Let them eat cake, the Saturday edition

Today I baked two cakes in loaf pans so they could be considered breads, but let's not.

Savory Salami cake and Pain d'epices, to be blogged, for realz.

Then we all sat down and ate them.

My friends are really talented. Top right  - Pain d'epices, Bottom right -Pavlova, Bottom left - Cauliflower Cake, Top left, Victoria Sponge with strawberries, Middle -Carrot Cake with Caramel. Not pictured the Broccoli Cake and the Salami Cake and myriads of jellies and jams.

We ate Pain d'epices, Pavlova, Broccoli Cake, Cauliflower Cake, Salami, Pistachio and Sun Dried Tomato Cake, Victoria Sponge, Carrot cake and all sorts other of good things. All those vegetables count as dinner right? I took a three hour nap after all that cake.

I made this pie a year ago, but it looks nearly the same - that is my friend Leslie Seaton's home made apple brandy and I'm not sharing.  Recipe to be blogged, really, it is so good.

And then spent the next two hours making pie.

All in all a good day.

The Single Payer System

Le Crillon, Dec. 2013. We are so fancy.

I love travel, loyalty programs and  I love eating. These are the three truths. I also love to plan. I would have made a terrible hostel goer or backpacker back in the day.  I am not a seat of the pants traveller either, I like to have a decent idea of where I'm going and what I'm going to see.

I also hate waiting in lines, all of them.

I'm a big fan of online reservation systems that ensure that I don't have to wait in line for food, museum exhibitions and ticket machines that only take exact change. For dining, I use OpenTable as much as possible to make restaurant bookings. I have even been known to fire up the app on the way to a restaurant just to ensure I'm not going to be hanging out in the parking lot with one of those ugly pagers.

Restaurants sometimes run promotions through OpenTable to get people to dine during off hours. Typically a diner earns 100 points for booking through OpenTable, but sometimes that bumps up to 1000 points.  Points start to add up fast when you book them at these odd hours and for those who love their points, it can mean convincing your loved one eating dinner at 545 is really a very late lunch.

What does this have to do with the Single Payer System?  Most of these promos require a party of two to get the 1000 points.  The solo traveller is just as likely to eat either earlier or late, but they don't qualify for the promotion.  Shouldn't we be getting at least 500 points?

I know that the restaurants pay to be part of the OpenTable program and it costs them x number of dollars to give out these points, but who is to say the solo traveller is not going to order a more expensive entree, a better glass of wine and perhaps linger over a cappuccino before heading back to their room to watch Dog the Bounty Hunter?

The same thing goes for restaurants that will not book tables for one. I use the French and UK equivalents of OpenTable to book restaurants and often times they will not take a solo diner.  I end up booking for two and bring my bear to lunch (Kidding, sort of) . Instead I'll sheepishly say that my companion was not going to make it and hope they don't put me next to the bussing station.

I think it is time for the single payer/diner to be recognized.  We can easily just order room service and sit in our pjs, but we choose to adventure out and try the newest kombucha on tap hotspot, so rejoice and give us our damn points for trying.

Throw back Thursday, the very tired and must go to bed edition

I bought a slide scanner earlier this summer and I am completely driven to scan all that I have to lessen my photo footprint. There will be more on that soon. These are a few of my memories of Rome, shot on film.

Finding beauty in all the right places, Rome 2000.

Passegiata, Rome 1997.

Not to scale, Ghetto, Rome 1997,

How to feed a startup

Pecan shortbread dipped in bittersweet chocolate, likely never to be blogged. 

I bake a lot.

This is not a secret.

Every week I bake a few quick breads or a batch of cookies and take them into work. We're not huge (yet), so it is not an onerous task.  It is something I enjoy doing. It gives me a chance to try some new things out to a very appreciative audience who is happy to give me feedback on this week's treat. 

Getting feedback is a great thing. It makes me a better baker and if I make the same batch of cookies again, you get to experience the improved product. If you are lucky, I'll tell you about it the recipe and why I chose to bake it. I may even share the recipe with you and you'll take the cookies to your next potluck. You might decide to share the same recipe with friends via your blog, Instagram or Pinterest that might get spread further through social media and continue this cycle of sharing.  As a cookie baker, you may want to make some changes to make it even better and hopefully you'll include me in the loop and I'll make some of those tweaks to the recipe over time.

Friends, this is how you feed a startup.

Eat, tell, share, rave.

Our product is in beta and I would love for you to try it.   We've developed a web app, ClipCard that connects to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.net and other apps and let's you see across all of them at the same time from one place.  ClipCard helps me connect the dots and see the relationships between my files and contacts and get things done without spending a lot of time and falling down a rabbit hole of irrelevant searching.

Join at www.clipcard.com

If you sign up, post a comment and I'll be sure to send you an sweet acknowledgement for your help.

nazila

The festive lunch

                                      Getting festive. St. John, Spitalfields, Dec. 2010. 

Today  I Googled "date night restaurants in London" and read through various and sundry lists of places to have a romantic or quiet dinner with decent food.  On the lists are places that I have dined and had a great time. For the most part they were great places to eat, but definitely not places for date night. Date night to me means that you can actually hear and interact with your object of affection.

Having to scream or lip read because the restaurant is so loud does not for a great date make.  

Perhaps the issue is that we really only go to London during the festive period - the first weekend to the third weekend of December. This is the time when colleagues celebrate their good fortunes at work by booking lovely long luxurious dinners and lunches at places sought out by foodies and have a jolly time. Unfortunately, it is usually at the expense of anyone else who has had the misfortune of booking at the same time.  I'm talking about being seated next to 18 tops at St. John and six tops at Nopi.  We've seen it all at both dinner and lunch - no time is immune from festive bookings these days.

I have two dinners next month free in London. I'm hoping I don't hit the party circuit and get to actually enjoy the company of my date and friends without a megaphone. 

Accidents will happen

They say that most accidents happen in the house or near your house. I'm living proof of this.  Accidents happen to me because I cannot leave well alone or better yet, just SLOW THE HECK DOWN.

Most of my accidents involve gravity and stairs. I'm pinching myself, throwing salt behind my back and knocking wood as we speak.  Today I took an awesome tumble down the stairs to the basement because I looked up instead of down.

It could have really sucked, instead I am just wincing when I sit down and trying to figure out how to start slowing things down so these things don't  happen. Each "accident" or setback, whether it be falling down a flight of stairs or having to redo a bunch of calculations because you didn't check your work and think things through are big wastes of time.

They are also sometimes caused by our need to say "Yes" and "No problem" and try to complete a task without thinking all the steps through. Friends, we need to start saying "yes, no problem, but give me a few minutes to come up with a way to do this right". Most of us are not brain surgeons, bomb detonators or sharpshooters.  We're folks trying to make sure we fill out the form correctly to get that bomb squad person hired.

You think the bomb squad person rushes? Nope.

So, a few advil from now I may no longer wince when I sit down, but hopefully I'll still be reminded of the need to slow down to get something done correctly and safely.

Where is that inflatable donut?

The week that was or wasn't

I came down with some kind of flu on Friday. I'm delighted to say I managed to hold it together and manage public transport, a walk home and to change my clothes before I fell to pieces.  Lots of crap happened here while I was out and I thank the gods daily for TH and her ability to get things done while I was sleeping off this thing.

I have lots of awesome things I was going to write about, but honestly, if I can manage to get a load of laundry into wash, write this post, pack my work bag and clear out my mail from the weekend, I'm high-fiving myself to bits.

High Five.

Getting through those mails.

Yeah.

Right.

I read most of my mail on my phone. This is not unusual. The average wage slave consumes mail and work information from a mobile device. In fact, they may own more than one, maybe even three and a half.  Hell, I have possession of four right now.

Well, no matter what, I still let things fall through the crack because it is pretty darn hard to keep track of the 100 to 140 mail messages I get a day over five or six accounts.

This is also not an unusual thing. Most of us (wage slaves or not) have more than one mail account. We may read them from one place, but mail comes from a million places and it is getting harder to manage.

Not only do we have mail now, most of use instant message (iMessage, jabber, yammer) or collaboration tools (Slack, HipChat, Lync) within our work groups to communication internally to minimize the interruptions that caused by email threads.

How can we keep track of all this?

I'm not sure we can.  Lots of tools allow you to get organized with all this information - you can set alerts and notifications, defer answering mail, archive messages, set rules within your mail and other good things.

For me, I'm trying to read my mail quickly from my phone, but when I get to my office, I'll triage what I can from my laptop.  I try really hard to keep email at bay by not answering it as it comes in, but in one bulk slug. I pick either push notifications or emails when dealing with collaborative tools - I refuse to double the amount of attention that software commands of my resources. 

When I get home from work, I let it pile up and read it after dinner.

As for the fun email from my other five accounts - that gets read the same way. Triage, bulk and a decent purge through once a week and a lot of unsubscribing.

Unsubscribing is your friend. You will never miss what you didn't know existed.  Trust me.

How do you handle all this information to keep yourself productive and on top of your game?

Happy Saturday

Hope you had a great day.

Converting the Customer - Airbnb - you rock.

Note - This post was written a few months ago for a marketing class. I thought it was worth sharing with a larger audience.  Thanks a million @airbnb and @FourSeasons for making me love you even more and making my colleagues really happy.


I'm not slouch when it comes to social media. I understand the power of the voice of the consumer and how marketing is used to make me want something now or change my behavior for the long run. Sometimes I think social media marketing and outreach is a little like dating - or stalking.  There is a little flirting, then some digging and then a call to action - a proposition.  You are at the mercy of your target.  She may spurn you if you don't get your act together.

June 2013, we went to Hawaii for a few days.  On the way through Honolulu,  I started a conversation with the resort's social media person (we follow each other on Twitter) about National Donut Day.  We bantered back and forth about the lack of donut shops on the island and how sad it would be not to celebrate this event.  Fast forward, three hours and we're sitting by the pool, waiting for lunch and and what should appear with my wrap - a plate of donuts.

The resort's social media manager arranged to make my Donut day.  Yes, I did tweet about it.

Later that month, I engaged in an hour long travel chat on Twitter.  Airbnb asked me what would get me to leave a resort to stay in an Airbnb property. I  replied (jokingly) that until they offered me donut delivery at the pool, it wasn't going to happen.

The following week, I was summoned to our reception area. Two dozen donuts had been delivered to me by @airbnb with a note to the effect - "We can't offer you pool side donuts, but we can bring deliver them to you at your desk" -  Regards,  your friends at Airbnb

Airbnb identified me as someone to convert from a resort going travel savvy consumer to someone who might be willing to try out their service.  They had someone from their Marketing department seek me out on LinkedIn, find out where I was working and to arrange to have two boxes of donuts delivered to my office. Did it impress? Certainly. Did they convert me? Well, not quite.  I downloaded the app and searched for apartments for a few stays I had planned overseas, but have yet to pull the trigger on booking a reservation.  Do I think that if I had a problem with a Airbnb property, I would feel like they are listening? Sure. They went the extra step.

In both cases, the resort and Airbnb, they both went out of their way to flirt (engage), dig a little deeper (look at my profile, my habits, my position), and act in an attempt to win me over with a call to action that took some effort and creativity. Social marketing seems easy to some, but in other cases, it really is about going that extra mile.

Sarah Morris for Longchamp - A pop of color

When I returned from Paris, my colleague asked me how many bags I picked up.

Yup, he knows me well.

Two.

I have a thing for bags - clutches, totes, purses, messenger bags - you name it, I love it.

The latest Longchamp collaboration with Sarah Morris is divine and I highly recommend you go pick one up before they disappear.

Sarah Morris has reimagined the eponymous, yet useful and practical les Pliages range into something new and edgy.  I fell in love when I saw them on the Longchamp site and was delighted to find the range at the rue St. Honoré branch.

I love all the colors and the black handles on the purse and travel bag are a nice change for the tan. The white leather used for the long handled shopping totes looked nice, but given the grubby nature of bus commuting I decided to stay with the black.  

The signature pieces modeled after her painting - "The Eclipse"  would go with everything, but the white background would stain easily. I know others have had luck washing their les Pliages bags and removing stains, so you may want to try that one out.  

Now on to the bags I bought - a handbag and a travel bag which look very similar.

The handbag feels more like a luggage tote - it's exceedingly roomy, maybe a little too roomy.  I could see over filling it and lugging more than you needed around for the day.  The travel bag is your standard "I bought too much on vacation and I need to check my bag" extra bag. 

The only drawback I see to these bags - or the ones I looked at is the white interior of the bags. White is great for finding things, but not so great for keeping clean. 

The hardest thing was picking a color. I loved the green, gray, blue and black.  I finally decided on the royal blue because it coordinates well with my current wardrobe and is vastly different from the tan, black, orange and olive pieces I already own and might brighten up a dull Seattle day.

The boring bits

Pain aux raisins at the Park Hyatt Vendome. These could be my most favorite things in the world. 

In October, I went on a modified Elimination diet. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't the bellyaching bitch fest that most folks seem to discuss on the social networks. Like most things in my life these days, it had a start and stop date. For four weeks, I stopped eating oats, wheat and wheat like products, some fruits and vegetables, sugar, eggs, almonds and dairy from my diet. I did not remove coffee and chocolate from my life because that was going too far, but didn't seek them out either. I felt great for those weeks. I had more energy and not as hungry as I had feared. I tried really hard not to bore people with my elimination diet. I travelled twice during the time and managed okay both times. Sashimi was my friend and I was glad rice and potatoes did not make the hit list.

 I learned that I could live without goat cheese and hemp milk wasn't as crappy tasting as I had feared.

 I added bunch of stuff back to "challenge" my system while I was in France. I felt okay, nothing really awful happened. It wasn't like a sat down and ate an Emmenthal and ham sandwich dipped in beet juice followed by an almond milk chaser. I tried a little of this (bread) with a little of that (grand mariner souffle) and some of this (cheese). The world did not end, I did not start raising funds for my elimination diet video channel and meal planning kit kickstarter. I listened to my body, gauged how I felt after each item was introduced and moved on.

 What I did realize was that I love my boring and predictable food choices and I'm happy to abide by them the 280 days a year I'm at home. I'll try some things when I'm out of my comfort zone, but really I would be much happier in my comfort zone. I could have walked 10 minutes from my hotel and gotten a juice bar experience or I could crossed the Avenue de l'Opera to visit Starbucks and get a soy latte. Instead I decided that my choice would be to skip the smoothie and have fruit instead. I drank more cafes than cappucinos and as TH has pointed out, the tisanes are a far superior to their coffee.

 I'm easing back into my home routine for the next two weeks. I look forward to cooking this weekend and my 3 pm hummus and carrots. It may be boring, but sometimes that is all it takes.

Home again

Now where did I put my orca card?

Expect the expected

Tomorrow is the first time in nearly  20 years I am flying British Airways westbound in Economy.  I'm not complaining, it was of my own choosing.  I wanted to get home fast. I have equipped myself with a good book, earplugs and a chocolate eclair from La Marquis de Laduree. I hope this and a decent cup of coffee at the airport will see me through.

I've flown American Airlines many times in the same class and with long layovers and survived. I've grown accustomed to the declining service, lack of edible food, vastly long layovers and non-personalized attention from my airline of choice. I think that is part of the problem - I have no expectations, I just expect meh service and to be exhausted when I get to Seattle.

I'm moving into new ground here with British Airways, wish me luck.

Plats du Jour

Many small boxes (not of take out), November 2014. 

Sunday is a big day for eating out in Paris.  Families gather to have a lovely lunch out and catch up and tourists look at menus with great hesitation trying to decide whether to venture inside a bistro to get something to eat. Others may wander in to get out the cold or hot or just take a load off.  In all cases, it is nice to take a break and spend the next hour - erm, staring at a screen.

Face it, most of us are guilty of doing this.  You have been pretty darn good all day long.  You may have used your phone to take a few pictures or look up directions, but once you sit down, you are lost.  We are guilty of catching up with Instagram comments, answering work emails from six thousand miles away, or waiting to take a picture of your soup.

The important things is we're sitting down to eat a meal someone else has prepared and more than likely,we're sitting with someone we like/love/respect and we're not paying giving them or the food the attention it or they deserve.

Today I witnessed many tables where both parties were eating and typing at the same time. They weren't sitting at a fast food establishment wolfing down a burger to rush back to their desks.  These were people who were dropping close to 80 bucks per person to eat lunch and they barely spent it interacting with each other or their food.

Why even bother?

I am just as guilty as others, but I am trying really hard to be mindful about this. We have a no phones the table unless the world is ending or the World Series is on. Is it okay to tune in instead of tuning out by shutting out the real world?

Is it okay to just thank the waitstaff who has seated you and brought you food? Is it okay to chew each mouthful of food and be humbled that someone went to the trouble to feed you? 

Watching other's today made me even more determined to stop looking at my phone for entertainment and start paying attention to what is going on around me.

How about you?  Do you have a no-phone/device policy while eating? 

Tuileries, Nov. 2013.

It is lovely to spend the day with the person you love in your favorite city.

Happy Saturday from the City of Lights

See something, Say something

I have learned a lot about myself in the last few years. One thing is that I am much better off confronting a situation that stewing for hours . It is better to face whatever is nagging or bothering me instead of losing sleep or involving others in my web of crankiness.

There is nothing like remembering a trip because of the one shitty thing that happened to you instead of the 300 awesome things which occurred at same time.

"I loved x, but all I can remember was the rude waiter, crappy valet, lack of turn down service or smelly seat opponent." 

Trying to turn this around to - "Greenland was amazing, I even enjoyed the surprise overnight visit to Disko Island thanks to the ferry running aground.  We got to meet some folks we would have never of met and saw way more icebergs because of it".  

So, not everyone has had  the joy of being stranded in Greenland, but I'm thinking all six of you who have read this blog post have gotten a sub-par room in a hotel and have either shut up and unpacked your suitcase or have bitched about the room to someone other than the Front Desk Manager.

Now, I just confront whatever it is that is bothering me - hotel rooms, inadequate service or ferries that run aground. If I get resolution, great. If I don't, I tried and can move on. Moving on is hard, but sometimes it is all you can do.

What about you?

Guilty Pleasures

I'm sitting in the Skyteam Lounge at LAX waiting to board my flight to Paris. It is a really nice lounge, light and airy and spacious.  It is also very quiet, which is very unusual in this day and age.

It is also place with free wifi. I'm working but I'm also doing something else  - I'm catching up on my vapid television watching. I do a lot of that these days.  I have become somewhat of a tv watcher. I'm not proud of it, but instead of reading tattered copies of Redbook at the gym, I'm catching up on British shows and U.S. popular culture in 45 minute chunks.

What is my guilty pleasure? Picking a series and downloading a full season to watch on the trip.  The rest, I'll pick up on netflix or hulu, but spending that 19 bucks for 19 hours of entertainment is my guilty pleasure.

What is yours?

There is nothing more exhausting on than being "on". I have great admiration for folks in sales. 

That is me on stage. 

 

Nm

Please hold questions until the end 

Woo Woo What? and missing your target

Klout, WTF? 

I spend my days wondering if anyone will ever read what I write.

Truthfully, I spend about six minutes wondering if I should hit the share buttons and even posting to Google Plus to see if I can increase my reach. I don't always execute on my intentions because the people I follow or care about are usually on more than one of my networks and I hate bombarding people with the same content or whines.

There are a million places, apps and opportunities for people to share content, but picking the right one is critical to building your audience. Are the folks you engage with the most  on Twitter? Do you love to curate collections and have a million followers on Pinterest? Are your photos envied and emoticoned by more than your best three friends?

Should you pick just one?

I recommend that you and I should spend some time testing hypotheses, measuring reach, and trying different approaches before developing your outreach mix.   I crack up every time I see this ad for Adobe Marketing Cloud.  It is a great example of brands and maybe you, jumping on the latest thing without thinking things through.

Jumping on a bandwagon - Cashing in the Q4 budget and buying some followers. 


Until next time, WOO WOO on or until you mama joins up.

How to dress for success or how to dress yourself successfully

A room with a view, Hyatt Etoile, July 2014.

My life has taken some turns - mostly good.

I have started to dress like a grown-up. Maybe its that I finally feel like I can buy clothes that suit me. It might just be that I work right next to the Nordstrom shoe buyers and I feel like I have to up my game.
Whatever it is, it takes a little more effort that it did before to get out the door and that takes some planning.

I'm going on an eight day trip soon that involves air travel and a bit of driving. I have a short work presentation to a bunch of friendly colleagues who are more casual and then to Paris where I want to look nice and be comfortable. I'm not into wardrobe changes per se, but I could definitely get out of my rut and try a few things.

In my new found love of retail I have learned a few things that I would love to share with you. Here they are.

Always shop for clothes on an empty stomach - you'll look better.

If you can't take someone you trust with you when you go shopping  make sure you model what you bought for them before you rip off the tags.

Try and sit down and cross your legs, bend over, stretch your arms up in your new garments on a full stomach before you rip off any tags.

Cut those tags off, do not rip them.

Always save the receipt and the buttons that come with whatever you bought. You'll need them one day.

Oh, I hate Pinterest, but here is a board that shows you just what I'm thinking of taking.

Do tell me what you think.

nm