Catching the breakfast TV train and 500 more samples

April 19, 2008...

At the Ottawa Eco Fair (http://www.ottawaecofair.ca/), RA Centre, Saturday, April 19 from 10-4 pm, I did two cooking demonstrations with samples, one at 11 am and the other at 2 pm, sponsored by Urban Element. This time I cooked up Japanese Gyoza Dumplings with a Soy-Chili Sauce, all natural, vegan and using local ingredients including exotic mushrooms, organic tofu, dumpling wrappers, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, etc. And, I was the sample girl again, handing out a few hundred dumplings at each demonstration that went like hot cakes, no like gyoza dumplings. There was lots of environmental products, services, and some tastings. What a great way to find out what is available in our community and support local producers and suppliers, and people got to try a complimentary gyoza dumpling made with lots of love!

On Friday morning, to promote the Eco Fair on Saturday and on behalf of the Urban Element cooking studio (theurbanelement.ca) who sponsored the cooking demos at the Eco Fair, I went on two live TV programs with cooking demonstrations in the city, back to back, and I felt like there was this training running and I had to get on board at any moment. I awoke for the first one at the crack of dawn, 5 am, as it was the A-Channel Breakfast TV show in the CTV-Chum Studios, and I had to look in the mirror several times to ensure that I looked perky and practiced speaking a lot so that I words would actually come out of my mouth enunciated when I was asked, which is usually not the case when I first awake. I was at the studio by 7 am with my cooking demo supplies on hand, and had to run to the cooking demo studio to set it up with Dave when I was given the cue. This is quite the challenge when you're not used to the kitchen, you have to do this quietly and quickly during intermission so you are not caught on TV (the kitchen is behind the hosts), and you have "just make it work" as Tim Gunn on Project Runway used to say.

The show is live and you're on, up goes the curtain, and what do you do? You give it all you've got and be a positive as you can, as this energy and enthusiasm will go a long way. Anyway, after a good coffee, I tried to pump myself up with positive self-talk and spirit. I felt like I was just about to perform, like a song, and I can see now why it's important to bring all your energy and enthusiasm into what you are doing. You need to first and foremost use this energy for yourself, add this to the energy of the hosts that have been up since 2 am (that's when the shift for the breakfast TV crew starts!), and then the people around, whether in the studio and watching on TV, can feed off of that energy, and will hopefully continue watching you. By the end of the program, I had the two hosts making dumplings with me and they loved them when they tried them on air.

For the second interview on the Daytime program on Rogers TV 22, the hosts were delighted to see me, told me I was one of their favourite guests (I was just on there about 2 weeks ago speaking about ZenKitchen), and wanted to speak more about ZenKitchen and the dinners, and in between I plugged the Eco Fair and the Urban Element. It's really nice to be in the presence of the positive and supportive spirit of the hosts and we all seem to thrive from that, each using and building on this collective energy. After making Derrick's favourite dish,which really is dumplings or pot stickers as he said on TV, he came over to devour the rest of the dumplings, the extras that I always bring for the hosts and crew to eat afterwards.

So, there is the story of the breakfast TV train and the dumpling samples. When I went to the Eco Fair on Saturday, so many people said that they had watched the TV programs and came to try those dumplings that the hosts seemed to love. That was truly amazing and rewarding. So, you see, food is the truly way to the heart and can be a powerful agent for change and action.

Ms. Dumpling.