The Dinner Special podcast

  • Episodes
  • Contact

050: Sheri Wetherell: Founding Foodista and the International Food Blogger Conference

June 17, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS050.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about founding Foodista and the International Food Blogger Conference

Foodista, International Food Blogger Conference

Started in 2008, Foodista is a passionate community of food lovers who share and exchange its knowledge about everything culinary. There’s editorial content from food, news, to health and nutrition, but Foodista stands out with its always growing database of user submitted recipes.

Since 2009, Sheri and her team has been organizing the International Food Blogger Conference, which focuses on food, writing, and technology. This year, it’s being held in Seattle, Washington, from September 18 to 20.

I am so excited to have Sheri Wetherell, co-founder and CEO of Foodista, and the International Food Blogger Conference, here on the show today.

On Her Passion for Food and Cooking:

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her passion for food and cooking.

My father’s a retired airline pilot, so I spent a lot of my youth just hopping on planes, because it was free, traveling the world with him. I think just exploring a lot of international cuisines and cultures really honed by palette for food and travel. Also, my mother comes from a very large family and I was just always in the kitchen, cooking with my grandmother and my aunts.

Also, my father’s mother had a restaurant. I never professionally cooked, but I’ve just always been around food and I’m just passionate about it.

I started baking with my grandmother. I had my own little bread loaf pan and we would bake bread a lot. It’s funny, I’m a really bad baker to this day. So, clearly, nothing really stuck from a baking standpoint.

I would say my longest stint of living abroad was in Japan. I taught English there for three years, so I definitely like to incorporate a lot of Asian, specifically Japanese elements, into my cooking. Tofu for one, I’m trying to get my four-year-old to really embrace tofu – unsuccessfully, thus far. Then, I did a study abroad in Italy many, many years ago. Those foods, rich pasta dishes are still definitely part of my cooking core.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have amazing access to just beautiful fresh fish. We eat a ton of fish.

On Starting Foodista:

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting Foodista.

I would love to take credit for that, but that was completely my life partner and business partner, Barnaby Dorfman’s idea. He was an executive at Amazon.com and created, if you know the Internet Movie Database, he created IMDB Pro. So his idea, if you’re familiar with the Internet Movie Database, he wanted to create something similar, but around food.

Both of us have a passion for food and cooking, and so for many years we thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be great to someday start a company that’s all recipes, that’s smart as far as search, like a Google search, so you don’t have apple pie, apple pie, apple pie.”

In 2005, we came up with the name Foodista and registered the domain and hired engineers to create software much like Google would pull in fair-to-use, free to use, recipe content algorithmically.

For a few years, we were just a lights on, nobody’s home recipe database, just a little search field. And then in 2007, we really wanted to start our own company, so we thought, “Let’s move back to the Foodista idea,” and we brought on another partner who is a brilliant engineer, Colin Saunders. He comes from a Napa Valley wine family, so he also shares the same delicious passions that we do.

We started to develop Foodista, and at the time, it was a completely different company than it is now. When we launched, we really were a Wikipedia of food, if you will. So it was structured data that our software would pull in algorithmically, as I said, but then we were developing a large community of predominantly food bloggers to add recipe content.

Amazon then invested in us, because the three of us founders are all former Amazon.com employees, and they were interested in the new IMDB of food, if you will. We were operating that way for a long time, building our network of our community of food bloggers.

About three years ago, we shifted away a little bit – long story short – from the cooking encyclopedia, is what we were calling it, but everybody could edit, to much more of an editorial website and food news. We still have that large community of recipe contributors and bloggers, but we’re now much more food and recipe news.

That’s the short story of how we started.

I think at the end of the day our goal is to feature everything and anything related to food that people are interested in. If they want to take a cooking class in Italy, they can find all the resources on Foodista. So that’s one of my personal goals, but who knows. The Internet changes so quickly. I think the key as any website owner, blogger, whatever, is to be nimble and to change with what your audience is looking for, so that’s what we will continue to do.

On the International Food Blogger Conference:

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the International Food Blogger Conference.

It is a fun party. The three things of the conference are food, writing, and technology. We gather speakers in all of those areas just to offer the best of the best to our attendees. It’s definitely a weekend of intense learning, but amazing networking with people in the industry, as well as fellow bloggers.

We share on social media and connect with our fellow bloggers, but this is really an opportunity to meet offline and engage and form friendships. It’s just an amazing event and there’s a ton of gourmet food and wine. We feature some of the best restaurants and shops and food producers in the area. It’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Back in the day, we were developing tools for bloggers to help them build traffic and SEO to their sites. Any industry that you’re in, you always want to go to the conference that represents your industry, and there wasn’t one. I kept talking to food bloggers and saying, “Is there any sort of conference for food bloggers?” Everyone was saying, “No, but we want one.” In less than four months, we hurried and put one together.

We thought if we could get 50 people in a room to talk about food, writing, and technology, the three things that are most important to food bloggers, we can really hash out what are their goals, what bloggers are really aiming to improve upon. And so we kicked it off. It immediately sold out in less than a week. So we thought, “Well, our venue has space for 50 more.” So we extended it and we capped it at 100, and it was amazing.

Our keynote was Ruth Reichl formerly of Gourmet. We had Molly Wizenberg and Elise Bauer, Jaden Hair, just a bunch of amazing, amazing speakers. Sur la Table was our key sponsor. They put together a 23 pound bag of goodies, which was amazing, for each attendee. It was just this weekend of amazing food and speakers, and then afterwards everybody said, “That’s great. When’s the next one?” And we went, “Oh, yikes! We’re now in the event business.” So I operate two businesses: Foodista and the International Food Blogger Conference.

So that’s how IFBC started, kind of by accident.

We thought we would just do one, so now it’s grown into an event of more than 300 attendees.

On How Food Blogging Has Changed Since 2009:

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how food blogging has changed since 2009.

In 2009, when we hosted ours, Twitter was still was fairly new. And I was still kind of unsure, I was like, “What’s this Twitter thing? We’re going to write 140 characters? Who’s going to read this stuff?” So it is interesting to see how things have evolved.

I think the medium as a whole has become much more visual, especially with social media, as we’ve seen with Pinterest and Instagram. I think Instagram has barely even scratched the surface of what its potential is going to be. So bloggers, if you’re not yet on Instagram, sign up today and start doing it. And the same with Google Plus; I think we’ve just scratched the surface with the capabilities of Google Plus.

As far as a blog, I think it is going to become more visual. And I mean that in the sense that people are already taking amazing photographs, but I think perhaps it might be more interactive, maybe people will be doing more podcasts such as yourself, more video content, video tutorials, things that are quick and easy for their readers to digest, if you will, like, three minute how-to videos.

I think blogs will become more enriched with a variety of different content, maybe more self-publishing will be done as far as ebooks. I think ebooks, as far as cookbooks, are still relatively new. They have a long ways to go. They need to become a lot more visual, I think, than a lot of them are now.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how blogs take off. I think, not just food bloggers, but bloggers in general, need to be very creative as far as how they present their content. There are so many, as you said, food bloggers out there. It’s how do you separate yourself. So it’s hard work.

I’ve said at our conference before that bloggers are not just bloggers, they’re content producers. As you said, you’re doing recipe development, you’re styling your plate, you’re photographing it, then you’re editing those photos, you’re publishing it. But then once it’s live, you can’t just forget about your content. You have to keep marketing that content, and how do you repackage it into new and interesting ways. If you write that chicken recipe, don’t just forget about it. Include it in other chicken posts, like a round-up. It’s really thinking like an editor and a marketer, rather than just a food blogger.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love anything Jamie Oliver.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I’m going to promote my girl, Andie Mitchell, Can You Stay For Dinner, not that she needs any help because it’s a phenomenal blog, but beautiful photography. Oh, gosh, there are so many. We have such a big blogger community that I’d hate to call out one over the other. Also, La Tavola Marche in Italy. She and her husband do amazing things. They run an inn and a cooking school too, and unfortunately, they’re selling it. So if anyone’s on the market to buy it…

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

Gosh, that’s a good question. I cannot think of anyone specifically. I’m going to have to pass on that one. I’m totally blanking on specific names.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My mother brought me this amazing Vietnamese vegetable peeler from her cooking school in Vietnam, so that’s pretty cool.

I also find, as a parent especially, I’ve got a vegetable spiral cutter, not that it’s that unusual, but for all you parents, you want to get your kids to eat more vegetables. You can do mile long zucchini pasta noodles from this thing, or curly fries. It’ll peel the whole thing in these fun little spirals. Not necessarily unusual, but super fun and a great way to make your food fun.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Avocado. Amazingly, I used to hate avocado until I literally was about 25. I liked guacamole, but I did not like anything else. I did not like just sliced avocado in salad, crazy I know. But I just happened to be in the kitchen talking to my step-mom one day and she was slicing them and putting this vinaigrette over them. And all of sudden, it’s like something snapped in my head where I had to have them. Now I absolutely cannot get enough avocado in my life. I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Anything from Ottolenghi. I could just sit for days and drool over his cookbooks.

Also, just anything from Dorie Greenspan, too, if you’re looking for great French recipes that are doable. And Marcella Hazan, her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. She has just amazing recipes, specifically just a very simple roast chicken where she seasons the bird with salt and pepper, and just stuffs the cavity with pierced lemons and roasts it. It’s the most brilliant roast chicken you’ll ever have.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

It depends on my mood and what I’m cooking. Sometimes I like classical, sometimes I like some jazz, and anything Cuban. I love Cuban music. I have no Cuban in my DNA, but I think maybe in my past life I was Caribbean.

On Keeping Posted with Sheri:

Sheri Wetherell of Foodista and The International Food Blogger Conference on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Check us out on Instagram; we’re working on building that up and I’m addicted to it. It’s super fun. So Instagram, Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest; we’re on it all.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Amazon.com, Andie Mitchell, Can You Stay For Dinner, Dorie Greenspan, Elise Bauer, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Foodista, International Food Blogger Conference, Jaden Hair, Jamie Oliver, La Tavola Marche, Marcella Hazan, Molly Wizenberg, Ruth Reichl, Sheri Wetherell, Sur La Table, Yotam Ottolenghi

Lazy Day with Not Without Salt, Steamy Kitchen, and Sift and Whisk

March 21, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Lazy Day with Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Maria Siriano of Sift and Whisk on The Dinner Special podcast talking about their favorite things.

Lazy Day with Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Maria Siriano of Sift and Whisk on The Dinner Special podcast talking about their favorite things.

There are so many reasons I love doing these podcasts, but one in particular is that I get to learn so much.

This week alone, it was cool to chat with Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt about food and how it can help relationships flourish, and then with Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, where I totally connected with her on the food she shares and similar Chinese childhood experiences.

Finishing off the week with baker and desserts extraordinaire Maria Siriano of Sift and Whisk, talking with her was like chatting with an old friend.

It really doesn’t get much better.

Below are some of the fun and cool things they mentioned on their podcast episodes.

Ashley Rodriguez, Not Without Salt

Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt on The Dinner Special podcast talking about what drew her to start blogging.

With Ashley’s new book – Date Night In, we talked a lot about food and how it can help relationships grow. If you missed it, catch her episode HERE.

Also, find out what Ashley would have as her World Ending, Last Meal HERE.

A Cooking Show She Enjoys:MasterChef Junior
Some Food Blogs We Have to Know About:Sprouted Kitchen
Seven Spoons
A Sweet Spoonful
Someone to Follow on Instagram:Helen Dealtry
Cookbooks that Make Her Life Better:Eat by Nigel Slater
Frankies Spuntino cookbook

Jaden Hair, Steamy Kitchen

Jade Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about where the idea for the Steamy Kitchen food blog came from.

If you’re at all intimidated by Asian cooking, or simply want to learn more, Jaden is your go-to. She shares a ton of tips on her episode HERE.

A simple comfort dish is Jaden’s choice for her Last Meal, find out what it is HERE.

A Food Show She's Watched with The Host:The Pioneer Woman
A Cooking Website and Food Blog We Have to Know About:Simply Recipes
Lady and Pups
Best-Selling Books She's Appeared In:The 4-Hour Chef
The $100 Startup
A Music Album That Makes Her Want to Cook: Big Night movie soundtrack

Maria Siriano, Sift and Whisk

Maria Siriano of Sift and Whisk on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the process of her blog and what comes most naturally.

What can I say, I probably chuckled way more than usual during my conversation with Maria. How does George Clooney work his way into a conversation (several times) about baking and food? Find out HERE.

Maria knew exactly what she wanted for her World Ending, Last Meal, but who’d be performing? Well, she was a bit conflicted. Find out who she decides on HERE.

A Cooking Show She Enjoys:Good Eats
Some Cooking Websites and Food Blogs We Have to Know About:Serious Eats
Bakers Royale
Half Baked Harvest
The Sugar Hit
Sugar Hero
A Few Cookbooks That Make Her Life Better:Cook's Illustrated cookbook
Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver
Baked cookbooks
An Album That Makes Her Want to Cook:West Side Story soundtrack

As mentioned, it’s so much fun to chat with my food heroes.

I learn so much from them.

I hope you enjoy listening! If you do, please head on over to the iTunes page and subscribe HERE. It’s free. And if you REALLY enjoy the show, I’d be so grateful if you would rate and review it on iTunes.

Until next week, I hope you have an amazing lazy day.

Gabriel

Filed Under: Lazy Day Tagged With: Ashley Rodriguez, Jaden Hair, Maria Siriano, Not Without Salt, Sift and Whisk, Steamy Kitchen

011: Jaden Hair: How She Turned Her Love of Food Into A Thriving Business

March 11, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on the idea behind Steamy Kitchen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS011.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on How She Turned Her Love Of Food Into A Thriving Business

Steamy Kitchen

Steamy Kitchen is a family food blog, it’s actually a lot more than that. With nearly a thousand recipes, tons of cooking tips and how-to videos, not to mention three cookbooks, Jaden’s family blog is the family business.

Jaden is also the co-founder of food blog forum, an annual event for food bloggers and she’s been featured in numerous best-sellers including one of my favorites, Chris Guillebeau’s The $100 Startup.

I’m so excited to have Jaden Hair from Steamy Kitchen joining me on the show today.

On The Idea Behind Steamy Kitchen:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on the idea behind Steamy Kitchen

I grew up in North Platte, Nebraska.

So I’m Chinese. I’m from Hong Kong, I was born in Hong Kong, like the food capital of the world.

And when I was four we moved, we immigrated to the United States and we ended up in the middle of nowhere, it’s like the smallest of all small towns called North Platte Nebraska, and we lived there until I was 10 years old.

We were in this little strange food area where it’s all about beef, and cattle and mid-western foods, there were no Asian restaurants nearby that rivaled–came close to anything that I was experiencing in Hong Kong or anywhere in Asia.

We had to drive all the way to Denver, Colorado to go to the Asian market which was like hours and hours away, and so that’s the kind of environment that I grew up.

Then we moved to California luckily, and I got exposed to amazing types of all different types of food not just Asian food.

Long story short, when I got married, my husband and I decided to move to a small town in Florida because it was near the ocean, it was near the Gulf of Mexico, it was affordable, unlike in California where you can’t even afford a one-bedroom apartment, and we wanted to start a family so we moved to the small town.

When we got here, we bought a home, and I looked around like, “Oh my gosh where are my Asian restaurants? Where is my Chinese restaurant? Where are my markets? And I just realized I need to do something about this because it was just – I was getting homesick.

It turns out that right by, right in town, there was this restaurant called Bangkok Tokyo.

I went in waiting for my to-go order, and I overheard this lady sitting at the sushi bar with her beautifully manicured nails and her Gucci handbag and she’s like, “Oh, I’m having Sushi at the Chinese restaurant, come join me.” I’m thinking, “Sushi at the Chinese restaurant.” This is so weird, this is so strange.

First of all this is Bangkok Tokyo and you know Bangkok and Tokyo are not in China. I got really upset, and my husband’s like, “Okay, you can get upset about it, but we’re not moving, so you’ve got to find something to do about it.”

So I started teaching cooking classes at a local cooking school, and I started teaching people the difference between fish sauce and soy sauce, and the difference between Laotian food and Chinese food.

It wasn’t just all oriental recipes or oriental food and not all stir-fries and sweet and sour with a goopy sauce.

That’s how the blog started, it’s been eight years now, almost exactly eight years old.

On How Steamy Kitchen Evolved Into a Business:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on how Steamy Kitchen evolved into a business

Within three months of starting the food blog I said, “You know, I would love to make this a full-time business.”

If I was going to create a business, this would be it, and back then eight years ago, blogs weren’t businesses and there was no such thing as social media.

There was no such thing as creating an online business, very few and far between. So I said, “Well, there’s got to be a way.” What if I apply basic business principles and marketing savviness into a food blog and let’s see where I take this, so that’s how I started steamykitchen.com as an actual business.

I designed it specifically as a family business and within six months I got a book deal, I was offered a book deal, so it happened really fast, it was combination of one, I’m awesome, I’m a business and marketing rockstar. I know my stuff, I know how to sell, I know how to create and design a business, that was part of the equation.

The other part of the equation was just great luck in timing. This was right when the blogs were just starting to come up, so I was one of the early ones.

On Designing Steamy Kitchen as a Business:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on designing Steamy Kitchen as a business.

A lot of people create business plans and when you start a business everyone always says, “Create a business plan, you need a business plan, a marketing plan and a financial plan,” but in all honesty those are the must boring documents in the world.

Business plans are meant for you just to put your thoughts down and not meant to really inspire you. I’m a very visual person and I need something a little more inspiring than a 49-page business plan.

What we did instead was we went back to our days when we used to do Tony Robbins, actually my husband used to work for Tony Robbins for like seven years. He traveled around the world with Tony Robbins and was his lead trainer for the three-day events. So, we went back to the Tony Robbins days and started creating a vision board, cut out pictures and magazines, cooking magazines, business magazines and created the business plan out of that and framed it, hung it on a wall and that was in front of me every single day.

It was like, you see something like that, that’s so inspiring, so specific, that evokes emotion of wanting to ignite my passion of cooking and being able to create a wonderful family business out of something I love to do.

On Her Love of Cooking and Feeding People:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her love of cooking and feeding people.

I’m fearless in the kitchen, I love to play and experiment and that’s part of it. Cooking to me is not just about following a recipe, one, two, three but, cooking to me is about looking for a recipe that serves as the basis and the foundation that I can play off of.

It’s a playful spirit, it’s fearless, being fearless, being absolutely playful and being okay to fail. If the recipe doesn’t work, I had fun trying but I also know next time how to fix it. That’s one part of it.

The other part of it was honestly in college after moving to my first apartment, I went to UCLA, and after the first year, I moved to an apartment with three other roommates and I was the cook. That was my job.

I would cook for everybody and they would go do groceries, they would buy the groceries, they would clean the apartment and all I had to do was cook? Really? How fun, right?

I made my way through three years of college just cooking for my roommates and friends.

Tips For Those Cooking Asian Food for the First Time:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about tips for those cooking Asian food for the first time.

I think there are some basic, basic recipes that just with a couple of pantry ingredients that you can buy, store in the pantry or store in the refrigerator, and you can make so many dishes.

I call these four condiments, I call them masters of Asian flavor. One of them is soy sauce of course, the other one’s oyster sauce, there’s fish sauce and then there’s miso paste. With those four ingredients you can make hundreds and hundreds of dishes.

Sometimes it can be intimidating when there are different types of condiments and ingredients that you’re not familiar with, but if you pair these four basic condiments that you can store in your refrigerator for months and months and months, and then with what I like to call the Chinese trinity, the holy trinity of garlic, green onion and ginger, you get the really amazing fresh Asian flavor.

What I also like to do is to take familiar dishes. Everyone knows what beef broccoli is, a lot of people know what sweet and sour chicken is, how do I take that, some flavor that they are already familiar with, and create a recipe that’s so easy with limited number of ingredients that use fresh ingredients, vibrant vegetables and make it so delicious at home.

Another way is if I’m trying to introduce something that’s a new ingredient like a preserved radish, I’ll make the recipe so super, super simple maybe three or four ingredients at the most, so that you’re not too confused. The only variable is this one ingredient that I have never played with, but I know what asparagus is, and I know what broccoli is and so I’ll try to make sure that I don’t overwhelm anybody with too many variables or too many new things.

On Her Cookbooks:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her cookbooks

The first book The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, that was when I first started the blog.

I got a book offer within six months of starting the blog and it was amazing. Each of these big books they take about two years to produce, one whole year for writing and testing the recipes, photography and creating all the content, then a whole other year for editing, layout, design, printing, shipping, and distribution. And then tack on another six months for promotion and media and so it’s a lot of work.

I did that first book with this small publisher called Tuttle publishing, and they’re amazing to work with, they’re very small, extremely focused on Asian cookbooks, and that was a fun experience.

The second cookbook I did with a big publisher called Ten Speed Press, and I had an agent and you know it was a pretty big production.

That was fun too, but the e-book I decided to do because we live in the social media world, we live in the blog world. If I wanted to post something, I’ll write it and then post it tomorrow. It was really hard for me to grasp a lead time of two years. It’s really hard for me to create something and have the patience to see it through and keep up the enthusiasm for something that’s taking two years, two and a half years to create.

I decided I’m going to try doing an e-book and it took me about a month to produce it. Within a month it was up for sale. I think I put in 15 recipes for Chinese takeouts that were made healthier, made more delicious, and that you can make at home. I plan on doing a lot more.

On Appearing in Best-Selling Books:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about appearing in Best-Selling books.

I got Tim Ferriss‘ 4-Hour Chef book, that giant book, and I had this book sitting on my desk and it’s so big, it’s one of those books where you’re like, “Oh I don’t have time to read it now, I don’t have the time to start it now, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later.” It literally sat on my desk for six months.

I finally said, it’s been on my desk for six months and I should just open this book up.

I open this book, I look down, there’s my name. I had no idea I was mentioned in his 4-Hour Chef book. I don’t really remember how he got in touch with me, his team asked me to contribute a recipe for the 4-hour body cookbook that was an e-book and that was a long time ago, and it’s also funny once I saw my name in the 4-Hour Chef I’m like, “Hey, I remember I was mentioned or I contributed a recipe for 4-hour body. Maybe I should look that up and see if I can find it and it wasn’t until just recently that I said, “Oh yes, now I remember, this is what I contributed.” I’d never even seen it.

With Chris‘ book, I’ve known Chris for quite a while now.

I first got onto his website, we met on Twitter, and this was in the early days of Twitter. I’m a big fan of what he does, his work. I was hosting another food blogging conference in Austin that piggy backed south by southwest and Chris was there. I’m like, “Hey come to our party, we’re going to have an after party, just come, I’d love to meet you.” So he brought Johnathan Fields to my party and we just spent a few minutes together because we had a whole ton of people there, but that was the first time I got to meet him in person.

When he went on his book tour, the past two book tours he came to this area, did the Tampa area in Florida, and I just hung out with him. I had dinner with him, he interviewed me for his book, which is an awesome book. The $100 Startup is one of my favorite books of all times.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

None. I really, really do not watch cooking shows especially because my world is cooking, I can’t do cooking 24/7.

The only one I’ve actually sat down and watched was The Pioneer Woman Show on the Food Network but I was at her house watching her show.

That was the only time I was there. It was Nathan’s 10th birthday at her house and I think it was right after we got a massage in the morning and then turned on the TV and there’s Ree and I was like, “Oh, that’s this kitchen right here, it was kind of weird.

That was the last cooking show I watched and that was probably two years ago.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

Some of my favorite sites that I go to regularly. I just rely on all the time, simplyrecipes.com is one. Elise is one of my dear, dear friends and she started her food blog probably close to over 10 years ago. Her recipes are tried and true. If you want to know a recipe for green beans or roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, that is a site to go to. If I’m looking for a recipe I’ll go to her site.

And then there are a couple of new ones that I’m just enthralled with. One of them is called Lady and her Pup, I’m probably saying that wrong- Lady and Pups-an angry food blog, she’s Asian as well, she’s Chinese and oh my gosh she’s absolutely amazing.

She’s got a recipe right now for Sesame noodle salad, the photography just draws you in. I’ve never met her, but I love looking at her food. Those are two that I really love.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

The funny thing is, I used to be Miss Social Media.

I started Twitter early on and I used to be all over social media and if there was a food conference and they needed somebody to talk about business and social media, they always called me and said, “Oh, could you talk about this?” I’m like, “Absolutely I can talk about social media all day.”

And then about a year ago I decided, I quit. I quit social media, actually I quit Twitter with like almost 135,000 followers. I decided, you know this is not for me. I’d rather spend time with my kids than do social media.

With Pinterest, with social media now, it’s more for me as a marketing tool, rather than a consumption tool. I use those as business tools, I think I’m on the computer entirely too long already. So I decided to quit Twitter, and use Pinterest if I need inspiration for some decorating idea.

I use Pinterest to market Steamy Kitchen. They are our number two referrer for Steamy Kitchen so I use them to make sure that people know how to pin and can unpin the photos.

I’ve never done Instagram and with Facebook it’s more like friends and family and private groups, so I’m in several private groups and I host a private group for food bloggers for coaching but that’s really all I do.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

It would be my homemade Sriracha. It’s so easy. You could make it in a blender and you can just leave it just like that. Or, you can just put it in a crock pot or even just on the stove top for 20 minutes and the result is this rich incredibly complex bright flavor that you can never get off the shelf.

So I would say make your own, it’s so, so, so easy.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

That’s a tough one. I’m going through my refrigerator right now in my mind, I’m going through my pantry right now.

Okay, right now it’s not necessarily an ingredient but it’s something I always have to have in my kitchen and that’s homemade beef jerky.

I’m not a big breakfast person, and I’m not a big snack person, but when I get hungry, I have to eat something. We’ve been making our own beef jerky at home, it’s always there in the kitchen everyday and it’s healthy. I cannot live without that.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Cookbooks with photos, like I said before, I’m a very visual person and I don’t necessarily read but I scan really well. I look at pictures and when I’ve got a moment, I will take just an armful of cookbooks from my library, sit down on the couch and just flip through them.

The photos just really inspire me and make me happy.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

There’s this movie called Big Night, and it’s not even about Asain cooking, it’s Italian.

It’s a story of how these two brothers came to the United States and started this famous restaurant and it’s a must see for anyone who loves Italian food or loves movies.

That album, the soundtrack from Big Night is my favorite because it’s fun and it’s lively. It’s got lots of instruments in it, makes you want to sing and dance, and it’s just a beautiful beautiful soundtrack, so that’s one of my favorites.

Keep Posted on Jaden:

Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Steamykitchen.com and then out of all the social media that I do, the only one I really do check is Steamy Kitchen on Facebook, it’s a Facebook fan-page. I post on there maybe once a day, once every other day but usually I will check in there.

I respond to any email that comes in, we have an email newsletter that I send out once a week, and I love it when people reply and I get to know some of the readers.

Have Jaden's Special Dish (That’s Her Mom’s Recipe) Sent To You Now:

    First Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 4-Hour Body, 4-Hour Chef, Asian Cuisine, Asian Food, Bangkok Tokyo, Big Night, Chinese Takeouts, Cookbook Author, Food Blog, Food Blog Forum, Food Blogger, Food Business, Hong Kong, Jaden Hair, Johnathan Fields, Lady and Pups, Nebraska, simplyrecipes.com, South by Southwest, Steamy Kitchen, Ten Speed Press, The $100 Startup, The Pioneer Woman, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, Tuttle publishing

    Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
    Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

    Enjoy the podcast?

    Click HERE to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes now.

    Let’s Keep in Touch!

    Copyright © 2022 · Epik on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in