Quite Curious

f I could do today all over again, I would. Today was a whirlwind of activity, and it was all so much fun. OXO went over the top with everything again, treating us to breakfast, lunch, and the most amazing dinner at Morimoto. On top of that, they gave us a tour of their building and a tutorial on one of the products I’ll be doing a demo on. We didn’t have a chance to go on a tour of Food Network Studios, since they weren’t filming that day (All the sets are temporary! Can you believe that?), so a few of us went out on our own adventure in NY.

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OXO Headquarters

Look! I finally met the other finalists, Jon and Yvette! From left to right: Bena (Senior Marketing), Me, Yvette, Jon, and Alex (CEO). More about the gloves behind us later. They called everyone into the kitchen area…there was clapping and this whole show and dance. It was very special…I’ve never felt so honored before!

Look what they had for us. New York bagels! I can check that one off my list.

Everyone ran to the bagel table like a pack of wild animals. It was pretty funny, actually.

Here’s everyone eating at breakfast. Their kitchen area is absolutely gorgeous. They have a beautiful view of the NY skyline and Hudson River. The girl on the right with the glasses is Emilia, who has been amazing. She’s the one that arranged the entire trip for us. Not an easy task at all. Thank you, Emilia!

I need THIS - a drawer full of neatly labeled loose leaf teas in POP containers. (I’m a tea addict) The kitchen is where I will be filming my video. OXO employees can actually use the stove and oven for their lunch…I wish I had that at work.

Here’s Bena, and the guy who will be filming me. Bena is the one who contacted me about being a finalist, and organized the entire contest in the first place. We were so excited to meet each other.

Jon going over his script with Bena. He filmed today, Yvette and I are filming tomorrow.

The OXO eating area has the COOLEST wall. It’s a wall of lost gloves in New York, with the name of who found it, and when it was found. They love their wall so much that they declined an offer from a museum to use the gloves in a a two year traveling exhibition.

Left: Cookbooks in the kitchen. Looks like there’s foodies in here. Right: A conference room with really slick chairs.

Left: The quality control guys sit in a bay with a huge mound of OXO products which they test out all day. Ice cream scoop testing = fun, garlic press testing = not so fun. Right: The woodshop where mockups are made.

The CEO rides around on an OXO branded scooter all day. Reminds me of those sweet dot com days.

They ordered the most delicious pizza for us, from Patsy’s. It’s supposedly a well known pizza place in Brooklyn.

Mandolin Tutorial

Yvette and I are both demonstrating OXO mandolins for our tutorials. The mandolins are kind of tricky, so we got a tutorial from the guy who knows them the best - Dean DiPietro, who designed them. Thank god! I was nervous about doing that video before the tutorial.

Mandolin

Making french fries look easy is well…not easy. Don’t get me wrong, the product is easy to use, but it’s difficult to show that it’s effortless - the potatoes get stuck on the blades sometimes. Needless to say, I went through an entire sack of yukon gold potatoes!

Walking around NY

We had some downtime during the day before our dinner, so we took the subway (my first time on the NY subway, no rats to be seen) to Little Italy…or SOHO….somewhere around there.

We had a delicious dark chocolate crepe at La Crêpe. Best crepe I’ve ever had.

Me and my new buddy, Cristie. She’s also from San Francisco. She came as a guest with Yvette.

Mike and I

A cupcake store at Chelsea Market, which is a huge food mall. Mostly artisan shops and bakeries.

I love how the bakery has full glass windows to the back room.

Morimoto

We had dinner at Morimoto, a really good Japanese restaurant in Chelsea. That’s right, Iron Chef’s Masaharu Morimoto.

The entrance to the restaurant. The interior is super cool.

A sashimi stack - eel, yellowtail, tuna, and salmon.

Oysters with foie gras, on the right is fried shrimp.

Left: 10 hour stewed pork belly. Right: 10 year aged sake. AMAZING.

Left: An ice cream dessert, flavored with beer. Right: It came with a side of caramel popcorn.

Here’s my dessert, a chestnut custard with brandy. Greatest thing ever.

What a great way to end the day.

Alright, need to sleep now…have to get up early to film.

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