Frosting No, they're not real flowers, they're frosting. Chef's Kitchen in Edgecomb video taped a television show last week on how cakes like this, some costing as much as $100,000 each, are made by Sylvia Weinstock.

Lured by the promise of sampling a piece of a cake prepared by "The Leonardo Da Vinci of cakes" - whose average cake sells for over $100,000 - my wife convinced me to attend the taping of a TV cooking show at Roger Bintliff's "Chef's Kitchen Studio" in Edgecomb on June 18.

Jim Simons, the sales manager for Chef's Kitchen, arranged for us to attend the taping of two shows involving the preparation and sampling of desserts… chocolate…desserts , which are two of the three major food groups in my life.

So, at 9:40 a.m. we walked through the door at the Chef's Kitchen Studio next to Sheepscot Pottery on Route 1, and were greeted by Simons. In another life, he was a chef in the Monterrey-Carmel area of California, two towns at the northern end of what may be the most scenic roadway in the US. In 1989, his dad moved to Squirrel Island. He followed for a summer visit, and decided to stay in Maine. He lives in Woolwich now and is perfectly suited to be the meet and greet person at the Kitchen.

He offered us some coffee with donuts, bagels, and bear-paw sized muffins, then took us upstairs and got us seated at one of the ten tables set up just behind the cameras with a close-up view of the kitchen set and the bakers.

The first thing we noticed were the miles of wire and people chattering to each other over headsets as they scurried around the set. It takes a team of about 10-15 lighting, sound and camera people to perform all the operations that must be performed simultaneously and seamlessly for a taping to come together properly.

The director, Steven Horn, soon shouted that the taping was about to begin, and the cameras started rolling, with Roger Bintliff introducing Hope Cohen who would be the on-camera hostess with Leonardo herself, Sylvia Weinstock. Sylvia has been married for 60 years, and has designed and decorated thousands of cakes, mostly wedding cakes, over the 30 years she's operated her "cake-studio" in New York City.

According to Simons, her average cake sells for over $100,000, and she has made them for clients all over the world (see www.sylviaweinstock. com for some examples of her one-of-a-kind cake designs.)

Sylvia Weinstock Cakes, Ltd employs about 15 people who produce between four and 20 cakes per week, depending on the season. Nine of the 15 people hand-make all the flowers that decorate a cake, each of them able to make about 100 flowers a week. Cohen was able to make some fairly good flower petals under Weinstock's watchful eye by starting with an oval shaped ball of sugary dough about the size of a grape, notching it with a knife then shaping the sliver of dough into a rose petal.

Asked if she had created cakes for any celebrities, Sylvia instantly won us over when she shot back, "Every one of my customers is a celebrity!" That attitude and a strong following of happy customers has made her world famous. For us, she made a rich chocolate cake topped by a very light frosting, made with only the finest and freshest ingredients. Her advice about baking is that "it's all proportion and chemistry, so you have to follow the recipe exactly. There's lots of room for experimenting when you cook, but little to no room when you bake." She bakes at a low temperature to prevent the cake from doming. When the recipe calls for vanilla, she buys it fresh and peels the covering to get at the vanilla bean.

Weinstock signed one of her books for Horn with the inscription "Life is a Sweet Celebration!" which about sums up her outlook on life, and reflects the title of the book, "Sweet Celebrations… The Art of Decorating Cakes," written with Kate Manchester.

She has just completed a new book titled "Sensational Cakes" to be published in October. She also recently collaborated with Godiva Chocolate on a chocolate product to be marketed jointly, and is working out an idea for a China serving plate designed specifically to present cakes.

Following her segment, Brant Dadaleares, the pastry chef at Fore Street Restaurant in Portland, prepared a rich chocolate dessert called panna cotta (looks like crème brulee) with a chocolate sorbet that could be highly addictive.

Fore Street is a hot ticket in Portland, located at 288 Fore Street, and reservations (775-2717) are highly recommended since this restaurant frequently appears in lists of the top 100 restaurants in America. Part of the reason for that has to be his desserts. He graduated from the New England Culinary School in Vermont, and fell in love with pastry during his stints at some of the best eateries in New England, where, fortunately for us, he set a goal to become one of the premiere pastry chefs in New England.

On a bi-monthly basis, Simons and Bintliff supervise the taping of 21 thirty-minute food preparation programs in just three days. Soon, the public will be invited to attend the taping of one or two shows featuring some of America's finest chefs. "Chef's Kitchen" reaches an audience of 13 million viewers on stations up and down the east coast and as far west as Las Vegas. It is carried locally on WMTW (ABC) Channel 8 at 5 p.m. Thursday and 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

The next taping session will be in August. If you're interested in being in the audience, Jim Simons at 882-7760 can provide details and free ticket reservations. You can also visit www.necaforum.com for information about the Chef's Kitchen Studio and Roger Bintliff's unique vision for the New England Culinary Arts Forum, where interested people can learn the ins and outs of food preparation from some of the finest players in the food preparation industry.

This may be a show directed at food preparers, but I can give personal testimony to the fact that it's great for eaters as well! What an experience!