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.

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.

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:

Coding a food community

When it comes to the web, Greg Bolton is among the earliest of adopters. He learned to code as a student of Carnegie Mellon’s Supercomputer center in Pittsburg, back in the early ‘90s, when computers were still large grey boxes that relied on dial-up connections.

Bolton’s then-rare ability to write HTML won him a job at the digital marketing agency Henderson Bas, where he helped build user-friendly sites for clients. He eventually quit when business at Pantry, the College St. coffee shop he owns and runs with his wife Liz, started to pick up, but found that what he’d learned at Bas also applied to his new business.

Pantry is currently active on twitter, hosts a blog on its site, and has plans for a rewards program for users who check into the restaurant on foursquare. Social media has provided Bolton the chance to share Pantry’s story, and invite people into the store. “What twitter is neat at is that sometimes you can promote without looking like it,” Bolton says, citing the Rosedale sandwich shop Black Camel’s feed, which updates followers as to how many buns are left, showing how rapidly they go.

Bolton knows how powerful of a marketing tool twitter can be, but still can’t always find the time to tweet—and that’s ok, he says. “If you’re on twitter too much it can look like you’re trying to promote yourself [too heavily], or like you don’t have enough cooking to do.”

While social media has brought changes to the food industry, it’s also brought it closer together, Bolton says. “It’s tied Ontario, particularly Toronto, to Prince Edward County and Niagra,” he says. “It’s made that one big blob of food trends and issues. People are much more aware of things happening outside the city.”

Since the adoption rate of twitter has risen, Bolton has seen the food community become more connected. “I’ve always been on the web and wrestled with how to turn online communities into real communities,” Bolton says. “Twitter seems to hold a key. It’s so immediate and has that many-to-many connection.”

Next up for Bolton is foursquare, but first he has an obstacle to climb over. “I’ve checked in so many times I’m going to be the mayor of here for fucking ever,” he laughs from a table near the kitchen at Pantry.

Even with Bolton’s embrace of new technology, old rules of customer service apply. If regulars don’t use Foursquare, they’ll get special treatment, he says. “If people are in here that much, you should be doing that anyways,” he says of the free coffee he plans to honour future mayors with. “Any good place does that.”

Food criticism a new media world

Ivy Knight’s first impression of twitter is common: “It sounds stupid,” she says. “It’s like your status update on Facebook, but that’s it.”

But fellow chef and writer Jeff Crump—co-author of local food bible Earth To Table—urged her to join the service, telling her how good of a networking tool it is. At first, she was resistant, moaning at the notion of more online networking. But after a few weeks she became a convert.

“You’re learning new links, updates and ideas,” she says, between sips of her beer at 86’d, an industry night she hosts Monday nights at the Drake Hotel. “It’s a message board and a community. You’re messages go out to Toronto and to the world.”

Knight, who until recently was a chef at the Drake, saw potential in twitter, both to find local information and to discuss global trends. She now uses the service to subtly deliver political messages about eating local and boycotting factory farms. But on twitter, she says toning down politics into friendlier tweets works best. “Screaming about it in a PETA way is going to turn [followers] off,” Knight says.

And unlike some irate users, if Knight has a bad experience at a restaurant, she’s not going to tweet about it. “If it doesn’t appeal to me, I’m not going to shout to the world about it,” she says. “I have no intention of taking business away from restaurants where people’s livelihoods are at stake.”

While social media has changed how restaurants do business, it’s also changed Knight’s other business, journalism. Knight writes about food for the likes of the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, and the Toronto Star, but predicts the old media’s style of food criticism will go the way of bata tapes as social media gains prominence. “Why pay [a journalist] when you’ve got a million people doing it for free with the same credentials?” she asks.

“It’s taken the monopoly away from one voice saying ‘this restaurant sucks, this one is great,’” she says. “It’s given it to the masses. That’s now the way the world works.”

Ivy, via her site: IvyKnight.com

Some Valentines we made at 86'd:

@whetmyappetite

Tweets of the week

Twitter allows you to take the pulse of a community at any given time. Check trending topics, influencer's feeds, and the back-and-forth conversation between your favourite foodie tweeters and you can find out everything from where the cool kids are brunching to what the Olympians are eating.

Between February 10 and 17 the chatter was largely about last Tuesday's Eat Drink and Give, Valentine's dinner date reservations, Olympic ceremonies and sports, and unbizarrely, bacon. Sample the week that was, below.

@ChefBangerter reminded followers Feb is heart month

Celeb @ChefMichaelSmth hit the Olympic sized #10,000 meal mark in Vancouver

@BusterRhinosBBQ had its own suggestion for an Olympic sport

And also tweeted some words about buying local

Foodies and industry folk alike flocked to a successful Eat Drink Give (via @TOfoodie)

@Mcutrara brought a farmer from Haiti to speak at the event

Couples across the city dined in near darkness. Chef's wives stayed home. Alone. (via @IvyKnight)

New Years celebrations were cause for cheap Chinese @LaurenDorphin

And lastly, your basic bacon-talk roundup, via @foodie411, @ortdavid, and @TOfoodie. The verdict? Bacon's better than everything but penetration.