FNSBW&FF Day 1

I'll be in South Beach until tomorrow night, so please try to forgive me for not providing the biggest update right away. I promise to have more information than you probably care to know:-)

Martha Stewart: Favorite Pies

Martha Stewart kicked off the Culinary and Lifestyle seminars on Saturday with her "Favorite Pies" presentation.

She was introduced by the festival's director Lee Shrager, but the crowd had already seen Martha out on the stage for a good twenty minutes before she was on-- inspecting this and that and checking everything to her "perfect" expectations.



Martha's presentation was almost a carbon copy of her daytime talk show. She started off with talking about creating the perfect pie crust and even mentioned that at one point in her life she tried to see how many times she could say "perfect" in one day. Hmm... okay, Martha.

The favorite pie she selected was a Shaker lemon pie. Yum! Sadly, I wasn't able to stay around for the full demo; I had to make it over to see the beginning of Paula.

What you need to know:

• Martha drinks a squirt of lemon juice or vinegar every day to "ward off" bad things. Are you even surprised?
• Martha couldn't remember the word "celibate" when referring to the Shakers. Because of this, she fired a few staff members for not informing her before the show (well, she probably did).

Paula Deen: Paula Deen Celebrates

Paula started while Martha was still going on, so being the FNA that I am I deemed it prudent to make haste and get over there.

I read that Paula grabbed a quick smoke and asked, "What am I making?" before hopping onstage. Paula is a joy to see in person, but I have to say that she is so herself on her shows that it isn't really much of a shock to in her presence. I guess some would say that's comforting. Still, there were none of the "She looks taller/fatter/shorter than I expected" realizations coming from the audience.

In case you were wondering, Paula made the trip with Bobby and her husband Michael (I don't know how/why Jamie would pass up this chance, but maybe he only does TV, now).

To be continued...