Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is Imminent

The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is underway, and there's still time for you to get tickets to some of this year's hot events.  Though some of my top picks have already sold out, there's still time to squeeze in an event or two.  My plans for this year's festivities include the Live FIRE! Supremacy over Flames.  Emphasis on the FIRE! please. I have no shame in showing my excitement for beef (please hold the rated pg-13 comments).  With chefs like Andrew Dwyer of Australian's Outback, Brad Farmerie of Public Restaruant in NYC, Andy Ricket of Pok Pok in Portland, along with many local favorites, you'd be swooning too. 

A giant thank you to the ever wonderful Carillon, ATT Center, and Chef Josh for inviting @windaddict/@hopsafari and myself to attend the Star Power event.  This night with Kyle MacLachlan & Animal Restaurant brings out the giddy in me.  Graced with the skills of Chefs Jon Shook, Vinny Dotolo, Josh Watkins, and David Bull, there's no secret to why this event was sold out.  I'll be spending several hours at the Veloway prior to dinner that night.  

I'll also be attending the Sunday Fair to be held at the Mexican American Cultural Center.  I know the complaints from last year was that it was muddy and the lines were long.  I'm usually not the type that enjoys crowds or lines.  But for some reason, when it is in Texas, in a muddy field, and there is copious amounts of tasty nibbles and sips, I don't mind.  I find it kind of fun and adventurous.  I haven't visited the Mexican American Cultural Center before, so it'll be a new experience for me.  Here's some photos from this year's media event at Hotel Saint Cecilia.  It was my first time at the venue, and I'm having a crush on it. 


This parked in front of me there, so that's already a big bonus.


A majestic tree, an old car, and a bright green grass brings character to the location.


A view from the upper porch. 


Andrew Dwyer smoking up some tasty corn in a giant wok.  He was the cutest thing at the party.  He walked around serving people at the party in that wok that was bigger than he is. 


Tasty, moist, slightyly sweet, raw, vegan, AND gluten-free morsels of happiness from Hail Merry.



Hot ladies at a Haute Party.  Thank you for the wonderful event! 

@bandbmanbeer photos from the Beer Blogger's Conference 2010

Bull and Bush Brewery did a private tasting at the first Beer Blogger's conference.  In addition to tasting many delicious brews, I discovered that I really like spicy foods with bold stouts.  Jalapenos and the Legend of the Liquid Brain is pretty awesome.  Here's the line up of beers.  One of my favorites was the Royal Oil.  And pizza. there were actually more. Delicious beer mustard.  Spicy, bold, and perfect with pizza crust. An awesome way to serve ice cream.  I need one of these. Ice cream made with Ghoul fuel.  Mmmmmmm........ yummy! Here I am with my beer ice cream.  I'm happy. Not only does Bull and Bush make beer, they make some spirits as well. Some nearly four year old beer brandy. The label is pretty awesome too.

I was flashed @ParksideAustin by the @Longhornsingers

I was flashed.  By a mob.  Not an angry mob.  But more like a mob at Disneyland.  The kind of mob that breaks into song in unison, entertains, and then dissipates.  That's right.  I was "assaulted" with songs, and I loved it. Aaron Strout, Laura Beck, Lisa O'Neil and myself were on a panel speaking about social media best practices at National Association for Catering Executives Austin Chapter (NACE).  Servers at Parkside Austin (thanks for hosting) were scattered throughout the room with water, passed appetizers, and silverware, when it all started.  The singing started, and at first, I wondered if they always did this at Parkside.  It was pretty darn awesome.  A big congrats to Kelly Barber and the Longhorn Singers for putting together such a wonderful surprise. A big thanks to @NicholasMistry for helping me get the video onto my computer and a big thanks to Robert Albasolo for providing the video.  Photos by John M. P. Knox.  Here's the video and some photos:   The food (below) was also lovely.  Please enjoy some food porn.  The obligatory photo of the menu.  Lisa O'Neil giving her introduction. Aaron Strout pointing at you.  Yes, you!  You, don't forget to see who checked into your restaurant. The first course starts with a ricotta ravioli (mostly hidden), parsnip soup, citrus with jalapeno, and a broccolini, pinenut, sunchoke mini beet salad.  This dish was wonderfully refreshing.  The greens, citrus, and creamy ricotta was a great combination of textures and flavors to start off the meal.  Next up was a shrimp and grouper duo served with roasted cauliflower, cauliflower puree, cippolini onions, and red pepper jam.  The grouper was perfectly seasoned and seared so that it was flaky yet well-structured.   One of the dessert tastings was a citrus tart, pineapple, and chantilly cream.  I'm not absolutely certain, but those little dots on top look like basil seeds!  The flavor of the pineapple along with the texture of the basil seeds (if they are indeed) was somewhat nostalgic for me.  Pineapple is commonly used in Asian desserts, and Basil seed drink is commonly found in Asian grocery stores.  A big thanks to Parkside and NACE for having me over for dinner, conversation, and flashing.

Hacking my Otterbox Defender - customizing my colors

This post isn't food related, but I thought you might enjoy it anyways.  It is also cross-posted on my static site (www.romanreign.com) and at Chenergy Consulting. I've been wanting an Otterbox for my iphone for quite some time now.  Through all my iphones, I've only had silicone skins or cheap plastic cases that I purchased on ebay for no more than a dollar.  After receiving the iPad 1 for Valentine's Day this year, I decided that there was no way I was going to use it without an Otterbox.  I searched high and low for the best bargain Otterbox Defender for my new toy  (it happened to be on Amazon, normally ~$90).  For $50, a new black and hot pink Otterbox Defender was on the way to me.  *I'll be trading my new iPad 1 for the iPad 2 on March 12th.  Otterbox currently doesn't have an iPad 2 case yet. iPad 1 in pink and black In the meantime, my iPhone 3Gs was about to naked.  The current plastic silver and hot pink case was starting to crack, and it doesn't provide much protection anyways.  So I hopped on eBay and started bidding on Otterbox Defenders for my iPhone.  Many of the auctions frequently got into the $30 range, except for a black/black used one in Oklahoma.  While I was a huge fan of the color, I was able to snatch that baby up for $8.  New Otterbox Defenders for the iPhone are $50. I'm not a huge fan of black cases for my gadgets because it makes them difficult to find in my purse.  The inside of my purse is black, my wallet is black, and my camera case is black (the camera itself is bright red).  I try to make it a point to get cases that are bright in color so that they stand out in my purse and in public.  It is pretty easy to spot my gadgets if someone decides to "borrow" it for a while.  Once I got my Otterbox iPhone case, I decided that the all black case was too dark.  It needed some color and funk.  I thought about covering it with stick on bling, reflective tape, spray paint, or glitter stickers.  And then it hit me.  Nail polish.  I dug around the house and found a two year old bottle of nail polish called pretty penny.  It was an iridescent coppery rose color, and it was perfect. I decided that the rubber part of the Otterbox would be hand washed frequently, I didn't want anything on it.  However the hard black plastic parts that stuck out were perfect candidates for a splash of color.  After washing and drying the case, I carefully (or not so carefully) painted the hard plastic parts that would show through the black rubber with nail polish.  It took about five minutes to paint, but you'll want to let it dry for at least 30 minutes or more.  The second coat of nail polish can take a really long time to dry completely.  Now I have a customized Otterbox Defender that cost me less than 20% of retail, and is one of a kind.  Be different. It keeps us all interesting. The black rubber protection. There's a little splash of color. All the parts waiting for assembling.  That's what it looks like the black hard plastic covering. With the black rubber protection. Tada! All done, except that little rubber nub I need to push back in.

@GoogleHotPot:The Evolution of Search, Social Media, and Community

I've been mulling over this topic on and off for the last couple of months. Google HotPot made it's debut recently, and there are many more issues to discuss in this post. Isn't everything social media these days?  If it is online and you can have "friends," it must be social media.  Simon Salt and I have debated (friendly, of course because we're both friendly) about this issue and Yelp.  We both run around in similar circles, and we both use similar tools. But we view them in different ways.  *My opinions are well, my opinions, and they do not reflect on any of the Yelp community managers or users. **I don't work for Google, Yelp, or any other like website. Side 1: Yelp is social media.  You can add friends. You can meet people who become your friends.  You can send messages to your friends.  It must be social. Side 2: Yelp is crowd sourced content. People write reviews, and they sort through reviews.  Though Yelp has a community in select cities, those are free-standing and created after content starts to come in. I used to be on side 2.  Simon was on side 1. Yelp is full of reviews that come from people who want to voice their opinions.  Those opinions are combined into a star rating.  That is the quick and dirty of it. However,a deeper look into why Yelp was leaps and bounds ahead of similar sites like Chowhounds or Urbanspoon was because they had a community.  They built communities after there was enough momentum by hiring an official community manager (to keep the peace and to put on parties) and started the Elite badging system.  Having been in two separate Yelp communities (Houston and Austin) and attending a Yelp Elite event in San Francisco, I could easily see that each community has a distinct demographic, personality, and dynamics.  You might have remembered my post about the destruction of the Austin Yelp Community by de-eliting Michelle C.   Since then, the communities have worsened in my opinion.  Long-time users began to fade away, the speed of reviews posted seemed to slow, and the talk threads because much less active.  During the 2011 eliting week, threads like this one and this one brought about heated conversations.  Anyone who crossed Yelp, created problems for Yelp, or  voiced their opinions louder than Yelp did not have their elite status renewed.  I was one of those people who did not have their 2011 elite badge, and I was surprised at first.  At SXSW 2010, I spoke at a core convesation with Addie Broyles about how review sites were changing the restaurant review landscape.  As Yelp was just slapped with lawsuits, it quickly became Yelp-centric.  I stood up for the Yelp community (the users), and I gave my unbiased opinion about Yelp's role in the restaurant reviews.  I still think that they had a genius model.  Before community became a buzzword, they were building them.  Yelp was one of the first websites that hosted in person meet ups.  I wish I had thought of that and executed as well as they did.  Anyways, after my post about how they were destroying the community and my voice in the social media world, Yelp was displeased and did not renew my elite status as well.  They didn't give my the axe after the blog post, when I was expecting it.  They waited four months later.  That portion of Yelp's Corporate email to me read: "We also understand that you are a social media consultant. Though not technically a business owner, there is an inherent conflict of interest with being Yelp elite and a social media consultant. Per the above, unfortunately we are unable to welcome you back to the Elite Squad at this time."     I'm putting that on all my future resumes.  :o)  It's kind of flattering that an individual that has my own consulting service on the side would be a conflict of interest with a giant website.  You might be asking yourself, "Who cares about the community?  I don't care about those people, I just want to see the ratings."  And you're absolutely right in asking.  I don't think Yelp is going to fold just because the communities are less loyal, less active, but I know that I'm going to shift how I categorize Yelp.  Yelp to me is turning into a search tool, a very useful one at that.  I frequently listen and read Jason Calicanus and Fred Wilson's blogs and podcast, and both of them use Yelp (mobile too).  But I've never heard or read of Jason or Fred commenting about feeling right at home with the Yelp community.  Most of the comments are about the search features.  I too really like the search feature on Yelp mobile.  I can drive into a new location, hit find close to me button, and start weeding it through.  However, one time late at night, Yelp recommended that I get dinner at the Yellow Rose, the gentlemen's club.  I declined that recommendation.  The numbers geek inside me really likes that you can get more data.  While there is more noise in Yelp data (variability in reviews), if I didn't know the source, I would rather look at the reviews of 100 people instead of 5 people.  Statistically, more reviews are more favorable. I'll update my views of Yelp.  It isn't crowd-sourced content driven by a strong community anymore.  Honestly, who is going to join a community just to find out where to eat a taco?  Now that a particular threshold of content already exists (at least in Austin and other larger cities), Yelp is a great search tool.  I use Yelp to collaborate with my friend's recommendations, and I often read reviews to see what dishes are extra tasty (or not). The Evolution of Search : GoogleHotPot Search is great, and who is the typical suspect in search?  Google.  Google recently launched their HotPot product that could throw a wrench into the current review sites.  I listened to the This Week in Startups podcast with Lior Ron (the product developer of GoogleHotPot) several times.  Lior Ron describes HotPot as the evolution of search, making search personalized and socially relevant - almost like a Netflix or Pandora for places.  I would add that there's an even more social aspect to this type of search.   A different type of community. Even though GoogleHotPot is a search, there are still community components to it.  Google users have friends.  You can share information with your friends and you can read information posted by your friends.  The community is already there, and users are sharing the information with each other which is similar to a social media tool.  Yelp on the other hand, tried to nurture a community by bringing together users to contribute content.  Sure, there is a community, but that community didn't exist without the Yelp platform.  The Yelp community was created after the platform was available.  I view GoogleHotPot as giving a community a tool, and Yelp built a community on a platform.  You can watch/listen to TWIST episode with Lior Ron here. What can GoogleHotPot do for users?    1. You wouldn't have to go to multiple review sites (Yelp, Chow, UrbanSpoon) to see reviews.  GoogleHotPot collects the ratings and shows it to you in a pretty box. 2. You can start to personalize the searches, and thusly improve recommendations.  Every time you rate a place, Google starts to learn what you like and don't like, and thusly adjusting recommendations to you.  I've asked Yelp about this several times to no avail.  I wanted a tool where Yelp would discard reviews from people who did not share the same taste preferences or styles of food as well.  From a data perspective, their ratings and reviews would be ignored by me anyways. 3. You are already in your community.  Since GoogleHotPot is on your Google profile, it is easy to add friends that are already in your email box.  No need to join a new community or to start one.  You already have your community of friends that you can add to your GoogleHotPot.  I have just shy of a quajillion contacts on Google.  I already know these people, and I already communicate with them. What can GoogleHotPot do for businesses? 1. Your business shows up on Google.  They don't adjust or change your rankings, but you get to highlight when you are on Google.  With Yelp, you have to hope that Yelp's SEO will get your Yelp page ranked high on the first page.  And well, Yelp business pages aren't getting as high as they used to.  There were some Yelp business pages that I couldn't find on Google.  However, Yelp talk threads are still highly ranked. Like really highly ranked. 2. Information that Google gives business owners for free: Update your details, phone number, address, hours, photos, or special announcements. Business intelligence and insights via a dashboard. Where are people coming from (physically)? What queries are people searching to find you? Impressions (and mobile impressions) User behavior on your Google Places 3. The ability to add tags to highlight your business when it shows up in Google.  The fee to for the tags is only $25 per month.  That is very affordable, even to small businesses. You add tags to enhance: Photos of your business Videos of your business Coupons for your listing Menu for your restaurant Reservations page for your business Posts for your business Other benefits are: Easily and inexpensively highlight your listing on Google from Google Places. Potential customers in your local area will see what you think is most important or unique about your business. Track the effectiveness of your tag with your Google Places dashboard. There is no additional work or ongoing management is needed. 3. Boost, which is like Google adwords.  I can tell you from experience that the Boost is effective on mobile devices.  I once searched for a business by name, and all the similar businesses who had Boost showed up on my Google Map.  The actual business I was searching did not.  That can be a very practical way for businesses to edge out the competition in the mobile space. What's in the future?    I can't tell you how GoogleHotPot will pan out.  To be honest, Google has had their fair share of failed products like Wave and Buzz.  However, unlike HotPot, Wave and Buzz relied entirely on people to talk to each other using Google tools.  GoogleHotPot is capitalizing on content that already exists.  That might make or break this new product.  After attending the Launch Conference, I also saw that new tools that were quoted to be like the "Netflix of _________."  Whether or not GoogleHotPot takes off, it is pretty obvious that search is evolving.     You might wonder why I've made such a big deal about GoogleHotPot, I kind of love Chinese hot pot.  That's my comfort food, one of them anyways.