(This post was originally written by Michelle B. for Eating Tampa.)
Along with the Personal Chef thing, my Super Cutie and I moonlight as food stylists. I see all of those puzzling faces out there. Allow me to explain.
A food stylist is the person behind the scenes at every camera shoot, whether it is for print or for TV, which makes the food look pretty. That perfect Pumpkin Pie on the Today Show Chef spot? It was not made by Rachael Ray; a far more experienced Chef made it. Oh, and it’s probably not edible.
Food Stylists work very long hours and have to be able to do every culinary technique perfectly. As good, if not better than the Chefs they are working for. We use A LOT of tricks too.
Now that we all know what a food stylist is, I spent the last 48 hours at HSN (Home Shopping Network). We were working for a client doing our food stylist thing, when all of a sudden Todd English comes walking down the hall. TODD ENGLISH people!!!!!!!!!
For those of you who do not know who Todd English is, he’s like only one of the best Chefs in America. My hubby has drawn a lot of inspiration from Chef English over the years. He’s one of those big Chefs that has worked his ass off to be a big Chef and it was his food that made him a big Chef, not his personality or his good looks; which Todd English does possess.
For us, meeting Todd English would be similar to a 15-year-old girl meeting Brittany Spears. We’ve met a lot of celebrities in our line of work and could have cared less, but Todd English!
The whole conversation lasted 30 seconds but hey, we got to shake his hand and tell him he was a huge inspiration. He was very demur and in a big hurry to catch his flight (he was rushing out the door when we caught him).
There was something a little off about this, though. His hands were incredibly soft. Like lamb skin. You wanted to rub his hands all over your face. Almost creepy soft. But I’m not going to hold that against the guy. His food is impeccably delicious. His recipes are amazing. He can have as soft hands as he wants too.
Check out my favorite Todd English recipe here. It’s so delicious. It goes perfect with roasted spaghetti squash.
So as the day turned into night, I began the long walk down the hall on my way back to the kitchen, yet again, when who passes me? Chef Cat Cora. 
“Hello.” She said as she passed. I smiled and said “Hello Chef Cora.” As fate would have it, she was there promoting her new Cookbook and she would be going on just after us. I spoke with frequently through the night. She popped into the kitchen a few times offering help to the food stylists, whether it be cooking or washing dishes. I found her to be very down-to-earth. No PR people with her. No managers. No “handlers.” Just little Cat Cora.
I didn’t know much about Chef Cora (other than her Iron Chef thing) until this weekend. She’s been around the block. I didn’t find where she held an Exe Chef spot, but apparently she is opening a restaurant soon. She did create an awesome charity called Chefs For Humanity. It’s like Doctors without Borders only Chefs instead of Doctors. Pretty cool. Simply based on how cool she was, I’ll be paying a lot more attention to Chef Cora.
It’s amazing that we forget HSN is just over the bridge. There are a lot of people walking in and out of those buildings. You never know who you may bump into.
