The 10th Annual Chef & Sip Challenge was held yesterday at the Hotel Canandaigua. It was presented by the Canandaigua Kiwanis Club.  

Our Chefs, Daniel Cobb and Julie Woloson offered up Yankee Pot Roast and Mashed Potatoes garnished with puff pastry/carmalized onion & chive.  It was a feast for the senses and they came home with the prize of Most Creative!  Congratulations to these talented chefs!

Lots of familiar faces in the photos.  You will see some of our wait staff, Matt Pelton and Kaylee White, out enjoying the day along with retired Executive Director, Aimee Ward. The venue was beautiful, the competition was fierce, but there was great camaraderie among the many talented chefs.  There is so much talent in this region of the Finger Lakes and we are fortunate to have some of that talent right here at Ferris Hills and Clark Meadows.

In these pictures you can see a flurry of activity in Rayburn Hall as we prepared for our annual Holiday Dinner Extravaganza.  The centerpieces were made from foraging in the woods.  Residents got together and did all the arranging.  The invitations were sent out, our chefs were busy planning and preparing, and the staff helped arrange and set the tables.  The parties have begun.  Each floor has their own private dinner in the great hall.  It is an opportunity to give thanks and to spend time with neighbors and friends.

Ok.  So we clearly had a lot of fun showing the Barbie Movie in Rayburn Hall on Friday.  The pre-party was a hoot!  The energy our residents brought to the event was palpable.

It's a fun movie, but since I'm blogging on a website for a Senior Community, I thought I might dig deeper and my attention went to the bench scene.  Academy award winning, fashion designer, Ann Roth, meets Barbie on a bench where Barbie looks at this elderly woman and says, "you're beautiful," and Ann Roth responds, "I know it."  There it is!!!  Women talking to each other through generations.  Barbie's decision to leave Barbieland and embrace the discomforts of the human experience and to see beauty in aging are some of the themes in the movie.  

There was magic in the air on friday as we drank pink cocktails, ate pink popcorn, and enjoyed each other as modern women living in challenging times.