Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Diva Diverts To ‘Delicious Disney Desserts’ [Pam Brandon Writes A Tasty Cookbook]

Posted Oct 14, 2009 by Jeff Houck

Updated Oct 14, 2009 at 07:25 AM

Longtime readers will remember the great “Divas of Dish” column written by Pam Brandon (above) and Anne-Marie Hodges that once appeared in the Tampa Tribune’s Flavor section. (You can read it online at the Palm Beach Post’s PBPulse web site.)

I brought the Divas onboard at the Tribune after recommendations from friends Heather MacPherson at the Orlando Sentinel (you can read her stories here), and Jan Norris at the Post. She now writes about food at her wonderful blog.

Disney fans will want to pick up Brandon’s new book, “Delicious Disney Desserts,” a cookbook that focuses on the tempting treats created by chefs at the various restaurants at Walt Disney World. She previously authored the book “Delicious Disney” and did the recipe book for this year’s Epcot food festival.

I caught the book signing Brandon had last weekend at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. She said the biggest challenge was whittling the hundreds of dishes available to a manageable batch and then converting the chefs’ recipes for thousands of servings down to home-size cooking.

You can buy the books at the Disney parks as well as online at http://disney.go.com. (Start by clicking the link at the top right that says, “Store.”)

Here’s Brandon talking a little about the process of testing and writing the cookbook recipes, which have to be scaled down from the massive formulas used by chefs at Disney’s restaurants:

Also, here’s a gallery of photos I shot during my visit to the Epcot festival: