Restaurant Widow

Let's Talk About You!

Who's tired of the cold and talking about the economy? I thought I'd give you guys some room for talking since I am feeling uninspired (I hate this time of year, the waiting for Spring) and generally lazy.  

Copy and paste the questions into the comments section and let everyone know a little bit about you!

Location - if you are in Central OH, maybe your part of town:
Favorite cooking magazine:

Top 3 websites you love to read (not including this one-preferably in http://www format so that they turn into links and we can all know your faves):

What is your favorite restaurant?
What is your favorite thing to cook at home?
What is your guilty pleasure?

What is your favorite kitchen tool?

What do you really want to learn to cook?
What are you afraid to cook?
Are you here for recipes or restaurant reviews?
Are you going on vacation this year and where?

What is your favorite cookbook?
What is your favorite veggie and way to prepare it?
What is your favorite fruit?

Is this too many questions? if yes, stop. if no, continue

Butter or Olive Oil?
Chips or popcorn?

White rice or brown rice?

Favorite type of sushi?

Favorite non-American cuisine?

Jeni's, Denise's, or Graeters? (or whatever you have where you live):

Favorite Season:

Thing you miss most about the farmers market:

Restaurants you'd love to see use more local ingredients?
What is your favorite farmer's market?

What is your specialty in the kitchen?

Coffee maker or espresso machine?

Work at home or away?
Walk, Drive, Bike, or COTA?

All Beef Kosher Franks or Lips & Bits Weiners?
Favorite Deli?

Favorite Sandwich?

What do you wish you could get in Columbus but can't (or wherever you live):

Vegetable you are most afraid to eat?

Vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, meatarian, or flexatarian?

Southern or Northern Indian?

Soft or hard tacos?

Favorite Grocery Store:

Favorite place to buy meat:

Favorite place to buy fish:

Best Yogurt & flavor thereof:

Best food item you discovered this year:

Keeping your New Year's Resolutions? yes/no

Are you Gardening this year?

Other Home Improvements?

Have you made bread?

Here, I'll start:

Name:

Location - if you are in Central OH, maybe your part of town: SoHud, Baja Clintonville, North Campus, Washington Beach. Whatever you want to call it.
Favorite cooking magazine: Saveur

Top 3 websites you love to read (not including this one-preferably in http://www format so that they turn into links and we can all know your faves): Apartment Therapy, Ruhlman, Just Hungry.

What is your favorite restaurant? Alana's
What is your favorite thing to cook at home? probably pasta
What is your guilty pleasure? ramen noodles

What is your favorite kitchen tool? tongs

What do you really want to learn to cook? Vietnamese food
What are you afraid to cook? Vietnamese food
Are you here for recipes or restaurant reviews? serving the people
Are you going on vacation this year and where? Louisville, KY and maybe Napa

What is your favorite cookbook? Zuni (today)
What is your favorite veggie and way to prepare it? asparagus, roasted
What is your favorite fruit? nectarines

Is this too many questions? if yes, stop. if no, continue probably, but i'm going to continue anyway

Butter or Olive Oil? wow. probably butter if I'm being honest.
Chips or popcorn? Popcorn

White rice or brown rice? Alas, white please

Favorite type of sushi? Umeboshi roll (pickled plum and shiso)

Favorite non-American cuisine? Japanese

Jeni's, Denise's, or Graeters? (or whatever you have where you live): Jeni's

Favorite Season: Summer

Thing you miss most about the (summer) farmers market: being there

Restaurant(s) you'd love to see use more local ingredients? Sage! 
What is your favorite farmer's market? Oh, I love them all.

What is your specialty in the kitchen? making a mess

Coffee maker or espresso machine? coffee maker - I only wish I had an espresso machine!

Work at home or away? both
Walk, Drive, Bike, or COTA? All, although I am terrible at biking.

All Beef Kosher Franks or Lips & Bits Wieners? All Beef Kosher
Favorite Deli? Danny's

Favorite Sandwhich? Old Fashioned at Details, currently

What do you wish you could get in Columbus but can't (or wherever you live): Poutine (fries with cheese curds and gravy)

Vegetable you are most afraid to eat? none

Vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, meatarian,or flexatarian? I love vegetables and tofu, but also bacon

Southern or Northern Indian? whichever one has lamb or goat curry

Soft or hard tacos? soft

Favorite Grocery Store: no comment

Favorite place to buy meat: Weiland's

Favorite place to buy fish: Whole Foods

Best Yogurt & flavor thereof: Brown Cow Cream Syle Coffee, or Vanilla Ski.ris

Best food item you discovered this year: bamboo shoots

Keeping your New Year's Resolutions? yes/no um, I hung up some paintings and am thinking about painting my kitchen green

Are you Gardening this year? hopefully

Other Home Improvements? painting

Have you made bread? yep!

Anything else you'd like to add? Right now a cat is sleeping on my lap and it's hard to write.

When the Cosmos are Trying to Tell You Something...

...Maybe you should listen

This isn't really about food per se, but the truth is, I have quite a few readers whose interests and jobs stretch through an unbelievable number of possibilities, and I can't think of a better place to spark some community and interest.

So, over the past year the same recurring theme has been coming up.  It's been growing, it's been frustrating me, it's made me question philanthropic organizations, and it has made me cynical.  Last night, when I was at the Slow Food Ohio wine judging, I was talking to a super cool local business owner, and the issue came up again and it hit me.  Maybe something is trying to tell me something.

First of all, I am not going to pretend to be an expert on what I am about to talk about.  I know this irritates some of you, but you have to start somewhere.

About a year ago, I was approached by a few local non-profits who thought I would be able to offer them something.  Unfortunately, even though they sought my input on things like that dreaded term "social media," and wanted my advice on how to get young people involved in their organizations, they didn't really want to listen to what I had to say. 

Our major sticking point was about money.  These institutions were stuck in what I think of as an old-school mindset of going to the richest of the rich to get their funding.  Over and over I suggested they shift their thinking a little bit, to include a younger and/or less affluent audience.  Instead of $150 fundraisers, how about we have some $30 fundraisers?  Instead of the same old tired walking around in pretty dresses and having our pictures taken by whatever lackluster media outfit is being represented, how about we target a larger, more diverse demographic of younger, more artistic, more creative, more diy sorts of people?

I was practically laughed out of one institution, but I still believe I have something here.

Recently I was at a meeting for WCRS, and I brought up this topic.  I was relieved to hear the folks from Simply Living and WCRS had already thought of this and were totally on board with asking lots of people for a little.

Even people who benefit from some social services might be able to donate time or money to other social services.  I know some volunteer organizations who ask the recipients of their services to volunteer in another area of the organization. 

If anyone has doubts that this sort of thing would work really needs to investigate the phenomenon of fundraising surrounding our president-elect - asking for small amounts from millions of people - and getting a record amount of money - has turned the idea of fundraising on its head. 

So, who's in?  If you work for of know of a non-profit who would be interesting on working on "micro fundraising," please leave me a comment.  I want to focus on households who want to give back to their community but are making less than $50K or so a year.  I think there are a lot of us out there.  If your company encourages micro fundraising, I would love to hear about you.

If you have anything to offer - maybe a restaurant who would be willing to donate food, an designer willing to donate fliers or logos, a printer who will donate or offer low-cost tees and bags, who knows what all?

We probably won't be able to get off the ground until after the New Year, but I would love to see our community come together to raise money for some great organizations.  It certainly isn't going to be any sort of Columbus Foundation, but maybe we can think of some sort of cheeky "other side Foundation" name. 

I'd love to hear some other thoughts, if anyone is interested.

The Power of 110,000 Sets of Lungs

As the crow flies (that's what they say in the country, it means the shortest distance between 2 points whether you can get there by street or tractor trail), I live about 1.5 miles from Ohio stadium, or the "Shoe," if you aren't from around here.  For the sake of physics and/or sound travel, perhaps I should mention that I also live uphill from THE Ohio State University.  Husband and I just went out to grab some things from the car and we could distinctly hear the roar of the crowd and the announcers at the game.  That, my friends, is what it's like to live in a college football town.

OH!!  And I saw the blimp lit from within!  My first time seeing it at night!!

Not related to food at all, but interesting, nonetheless.

On the Subject of Adverts, and How They Will Work

As we have discussed before, after much thought I have decided to begin accepting advertising.  I truly think this will benefit everyone.  The small amount of extra cash will help me do more restaurant reviews, attend more events, review more products, and have more giveaways. 

I am very picky about adverts on other sites, so there is no reason my own site will be any different.  For example, I really hate adverts in between posts.  That being said, I am thinking of having some sort of sponsorship for my weekly "Things to do in Columbus" column.  It will work something like this: a company can sponsor that week's column for a small fee, and they will get top billing, a badge which will link to their site, and a description of their event.

At this time, I will keep the adverts small and won't have banner ads across the top.  The ads will be located in the right hand side of the page, where I now have the "Other things I'm up to" badges.  Badge ads will be around 250 X 250, and  I can assist in creation if necessary.  For example, I have made this badge for Restaurant Widow Sunday Suppers (this ad would be considered 2 ads and would cost accordingly; this example is 280X570, so it's slightly larger than what you can expect) a good example of a single badge would be the "Lisa's Columbus" badge on the right hand side, which is roughly 250X250):

In the interest of encouraging small, locally-owned businesses to advertise, I am going to keep the rates low.  Very low, from what I can tell by checking out the rates of other, similar websites.  I also want to keep the terms very simple.  I might charge more for the top "above the fold" ad, and a slightly lower rate for the remaining 3 below, although in truth I think most people would see all four by reading the top post, because of my narrow main section.  Or I might rotate the ads on a weekly basis, so that your ad will have at least one week as the top ad.

I am also going to add the option of paying slightly more so that you can support me and support WCRS LPFM at the same time.  You will get a mention in the radio spot, similar to an NPR tag.  So at the end of the show I'll say something like "this episode of In Season With Lisa has been brought to you by Restaurant Widow Sunday Suppers. Eat Locally, Eat Well.  Visit RestaurantWidow.com for more details."

If you are interested in advertising, please send me an email for rates and traffic details.  I might hit up a few of you first, so just be warned.  The worst that can happen is you'll say no!  We might also be able to work out trade; for example, if you supply something (or a location!) for my Sunday Suppers, I can place a badge advert for your company in kind.

Payments can be made by check or Paypal.  I am setting up a PO box to make things easier.

Crumbs

Just a few updates today.

• I am sending out confirmation emails for this Sunday's dinner with (hopefully) all of the details.  If you have paid and did not receive an email, please let me know!  We have the perfect amount of people, I think, although if a few more people begged and pleaded, I might see what I could do.
• Thursday I will be presenting at Pecha Kucha.  Someone left a comment to ask about what exactly Pecha Kucha is, and here is my response - my idea has shifted a little since then: "Originally, I think it was mostly meant for designers - architects and interior designers and artists, to present something without droning on forever.  It's fun to watch because it's perfect for people with a short attention span.  if what is being presented doesn't interest you, in less than 7 minutes, there will be something else.  From the one I attended, here are a few examples of things which were presented:
  
  An architect talked about how, as a child, there was this toy gun he wanted more than anything in the word, something like the Johnny 7, but his parents would never let him have it.  And how, all of his designs his whole life reflected the styling of the Johnny 7, and how his desire for this gun was instilled in everything he ever created.  He showed the gun and the packaging, and then all of his designs which reflected this.
  
  A linguist talked about the Wisconsin "O" pronunciation.  She went back to her home town and interviewed all these people and played recordings of them talking.  At one point, there was a recording of like a hundred people saying "O."  She showed pictures of these people and the country surrounding this town.
  
  A girl talked about her love for swing dancing, and presented an illustrated slide show describing different dances, swing parties she'd been to, how she got into it, etc.
  
  So, tentatively, I plan to talk about shopping for food, the inspiration for making something, then making it, and the putting it back into the food system by composting it.  That's as far, alas, as I have come.  Wish me luck!"

Yay Husband!

For those of you who have had your fingers crossed for Husband, he passed his Advanced Sommelier exam this week!  What does that mean?  Well, for all of those bartenders who have served us beers whilst we plow through stacks of notecards and laughing at my vain attempts to properly pronounce Portugese terms, well, you'll have a few months off.

This was a long road of studying for Husband, and it paid off; he was one of 8 out his class of 50 to pass!

Congratulations Husband! 

So, Readers, What do You Want?

It's been a hectic few weeks for me.  I can definitely understand how difficult it can be for bloggers who work full-time jobs (where they can't write) and/or have children.  Just by adding 20 more hours to my work week, I am amazed by how hard it is to keep up with what I want to write about.

This time has provided me with some extra time to think about where I am headed with this site.  The comment about being arrogant, crass, and full of myself has also got me thinking.

This site is, of course, primarily about food.  However, I am constantly receiving emails from people who want to know where to work/shop/have cheap dates/take visitors/impress their friends, etc.  I get a lot of email from people who are relocating to Columbus and would like advice on where to live.  I always get lots of emails thanking me for my event listings, and whenever I neglect them, folks get irritated.

This just contributes to my already enlarged head.

Just kidding, but it does sometimes cause me to stray away from the topic at hand, because I feel there is a need for a "lifestyle" niche here in Columbus.  One reader even suggested I have a (non food) shopping guide to look out for cute clothes & furniture and let my readers know about it.

I don't want to stretch myself too thin, but the truth is, sometimes I see that there is no end to the things I could write about if I only had the time.  Every time I try to start a sidebar blog, I find that I just don't have enough time to keep it updated.  But, my thought now is, perhaps I could start a sidebar which is a combination of lifestyle/events, and also perhaps feeds from other pertinent sites. 

I guess the bottom line is, what do you want, as readers? 

My second question is, how much would you hate me if I began accepting advertising?  My ads would be primarily local, locally-owned business which may or may not have to do with food.  I do not think I would accept general restaurant advertising, however I would accept adverts regarding specific events and from restaurant associations, such as Columbus Independents.  I hate flash ads and popups, so there would be none of that nonsense.  Adds would be small and on the sidebar; they might look something like the links I have on the bottom left (such as the North Market badge), only nice people would pay a small fee to have their badge there.  The primary goal here is not to generate tons of revenue (although if blogging were my job, you would have new things to read 3 times a day and I would be even plumper than I already am), the goal is to make enough extra income that I could do 2-4 solid restaurant reviews a month; perhaps 2 small, maybe ethnic spots and also 1-2 nicer restaurants.

As a writer, I have been gifted with lots of ideas, and I rarely suffer from writer's block.  It is usually time and finances (and a general embarassment that I sometimes eat boiled spaghetti with butter and salt when I'm feeling extra lazy or tired) that keep me from writing as much as I would like.  Also, with Husband studying hard for his sommelier test, and generally being stressed in general, we are more likely to go to comfortable spots where we are regulars and close to home than going far away. 

I'm just taking some time to think and regroup and get a feel for why you read this website and what you would like to see in the future. 

You comments, even the mean ones, are welcomed and encouraged.

Please Adopt Us! Look How Cute We Are!

I've had 2 people bail on taking kittehs, so I have 2 left and here they are.  On the lift is "Piglet Tail."  Piglet is a girl, and she has this funny little curly-que tail.  On the right is "Senoir Fluff & Tuff."  He is a large male with a big whit spot on his chest.  Both kittehs are really sweet, know how to use the litter box and scratch pad, and will sleep on laps.  They really need good homes because the Waitress household simply cannot hold one more cat.  Send me an email!  Please don't make me resort to Craig's List!

Dear Nintendo, I Have Influence . . .

Okay, not food-related.  But last night a friend and I were discussing how much we wanted portable Guitar Hero.  I am totally addicted to Guitar Hero and I would like to be able to take my addiction on the road with me!  Alas, the Nintendo DS costs nearly $200, and an extra $45 for the game (I haven't found a pink Guitar Hero Bundle).

So this is what I want to know: where's my Girlie Nintendo Party?  I am pretty sure I know 30 other influential chicks who would join me for champagne and portable gaming - am I right, girls?

Hey - I don't have advertising, no one's going to sponsor me a scooter, no one sponsored me a camera, or a cell phone for moblogging, but I figure it never hurts to keep asking. . .

Scenes From the Fireworks