Orlando Travel Log — Disney Institute
Cooking and Culinary Arts

The culinary studio where Jolie and I (Valerie) took the Celebrations class. We created a gift basket and learned some great entertaining tips...

..like a red wagon picnic.

The Cover Page Techniques class covered presentation and how Southern Living photographers and food stylists create those tempting magazine covers. This is my (Valerie) attempt at a cover page photo. I'll keep working at it, but it didn't take 2 people working an entire week to take this photo.

The instructors at the Disney Institute, are top notch. Both instructors, Mark and Darin, have fabulous culinary credentials.
Mark taught us some wonderful techniques, like how to flip food instead of stirring. It was messy, but we didn't have to clean up.

I learned how to make a red velvet cake. The most important trick is to ice it twice—the first icing is a thin coating that sticks the crumbs to the cake. Freeze for a few minutes to harden the icing, and then add the final layer.

I made this little cupcake-sized version—Ron ate it for breakfast, yum.

The instructor's cake, not mine.

Another photo of a dish that I cooked. Still not magazine quality? A real food stylist would hide all pasta ends. For some reason, people don't like to see them in a photo.

Another attempt. Better?

And another. Better yet? Oh well, the cake tasted wonderful.

Now on to the Taste of the World class. Ron, Valerie, Luis and Jolie took this class. Having eaten at Bongos, a Cuban restaurant in Downtown Disney, it was fun to learn to make Cuban food, like fried plantain (testones).

Our instructor, Mario, for the Taste of the World class. He's a self-taught chef of Southern Florida cuisine.

We made Snapper Scaloppini Escovitch and Tropical Tabbouleh Salad and learned the correct way to use a knife. This is Luis' plate with a double-decker tower of tabbouleh