The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games has brought a lot of worldwide media attention to Vancouver, and via my job running Salt Tasting Room, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have been involved with some fantastic press opportunities over the last few days, from the Sunday New York Times, to Condé Nast Traveler, the Sydney Morning Herald and so on, plus we’ve been seeing Google Alerts come through for Russian magazines and such, saying things like “А хорошенько полакомиться блюдами “континентальной” кухни можно в Salt Tasting Room (вино, ветчина и сыры)”, which I hope is a good thing.

The biggest thing I’ve dealt with is having been invited to appear on NBC’s The Today Show the other morning with some other Vancouver restaurant folks (Robert Clark, JapaDog, Thomas Haas) to showcase the things we do in Vancouver’s food scene.

The piece was originally supposed to be 6 minutes, but was shortened to 4, and I was the last to present (ulp!), so I was made aware that it would be a push to get to me.

I was presenting a cheese & charcuterie plate from Salt with a flight of three wines.  I wanted to show off BC wines, and not the big corporate ones, so I had Road 13 ‘Old Vines’ Chenin Blanc and Kettle Valley‘s ‘Old Main Red’.  For the third wine in my flight, I had Alvear‘s Amontillado Sherry, because I love Sherry and so should everyone.

The segment was hosted by Giada De Laurentiis and Meridith Vieira, who were both very sweet and casual with us, taking a fair amount of time to chat pre- and post-segment.

Here’s how it went:

Did you see me, or did you blink?

While I’m ecstatic that Giada presented Salt very, very well – the thing that disappoints me about not getting a chance to speak was missing the opportunity to mention that we make fantastic wine in our region and to give our pals at Road 13 and Kettle Valley a nice little nod.  Sure, it would have probably been all for naught, seeing as the 7 million people watching(!) wouldn’t be able to find that product unless they were in BC, but it would’ve been, y’know, nice.

On the upside, my appearance has driven a fair amount of tourists to Salt, where we love sharing our home-grown fare.

A few pics from my crazy day:

The ride up in one of their official vehicles.

Ann Curry, Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer & Al Roker on-air.

Wayne Gretzky, who I got to meet, heading down the stairs for his segment.

Giada getting her makeup done while I wait for my turn.  I totally got a bunch of zits from it the next day.

k.d. lang in the green room sitting next to me.

2 minutes before go-time.

Such a great experience and opportunity.  And thanks to my Cherries And Clay writer pal, Jake Skakun, for doing the bulk of the blogging while I’ve been buried in Olympic madness, both at work and at play.

Much more to come…