live on living dayton

perfecting the "done before they arrive" party- a work in progress

Categories: Appetizers, Cocktail Party, Dinner Party, Posted on December 17, 2013 by Sandy Bergsten

Last week I taped my first cooking segment on television… live. The folks at Dorothy Lane Market asked me if in two days I would do a piece on holiday entertaining for Living Dayton. I said sure thinking they would be coming to the DLM Cooking School. As it turned out it was at their television studio. I took a deep breath, focused all my nervous energy, and began planning everything ahead so that I my five-minute segment would flow together seamlessly.

I decided on four appetizers that could either be made ahead and frozen, prepped ahead or would virtually come together in a snap. The next day I shopped for all the ingredients. That night I laid out the necessary platters, baking sheets, bowls and utensils. The morning of the show I made a big cup of tea and starting prepping everything so that I would be able to stand in front of the camera and whip, and spoon, and smile and bake. Effortless entertaining at its best.

cheese puff cups

I placed all the ingredients for the cheese puff cups with fig preserves into a bowl so later on TV I could simply whip it together in a matter of seconds. Then I made a second batch to bake ahead.

cheese puff cups

I thought the TV audience would really appreciate how easy the fillo cups are to fill and that the finished unbaked shells can be slipped right back into the box and frozen until you need them.

cheese puff cups

I then filled the second batch of cups.

cheese puff cups

I topped them with the fig preserves. Then baked that batch so that I could pull the prebaked cups out of the oven on the set just like they do on all the cooking shows. I was getting excited.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

Then I prepped the smoked salmon on cucumber rounds. I sliced the salmon and began rolling up a few.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

I placed the finished smoked salmon rosettes on a plate.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

Then I took a zester and made four vertical zests so that when I cut the cucumbers into rounds they would look like decorative flowers as well.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

Put them on paper towel to drain and transport.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

I mixed up the cream cheese, dill and onion.

smoked salmon on cucumber rounds

Spooned it into a Ziploc bag that I could snip and use as a disposable pastry bag. Everything was all done for my second hors d'oeuvre.

dates wrapped in bacon

On a roll I moved onto the dates wrapped in bacon. I sliced the center-cut bacon in half.

dates wrapped in bacon

Then I rolled several dates up in the bacon so I could bake those ahead of time as well. Knowing I would wow my audience with another finished product.

 dates wrapped in bacon

Just in case there was enough time I pulled together the easy ingredients for the goat cheese and olive tapenade dip.

tray

At 10:45 AM I placed everything on trays and put them in the back of my car. Like most of the country Dayton was in the throws of an arctic blast. I then ran upstairs to get dressed. I’ve heard bright solid colors are best but just to be sure I flipped on the TV and surfed through the channels to see what everyone in TV land was wearing at the moment. I decided on a pretty red sweater with a bit of an Audrey Hepburn collar and black velvet pants with cute flats.

At 11:10 AM I got in the car and headed over to the station. I pulled up to what I hoped was the entrance (it was very confusing). At a high sliding security gate topped with barbwire I pressed the intercom button. I assuredly announced that I was there for the cooking segment. There was a long pause. They asked me my name. Another long pause. I checked myself in the review mirror and little worry lines appeared. They asked me again who I was. My reflection was now pallid. My car resembled a shuttle transport for the Food Network. After several minutes that felt like hours a nice person came on and said why don’t I pull in and they would try to straighten things out. A wonderful producer came out and said that there must have been some sort of communication glitch but since I was here they would try to fit me in. A little later an assistant came out and helped me bring in my myriad of trays to the “kitchen”. They informed me that I was to stand there for the entire show because periodically they would pan over to me while they were taping live. I took a deep breath and tried to channel my inner Martha-Ina-Giada.

In my make-believe-television-mind I envisioned large mobile cameras with numbers on them along with corresponding assistants who cue you where to look at any given moment. In this reality there was only one camera man and several stationary cameras that proved elusive. I had no idea where they were so I had no idea where to look. So I looked everywhere. On live TV I knew I must resemble a life size bobble head.

After thirty-five minutes the co hosts donned their Living Dayton aprons and breezed into the “kitchen”. I took another deep breath (thank goodness for Stott Pilates) and went right into the cheese puff cups with fig preserves. I picked up the bowl that I had prepped hours ahead and with what should have been a quick whisk then a dollop turned into workout. Obviously my room temperature cream cheese had transformed itself into a frigid little brick in my subzero car. Everything got caught in my whisk and I wanted to cry. So I did what all good TV chefs do and passed it on to one of the co-hosts. I then attempted to spoon the clumpy mixture into the little premade fillo cups. As I mentioned one of the best things about this recipe is that you can slip the filled cups back into the box. Well when I attempted that on live TV the little plastic tray got caught on all these little hanging pieces of cardboard. I tried to look effortless while I repeatedly jammed the flippin tray into its intended spot. One of hosts let me know that we only had one and half minutes left. With that I set the blasted box down, put on my red-hot mitt and like magic pulled out a baking sheet of finished canapés.

We quickly moved on to the smoked salmon on cucumber rounds. Here the cold actually made these prepped pieces and parts come together perfectly.

With seconds to go I attempted to show my tv audience how to make dates wrapped in bacon. I cut the bacon and rolled up a few dates as the host opened the oven to pull out another magical tray of finished product when the time was up. “Wish you could see these” he exclaimed “they really do look good”.

During the commercial break the hosts said they would try to come over and sample the finished product at the close of the show. So during the last twenty minutes of live filming I quietly tidied up the “kitchen”, set and assembled all of my hors d'oeuvres.

Here’s the clip of my live debut. A little disclaimer- I found it’s much better with a big glass of wine!

http://www.wdtn.com/living-dayton/kitchen/holiday-hors-doeuvres

post a comment

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.