An Enchanting Dinner...At Pepsico

Stuart bought a raffle ticket at work with the hopes of winning this prize.....

Dinner for 6 at the Frito-Lay Culinary Innovation Center and Flavor Kitchen....."Experience the Culinary Innovation Center at Frito-Lay in Style!"

Oh, how we prayed to win!  And he did!  Woo hoo!

We invited some of our dearest, long time friends to enjoy the evening with us.  I loved spending time with them and catching up on all of our busy lives.  It's nice to have a date night now and then that is totally kid-free and just focused on the adults!

 

The beautiful ladies

And the handsome gents

The evening was just incredible!  Jody Denton, Executive Research Chef for Frito-Lay and staff put together an amazing dining experience for us. We sipped champagne and experienced a multi-course “dream” dinner complete with wine pairings prepared by the most creative chefs in the industry. 

The food was incredible but what was really fascinating was that each dish was prepared with some kind of Pepsico product!  And we got to watch it being prepared right in front of us. So amazing!

Here's a peek at what we had.  (Please try not to drool on your keyboard!)

Hors d'Ouevres

Petite Ruffles Lobster Roll on Toasted Brioche

 Doritos Barbacoa Empanadas with Rajas con Crema

Amuse
(When you have two young kids, you don't usually get to go to places that serve an "Amuse".  How fun!)

Peas and Carrots with Smoked Rabbit and Bacon with Kettle Cooked Mediterranean Herb Chips

Soup

Tomato and Naked Carrot Juice Soup en Croute

Pasta

Butternut Squash and SunChips Gnocchi with Parmesan-Sage Brown Butter, Prosciutto and a Basted Farm Egg

It was such a neat experience to be sitting at a bar right in front of the chefs making our food.  They were all friendly.  They chatted a little, answered questions for us, and told us a little about how they made the dishes.

Main Course
(Yes, all of that food and we are just now getting to the main course!)

Olive and Herbes de Provence Marinated Roast Leg of Lamb Ratatouille Tian, Lay's Lyonnaise Potatoes with Trop 50 Mustard Sauce

Here the chefs are plating the potatoes.

Oh, the lamb!  It was divine!  It melted in my mouth.

Beautiful presentation, of course!

Dessert

Quaker Oatmeal, Peach-Blackberry Crostata with Tropicana Orange Ice Cream

Yes, we were full by now but we all made room for this delicious finale!

What incredible fine dining...right there in the Frito Lay Flavor Kitchen.  Here's a list of the Pepsico products used:

• Ruffles Potato Chips
• Doritos Tortilla Chips
• Kettle Cooked Mediterranean Herb Chips
• Naked Carrot Juice
• SunChips
• Lay's Potato Chips
• Trop 50 Orange Juice
• Tropicana Orange Juice

I'm so inspired to pull out a few bags of chips and see what incredible ideas I can come up with in the kitchen.

After dinner, we got a sneak peek into the behind-the-scenes workings of the nerve center for Pepsico creativity.  I had no idea there was so much work and so many people involved in making the perfect chip and chip flavoring.  It was fascinating.

Thank you Chef Denton and the incredible staff in the Frito Lay Flavor Kitchen!