and relaxed and calmed my body.

Bold colors, complicated designs, overpowering smells are many details that chefs focused on to create dishes that are both appealing and appetizing. Thus, each artwork created by each chef should be greatly cherished.

Work Cited Page

[1] “Another Star Chef Is Born.” CBS News. 2006. CBS, Web. 19 October 2009. <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/24/earlyshow/living/recipes/main1534896.shtml>.