100th Anniversary Disney Cookbook Signing + Cocktails in Orlando!

My dear friend Pam Brandon has written most, if not all, of Disney’s theme park cookbooks.  And Pam’s handing out cocktails while signing her latest cookbook, Delicious Disney: Disneyland: Recipes & Stories from The Happiest Place on Earth this Sunday, November 5, 2023, from 4 – 6 p.m. at The House on Lang at 1308 Lang Avenue, Orlando.

I’ve known Pam for almost 20 years. She is loved and respected by Disney’s park chefs.  And we’ve shared a ton of meals together all around Walt Disney World.  One of Pam’s awesome skills is her ability to taste the specific ingredients in whatever dish she’s served.  That’s helpful when you’re trying to figure out the chef’s particular take on a dish.

Another thing I love about Pam is her willingness to share Disney park recipes.  The first recipe I ever asked Pam for was Le Cellier’s Cheddar Cheese Soup.  And Pam sent it to me a couple days later.

What I didn’t realize is that the recipe Pam sent me was adapted from the kitchen, not the one that would eventually make it into the cookbooks.  Should I have been suspicious when the first step was to cook TWO POUNDS OF BACON AND FOUR WHOLE ONIONS???!!?  Probably, but what did I know about cooking?  In my defense, nobody in my house asked what I was doing when I hoisted our 7 1/2 gallon aluminum turkey-frying pot onto the stove for this.  I should not have been left unsupervised with that much cheddar.

Anyway, I spent a couple of hours rendering bacon, melting four pounds of cheese, and mixing quarts and quarts of milk and chicken stock. It’s actually a pretty decent workout to stir that much soup for that long.

On the positive side, the recipe absolutely worked. It was EXACTLY like being in Canada.  The downside was that the recipe made 40 servings of soup – the regular recipe makes 10.

Undeterred, I vowed to eat as much of that soup as I could.  And I did, meal after meal and day after day, until the light scent of cheese, bacon, and onion oozed from my pores.

I learned a valuable lesson that fall about reading a recipe all the way through before making it.  And with Pam’s permission, the recipe for 10 servings of Canada’s Cheddar Cheese Soup is below if you’d like to try it. Pairs well with a nice Canadian beer.

Please let me know in the comments how it works for you.