When you become part of the food industry—be it as a waiter, bartender, busser, sommelier, manager, prep cook or chef—you begin to see the world of restaurants in a different light. You recognize restaurants for what they are: an unpredictable canvas colored by impulsive personalities, precarious technology, a collection of various talents, and volatile products.
And yet, despite how many service industry professionals there are in the world, it’s a wonder how few great service experiences there are to be had.
We restaurant people know the naked truth and bitter reality of what it takes to create a great dining experience and aren’t shy to express our opinion of how others in the service industry are doing. Because, though we may not be on duty, restaurant professionals are almost always observing, tracking and scoring service and the quality of the food we consume–even if it is just a taco from a shiny truck on a street corner.
It’s rare when restaurant professionals have a great meal or impeccable service. But when we do, we’re sure to tell everyone we know about it. Great service is just that rare.
My raison d’être of becoming a blogger almost three years ago was simple: I needed a place to tell stories about food and what I knew about the restaurant business. My blog wasn’t created to change the world. It was built to describe it.
Because my goal for this website wasn’t to become The World’s Most Popular Food Blogger, or make millions off of advertising, there have been a lots of things I don’t do. I don’t use a computer program to tell me how to search engine optimize my posts for key words. I don’t write about topics I think will gain me advertisers’ dollars or corporate clients. I don’t go to blogging dinners just to get free meals. What I do is write. I write about things that fascinate me and make me want to learn more. I celebrate the underdogs. I enjoy the company of passionate people. I participate in this blogging world in order to participate in a virtual salon on food and expression.
I do, however, come from a background of acting and doing improvisational comedy. My training in saying YES to every challenge I’m faced with makes it very hard to to ignore the voice I have inside me that demands I do things that are well beyond my comfort zone. This internal voice—the quiet champion’s whisper that said it was a good idea to quit my job as a screenwriter and take up blogging—often asks me to do things that scare the hell out of me. Things like auditioning for food shows,speak at conferences, network with big time food bloggers, go after big dreams, and enter myself into food blogging competitions, like Project Food Blog.
In choosing to enter the Project Food Blog competition—an ten week competition to see who would be the Next Food Blogging Star and something that I’ve been writing about for the past month—I decided to take a chance on myself because it would push me to be the best I could be under unusual circumstances. I knew the competition would be a difficult and full of impossible deadlines, odd tests of skill, trials of character, and tests of stamina. I learned there was a certain amount of campaigning involved, and while I tried to ignore the feeling of competing in a popularity contest—I enjoyed discovering the voices of other food lovers and writers.
Step into a restaurant kitchen in the early morning hours and you will find a machine of dull silver and aluminum-can grey. Its moving parts are meat slicers, oven doors, dish washing machines, and flesh and blood. Men and women, fresh from their beds, stand shoulder to shoulder in the uniform of pressed whites. Hidden are the rock tee shirts, tattoos, and scars from sharp knives. Bandannas and skullcaps conceal the full glory of a multi-color Mohawk, spaghetti curls, and the zig-zagging of a buzz cut.
The light is bright and the polished steel hurts tired eyes. In the kitchen, there are few words exchanged. Covered paper coffee cups and Mexican sweet breads sit untouched. The slicing of onions, the trimming of vegetables, the deboning of fish, and the stirring of stockpots require mindfulness and patience. Every motion is a working meditation. Everything in its place is the unspoken mantra of the kitchen.
Before customers arrive, the world inside the kitchen is deep-forest quiet. Then comes the axe to that serenity, with the rat-a-tat-tat sound of the ticket printer spitting out an arms length of orders. Despite exhaustion from early morning prep time, a busy service gives the kitchen staff a boost of energy that allows them to push through.
Maybe this is a culinary preamble you’re used to hearing. But what if I told you the kitchen I describe is in the corner diner you go to when you don’t want to dress up, or at a culinary school you’ve never read about, or a restaurant that’s never been photographed by a very-famous-photographer?
Is a chef not a chef, even if you don’t recognize them? Why can’t we celebrate the prep-cook? Food bloggers may be champions of ingredients, farmers, cooking techniques, specialty food makers and celebrity chefs—but what about remembering the underdogs for their humility and hard work and commitment to making our daily food?
A huge and humble thank you to my new and returning readers for voting me through to this fourth round of Project Food Blog, a multi-round blog competition to see who will earn the title of food blogging star and $10,000. Thousands of men and women entered the competition, and now there are just a hundred. I am honored to be one of the remaining blogs. Thanks for reading and for your continued support. If you enjoy this post, please vote for me to make it to the next round!
Finding community at food blogging conference--Kim (Cook IT Allergy Free) and Tia (Glugle Gluten-Free)
When you become a food blogger, it’s a solitary art form. In the beginning there’s just you and the Big Idea. Perhaps the spark to tell your story and share ideas is so strong it only takes a few short moments to publish that first post. Or maybe it takes a painful cluster of days, weeks, or months to thrash through the inspiration and recipes and just get your blog going. All the while, the process of creating The Next Great Blog makes you realize that there are many, many obstacles you must face in order to continue your blogging journey. You must find time. You must have a voice. You must have a certain style. You must become a student of What Bloggers Do. You need to get out of isolation.
This is how you come to the decision to pony up some hard earned cash and sign up for a food blogging conference.
And besides, there are words to learn like SEO, blogging platform, hosting, DSLR, blog network, point and shoot, categorizing, tagging of posts, photography, lighting, lenses, and even something called food styling. You’ve already spent hours on the subject, but can only get so far on your own. Maybe there’s a partner, a loved one, a friend, a kid, or a fish-in-a-fishbowl who witnesses your process. Perhaps these trusted folk (or fish) even offer help when you fall into a deep pond of uncertainty and technical difficulties. Perhaps there is no one. Regardless, as you struggle to define what it is your blog is, you start to realize you can’t do this blogging thing alone. You need qualified help. You need inspiration. You need mentoring. You need some food blogging friends.
One of the fastest ways to find answers, shore up weak spots, and find community is to go to a food blogging conference. Granted, going to a conference isn’t cheap–between conference tickets, transportation (airfare, gas money), lodging, and other associated costs the entire event can cost you hundreds if not thousands of dollars–but if you know how to make the most of your time you can push the value of every dollar.
Choosing a food blogging conference that works for you and your budget might not be an easy thing–there are plenty of factors like cost, location, and schedules to consider. But once you decide to surround yourself with like-minded people who also have the same passions as you, the world of blogging doesn’t feel so isolated and lonely. Thankfully with the explosive growth of the food industry as entertainment, there are plenty of opportunities to find a food blogging conference that fits your needs and budget. There are local events, luxury getaways, camps, festivals, and conferences (Foodbuzz, Food Blog Forum, and IACP) that bring together food bloggers for intensive training and networking.
Regardless of what form of food blogging gathering you pick–be it a one-day seminar or multi-day getaway–there are a few key things to keep in mind in order to make the most of your time there. For this week’s Project Food Blog Challenge, I offer you my step-by-step tutorial on how to getting the most out of a food blogging conference.
Sending a care package to kids can be fun and healthy
Not everyone has children of their own, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be plenty of great kids in your life. Nieces and nephews, best friends’ kids, and neighborhood rug rats can all be part of your life. Though I’m married, I don’t have children. But between my brother and my husband’s two brothers, I have four nieces and four nephews who own a nice chunk of real-estate in our hearts. The problem is, I live several thousand miles away from those beautiful eight kids. Sure, Skype is great for capturing the magic of face-to-face conversation, and photos keep me up to date on their newest growth spurt, but I’m the kind of aunt that wants to cook for her nieces and nephews.
Snapshot of some of my family from back east
That’s where care packages come in. Just because I live thousands of miles away doesn’t mean I can’t cook for your family. An old-fashioned care package gives my far-away family members a tangible treasure from my west-coast world. Ship a box of food and treasured objects to a loved one and—like our ancestors did before us—the beloved recipient gets a precious treasure to cherish and/or devour.
A care package is like magic: what was once with us is now with them.
My nieces say: “What’s in the box?”
Distance Cooking
Perhaps this is why I’m glad I was selected to be one of this month’s cooking for kids Foodbuzz 24×24–a sponsored event that brings together twenty-four food bloggers from around the world to write about a particular topic. I knew that my perspective on cooking for kids would be much, much different than a full time mom or grandparent.
As a full time professional and childless married person, the only option I have for baking for kids is when I put together care packages for friends and family. Since I’m a food person, putting together homemade treats for a care package is a great way for me to share my love of food and for my faraway family. Granted, I wish I had more time and money to hop a plane and go visit, but putting together a care package is a good alternative.
So if you are considering putting together your own care package for young friends or family, here are some things to think about:
Choose recipes for items that store well for a few days. This is especially important when shipping an item far distances.
Baked items like granola, fruit or nut bars, hearty cookies, and jellies are all great treats that will ship well if packaged well.
Choose baked items that don’t weigh a lot. Shipping heavy jars filled with goodies may look cute, but the more an item weighs the more it will cost to ship.
Having a night off from work is a luxury for most restaurant professionals. Since bars and restaurants earn most of their income after the sun goes down, most food industry employees keep vampire hours. We punch in after dusk, work when most people are relaxing (or sleeping), and are left to spend time with friends after the witching hour. I’d even venture to say that if you were to chart the hours of chefs, sommeliers, waiters and bartenders you’d think you were looking at Vampire Bill’s stats.
So when I got the exciting news that readers had voted me through to the third round of Project Food Blog*, I knew I didn’t have much time to prepare. Luckily, I’ve held plenty of impromptu dinner parties in my adult life, so I knew just what to do. I would throw a party where all my friends could get creative and eat some delicious Asian-inspired comfort food.
Party Tip: Throwing a great dinner party doesn’t have to mean spending hours and hours getting ready. Stay focused. Stick with a theme.
Make-Your-Own-Ramen Party
Since my dinner party would be held during after hours, I would need to serve dishes that were simple and straightforward, and would have to be easy enough to accommodate everyone’s post-restaurant/food writing schedules. I decided to offer two courses that would give guests a fresh new look on two of Asia’s most convenient comfort foods–Vietnamese spring rolls and instant ramen.
Fish balls at Thai Town Market *insert giggle*
Keeping in mind the advice from chef friends–cook what you know—I purchased fresh ingredients at the local Asian market in Hollywood’s Thai Town. I kept my eyes open and my creativity sharp in order to find unique ingredients for my dinner party spread. I sought out complimenting items that could add texture and interesting flavors to Vietnamese hand-rolls (my take on a wrapper-less spring roll) and bowls of instant ramen. I grabbed fresh Thai basil, jalapeno, bean sprouts, pressed/fried tofu, Sriracha, and for fun, I took a chance and added to my cart a package labeled “fish balls” (a kind of rounded fish cake).
Party Tip: If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can find many great ingredients on line. You can even order an exoti assortment of ramen through RamenBox (a Los Angeles-based company that specializes in selling some of the world’s tastiest instant ramen noodles via the internet)
