Hey guys – remember that review I did last month about the Marcus Samuelsson event at Macy’s North Pointe in Alpharetta? Well, the Culinary Council is on a roll bringing in Tyler Florence to Lenox mall for a cooking demo. I was bummed to miss the actual demo (I was attending the gift show downtown at the mart) but I did sneak away long enough to meet Tyler.
So, here’s a brief synopsis of what we talked about:
Tyler shared with us how important he feels it is to get together with family for dinner. And this is part of the reason he put together his 6th book, which comes out in October, Family Dinner. In it, Tyler shares about 200 recipes perfect for a wonderful family meal.
He said he appreciates honest feedback from diners and he does pay attention to sites like Yelp.com to get real feedback about what are things that need to be addressed / corrected in his restaurant. Other sites Tyler likes to visit are: Urbandaddy, Grubstreet, Tablehopper and Eater.
One of the questions asked of Tyler was what he sees as the trend in dining. What he said was “Fancy, fru, fru dining is dead.” Basically he believes that people are looking for comfort food and with the economy the way that it is, affordable food. And that is what he aims to deliver in his restaurant.
Me and Tyler Florence:
It was an honor getting to meet Tyler Florence. He’s so down to earth and such a likeable guy. Um, and oh so hot! As I was headed back down to the mart, I was in such a tizzy from just getting to meet him, I missed my MARTA stop.
Shout out to the folks at Be Everywhere (twitter @beeverywhere) for inviting me.