The Saga of Timmy~issimo! Party Planning

Things are crazy around the Yummy~issimo! household these days! Sweet husband, Tim, is attempting to plan a birthday party. Not just any party mind you, but a 50th birthday party for yours truly. And, I keep trying to butt in. Now to be fair, sweet husband has never planned a party ~ and I've planned, oh hundreds of parties in the past couple of years. So why not benefit from my extensive knowledge? Except that he wants to do it. Although, a Timmy~issimo! party is not exactly what I had in mind. Yes, I know what you're thinking and you're right ~ I am a spoiled brat!

Picture this ~ lots of my friends are coming to the big shindig this weekend. And for food, sweet husband wanted to have a local BBQ joint cater. Gasp! I had visions of elegant finger foods that are beautiful to behold, Yummy!, would pair perfectly with champagne ~ you get the idea. Well we certainly had different ideas about what encompasses food for a party.

Thank Bacchus for good friends. Vicki, Sandee and Kristy to the rescue! They've strongly suggested we order food from Luigi's Olde World Market (side note: remember hottie Adam? He's Luigi's son), lots of red wine, white wine, Heinekin, top shelf libations and, my favorite, champagne. Food is rare sliced beef tenderloin with creamy horseradish sauce, Thai flavored pork tenderloin sliced paper thin and served with spicy mustard sauce, bacon~wrapped stuffed jumbo shrimp, marinated tomato caprese salad, a lovely cheese tray of Danish blue, Cotswold, DaVinci, etc. and other tasty appies that my great friends, who are all great cooks (except Sandee) will be bringing. Now don't get me wrong ~ I love Sandee and I've known her for about 15 years, but she can't cook to save her life!

Look for lots of party pictures next week. And, there'll be several of hottie Adam for you single gals!

Remember the DVD I attempted to send to Bravo TV? The one where they were looking for a personal chef for a reality series? Well, the DVD I sent still isn't anywhere to be found, a full two weeks after I sent it overnight by snail mail. So, I go down to the local post office in an attempt to get my money back. After all, it says right on my receipt that refunds can be obtained for overnight items not received on time. Sounds like me, right?

Wrong! Long story short, nasty postal worker with the bad breath, bad comb over and bad mood suggested that the good people at Bravo TV are lying to me. He actually said that! According to him, they've really received the DVD but they've lost it.

I really know what "Going Postal" means!

Still on the Roller Coaster

Well, we're at 103+ hours past the time that the mail carrier guaranteed to deliver my DVD to Bravo TV for the proposed Personal Chef program. In case you're wondering, yes, I did have to pull out the calculator. And, yes, when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight you know who NOT to use. And, no, they haven't even tried to deliver a second time!

So today I was checking the FedEx website every few minutes (OK maybe it was a touch obsessive). When I wasn't close to a computer I had the 800 number on speed dial ~ yeah, now I know it's obsessive but I had to know where that DVD was every second of the day.

WhooHooo they finally received the DVD today at 12:30!

Tonight after a long, hot cook day I was sitting at the computer, furiously creating and typing recipes. Sweet husband, Tim, offered to take me out to dinner. Being the grumpy so~n~so that I was, I (of course) said no. The phone rings interrupting the dessert creation in my mind.

Hi, this is Debbie.

Hi, this is Lisa from Bravo TV. We received your DVD today, we've looked at it and I have just a couple of questions.

Jumping up and down motions! Deep breath.

Hi Lisa. What can I do for you?

Lisa proceeds to ask about Mr. and Mrs. Client, their offspring, stresses of working for them, yada yada yada. She then asks about sweet husband, Tim. Well, that one's easy ~ if you are lucky enough to know him, you'll realize that he has more personality than 99.9% of the people you'll ever know.

Well, we'll be submitting your tape to the Bravo TV producers. We will be working fairly quickly on this one, so you should hear something from us within 3 weeks.

Three weeks! Am I riding downhill or uphill on this one?

Adam Squared

It's been a wild roller~coaster ride since I received the first phone call from Bravo TV.

If you listened live or streaming on the web to my radio segment on WGRR 103.5FM on Wednesday 8/24/07 and again on Friday 8/26/07, then you heard Janeen ask about the "hottie" who was running the video camera. Several of you sent e~mails asking about "the hottie" so here's Adam the hottie with Adam the client.

I want to reiterate here and now that I am a Personal Chef in Cincinnati and not a matchmaking service. Yes, I know his telephone number and no, I will not share it with you.

That bottle of wine is WHAT vintage? Well, what are seven little numbers among friends?

Back to the roller~coaster ride, I frantically searched to find somebody who could follow me for several hours on Wednesday so that I could edit and send the DVD to Bravo on Thursday. We went to Luigi's Olde World Market, WGRR and to visit one of my favorite clients ~ who also happens to be named Adam.

I worked frantically overnight Wednesday into the early hours of Thursday morning editing several hours of tape down to about 18 minutes. I burned extra DVDs, filled out the application with care and humor and was standing in the post office line on Thursday afternoon in order to get this in the overnight mail to California.

I was attending an event on Thursday evening and when I got back into the Yummy~mobile, there was a voice mail on my cell phone.

Hi, this is Lynelle from Bravo TV. I'm just calling to see if you've had the time to do a quick video for us and if you did, is it in the mail?

Wow! Thanking Bacchus that there's a 3~hour time difference between the Queen City and the City of Angles.

Hi Lynelle. I sent the video today by overnight mail. You will have it tomorrow in your regular mail delivery.

Little did I know that neither rain, nor snow nor whatever their motto is doesn't apply when there's the YIKES! factor involved.

Fast forward to the crest of the tallest hill of the roller~coaster. You're just about to scream because you know what's going to happen in the next few seconds as the ride plummets downhill and your stomach is still at the top.

Yep, it's Monday 9:23 p.m. a full 81 hours after the video was due in LA and it's still not there. Not delivered. Nowhere to be found. Zip. Zero. Nada. Bye~bye. Not to mention the $18 that I spent to guarantee it would be delivered Friday morning.

Hi Brandon. This is Debbie Spangler in Cincinnati. Remember when I said that you'd have the DVD on Friday? Well, it seems the post office had other ideas.

Did you send it for Saturday delivery? Because if you did, we're not in the office on Saturday.

Nope. It was mailed Thursday afternoon for Friday morning delivery. May I send one overnight by FedEx or is it too late?

Sure, go ahead. I'll walk it over to the producers myself.

You guys can have Adam the hottie. I'm in love with Brandon.

Thank Bacchus!

Oh you HAD to be here! The wine had breathed the proper amount of time ~ which in my life, means it's been opened and poured into a wineglass.

I was working at my computer after an extremely long and difficult cook day. Mr. Client loves lots of spices, onions, garlic, jalapenos etc. ~ you get the idea ~ while Mrs. Client is a no salt, no fat, no cheese, no dairy, no meat, no spice, no onion, no, no, no, no, person. Needless to say, these cook days, while fun since they are my favorite clients, are sometimes (OK most times) quite challenging.

By the way it's Friday. It's the third day in a row of 100+ degrees and I've had to schlep my equipment in and out of homes too many times this week.

And don't even ask me about the hot flashes!

So my sweet husband, Tim, interrupts the work in progress ...

Be really glad that you weren't asked to submit a videotape for Bravo TV last year!

Huh?

And he begins to read to me ~ from the Time Warner Channel Guide, September 2007 ~ which has never been high on my reading list, but, thank Bacchus he's always around to read it to me:

Bravo TV New Show: Better Half
Premiers: October 2007
What's it About:

(You gotta love this)

Hosted by Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and produced by the folks who brought you Battle of the Network Reality Stars, this six~hour reality competition pits the spouses of trained creative professionals (chefs, hairdressers, etc.) against each other. The professionals will have two days to train their spouses in their craft, and then the results will be assessed by the judges. As anyone who's ever tried to train their spouse in anything will tell you, it's a huge pain in the ... I mean it's funny, honey! It's fun!

It's taken me 22 years to train him to find the dishwasher. Teaching Knife Skills would be equal to earning a Master's Degree in two days!

Thank Bacchus I was on my second (or was it fifth) glass of wine. God I love Bacchus!

YIKES!

I was sitting at my computer today furiously creating new recipes and minding my own business when my cell phone rings. Now on a Friday afternoon at 3:30 after a long cook day, chances are it's a friend asking me to share a couple (OK quite a few) libations.

"Hi, this is Debbie"

"Hi, this is Brandon from Bravo TV"

Yeah right, I think to myself. It's one of my many friends who think their funny. And most of the time they're not!

"Hi Brandon. What can I do for you?"

"We're discussing a show about personal/private chefs and the trials and tribulations of cooking every day, all day, dealing with clients and their food quarks, etc.. Can we talk a minute?"

I'm jumping up and down so fast my teeth start rattling.

"Of course" the calm marketer in me said.

He explained what he's looking for and what he hopes I can provide for him. Needless to say, I agreed that, of course, what he wants is absolutely no problem. I only have a full cook week with several evening commitments. Who needs sleep as long as there are libations?

YIKES! Now in addition to my normal (crazy) cook week, I have to find somebody to help me film a video in a very short timeframe (as in let's film this bad boy on Tuesday and Wednesday), edit on Thursday and have it in overnight delivery for Friday. No problem.

Double YIKES! Thank Bacchus I have a good bottle of red at my fingertips.