New Skills at the Spring Home Show

This last weekend was pretty epic. It was the Auburn Spring Home Show and Mason had a much bigger role at the cooking stage. Not only was he schedule to cook all three days, but this year he was invited to host the stage and the other chefs as well. We normally invite local chefs to bring their favorite recipe and do a cooking demo for the audience. Well, this time, we created Chopped Challenges creating mystery ingredients from products sold at our local farmers market. Our chefs had to draw a card to let them know if they were preparing an appetizer, entree, or dessert. We provided them with their mystery ingredients, set the timer for 30 minutes and they had to make it happen using our pantry and in front of a live audience. This is where Mason came in, as a Chopped Junior Champion, he chatted with the chefs, asked great questions, shared food tips and tricks, answered questions from the audience about his experience on Chopped Junior, he told jokes and truly entertained the audiences. As the weekend played out, he ended up doing an additional chopped challenge when one of our local chefs got sick so that put him at 4 live challenges, one cooking demo with his friend Drake, and he hosted 6 other challenges - Mason was one busy kid! It was impressive to watch Mason grow as a performer from one day to the next over such a short period of time, just three days. He told me at the end of the day on Friday, "Mom, this emceeing job is way harder than it looks, but I'm gonna get good at it, you'll see." I'd say he did! The organizer of the show presented him with a thank you card and a big fat check!

Last week was super busy, Mason did multiple television appearances for the home show, in addition setting up the kitchen stage, and doing his final workbooks for his science test coming up. Oh, and he signed with a talent agent! That was something he's been asking me if we could do, as he wants to expand his horizons and start doing some work that is not cooking related. Of course, as we met with the agents, all they wanted to talk about was cooking and his experience on Chopped! We decided to give it a try over the summer and see what comes his way, in addition to a few things we know are coming down the pike for him in the culinary arena. :)

Dave has been in central California working on Guard retention for the last two weeks and he is excited to be home this week. We are heading into a holiday weekend and I'm looking forward to a long weekend vibe. I hope your week is shaping up to be super great!