The Weekend Edition

 in Culinary life observations by

So what’s been in the news this week? Well other than sordid tales of Dave Cameron’s Oxbridge days coming to light, and a member of the shadow cabinet who wants to treat dairy & meat with the same degree of social leprosy as tobacco, yes Kerry McCarthy you. The Savoy announced losses of £41.4million. However, I’ve been reading this:

Tales from the Inbox

Misen has launched on Kickstarter. This is a project I’ve been watching for a while. Basically it’s a knife, & nothing more than that. But the idea is to bring a product to market which is world beater.

J. Kenji López-Alt, author of the James Beard nominated column, has said:

This is the holy grail of inexpensive chef’s knives. Incredible quality & design, high end materials, perfect balance & razor-sharp edge.

So how much for this potentially wonderfully addition to your kit? $65, yes, Misen are pitching their knife, which is said by some, to be better than one costing three times as much. Speaking to Nat McVeigh at IO Shen, the main cost to knife production is the blade. So, either the Misen team have cut corners on the steel used, or the knives J. Kenji López-Alt has been using as a bench mark are over priced.

Care to back Misen, do so here: Misen Kickstarter

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Please don’t forget to take up the kind offer for chefhermes.com readers, of a discount on Allergy training. It’s valid till the end of the month: Last weeks edition.

Yet another Foodblagger

It almost seems like a week doesn’t go by without somebody trying to take the p*ss. Yet again another Food blagger has been outed on Twitter. Yes, James Massoud, I’m looking at you & your girlfriend Tara Oliver.

Not only did they try the something for nothing route, but when that didn’t work, they then posted a vile negative fake review accusing Burger Bear of giving them food poisoning. The usual pattern of events happened, James deleted his Twitter account, probably due to the level of vitriol from other Food bloggers who see him damaging their community. Social media when nuts, & a Twitter parody was set up.

Tara Oliver, then tried to resolve the situation by apologising to Burger Bear, and as gracious as he was to accept it, it didn’t do much. She then set up a quick blog and posted a 891 word full explanation with the usual lines:

He’s not a “freeloader” and his intentions were nothing but genuine. He’s in a job he doesn’t really enjoy and this was his slice of doing something that he did enjoy.

And,

He’s just the same as you. You’ve all created these amazing small businesses or pop ups or blogs, that are projections of your talents and passions and you can shape as you like for the same reasons as him.

Let me explain to you Tara, James isn’t like us. Every food review on ChefHermes.com, with the exception of one (& I think you’d be hard pressed to spot which one) is paid for. Maybe try that concept, rather than touting for freebies, try building a following with witty writing or some other niche. The saying goes that ‘Content is king’; it is, good content is but tainted freeloading content isn’t.

As much as I bemoan freeloaders, and that’s what they are, there is a place for bloggers to work with brands. Create a rapport with PRs, who will in time call on your services. This site has been going for 5 years, I have a following on social media, yet I don’t feel the need to approach companies to try & work with them. This, Tara & James, is called integrity, & it can’t be bought overnight.

James’ roamforaday blog (now deleted) is a hobby, you should be using it to document your experiences of dining out, not using its miniscule former presence to extort freebies from businesses.

Here endeth the lesson.

#FoodPorn

With the latest upgrades to ChefHermes.com, I can now include images from Instagram on the site.

 

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