I can scarcely believe it but it is just a few days away!!!!!! To be precise it is just 4 days away and yes! I am referring to my Food Network debut coming up this Sunday at 7pm Houston time (8:00 PM ET/PT). I clearly recall receiving “the call” from one of the casting directors, I was driving along interstate 610 when it came through and at first I thought it was a prank and then suddenly realized it was for real. Needless to say it was the good grace of God that saved me from letting all that excitement result in a car wreck. Later that night a few friends and I had already planned to go country west dancing (yay!!! for Wild West) and lets just say that we brought it!!!! Pictures of that night are floating around somewhere in cyberspace to corroborate this. Thanks Rachel B., Sarah K. Robyn E., and the Copeland twins for making that night a very memorable one.

Well that was just the start of a very exhilarating roller coaster ride. The next thing I needed to do was get an audition video ready and get this, I had 24 hours to put this together. What to do?  I hadn’t the slightest clue. Thankfully you all stepped up as always and made the audition video happen. After sending out a “few” emails, I was flooded with contacts and referrals that made me realize how blessed I am to have such awesome friends. I worked with Mark Ramos of Markramos designs and he did an amazing job especially with the time constraint we were working with. Thanks so much Mark. Let me just say that I met Mark a year ago after crashing his Halloween party in my Lenny Kravitz get up, it was one of those nights where we figured we would go to as many parties as possible (awesome plan Steph) and I figured I was just too cool looking with all that hair to let it all waste, besides if I crashed as many parties as possible no one would recognize me the following day …the hair and glasses would be the perfect disguise. Anyway for those of you who have not seen my audition video, voilà !!!!

I was able to get the audition video in just in time, and was eventually cast to participate in the Romance Novel challenge. Awesome!!!! But since I was not really familiar with that particular genre I once again turned to my female friends for help. I am going to have to stop at this point mainly because the rules of the show won’t allow me give you any further details until after the show airs….besides if I did, that would ruin the show for you all. But I will say that I had the best assistant ever (Go Tiff!!!! You rock!!!!) I call Tiff my very first American friend, met her on my very first day at culinary school, we happened to be in the same dorm and same class, we hit it off and have been great buddies, partners and team mates since then. I knew that Tiff would be the perfect assistant I could totally rely on her. So I called her up, keeping my fingers crossed in the hope that she would be able to take the time off work. It all worked out, Tiff was able to get the time off and was so generous that she actually came down to Houston from NYC for a practice run and made another trip to Colorado for the actual taping. Thank you so much Tiff.

I hope you all can tune in this Sunday to watch the show. This will be the US premiere, for my friends in other parts of world please check your local listing and show times, there may be some variance as to which season of the show is being aired in different parts of the world. Again the show is called “Food Network Challenge” and the theme for the episode is “Romance Novels”. Here is the official description of the show and a link to the US listing.

“Love, lust…and fondant. In this ribald Challenge, Four top cake decorators must reveal their passionate side by constructing the cover of their very own original Romance Novel out of cake. The tale that best sends hearts aflutter will win a ten-thousand dollar prize. And that’s a very happy ending for one lucky cake artist.”

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food-network-challenge/romance-novel-cakes/index.html

To my dear readers/ followers, I am so sorry that this particular post scarcely pays any homage to actual cake decorating, however, it does chronicle the first part of a cake that was very important to me. In my next post I will speak more about the cake design, the story and inspiration behind the design, share some pictures and decorating tips that were used to create the design. I just can’t do that until after the show airs. So please stay tuned in and I would really appreciate as many subscriptions to my blog as possible. (Yes that is a plea for help …..LOL ….thanks).

See you all on SUNDAY!!!!!!