Dining at Remy on the Disney Dream

Those of you who are regular followers know that Mr. Photos From The Parks and I are Disney foodies. Not only do we love a dole whip whenever we can find one, we've also dined at Victoria and Albert's more than once, enjoyed Lunch with an Imagineer in Hollywood Studios and have mourned the passing of our favorite Bistro de Paris. We like to try new things and love inventive foods. And for the most part, we are always pleased by what Disney has to offer.

It is no understatement for me to say that the meal I had at Remy, aboard the Disney Dream, is quite possibly the best meal I have ever had. Ever. In the movie, Ratatouille, Anton Ego remarks in his review of Gusteau's that "to say that the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement." I have to concur with this foodie. You will not be disappointed.

Remy, the restaurant, is themed beautifully to the movie Ratatouille. If you have not watched it before and you are a food lover, you must stop what you are doing this minute and watch. If you find yourself on a Disney cruise, you can always pull it up on demand before your reservation. It is amazing the attention to detail in this restaurant. Everything from floor to ceiling is like you would see it in Ratatouille. And Little Chef is there too. Your server can help you spot him if you wish. But don't be deterred by the theming. It is as elegant as any restaurant we've been to in Paris. We were seated in the Gusteau Room. It was very intimate with a gorgeous view of the sea. We had the privilege of watching a storm roll in and may have made a few bad jokes about how our meal tasted "lightening-y."

I will not go through the entire menu, but I will offer up this bit of advice. We let our server know that we considered him and our chef the experts of the evening and we were entirely at their mercy. We did not order from the menu, but let them choose for us what we would be served. I had never before had the experience of a server telling me that he was proud to be serving me that evening. And our server, Juan, was amazing. He walked us through the water menu (yes, I said water menu), brought over the sommelier who helped us make the perfect selection for a bottle of wine that paired with every course, was only as attentive as we needed him to be, determined our food preferences and dietary restrictions, and brought us stunning course after course. Our cheese master, BB, was exceptionally knowledgeable  about the cheese course too, letting us know which ones would be for the more adventurous palate.

I never once had to worry about my food sensitivities; once they were mentioned, I was all set. From the start, they brought me gluten free bread that actually tasted and felt like baguette. And they brought me ghee instead of butter. The entire meal was that way. Before I even had the chance to ask, Juan would tell me about the special changes to my meal that made them gluten and dairy free. I felt like a princess! And everything was delicious. More than delicious. It was delectable.

From the moment we arrived to the last bite of the evening (and the sweets they sent home with us!) we were delighted. The experience of dining at Remy is one I will not soon forget. For my money, it's worth every dime. If you are hesitant about taking the time out of your cruise or finding the money in your budget, I would encourage you to do it. I am still dreaming of the loveliness of that evening.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Scrapping Disney | Ratatouille Birthday Party

Sometimes there is the perfect scrapbooking kit for you pages, and sometimes what you want is so obscure you just have to figure it out for yourself! This was one such moment when I found myself in need of some Ratatouille themed Project Life cards. Well. Good luck! I knew it was going to be a hard sell. So instead, I purchased some PNG files from Pinky Katie over on Etsy and made my own! You can click on each layout to enlarge it for further detail.

The key to creating you own filler cards, is to stick with a color palette and not over embellish. These rules, simple as they are, can be tricky for me! I did my best. I played around a lot with my styles and patterns and I really love the way it looks! And I'm not so big on journaling right now. I'm just too tired by the time I get around to actually scrapping the photos. The pictures tell most of the story. However, if you want to read all about it, you can check out this blog post to get all the details on the "how to."

I mentioned it before, but if you have never made your own marshmallows, it is SO worth it. They are entirely different than what you will get in the store!

It was so much fun to relive this party through scrapping it. I think that's part of the reason we scrapbookers do it, to be reminded of all the good stuff. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Disney DIY Back To School Lunch Ideas

It's hard to believe it's that time again! We are all headed back to school this week here in our neck of the woods. And because, apparently, I need a certain level of chaos in my life to be fulfilled, we are also heavily into potty training right now. In lieu of all this, I thought I'd run a few of our back to school posts from last year. Enjoy them!

Lunch Sacks

I think one of the best things that Disney (and especially Pixar) does is create an entire world you can believe exists. I love the detail that goes into these movies. And one of my particular obsessions is Disney's fictional brands: Lightyear Tires, BnL, Dinoco, etc. So for this particular project I thought it would be fun to make take-out sacks for those lunches that require disposable packaging. (Our field trip days are always like that!)

These are two of my favorite fictional restaurants, Tiana's Palace, from The Princess and the Frog, and Gusteau's from Ratatouille. I created a couple of PDFs using some custom shapes and Adobe creative suite. The font for Tiana's Palace is Edwardian Script. You probably already have it on your computer. The font for Gusteau's is Futura. It's one of my favorites. If you would like to download these free PDFs, you are welcome to use them! You can find Gusteau's here, and Tiana's Palace here. And to find the info on the Arendelle Chocolatier bag, head on over to this post for all the details.

To print, simply load the bag into the left side of the printer bottom down, bottom fold facing away from you. Don't worry about it looking upside down, it should be. Also, ignore any cropping warnings you get. It should print out properly, but I would recommend running a test copy on paper before putting your bag through. And if you need more visual instructions for printing the bags, check out Geeky Paper Ideas. There was a small learning curve with loading the bags for me. One went in flawlessly, the other was eaten. Ah well. Not everything is sprinkled with fairy dust!

I'd like to design a few more of these in the future, but until then, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Ratatouille Birthday Party for Little Chef

As you regular readers will know, Little Chef is all about the cooking. Any time one of us is in the kitchen he demands a chair so he can be at the counter with us, no matter how small the task. So it was really a no brainer to have a Ratatouille themed birthday party for him this year! I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't a lot of work, but it was so much fun and Little Chef could not have been happier! It was worth every bit of time and effort putting this party together.

I had plans to use this adorable rolling pin invitation, but as it turns out, this busy mom just couldn't get it done. So instead I went with my old stand-by, Red Stamp. If you've never used this amazing app, I highly recommend it. It makes keeping up with birthdays and holidays a snap! We sent electronic invitations to keep it simple.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much Ratatouille themed party decor was available on Amazon. After all, it's been seven years since Ratatouille was released. (Can you believe it's been that long?) But we were able to find party hats (toques), balloons (which you can see in the photo above) and a backdrop with Linguini and Remy for our party. Perfect for those photo ops!

And remember these Gusteau's take out sacks from our back to school posts? Of course I printed them up and used them for goody bags!

The cooking part was a lot more like decorating, but the toddlers didn't seem to mind! I decided to have two different stations. Our table is pretty big, and we have a rule of thumb that we only invite as many kids as the age you are turning (in this case 3). So I set up each end of the table with "cooking stations."

The first thing we did was make chocolate fondue fruit kabobs. We had lots of fruit cut up (whatever looked fresh at the market) and I whipped up a chocolate sauce. This is so easy and a real hit with the kids!

The second station was a decorating station. I decided to make homemade marshmallows so we could decorate them, along with brownies. I had never made marshmallows from scratch, but I had heard they were to die for. I was shocked at how easy they were to make! Of course Little Chef helped me make them and the sensory experience and transformation was enough to make both of us giddy! I used Alton Brown's recipe to make them. If you try it, make sure you watch the video first. I was so glad I knew what to expect as I was working in the kitchen. I love the way these turned out. They were delicious and decorating them was new and different! I was concerned that the marshmallows would melt in the chocolate and frosting, but they held up beautifully! I used cake pop sticks to make them easy to handle.

I wanted everyone to have individual decorating supplies. I know the sorts of arguments that can break out over shared equipment! These mini muffin tins were the perfect solution. I filled each section with all natural colored sugars from India Tree. I would never have dreamed how much fun the kids had with these!

And see those aprons? I made one for each guest to take home as party favors. They were so easy I was able to whip up all three of them in one quick afternoon. I figured the mom's would appreciate it too! I made them from old pillowcases that needed repurposing. You can read all about them in Tuesday's post.

And then we sat around playing with all the great toys that Little Chef received for his birthday! It was a great party and so fun catching up with good friends! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Little Chef Aprons for a Ratatouille Themed Party

I found this wonderful child-sized apron pattern on line and decided I really needed one for my Little Chef. In fact, he had a fabulous cooking party earlier this month and we made one of these for each of the guests.

A few things about this pattern make me very happy:

1. It attaches with velcro, so little hands can do it themselves.
2. It has an elastic neckband so it fits easily over all size heads
3. It takes very little fabric and requires only straight stitch sewing

I am all about repurposing, up cycling and the like (Jiminy Cricket would be so proud). I found two pillowcases that were in sore need of a new life. I was able to get TWO aprons from one king-size pillowcase! And since I had some elastic and velcro on hand, these were absolutely free to me! Now that's a project anyone can get behind! And not just that, but the pattern was so easy I was able to make three of these in one afternoon. That is time very well spent.

I decided to leave these white, with on embellishment on them at all, since they were part of a larger party theme. But these would be so easy to personalize with your Silhouette or even just different fabric and trims! I'd love to know if you decide to make these. And stay tuned for scenes from our big Ratatouille party coming up on Thursday! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Themed Paper Take-out Sacks | Back to School

I think one of the best things that Disney (and especially Pixar) does is create an entire world you can believe exists. I love the detail that goes into these movies. And one of my particular obsessions is Disney's fictional brands: Lightyear Tires, BnL, Dinoco, etc. So for this particular project I thought it would be fun to make take-out sacks for those lunches that require disposable packaging. (Our field trip days are always like that!)

These are two of my favorite fictional restaurants, Tiana's Palace, from The Princess and the Frog, and Gusteau's from Ratatouille. I created a couple of PDFs using some custom shapes and Adobe creative suite. The font for Tiana's Palace is Edwardian Script. You probably already have it on your computer. The font for Gusteau's is Futura. It's one of my favorites. If you would like to download these free PDFs, you are welcome to use them! You can find Gusteau's here, and Tiana's Palace here.

To print, simply load the bag into the left side of the printer bottom down, bottom fold facing away from you. Don't worry about it looking upside down, it should be. Also, ignore any cropping warnings you get. It should print out properly, but I would recommend running a test copy on paper before putting your bag through. And if you need more visual instructions for printing the bags, check out Geeky Paper Ideas. There was a small learning curve with loading the bags for me. One went in flawlessly, the other was eaten. Ah well. Not everything is sprinkled with fairy dust!

I'd like to design a few more of these in the future, but until then, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!