Tyler Florence!

If you watch the Food Network, you are most likely familiar with Tyler Florence, chef and host of such shows as: How to Boil Water, Food 911, and Tyler's Ultimate. His most recent endeavor is creating a cookware line, which sells at Macys. He is also on the "culinary council" of Macys, which is a network of well-known chefs that sell their wares, have miniature restaurants in various Macys, and do cooking demonstrations in the stores. That brings us to Wednesday at Macys Union Square. Tyler Florence was doing a cooking exhibition to demonstrate his new cookware and talk about his most recent cookbook.

He's very passionate about his new cookware (see, the lids attach to the handles for storage)

A few days prior, Scott's catering company (Barbara Llewellyn Catering), gave Scott a job on Wednesday as "Tyler Florence's Personal Assistant". What! That is so cool! So I promptly went online to Macys and reserved a spot for the cooking demonstration.
I showed up to Macys early, found some seats (Leslie was meeting me later), and much to my surprise, Scott was center stage in the demo kitchen frying calamari. A few days later, he told me people were walking by while he was prepping and saying "Is that Tyler Florence? I think that's him!".

Scott preps calamari in the demo kitchen

The seats began to fill with eager Tyler Florence fans, while Scott finished prepping and disappeared back into the green room. I wasn't sure if Scott would even be on the stage for the demo, but when Tyler Florence came out, there was Scott, right on the stage with him! His job was making sure he had everything he needed.

Scott prepped each dish like this, so Tyler could come in and cook it

So although they did not actually cook together, it was pretty cool! Tyler even called Scott "chef" when he needed something...like "Where's the halibut....thanks Chef." Later on he lightened up and began calling Scott "man"...like "Thanks for the peeler, man."

I did manage to get a shot of Scott and Tyler on stage together!

His son ran in and joined him on stage, then he wanted to play with Scott

Tyler made a halibut/lentil dish, and then the best fried calamari I have ever tasted, and ended with ricotta gnocchi (delish!).

Halibut with lentils
Calamari
Ricotta dumplings with shaved radishes and greens

The audience of about 100 people tasted each dish, and the audience tastes were all prepped by Scott and his team.

Look at the big audience!
Leslie had the responsibility of passing each sample down our row...she rocked at her job!

During the demo, Tyler would take questions from the audience, so Leslie asked how to make brisket for her soon-to-be-in-laws for Hanukkah, and Tyler gave her personal cooking advice on how to prep it. (Leslie...I want a blog post on your brisket!!)

Even Tyler Florence loves the immersion blender!

After the demo, Scott remained on stage and schmoozed with little old ladies who had cooking questions, while Leslie and I tracked down Tyler Florence to sign our new cookbooks.
I took tons of pictures with my camera, but thankfully Leslie arrived with a "real" camera to better document the experience. There were even professional photographers there, and one of them sent me his pictures. So thank you, Barry Jan for sending me photos, and hopefully I will get Leslie's photos soon too.