Make A Wish – Part One

The much anticipated Make-A-Wish meeting with Gordon Ramsay happened yesterday. There are so many things to say about the day, but I’ll address the most asked question first: What was Gordon Ramsay like? He was AWESOME!  So nice and gracious! I’m an even bigger fan now than I was before!

Now I’ll back up and tell you the whole story…

Things progress with Make-A-Wish at a very mysterious pace. We didn’t know any real details about David’s wish until the afternoon on the day before the wish. We were told to dress nicely and that our MAW rep would meet us at the hotel at 2:30 pm. They also told us that there would be a second MAW family going to meet Chef Ramsay.

David’s Make-A-Wish day was also Austin’s 16th birthday, so we had a lot to celebrate. Mark and Susan took the kids into Hollywood to see the walk of fame. David said his hands aren’t quite as big as Leonard Nimoy’s prints outside the Chinese Theater. After the morning outing, Mark and David went back to the hotel room so David could rest, and Susan took Kelly & Austin shopping.

While they were all busy, I checked out a local restaurant, Urth Caffe, and went to the bookstore to pick up a couple of Chef Ramsay’s books for David. I happened across a taping of the tv show “Extra” and got to see Mario Lopez. He’s just as cute in person as he is on tv.

We all met downstairs at the hotel at the appointed time, and our MAW rep, Susie, filled us in on the details. We were to arrive at the studio of Hell’s Kitchen and be in the audience for a taping. David and Hayden (the other MAW kid) would get to meet Chef Ramsay, but they didn’t know if it would be before or after the taping. Also no world on who might get to go in with David to meet the Chef. (I should stop here and note that Susan didn’t accompany us on the Hell’s Kitchen outing because only two adults could be included. Even though Mark, both girls and I went to Hell’s Kitchen with David, we still didn’t know if anyone other than one parent would be able to meet Chef Ramsay.)

They had arranged for two limos – one for us and one for Hayden’s family. Susie rode with us on the way to the show, and she pointed out some sights along the way. The first thing we saw when we arrived were the Hell’s Kitchen SUVs. Then we came around the corner and saw the very impressive front of the “restaurant”. It looks like a restaurant, but it is really a tv set turned into a restaurant. Not sure if that makes sense… picture one of those large movie set buildings, and in the middle, they have turned a section into a restaurant. On the outside, and as you enter, it looks like a restaurant in that middle portion of the building, but like any set, you can go beyond a certain point (in this case through doors) and you are behind the scenes.

They have a check-in process in which they took our pictures and then took our stuff… cell phones, cameras, bottles of water… anything that you wouldn’t normally carry into a restaurant. The cell phones were taken so that we couldn’t document anything about the show or what happened.

After handing over our stuff, they took us outside the restaurant to wait in a line with the other patrons. We were toward the back of the line, but were pleasantly surprised when they led us to a table in the second row back from the kitchen. We had an excellent view of Chef Ramsay as he worked with the teams who were making our dinner.

We were having a good time, but our team was running into some trouble. That’s all the time I have for now! I’m boarding my plane for home, so I will have to finish this update later. Sorry to leave you hanging! I’ll update more this afternoon.