Natural Gourmet Institute 35th year anniversary

Last Friday I went to the 35th year anniversary party at Natural Gourmet Institute.
Natural Gourmet Institute
http://www.naturalgourmetschool.com
I graduated there 2.5 years ago.
I moved to NYC for this cooking school and had no idea how long I would stay.
But this day, I went back to school to celebrate their 35th anniversary.
I haven't gone back there for long time but when I got there I could go back the time I was there.
When I was there, my English was worse than now and had to make effort so much to keep up with all the classes. But all the classmates and chefs were so nice to me and I really enjoyed studying there.
When I went into the one room where we had graduation party. I remember that when I had speech there I couldn't stop crying. My mom was there from Japan and I remember that I said to everyone "It's hard to say since here is my mom from Japan but I want to stay in NYC!!!" And at that time I had no idea I could stay here but after almost 3 years and I'm still in NYC.
Now I'm so busy at work and I didn't have much time to go back to past but this place was my start point of life in NYC. And I had hard time sometimes but I survived. I was so glad to go back there in this timing. And enjoyed party a lot!!
Also there was my friend Sachiko who graduated NGI before me and she brought tons of cupcake toppers!!
http://mimicafeunion.blogspot.com
That was the biggest hit in entire night!!
先日、私の通ったナチュラルグルメインスティテュートの３５周年記念パーティーがありました。すでに卒業して２年半以上が経っており、最近は仕事が忙しかったりで思い出す事も無かったのですが、久々に学校に戻ってみると、いろんな記憶がよみがえり、なんとも言えない懐かしい気持ちを味わうことができました。
私はこの学校に通うためにニューヨークに来て、８ヶ月で帰国の予定がいつの間にやら早３年。学校に通っていた頃はまだ英語も今よりはわからず、人一倍努力をしなければ授業について行くのが大変でした。そんな中でもクラスメートやシェフはいつもとってもよくしてくれ、助けてくれたのを覚えています。ちょうど卒業式が行われた実習室に入ったところ、卒業式でスピーチをする際に涙が止まらなかったのを思い出しました。そしてみんなの前で、「日本から母が来てくれているので、言いにくいのですが、このままニューヨークに留まりたいです」と言ったのを覚えています。その後まさか、こんなに長く滞在することになるとは夢にも思いませんでしたが、３年という月日があっという間に過ぎ、ビザの切り替えなど苦労も多かったのですが、今もこうして、元気に楽しくこちらで働くことができています。このニューヨーク生活の原点でもあるナチュラルグルメにこのタイミングで戻ってこられたことは本当によかったなと感じつつ、パーティーを楽しむことができました。
そして、同じくナチュラルグルメ卒業生でもある先輩、サチコさんが特製トッパーを持ってこられており。いつものことながら、あっぱれでした！！

The Chew at ABC studio

Yesterday I went to ABC studio to see the shooting of cooking show "The Chew".
http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew
It was not the live show so everyone was enjoying the show even their staffs I think.
The one of host and chef Carla was dancing around the studio and the guy who is comedian and warming up person for audience made fun of everything and made us laugh a lot.
Also we took several kinds of applause before the show started. Loud one, medium one, and the last one was first we laugh out loud and after applaud loud.
The show was so relaxed, fun and yummy cooking show.
The theme was "Fast food" and it was so American!!
All the smell made me so starving and after the show I got Sliders for my late lunch.
I went to Martha Stewart show last time but the audience, staff, atmosphere, everything was different.
Martha show was live maybe that's why but everyone was so tense. But this time, I could tell everyone was enjoying the show. And audience was different. At Martha show they were wearing so colorful clothes and more people came to studio from out of NYC. But this show was more casual I think. Which I like better:)
And our seats were just in front of one of cooking stations so I could see how staff prepare food while the hosts were cooking on the other station. And they moved to this station and put them together and finish the plates. It was really interesting.
The show will be on air on February 26th next Monday. I can't wait to see the show on TV again!! :)

Martha Stewart show

Yesterday I went to studio to see Martha Stewart show.
It was live show and we could get the front seat just in front of the kitchen.
This was the first time to go to TV studio in my life and it was so interesting to see how everyone was working. And also there was kitchen and they were preparing for the cooking part of the show. They made good smell of bacon and it made me so hungry. Also everything was for advertisement so to see how they make products attractive and how they appeal them was really interesting.
They trained us how to react for the show which was so American for me and it was so fun.
For example, just normal applause with "Yeahhhhh", when they show the picture of puppy "Ahhhhhh" and when they show something food "Ummmmm". When I was watching Full House when I was child, every audiences laughed at the same time so I was wondering why. But now I know why!!! lol
The studio was so pretty and it was fun to watch every single parts.
Also there was really strict dress code for audiences. And I didn't have any bright colored dress so I thought so hard to pick what I wear and I ended up to wear white shirt with purple scarf and denim pants though... but when I got to studio, I could know what was good for them. Other audiences were so bright with pink, purple, yellow, red and so on... My dresses are almost all black and other cloths were also simple so I had no choice anyway but now I know. But I wasn't on TV so there was no problem!!! :)
Anyway it was really fun and good experience for me. And Martha was nice!! :)
Thank you for joining me, Stefanie!!!