Post script paper calls

Post script: just when I thought it was time to bring out the dinner mints, the Star called. They read my food article on Rabble and asked if I'd write a news piece for their paper. On the cover of tomorrow's living section, and on the web today, here she is: Using the web to find a foodie near you.

The last supper

All this waiting has been enough to make my stomach growl. So as I flip on my stove’s front element and set it to high, prepping dinner, I think to myself: it’s about time.

Three months ago I wrote, “This is the first of many meals to be discussed, dissected, and devoured.” Well, each course of my meal is finished. This morning with the click of a mouse my final feature at j-school went up on Rabble.

I set out to discover the dining set in Toronto that has moved onto the web. Bloggers, restaurant owners, chefs, and critics invited me into their world. Morning meetings brought the best coffee that has swam over my underdeveloped taste buds. Evenings meant dinners or a drink at an industry event.

I visited old restaurants and consumed new media. Each day I’d wake up to a full feed of the new foodies I’d started to follow on twitter. But the semester has come and gone, and with it my story. Another copy, with the photos posted here, will run in Futureale come May—along with Lauren’s column on Cowbell’s butchery sessions.

If we have to bring out the dinner mints (though Lauren says they ruin the good dining taste) now is the time. The marks are in, the story is up; I’m pleased with what I’ve done.

Thanks to all that picked up my calls, sat in front of my camera; offered interest and answered questions. In a city so easy to get lost in, this community is undeniably tight knit and vibrant.

To all the food friends I’ve made over this semester: I’ll see you on twitter.

*all photos are by Ryan Couldrey

Questions and creations with Amanda Laird

By day Amanda Laird is a Communications Specialist with Canadian News Wire. But when she clocks out at the end of the day, Laird returns home to a very orange kitchen and cooks up a storm. On her blog, Mise En Place, she posted recipes and photos of her creations, which range from banana muffins to turkey sandwiches to tomato stew.

I had a chance to do a Q&A with Laird about her blog, twitter feed, and involvement in Toronto’s foodie scene. The response is as follows.

What brought you onto twitter?

As a PR professional, I not only have a natural interest in communications, it’s my job to understand and use various communications vehicles. Originally I signed on to Twitter for professional reasons – to connect with other PR and communications people. When I started my blog in early 2009 it quickly became social and that’s when I started to connect with other food bloggers.

When you tweet about restaurants and meals, do the restaurants ever tweet back?

From time to time, but that’s not why I’m tweeting. I think there are a lot of people who tweet because they want a reaction from a company or a restaurant, especially when they’re angry. But for me, Twitter is more like a miniature online diary.

Have you participated in any foodie meet ups organized on twitter? If so, what was the experience like?

I went to Cupcake Camp Toronto last winter and it was an awful experience. Just way too many people vying for too few cupcakes. We left after a short time but at least our money went to a good cause. But that’s not to say that all meet-ups organized on Twitter are bad or poorly organized. I’ve been to a couple of non-foodie meet-ups organized on Twitter that were awesome, like HoHoTO. Unfortunately I’ve been unavailable for each and every foodiemeet that’s ever been planned.

How do you think the growth of social media has affected the local foodie scene? the local restaurant industry?

Social media is very good at connecting people who are passionate about the same things. Before the Internet I may have loved cooking and eating but there were really few ways to connect with other people who loved the same things, especially since something like cooking can be pretty solitary. I think social media has only made “scenes”, foodie or otherwise, stronger. I’ve been able to connect with so many people through Twitter that I probably would never have met, online or in real life, otherwise.

What makes a good restaurant feed? A good foodie feed?

I don’t know if I can pinpoint certain things that make me like someone’s Twitter feed. I tend to follow people who share interesting links and people who are funny, that gets me every time. When following a brand or something like a restaurant, I want that extra little piece of value – like a deal or a discount.

In September you blogged about a panel discussion you participated in sponsored by the Chicken Farmers of Canada. Have you gotten many similar opportunities as a result of your blog?

There have been a few. I’ve been asked to a couple of press events, including an evening with Curtis Stone where he cooked us dinner using recipes from his latest cookbook and used cookware from his line that’s carried at the Bay.

From time to time I get samples from PR companies to try out and write about. I’ve done it a couple of times, but I’m generally pretty picky about what I’ll write about. My blog is described as a diary of my kitchen, and mostly the food is the backdrop to something else that I’m writing about like childhood memories or celebrating an anniversary with my boyfriend (who’s now my fiancé).

But I’m a PR person too, and I know what it’s like. So if your pitch is well-written and your product is something that I would normally buy I’ll probably write about it. But that’s not why I blog; I do it because I’m a writer and I love writing and I’m passionate about the food that comes out of my kitchen.

A sample of one of Laird's creations:
The Valentine's Day Skillet Cookie

The directions, pulled from Laird's blog:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.
3. In another large bowl, cream butter and sugars (about two minutes if you’re using an electric mixer).
4. Add egg and vanilla, mix until fully incorporated.
5. Add flour mixture, and beat until just combined.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Transfer dough to a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, and press to flatten, covering the bottom of the pan. Bake until the edges are brown and top is golden, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack about 15-20 minutes.

Eats, beats and tweets at Nyood

There isn’t much Roger Mooking doesn’t do. He’s head chef at Nyood, a restaurant on the same strip of Queen St. as The Social and 69 Vintage. He’s also the host of Everyday Exotic on the Food Network, an MC, vocalist, songwriter, and producer. In August 2008 Mooking released his debut album, Soul Food. Well-wired and web savvy, Mooking hosts a vlog on his website and regularly tweets, using the handle @rogermooking.

One night at Nyood Mooking decided to tweet while he was calling out orders as an experiment, and found users quickly tweeted back, from both inside the restaurant and out. The tweets started a conversation about Nyood that was seen by countless followers.

Both Mooking and restaurant manager Sacha Elwakeel saw the potential twitter held for Nyood and talked about different ways to incorporate twitter into their service. Instead of simply strategizing a plan to gain followers, they decided to take twitter to the next level and give it its own event.

The result was Eats, Beats, and Tweets, a two night event that kicked of the Winterlicious festival on January 29. Nyood hired DJs to spin during dinner and projected the restaurant’s twitter feed onto the rough white wall opposite the bar. Before the event Nyood contacted all of its reservations to make sure they had the restaurant’s twitter address, and gave out its password--scarface--to any diners who didn’t want to join.

During the event Nyood staff met with each table, helping newbies set up accounts and post their first tweet. Elwakeel says many of the guests hadn’t used the service before and signed up to participate. “Twitter owes me big,” he laughs.

Guests tweeted to request songs, comment on dishes, and order shots. “They were fascinated they could order drinks without talking to the bartender,” Elwakeel says.

Initially Elwakeel wasn’t so sure about the whole mobile revolution. “My pet peeve is people bringing blackberrys into the restaurant,” he says, pulling out his own to peck at the buttons and imitate a distracted diner. “I thought: how can I turn this into a good thing?”

Testing out twitter on such a large scale was a bit nerve-wracking, Elwakeel admits. “It’s a big risk letting people comment,” he explains, “I can control the food and the atmosphere, but I can’t control new technology.”

But the evening went well, and was successful enough that Nyood is considering planning a similar monthly event. “The only problem was that we were focused on twitter and not the tables,” Elwakeel says, explaining that tweeting added an extra task for a staff already working at break neck speed.

“It was a fun thing,” he says. “But would I do it every night? No.”

BBQ brings foodies online and out of town

Buster Rhino’s Southern BBQ is far, far away from the neighbourhoods Ontario’s resto hot spots usually reside in. The restaurant’s address is 2001 Thickson Road, south of the 401 in Whitby. But a location off eaten path hasn’t stopped Buster Rhino’s from becoming one of the most buzzed about restaurants outside of city limits, or a trending topic amongst Toronto’s tweeting foodies.

In May 2009 Buster Rhino’s owner Darryl Koster signed up for twitter. The former owner of Status Technology, a business that built databases and the back end of websites, Koster knows a lot about the web. When he started tweeting, the messages were mostly about business, but he soon got to know prominent foodies like Joel Solish and Suresh Doss, and the dialogue then turned into a conversation between friends.

This is the most effective way to use the service, Koster says. “If you don’t converse with people on twitter, it won’t work for you,” he says. “You have to interact.”

Koster found the followers he interacted with both online and in his restaurant became friends and vocal advocates, urging others to get out to Whitby and try the BBQ. “Your friends are always the best advocates for you,” he says. “Referrals are always more sincere than advertisements.”

After a few months of interaction, if you are successful, you begin to build up trust with your followers. They know what you post about and are willing to try your suggestions, if you have pleased them in the past. This connection can be much more powerful than the traditional bond between advertiser and consumer. The belief is that unlike advertisers, friends never lie.

To demonstrate how a viral message can directly affect business, Koster refers to a recent tweet he posted stating that the Queen St. restaurant Cowbell has the best burgers he’s ever tasted. Ten people tweeted back asking, Really?! The best?? By the time he tweeted a re-affirmation, thousands of people had seen the conversation and received the message: Cowbell’s burgers are really, really good.

Koster says at least one customer tells him they learned about his business on twitter every single day. Buster Rhino's has also held a series of tastings Koster promotes on twitter, and so far each has sold out. He says he’s fortunate—the local internet has been good to him. He knows other restaurants haven’t been so lucky. Koster refuses to name names, but says he’s seen many restaurants hurt by foodies ranting about them on the web. “I’ve seen several instances on Chow Hound when someone was torn down,” he says.

The only way to influence crowd sourced sites like Chow Hound, or to gain positive chatter on twitter, Koster says, is to treat the crowds right, every time. “Make sure you serve the best food you can and treat all of your customers with respect. That’s just the way to operate a good business,” he says.

Buster's smoked pulled pork, photo snagged from lipsofcrimson on Flickr

@whetmyappetite catches z's on the car ride, also grabbed from Flickr

*Note: Buster Rhino's has a second location, also off the eaten path, at 30 Taunton Rd. E in Oshawa, which opened in February. Please excuse the pun.

Video Chat

Last week Lauren Wilton, Joel Solish, and Mary Luz Mejia sat down with me to talk about how social media has changed the food community. As active community members, bloggers, and tweeters, they've seen the landscape of Toronto's food scene change in recent years.

We talked about how and why they tweet, which restaurants have the best twitter feeds (and food), foodie meet ups, and followers becoming friends.

Meet my video stars

Last Thursday these three made the trek to the Ryerson campus, where I led them down the long dark hallway towards our online computer lair. There they sat down before my video cam and chatted about eating, tweeting, and the like.

I'll post the full video tomorrow, for now, meet my guests: