Last week, I had a fabulous time at an event sponsored by Wish-Bone: Salad Night Live with chef Tyler Florence. Let me tell you what happened. (Hang in there until the end and there could be a little something in it for one of you!)
While we (I took Mom in the City reader Yvonne along as my “+1”) were waiting for the event to begin, we were talking with some of the people from Wish-Bone. To my pleasant surprise, they were not defensive or put off by my initial question about HFCS. Back story: I have been using Wish-Bone’s Italian dressing in my home for almost eight years, because my husband likes salad. Over the last year, eating salad (like many other of my husband’s good habits) has rubbed off on me. A couple of months ago, I was reading the ingredients label and noticed that it included high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Then about a month ago, I noticed that the label was slightly different. The HFCS was taken out, but the taste is the same. Since I not only use the Italian dressing for salads, but also to marinate my chicken and pork chops before cooking them on our counter grill, that made me happy. Anyway, the marketer was honest about why it took a while for them to change that (HFCS is less expensive than its alternatives). He asked if one of the other marketing people had told me about the change. They didn’t. I knew because I actually use the product!
While we were talking, Tyler Florence came over to say, “Hello”. He had read my tweet the prior day mentioning that I was coming to the event. Normally, I don’t get excited about famous people. (I live in New York and have worked for and with several “celebrities”. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.) Maybe it was because he has over 180,000 twitter followers, but he still recognized me from my tweet. Or perhaps it was because he was really warm and personable in addition to being passionate about food. Whatever it was, I just remember thinking, “Wish-Bone was so smart to pick him to be their spokesman!”
Photo credit: Patrick Butler/Click to enlarge
We then watched as Tyler Florence prepared three different salad dishes. As he prepared the dishes, he chatted about his (many!) current projects. As he talked about the various restaurants that he was opening and the cookbooks and the wine that he makes AND the new organic baby food company, etc., etc., I wondered, “When does this man sleep?!” (As a mom, I was especialy interested to hear about his new certified organic gourmet baby food called, Sprout. Way to start kids on the healthy eating track early!) Obviously, Tyler has partnerships, but it was just great to hear him talk about living out his passion for food. He also shared many food preparation tips while he was preparing the meal. I was listening and looking so intently that I didn’t take a lot of notes. Below are five tips that I remember:
1. When given the choice, always use fresh herbs. To make them last longer, cut fresh herbs at the stem and place them in water like a flower. They will usually last around a week. After that, you can freeze them in a plastic bag.
2. In order to clean your grill, quickly brush olive oil on the hot grill with a rag. It will give you nice clean grill marks on your food.
3. Organic food (including meat – Tyler is a big fan of greenmarkets, organic chicken and such) can be coupled with organic food styling. Modern day salads are not too refined in their appearance.
4. Don’t put a lot of dressing on your salad too soon before serving it, because your salad greens will wilt. Rather, wait until right before you are getting ready to serve it.
5. Skip the garlic press, because you end up wasting too much salad. Rather, use the side of a large knife to crush the cloves. That will make the paper come off more easily.
That’s it for Part I. In Part II, I will share the three recipes that Tyler prepared for us and share a tasty giveaway.
