from gardeningblog.net

Days to germination: 7 to 14 days
Days to harvest: 80 to 90 days
Light requirements: Full sun
Water requirements: Regular watering
Soil: Loose and well-drained soil
Container: Not ideal for container gardening, but possible

Introduction

Fennel is a multi-purpose plant for your garden that will provide you with aromatic seeds for seasoning as well as a thick bulb for a vegetable. You can even eat the thicker stalks, like celery. The fine leaves can be snipped off and also used as an herb. The seeds have a licorice-like flavor very similar to anise, as do the other parts of the plant (those not as strongly as the seeds).

Fennel bulb is a popular ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine, and it can be eaten raw, grilled, or baked.

Though the plant can produce seeds as well as vegetable, you can’t get both from each individual plant. You have to harvest the bulb before the plant goes to seed. So if you want to use your fennel for all its uses, you’ll need to grow a few plants to take advantage of its versatility.

The plant is a perennial that can survive winters between growing zones 5 and 10. Some varieties of common fennel will not produce the fat bulb, so if you intend to harvest that as well you should plant Florence fennel.

The fennel bulb is high in vitamin C, and is also a good source of calcium, fiber and potassium.

Starting from Seed

Fennel doesn’t transplant well, so you can just sow your seeds straight out into the garden in the late spring after the frost threat has passed. Since your plants will come back each year, plan for a somewhat permanent location for your fennel.

Before you plant, dig the soil to loosen it up and add some compost for extra nutrients. For heavy or clay soils, add in some sand for extra drainage.

Seeds only need to be lightly covered by soil (perhaps and 1/8 of an inch), and should be kept frequently watered until they sprout their first few leaves. Space your seeds out around 10 inches apart. You might want to plant a few more than you need, and thin them down after they have sprouted.

If you are also growing dill in your garden, you must keep it as far from your fennel as possible if you plan on harvesting the fennel seeds. Fennel and dill will cross-pollinate and you will end up with very bland and odd-tasting seeds. Same applies for any coriander plants.

Growing Instructions

The bulb of the fennel plant grows at the base of the stalks, but not underground. Once the plant starts to develop the bulb, hill up the soil around it so that the sun doesn’t turn it green. This is called “blanching” and similar to the techniques used for growing celery. It keeps the bulb white and sweeter-tasting.

Once the bulbs are growing, water your fennel frequently so they don’t dry out. That’s if your intention is to harvest the bulb. If you are just after the seeds, then it is less important. Dry weather will encourage the plant to go to seed. This will ruin the bulb but is necessary for a seed harvest.

Give your fennel patch a fertilizer feeding each year in the spring with a standard fertilizer formula, or an addition of fresh compost.

Containers

As a perennial, fennel will become a fairly large plant with a very deep root system and is not ideal for containers. But with a large pot, you can keep potted fennel successfully. It should have a depth of at least 12 inches, but a 5 gallon pot would be a better option.

If you plant more than one plant in a pot that size, they will still grow and produce seeds but they will be too crowded to develop the vegetable bulb. This may work fine if you are only interested in the seeds anyway.

Fill it with light soil, with an extra layer of stone or gravel for added drainage. Fennel likes water, but not soggy roots.

Pests and Diseases

Fennel is not particularly at risk from many insect pests or diseases. You might sometimes find aphids or small whiteflies on the leaves, but they are seldom a serious problem. A spray or two of pyrethrin-based insecticidal soap will usually keep them under control.

The worst problem with fennel is root rot, which will damage your plants if you let them sit with wet roots for too long. Their soil should be light and well-drained, and you shouldn’t over-water the plants.

Harvest and Storage

You can start to harvest the leaves once your plants have become established and are growing well. Only take a few each time so you don’t harm the plant.

The bulb is harvested once it gets to the size of a small tennis ball. If you leave it to grow larger, the plant will likely bolt to seed and the taste of the bulb will almost immediately become bitter. Slice the plant off at the base of the bulb, right at the soil line. The bulb can survive a frost or two, so there needn’t be any rush to harvest your fennel when the cold weather arrives.

Harvesting fennel seeds is done in the fall when the flowers have turned brown, and they should be left to dry on the plant. Be careful when you go to collect the seeds as they come loose very easily. A bag or bowl under each flower is a good idea so none are lost.

Because fennels seeds very easily and the seeds will spread, you should try to collect all the seeds even if you don’t actually need them all. Otherwise, you will have fennel growing all over your yard come next spring.

Fennel bulbs should be stored in the fridge and used within a few days for the best flavor and texture. You can freeze it for longer storage, though it will lose a lot of taste when thawed out. Seeds can be kept in an air-tight container for 6 months or more as long as they are well dried.

From: Jamie Oliver

• 250g organic plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 50g icing sugar, sifted
• 125g good-quality cold butter, cut into small cubes
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 large free-range or organic egg, beaten
• a splash of milk

This pastry is perfect for making apple and other sweet pies. Even if you’ve never made pastry before, as long as you stick to the correct measurements for the ingredients and you follow the method exactly, you’ll be laughing. The one place where you can experiment is with flavouring. If you don’t fancy using lemon zest, try another dry ingredient like orange zest instead. Or a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg or cocoa powder. Vanilla seeds are great too. Just remember to be subtle and don’t go overboard with any of these flavours!

Try to be confident and bring the pastry together as quickly as you can – don’t knead it too much or the heat from your hands will melt the butter. A good tip is to hold your hands under cold running water beforehand to make them as cold as possible. That way you’ll end up with a delicate, flaky pastry every time.

Sieve the flour from a height on to a clean work surface and sieve the icing sugar over the top. Using your hands, work the cubes of butter into the flour and sugar by rubbing your thumbs against your fingers until you end up with a fine, crumbly mixture. This is the point where you can spike the mixture with interesting flavours, so mix in your lemon zest.

Add the eggs and milk to the mixture and gently work it together till you have a ball of dough. Flour it lightly. Don’t work the pastry too much at this stage or it will become elastic and chewy, not crumbly and short. Flour your work surface and place the dough on top. Pat it into a flat round, flour it lightly, wrap it in clingfilm and put it into the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

I recently wrote a blog post about chef foodography. I was happy to see that it made an impact, at least for one awesome pie shop.

But a chef’s food picture needs a hundred words or so to actually be worth a thousand.

That’s right folks, while it is awesome that so many of you are now taking good photos and posting them, that’s only half the story. It takes about 100 words to turn your food p0rn into an engine for marketing yourself and your brand.

I pulled a couple of the typical pictures chefs are posting these days to help illustrate why.

Let’s kick off with a photo of a dish from an amazingly talented chef in town (just take my word for it, ok?).

Chestnut mousse, persimmon anglaise, caramel meringue, Périgord truffles. Yum!  Only, what is it?

Is it an app? An entree? Dessert? Could be anything, really. I mean, it’s got savory stuff in there and anglaise can be savory these days, as can meringue. So, who knows.

One thing we do know: it’s an aggressive dish. In fact, this could be quite a statement dish for a chef. But since the chef didn’t share anything but the four base elements, we’re left to our own imaginations. And diners aren’t as imaginative as chefs.

So, while this could be something people see and share, instead they probably looked at it, maybe made a “yum” comment, but I can guarantee you they didn’t understand it from the chef’s perspective. And because of that, they likely won’t feel compelled to go eat it. Just look and scroll on to the next Facebook picture. Which likely will be something like a LOL cat or a picture of a kid with oatmeal all over his face.

Next up is a picture that’s a little easier for a typical diner to figure out. We don’t need too much imagination to figure out this combination.

But this photo post also misses the mark because it could be a great story idea that likely won’t see the light of day. That story, “How paying attention to color can impact cuisine,” is actually perfectly suited to this chef. But the chef never shares enough for anyone to know.

Imagine, if you will, if the chef explained how he incorporates a color study in, actually, a lot of his food. Imagine if he shared his near painterly philosophies of cuisine, which really define a lot of what he does. He doesn’t even have to know he is painterly, but if he started sharing more than just the few primary elements of the dish, a savvy journalist would pick up on the theme and write that story. It’d be a good one.

Next up is a dish that you wouldn’t know comes from one of the most talented cooks in America. I mean, if you look at the dish, it kinda looks forced, you know, into that star pattern that, if you study it a bit, kinda looks sorta amateurish. Which is sad because it isn’t. And you’d probably know that if the chef spent a little time explaining how this dish comes together. Because I know what this chef puts into his food and it is, well, seriously, he is one of the most talented cooks in America.

So, I have to ask. Are you just posting some topline elements or ingredients with your dishes?

If so, I have to ask. Why are you wasting your time?

And what should you do instead?

Well, for starters, you could do what (no relation) Scott Malloy of Arami did on his Facebook page. It’s kinda brilliant and while he doesn’t tell me anything about the different elements of the dish along the way, at least he is romancing me a bit. I wanna go eat that. It looks compelling.

But I am sure that doing that for each dish would be time-consuming — and would quickly become tedious for the diner.

So, maybe just put in a little effort when you post a photo. Just a little bit can go a long way. Here’s an example of how that looks. I know you’ll see the difference immediately.

If you want to see how this looks live, on the internet, you can click here. And if you click on those red keywords at the bottom of the post, you’ll begin to see why making your food photos findable on the internet is important.

I’m not thinking I need to say anything more. Well, here’s a checklist of what to include:

1. Name of the dish
2. Price of the dish (Let me put it to you this way: does an awesome picture of the view from an awesome looking Caribbean resort compel you to fly down there and check it out without knowing how much it costs? Right, neither does a food photo without a price. Price matters. You know that. Just add the price.)
3. Some background on the dish, be it inspiration, how it came together, or why it is important to you. It doesn’t really matter as long as it is something you feel compelled to say. Because what you say about your food, chef, is something we diners are interested in hearing.
4. A pairing, why not? Your food isn’t consumed in a vacuum, and the addition of a killer pairing just might help drive people in the door.

David Katz is an amazingly outspoken chef in Philadelphia. His Twitter feed is prodigious and showcases his quick, sharp wit and hits the bullseye of the chef’s workaday reality. (He also makes a mean fried chicken.)

As usual, David nailed it in an answer to a question we recently asked our Spoonfeed members about what makes a city a great culinary destination. Here, in his own words:

“I actually think what plays a huge role in what constitutes a great restaurant city are the writers. In cities where the writers are weak and highlight the restaurants based on popularity and go with the trends, that’s not good. What people in cities know about restaurants in other cities is what they read. So, if the writers aren’t really good that city won’t shine as bright. The writers set the tone. I wish that weren’t the way, but it is.

Some (maybe all, who knows?) cities are run by 1 maybe 2 big PR firms as well and that also has a huge amount to do with what cities are considered great, good, or bad. Again sad, but true. It’s all a big popularity contest…sad, BUT true. We in Philly have 2 guys that get crazy amounts of press and there are some great restaurants here that are way too far under the radar. Philly should be considered stronger if a bunch of the nationally unknowns would break out and get seen/appreciated.”

Wow. If he doesn’t nail what most chefs think but few are willing to say.

So, I ask you — what would happen if the chefs were the writers? What would happen if chefs, mixologists and sommeliers had a platform to share what they think on a given topic?

You’d have to reach out to the working chefs — the ones who make up the backbone of a city’s culinary scene. Not just the window dressing ones. You’d have to include the mixologists who hoist a French shaker as often as they tip back a tumbler at a friend’s bar. You’d want to include the legions of sommeliers who taste in study groups more than they fly around to luxury wine regions to schmooze with rich collectors.

But really, what would happen if those all chefs, mixologists and sommeliers — both marquee names and unknown talents — had an equal voice? An equal chance to be heard.  What if the chefs joined the journalists in the culinary discourse and started writing their own stories? What if they, too, had a platform to share their views, their opinions and their ideas?

Well, we’re about to find out.

Today, Restaurant Intelligence Agency moves out of BETA, and while I am going to cover a lot of the changes on this blog in coming weeks, it seems fitting to start with the relaunch of Soapbox — our online magazine shouting out chefs, mixologists and sommeliers in their own words. Our members provide the puzzle pieces, and Soapbox connects them.

With the relaunch, Soapbox now features daily stories curated from our members’ content.  Every day, we’ll cover a new topic of interest to chefs — and hopefully to diners as well. Today, we’re writing about the weather and how it’s impacting menus across the country. So, we’re taking a lineup of chef answers to a question about the weather and weaving them into a story.

Tomorrow, we’re investigating restaurant reconcepting, through the eyes of those in the throes of overhauling their baby. Then, we celebrate maple season and a burgeoning culinary destination. And that’s just this week.

And this is the kicker — seriously, you might want to sit down right about now —  anyone working at a chef-driven restaurant anywhere in the country can be a part of those stories each day — for free.

Chefs, sous chefs, bread bakers, pastry chefs, mixologists, sommeliers, beer dudes and gals, and even those behind-the-scenes owners who never seem to get enough kudos for all their hard work — everyone can be included in any story, every day.

To be a part of Soapbox, all you have to do is work in a chef-driven restaurant, sign up and answer a question or two each day.

You don’t have to be trendy to be included — but you do have to be thoughtful when you answer.

You don’t have to be new — but your ideas should be fresh.

And you’ll no longer be that guy no one is writing about — as long as you have something to say.

Because in our minds, David’s right. Until now, it has been a bit of a popularity contest when it comes to who gets written about and who gets left out. And we know there are a lot more chefs, mixologists and sommeliers out there that deserve to be included in an exciting national outlet — and companion national newsletter.

So, David, we’re glad to see you as our lead in today’s story. Now, gather up your chef friends, the mixologists who shake your martinis, and the sommeliers you respect most, and …

Let’s get busy making our own reality.

Join here. (Join now.)

• 3 onions
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 peeled & chopped apples
• 1 shredded red cabbage
• 100 g soft brown sugar
• 100ml red wine vinegar
• cloves, cinnamon, salt, peeper

1) Slice onions and sweat in olive oil in a large pan until soft.

2) Add the chopped apples and red cabbage and season with salt, pepper, ground cloves and cinnamon

3) Stir and cover pan with a lid. Turn the heat down and add some water to the pan. Stew for 1 hour, or until the cabbage is tender. Check every now & again, adding some water if the pan looks like it’s getting dry.

4) Remove lid and add the sugar and vinegar. Cook for a further 10 mins until the liquid has evaporated.

5) Season to taste and serve.

Yesterday, resident Grub Streeter and Sky Full of Baconer Mike Gebert contributed a guest post on how to get PR (media coverage). Since he was writing that post for publicists and I write for chefs, I thought I would translate it a bit for you and add in a few new points as well.

1) Be an interesting chef and do something interesting.
The killer line in this point is the following. And dammit, read it slowly and let it sink in:

But I guarantee you there are chefs out there doing interesting things who arenʼt telling me or anybody about it.

I want to point this out particularly because, and I mean this, not a day goes by that a chef doesn’t tell me they’re “gonna just take the opportunities that come their way,” they “don’t have time for marketing cause they’re all busy cooking,” or “so what, there are people who get a lot of press and don’t spend time on it.”

To the first, I think: Why don’t you admit you are lazy and/or scared?
To the second, I hint: How are you gonna feel in a year when you didn’t reach your goals?
To the third, I ask: How the hell is that line of thinking helping you?

Because at the end of the day, you need to tell the press what is going on for them to know what is going on. And if you want press — if that is your goal — then actually doing the work of telling them about your interesting stuff is as important as whatever interesting stuff you are doing.

(Note to the chef who insists he is a cook and not a marketer: If you get enough press to stay happy and keep your restaurant busy, hats off. If you don’t, well, I am writing this post for you.)

There are “free” ways of doing it. Hint: I don’t mean Facebook, yo, just posting something doesn’t mean it is reaching people. You have to put it in their hands, not just toss it in the air like confetti and hope it lands on the right person.

There are cheap ways of doing it. Yes, that’s a plug for Spoonfeed. If you are a chef and you haven’t checked it out, shame on you, because it is free to join and cheap to upgrade. And it works.

And there are spendy ways of doing it. Break out the checkbook if you need to hire someone, be it in-house, social media or publicist.

But if press is your goal, you can’t just sit around and assume people are gonna discover what you are doing.

2) Actually tell me about it.
I thought it was interesting that Mike reiterated his first point in his second point. In his post, the two points had different angles but to me, they are saying the same thing. And he was right to post it twice because it is the single most reliable indicator of marketing success.

You need to get the word out, on more than just Twitter and Facebook, to reach the people you need to reach to get discovered/be busy. Most of you aren’t telling the media — or really anyone of consequence — what you are doing.

And that includes chefs with publicists. Because precious few publicists are actually actively sharing what their clients are doing. Remember, Mike wrote his post for publicists — and he felt it necessary to basically say the same thing two times. Wow.

Here’s what you need to know: What you are doing starts with your menu — and how and why you put together your dishes. A list of ingredients and a photo amounts to food p0rn. It is fun to look at but isn’t going to do much in terms of press or diner activity. You need to tell the story behind the dish to get results.

There are precious few chefs who are successfully telling people about their food. No surprise, Matthias Merges of Yusho-Chicago is blazing that trail. (He taught legions of chefs how to cook at Charlie Trotter’s, no surprise he’ll be teaching legions of chefs/owners how to own a restaurant properly now that he has Yusho.)

3) Think hard about that exclusive.
I pretty much gave up on exclusives years ago. They make one person happy, sure, but they make everyone else scramble frantically to catch up. And well, those people don’t end up liking you so much. It is human nature. You like the people who help you out. And you do favors for them later.

But I would make one add-on thought to Mike’s suggestion: Make sure you have your own outlet for telling your news. Since I wrote about that here, I won’t go over it again. But do take a few moments to read that post if you are opening, reconcepting or you’ve been in business a while and are starting to realize that you need to connect with customers yourself and not just rely on the press to tell your story.

4) Reinvent the press release.
What Mike is pointing out here is something you, the chef, should find comforting — journalists don’t want fancy writing from you, they want facts. So, even if English is a second language, you can communicate to media what they need. So, there should be no reason for you to feel like you can’t send out a press release, say for your Easter Brunch. (In fact, you should be doing that, sending out Easter brunch info now if you are offering it.)

This is the thing, though: Most of you don’t seem to want to add in all the facts. There’s always “reasons” for this. None of them actually matter to anyone but you. The media need all the facts to write about you.

So, once more, with feeling:

• Name of event space/restaurant, address, phone, email, website
• Media contact name, phone, email
• Name of event/promotion/etc.
• Date, time of event (check it three times)
• MENU, WITH PRICES (if you don’t have the menu and price yet, that’s fine, that’s your choice, but the media likely won’t cover you — that’s their choice)
• Cost/what’s included/how to make reservations, if needed
• Any restrictions

Every time you send out a release without this information, you are begging the media to mark your email as spam and never see it again. It won’t even get to their inbox, no matter how much you do better next time.

And here I’ll add:

5) Send material in a timely manner.
I can’t even begin to imagine what you would do if your fish purveyor walked in just as service was starting with the evening’s orders. I mean, did he really think you were standing around ready to drop everything when he finally got around to getting you what you needed to do your job? You’d fire his ass.

That’s what it feels like when chefs send stuff at the last possible minute to journalists. And guess what, they have their own way of firing your ass — they ignore your news. So, here’s a guideline for you:

• Glossy national magazines work 6-12 months ahead
• Glossy local monthly magazines work 4-6 months ahead, minimum
• Weekly print magazines work 4-6 weeks ahead, minimum
• Daily newspapers work 3-4 weeks ahead, minimum
• Hourly blogs work 3-4 days ahead, minimum

Sure, anyone can dump something on their blog day-of. But are you really going for your stuff getting “dumped?” Or ignored?

I know, I know, you can’t possibly create a menu for your Easter brunch service three weeks ahead. Fine, it’s your choice. Because by not creating your menu in a timely manner you are simply exercising your right to not get included in the Easter roundup article. Bully for you.

By the way, you are writing your Easter menu now, right?

6) Steve Dolinsky commented on the post with a great point: Be familiar with the work of the person to whom you are pitching a story.

In case you didn’t see that comment, I am excerpting it here:

I concur with Mike on all of the above, and would add one more: if you’re going to pitch an idea for coverage be sure to have at least taken a cursory look at the person’s blog, TV segment, previous articles, etc., so you’re at least vaguely familiar with the format. Had the publicist even taken two seconds to look at my previous “Beer of the Week” feature, she would have seen that it’s actually Michael Roper from The Hopleaf – not me – in the video, and therefore, it probably would have made more sense to pitch him, rather than me. It happens about once a week, where someone will pitch me a “Hungry Hound” segment, and yet they clearly haven’t taken the time to look at the last two or three pieces I’ve done. I think the more people can familiarize themselves with the publication/author’s work, the better chance they’ll have of crafting an interesting pitch.

Now, obviously, he was writing that for the publicists out there. The ones who don’t know how to pitch the media — and yet are getting paid thousands of dollars a month to pitch the media on a restaurant’s behalf.

I just thought, well, you might want to think about that.

Because while I am not suggesting this is all publicists — many are awesome — I just have to wonder if the publicist he is talking about is yours.

Right? Scary. Wow.

7) Theresa Carter, The Local Tourist, also added a point about pictures.

These are spot-on, and work for every industry. I’m one of those publications that requires a photo with each post. If I have to reply to an email and then wait for an image I’m more likely to say “next” than post it when it does arrive. Frankly, with the number that come in by the time I get that photo I’ve either a) forgotten about it or b) chosen another story to write! My favorite PR firms, and therefore the ones whose clients get more press from me, make my job easier. Of course, that’s all filtered by what my audience wants to know, but if you send me the info in a format I can scan quickly and with visuals to enhance that info it’s much more likely to be included.

Note here that Theresa has flat-out stated that if she doesn’t get a picture with the original email, she is likely to just move on. She doesn’t say anything about how tasty your food looks or how creative she knows you are. No pic, likely no dice.

That means that if you want coverage from certain outlets and don’t send a picture, likely you will not get coverage. Harsh? Maybe. Honest? Yes.

And don’t think this is just Theresa. And don’t think it is just about pictures.

I’ve seen journalists who toss out anything and everything that doesn’t have the relevant information in the original email because they are writing the story at 11 p.m. at night and know they can’t get anyone on the phone and their goal is to get the story done, not worry about you getting coverage.

This is the reality. So if you are going to spend time on “marketing” and “PR,” you should at least make sure it is time that is going to net some results other than being tossed in the garbage.

If you aren’t going to attend to the details, the marketing version of salting your food, then don’t even spend the time doing it. Just get back in the kitchen and cook. You can do that, you know. It is your choice.

That’s right, getting press, really, is all about the choices you make each day. It is as simple as that.

 Mike Gebert, resident Grub Streeter and Sky Full of Baconeer, wrote up a guest post for today. Since taking over Grub Street Chicago, he has been letting PR people know how to get him to cover their clients. He decided it was time to tell everybody.

Chefs know knives.

They care for their knives. They know how to use their knives. They know how much easier cooking can be when the right knife is used for the job. A serrated blade for bread, a gigantic cleaver for bones, a paring knife for a fine tourné.

This is what your knife can teach you about technology: it is important to know the tools you use.

I bring this up because the other day, I was diving through my reading list on Instapaper and noticed that when I hit share, I could send a task, connected to something I was reading, directly to my task list in OmniFocus.

Since most of my blog posts are inspired by things I read, discovering this little feature meant I could save myself a lot of time.

No longer did I have to switch programs, type in a reminder and paste in a link to the post. No longer did I have to email myself the article, clogging my inbox with blog post ideas. I could just file the article , BAM!, where I could get to it when I would need it, BAZINGA!

I fear I might have lost you in writing all that out. I hope not. Because this here is an important lesson.

Taking a few minutes to learn the capabilities of the digital tools you use can save you loads of time.

Technology isn’t about the tool itself, or the features that tool offers — technology is about using a tool to get a job done that reaches a goal as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And these days, the tools available are intuitive enough for you to learn them pretty easily — so don’t cop out with “it’s too hard.”

Working in a kitchen is hard, learning how to use a knife properly is hard.

But it doesn’t stop the intern, stepping in your kitchen for the first time, from grabbing that bag of carrots and learning how to cut them properly.

And it shouldn’t stop you from taking a few minutes, a half hour most, to learn up on how to use the digital tools that are part of your everyday life.

And remember: The guy who throws up his hands and claims he’s cursed when it comes to technology is, in fact, the guy who is saying, “I’m too lazy to try.”

Who’d want to eat his food?

A few weeks ago, we brought back automatic distribution of press releases through RIA. We call it Newsfeed, since, technically, they aren’t always “official press releases” crafted by publicists. In fact, often, our newsfeed items are written up and posted by restaurants themselves. Although it’s a great boon to publicists who want more reach for their releases as well as a place to host them online.

This is a more sophisticated and far-reaching system than our old RIA website — and the biggest difference between then and now is that now — the restaurants are creating their own news.

We just make sure it’s tickety-boo with all the right info and the proper supporting material and then — boom — blast it out to our media list as a “standalone press release from the restaurant.”

It’s pretty exciting because the distribution is part of a restaurant’s membership, making it the cheapest way to get press information into the hands of food journalists.

But giving this powerful tool to our members also means we have to help them learn what is appropriate to send and what isn’t, so they aren’t blasting out stuff that, for all intents and purposes, is thrilling to the member but garbage to the journalist.

What’s news, or more importantly, what’s newsworthy enough to interest the media enough to write about you? I could go on for days, but we’ve written up a brief synopsis to get you started. If you need us to flesh this out, let me know and we will. And if you are a member of Spoonfeed, remember you can send the news item to me ahead of time for review, which one fine chef did this morning and got some nice tips for crafting her message a bit more (she’ll be posting later today so I’ll link to it when she does.)

What Makes News

First off, news is about the new. To the luxury publication, it is new expensive, rare, and fashionable things. To the mommy blogger, news is about new tools that allow for shortcuts in the kitchen. To the restaurant critic, it is about new restaurants opening, major (and we mean major, not just new chairs and sconces) overhauls, and new chefs in the kitchen.

That said, news is sometimes not about the new, but about the seasonal/annual. To the weekly newspaper, that can be a round-up of Valentine’s Day offerings. To the TV producer, that can mean tips and hints for Thanksgiving turkey. To the foodie blogger, that can mean writing about a meal that featured the first soft-shells of the season.

More often than not these days, news is about the unusual or extraordinary. So, the most expensive cocktail ever sold is gonna get covered, probably a lot. A great example of that was the first chef to cook with Asian carp when they were threatening to infest. In newspaper terms, it is referred to as a “man bites dog” story, instead of the un-newsworthy “dog bites man” story.

Understanding Audience

One thing to understand is the media’s audience. Aside from keeping in mind that the audience for a financial publication is likely more interested in a business story than a recipe, audience size has a lot to do with what qualifies as newsworthy enough to write about.

Larger audiences mean broader appeal, and thus the threshold for what constitutes news is greater. Think about it; what may interest the readers of a small-town newspaper — things like wine dinners and new brunch service — may not necessarily grab the attention of a national one that is more interested in overall trends and big-time chefs. Aside from providing you a cue to what you should be sending journalists, it also tells you what you should be investing in, PR-wise.

By that I mean that paying a PR firm to try and get you national stories about menu changes and your new brunch is likely not going to pay off in the end. Which is why so many chefs get frustrated with their publicists. It isn’t about the publicist’s work; most of the time, it is about the chef’s expectations.

Newsworthiness is also affected by redundancy. A subject may be significant, unusual, and extraordinary to you, but the audience may only be marginally — if at all — interested because they’ve read about it before. At RIA, the go-to subject to explain this is sake cocktails. They’ve been around, been written about, we’ve all had them at one time or another, but every year or so, a restaurant calls us and wonders if they should send a release to the media because they just invented sake cocktails — because, well, from their perspective, they did invent their own version.

This is important, that is why it is in bold: If it is new to the restaurant, but the topic has already been covered before in the media, the media is unlikely to cover it again.

That is, unless there is something extraordinarily new to report, like, in the case of sake cocktails, they are set on fire or delivered to the customer via sumo wrestler or something equally whack.

(This is an unfortunate but true fact of media: They like that which is out there, whether you think it has integrity or not. And while we may not agree with it, understanding that fact has value so you can either work it to your advantage or stop spending time or money trying to get coverage for something that won’t get journalists’ attention.)

What Makes News

Your Menu Makes News

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I believe the first step in getting your news out there is figuring out what is going on in the restaurant already that you can talk about. To me, that begins with the menus.

Any chef who changes his menu regularly should be sending out an updated menu with a few words of background for each new dish whenever the menu changes significantly. Because guess what: you are a restaurant and the media need to know what you are cooking, what drinks you’re offering and what’s on your wine list.

Sending out your new menu, with solid, clear but not flowery descriptions of new menu items, on the day that new menu launches, is a baseline you need to establish first and foremost. (Note bold type and italics! That must be important, too!)

If you aren’t changing your menu enough to distribute it to the media as “significantly new,” you might want to rethink your desire to drive marketing with media relations because it means the food you are making isn’t cutting edge. It may be delicious, but no one is going to write about it in great detail. So rather than paying someone to try and get someone to write about it, invest your money elsewhere.

Your Events Make News

The next place to look for news is in your events. Be they holiday specials, wine dinners or cooking classes, these activities are things the media want to know about. I’ve written a few times about what goes in those event releases, but suffice it to say that you should include all the information the media needs to write about the event in the release.

And you should send it to them in advance of the event, since they aren’t sitting around waiting for your release so they can drop everything and get it out there at a moment’s notice. Two weeks is a minimum. Four or six is more like it if you want to get on TV.

And if that is too far in advance for you to get a menu, pricing, hours and the like together, then know that means you are making the decision to forgo press coverage. It doesn’t mean the journalist should feel sorry for you and write about your event anyway, even though the information isn’t complete. It means you are making a decision that impacts the amount of coverage you will get. If you are OK with that, great. If you aren’t, do something about it.

ProTip: When sending out your press information Do. Not. Just. Send. An. Attachment.

Restaurants often want to do it because it is easy and they’re busy. But guess what, it’s sorta the equivalent of you walking over to McDonald’s and picking up a Happy Meal, then plating it, tossing on a garnish, and serving it to a customer. I’m not kidding, it feels that way to the journalist. Take a few minutes and transcribe the information from your PDF to the news releases. It is an exercise that will pay off.

I should add here that publicists who simply send attachments with an email that says “here” should be shot at dawn. And publicists who send a link to some other publication’s write-up of the story instead of writing their own release should be publicly humiliated before being shot at dawn. By me.

ProTip: Find out how your PR firm is distributing your information to media.

Other News

There are lots of other bits of information that can be news: celebrity sigtings, a new kids’ program, significant staff changes, changes in your hours, etc.  And learning which are significant and which are not can be hard for even publicists to suss out.

On RIA, we help our members understand what makes for good news to share by jurying their press releases before they are sent out to the media. If you have a publicist, you should be looking to them for counsel and guidance instead of fighting with them to do things your way and on your schedule.

But if you started by just getting your menu out and getting your event information out in a timely manner, you would likely, if you are one of the 99.999% of restaurants out there that don’t do those things, end up kickstarting your media coverage by a factor of a lot. So, start there, see how it goes, and keep following this blog for more tips on how to take the next step.

Resources

• When you send stuff to media, they pay attention to typos. I actually have one journalist friend who nearly flies into a rage every time she sees someone using an apostrophe wrong. Whether you think it is irrational or not, it’s the way it is and you need to heed the warning. Here is a blog post on how to be your own editor.
• You may not be able to write but I do know you can cook. Maybe you should consider announcing your new menu items in a video press release. The possibilities here are kinda awesome, if you don’t have a big ego that would get in the way. Remember: this announcement needs actual information so don’t go thinking this is carte blanche to set moody pictures of your food to music and call it a day. Think to yourself: is what I am going to do actually useful to a journalist? If it is, great; if it is just cool, junk it, it is crap.

Couple things you should know this week:

Facebook Timelineageddon

Facebook Timeline is coming for your business and you won’t be able to just ignore it, no matter how much you try.  I’ve posted about it before and will be posting an update as it rolls out, but in the meantime thought you might like to read this rundown.

Whitney Houston’s Cautionary Tale

You know, when you work in the restaurant industry, you can’t follow the meteoric rise and long slow decline of a superstar talent and not worry. It touches us all.

And we can all — sober or not — learn from Whitney Houston’s life and untimely death.

A Tale of Two Restaurants 

Or real-life proof that an old French proverb is true! “Good advice is often annoying, bad advice never.”

My week began with a restaurant I’ve been bugging for some time to start participating in their own success. They got frustrated (insert above proverb here) and decided that they are going to leave their marketing success to chance.

My week ended with a restaurant who has been leaving their marketing success to chance. Although they are newish, they are noticeably unbusy and have seen the error of their ways. I met with them to help them start participating in their own success.

I thought that was really interesting and possibly something you could learn from, dear reader.