By Amelia Levin, Contributing Blogger
Foodies and show goers donned bright green shirts labeled with the NRAEF’s ProStart program for high school students and gathered in the Grand Concourse for the second annual Foodie Flash Mob Dance to Pink’s “Raise Your Glass.” Led by Gale Gand, pastry queen and chef/partner of Tru in Chicago, the elaborate dance was choreographed by Austin Lim exclusively for the show.
Floored! caught up with Gale Gand to get her thoughts on this year's dance party.
Last year you missed the dance - why did you get involved this year?
I was signing books and it happened in front of me last year and I was so jealous, I had flash mob dance envy. So when the show asked how I would like to be the industry darling and lead the dance this year, I was like, of course!
How did you pick the song?
We went back and forth for months trying to find the right song because we wanted it to be food related and have a relationship to our industry and our business. I had originally picked the Black Eyed Peas’ song “I Gotta Feeling,” you know the one that goes “tonight’s gonna be a good night…”, but Oprah used it on her show! So we had to scrap that – but Austin Lim who’s the one of the choreographers for Oprah’s dance to do ours. Then we were going to go with “Sugar,” and thought that was too obvious, so when Pink’s song came through we said, oh perfect.
Are you a fan of Pink?
Yes! I am, especially after she had kids.
Do you dance with your kids a lot?
Yes! Actually they were required to learn this one – I’m like everybody’s learning this! I practiced last night a lot with my son who’s a freshman in high school and he’s like, ‘yeah I’ll be ready in a minute mom,’ and he puts on a hat backwards and his cutoff T-shirt and his boxers are hanging out and I said, oh should I dress like that? He said, ‘no mom, this is how I dress when I’m dancing.’ Then my six year olds were doing it too, it was fun.

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