Forty-eight hours with Miele transformed a New York trip into a foodie's paradise! Here's a food diary of my culinary adventure captured meal by meal, frame by frame.
{Monday} 8:30am: I meet the Miele team and four other food obsessed bloggers at The Coffee Shop for breakfast. I order some avocado toast but try to eat slowly and delicately as we're having brunch in about three hours.
9:30am: We walk across the street to Union Square and embark on a hands-on tour of the GreenMarket to pick out items for our cooking adventure. The produce is ridiculously fresh and the variety is ridiculously bountiful. I spot Harry's Berries lookalikes and last of the season peonies. It's a sunny and clear day in New York and for the gazillionth time, I fall in love with the city.
11:30am: We arrive at Miele Experience Center, a showroom accessorized with a fully functioning, highly enviable kitchen. It's a foodie wonderland and I can't stop opening and shutting drawers and sticking my head in refrigerators. There's even a dishwasher that opens after two knocks. My mind is blown. I try to go light on the brunch spread but can't resist the bacon.
2:30pm: We meet at Drybar for blowouts and an epic cheese plate. We're get primped for tonight's 50 Best Restaurants Awards Gala, the Oscars of the culinary world. I know I will be eating heartedly tonight but have never walked away from a cheese plate empty-handed. So I can't break my streak.
7pm: We arrive at Cipriani Wall Street for the gala. Stepping inside the grandiose and legendary event space is like stepping into a different era. The ceiling is forty feet tall adorned with Greek revival charm and renaissance details. The crowd is glamorous, sophisticated, dressed to the nines, and everybody is in a celebratory mood. Champagne and wine flow while stations serve everything from oysters to chocolate to parmigiano shavings. Sponsors are showcasing food inspired installation and Miele's wall of recipes is fun to play with. I sample all and leave no corner uneaten.
9:30pm: I stop taking photos after Osteria Francescanais crowned the world's best restaurant as I need both hands to concentrate on eating the delicious trays of temptation made by Chef April Bloomfield.
{Tuesday} 9:00am: We have breakfast in the hotel where I enjoy a hearty bowl of muesli and scrambled eggs on the side. I need the protein and the energy as we're embarking on a three-hour Chelsea Market Food Tour, a three-hour tour.
10:30am: We arrive at The Chelsea Market, one of my favorite places in New York. It's truly a foodie's paradise filled with purveyors of artisanal delights and handcrafted farm to table meals. Curt, our tour guide talks at the speed of three cups of coffee and hits us with punny jokes left and right. There isn't a dull moment he leads us through a market tasting while filling us with anecdotal history. My favorite is the steak tartare from Dickson's Farmstand. We end the tour at the Highline and I'm sad to say goodbye to Curt.
4pm: We meet back at the Miele Experience Center to cook our goodbye meal together. We're greeted by the scent of freshly baked bread. It's the most delicious sourdough I've ever had and am so happy that the recipe is on the Miele website. We take all the produce out of the giant Miele fridge and everything has remained fresh and crisp. Each blogger picks a piece of the meal to cook and I go straight for the quinoa salad as I get to use the Miele Combi-Steam Oven to make it. I just got one myself and am eager to learn how to use it. Cooking the quinoa in the oven is so easy-just add water and heat for twenty minutes. In that time, I prep the rest of the salad so when the quinoa is ready, so is my salad. We put the rest of the meal together and feast one last time on steam cooked salmon, grilled vegetables, beef tenderloin, and mashed potatoes. For dessert, our Miele chef bakes an incredible vanilla custard pudding.
For forty-eight hours, my tastebuds were treated to an unparalleled culinary adventure making this trip one of my favorites ever! Along the way, I made new friends and opened my eyes to innovative, simple, and delicious ways to cook. I may have gained a few pounds leaving New York, but I left feeling light as a feather and on cloud nine. Thank you Miele for an unforgettable adventure!
