Follow Fridays: #Favorites

We have come to the final post in my Follow Friday Series. We've talked about my top tweeters for #Reading, #Activism, #FoodJobs, #Friends, #Shopping and now we come to my overall #Favorites. Some of these accounts are just things I really love, some not even related to food. Others are food related favorites that really don't fall into the other categories but I want you to know about them because I think they are great. 

Each week I change up who I put in my #Favorites tweet but I usually cycle through the same batch of people depending on what I've been thinking about during the week. So here is my last group of Follow Friday (#FF) accounts, #Favorites: 

@chefludo - Of course Chef Ludo is on my favorites list! I talk about him nearly as much as I talk about macarons! Follow him on Twitter for tweets with fun photos (lots of coqs), menu items for LudoBites and information on Ludo Bites America. 

@frenchchefwife -Krissy Lefebvre keeps the business side of Chef Ludo's work in order and takes to Twitter to keep a lot of things in order. Hoping for a last minute reservation opening at LudoBites? Better be following Krissy on Twitter. She also tweets pictures of Chef Ludo you just won't see anywhere else, like him eating a just-killed-buffalo's heart (Warning!: not for the squeamish). 

@mylastbite - Jo Maxwell Stougaard of My Last Bite is a wonderful food blogger based in LA. She is well-known for her informative Twitter feed that has over 87,000 followers. She is one of the main LudoBitches and I found her from retweets of her tweets by Krissy and Chef Ludo. After reading this LA Times article about her, she quickly became one of my favorite food bloggers and tweeters (she's also the one who I learned about Google Reader from- which has changed how I get my food news). She has a fabulously positive outlook on life and like her website states: "MyLastBite shares just the positive and never the negative. If I like it, I share it… If I don’t, I don’t!" She's a must follow for anyone who loves food. 

Follow Fridays: #Shopping

The beauty of being a food-lover is that there is always something to shop for and literally always something you need: food! But paired with those raw ingredients are the cookbooks, food memoirs, tableware, flatware, and the aisles and bins of kitchen appliances and tools. Dangerously for me many of my favorite places to shop for all these items are active tweeters. And fortunately, most of them are willing to lend a hand to check if something is in stock or in season before I make my way to their store or call to place my order. 


These are my crème de la crème of places to shop so I suggest checking them out not only on Twitter but on their websites or in their stores/markets as well. My Follow Friday (#FF) sources for #Shopping: 


@omnivorebooks - Somewhere amid tweets, retweets and new followers I learned about Celia Sack and her wonderful store (which I've yet to visit). Omnivore Books is a culinary book store in San Francisco. A bookstore filled with books on food? How could I not love it. Celia also specializes in antiquarian and collectible food/cookbooks she collects from multiples places, travels and encounters. Her shop is also the hub for book signings by chefs, food writers and gastronomic enthusiasts.  Every tweet about a great book event makes me consider moving west more and more. She has become my source for signed cookbooks for friends and for myself. This month I'll be ordering the Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary book, signed by Alice Waters, for keeps. I can't wait to get to SF someday to meet Celia and browse Omnivore's full inventory! 

@kalnyc - My very first culinary bookstore and source for cook books and food writing is NYC is of course Kitchen Arts & Letters. I'm not sure how many months passed until I realized just how close I have always lived to Nach Waxman's shop on Lexington Avenue. My belief is fate made me call the Upper East Side home, just to be close to the store. In the past year the store, or rather Matt, has started tweeting. It was a joyous day for me when @kalnyc joined the Twitterverse! Now I get to peep when chefs stop-by the store, when new shipments arrive and tips on what to read. Matt is also very helpful for checking inventory and holding items for me because I don't get out of work until just before they close during the week. Currently you won't hear much from them, the store closes for vacation for a few weeks each summer. Set to re-open September 6th. 
Don't miss my coverage of their excellent book sale they had this spring: Kitchen Arts & Letters Book Sale! 

@fishseddynyc - I love books but dishes, glasses, special spoons, fun mugs and stunning cake stands all hold an equally special place in my heart. Fishs Eddy is this amazing little shop by Union Square chock-full of bright, fun and beautiful kitchen wares. Their tweets are always tempting and it is very easy to get lost while browsing their website. Shopping there and looking around on line make me yearn for the day when I have a house to fill with things like this deep blue pitcher or these pretty pink tea cups. Just try to look on their site without finding something you feel a cosmic connection to and must have immediately. Lucky for us they are expanding and to move some inventory during construction are having a great sale. No matter where you are in the country (or world!) you can get your hands on their unique goodies.

Follow Fridays: #Friends #Foodies

One of the many nice things about being part of the culinary blogosphere is that you are never without friends, and most often never without friends who were there long before you got involved in talking about food 24/7. I am fortunate to have a combination of very old, dear friends and new found friends who are food lovers that I can always count on.


Enjoy following their adventures in eating, cooking, and pastry school! My Follow Friday (#FF) picks for #Friends and #Foodies:

@M_Sweettreats - Marliese is my oldest friend on this list. We grew up around the corner from one another and when I was little I even had a separate birthday party (one of three) every year for her and her sisters - the "Engel Party." Now that we're grown women she is still a close friend and is doing marvelous things in the baking department. She has a budding baking business: Marliese's Sweet Treats. She chronicles the wonderful desserts she makes and eats in her blog. Most recently she began the pastry course at the French Culinary Institute! Be sure to follow her on Twitter as she juggles pastry school and a full-time job with finesse and sweetness.

@twelvefortyfour - Lexie (or Alexandra as she is known at school) is a new, but very dear friend. I was introduced to her by my friend Kyle when she moved to NYC. She too is a student at the FCI but is at the tail end of her pastry program there. Her blog Belle Nana Sans Banane explores what it means to be a pastry student and is also a great resource of  technical pastry/culinary terms. Over the past year I have happily accepted treats she has made in class- I never encountered a pastry I didn't like! But my favorite was the Linzer Torte she shared with me, mmm. Follow her tweets for what it is like to be a busy culinary student and what happens after graduation.

Follow Fridays: #FoodJobs

Food jobs are near and dear to my heart, as I hope to have one of my own someday soon. I started blogging in part to get my passion for food out of my head and into words but also as a means of creating a reference point when applying to food jobs, a field I have no formal training in. Luckily, there are some really great resources for people who want to make a living from their love of food. Here are some of those resources who keep up excellent Twitter accounts and who I always give a special Follow Friday (#FF) to with other hashtags like: #PostYourJobs #Jobs #FoodJobsforAll. 

@GoodFoodJobs - The account I always list first in this category is Good Food Jobs. There is not enough I can say about what a great resource Taylor Cocalis and Dorothy Neagle have created. The site is a job listing board, a way to find out what sort of businesses are up and coming, and a wonderful blog (The Gastrognomes) that interviews one amazing person after the next. The Gastrognomes blog is my favorite part of their site. The best question they always ask their interviewees is: "What advice do you have for others in search of a good food job?" The answers to these always make me think of something new and give me a boost when I feel like my job search is becoming futile. If you are an employer with a good food business, please post your jobs here! It is the best place to post if you want to hire people who are truly passionate about food and want work that satisfies the need to express that passion daily. Job seekers: keep applying! Sign up for their newsletter to get job listings and the blog post of the week in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

@TheSFJblog - Similar to Good Food Jobs, Sustainable Food Jobs is a blog that has job listings focused even more closely on the sustainability side of things. They often list internships and other non-traditional means of gaining experience in the culinary world. If you are seeking a food job, this should be a site you follow. Since it is a blog you can easily subscribe to the RSS Feed and simply get their job postings the same way you read your favorite blogs. 

Follow Fridays: #Activism

This week's Follow Friday (#FF) post is all about my favorite food activists. Thankfully, Twitter has become an important platform for educating the public and creating discussion about the plethora of issues tied to the food we eat. Be it what the latest recall is (all that ground turkey), to how to learn more about the Farm Bill to where young farmers are starting to grow food and provide for this nation-- these are Twitter accounts that will keep you up-to-date on all the moving and shaking in the world of food politics and culinary activism.

@slowfoodusa @slowfoodnyc - Slow Food is a movement that started in Italy and has been going strong in the US since 1986. Their national Twitter account gives relevant information about the latest issues and progress in food politics. They also tweet about ways people are supporting local food and events that are happening. If you love to eat and you believe in the future of local grown, locally sourced food, following @slowfoodusa is a must. I include the @slowfoodnyc account because it is the Twitter handle for my local chapter. 

@marionnestle -The grand dame of Food Politics herself, Marion Nestle is always up to date with what is happening on the political side of food. Her opinion is sought out for most topics about food- from recalls to regulations to information about the farm bill. She is a great resource and anyone who eats should know who she is. If you don't follow her blog, Food Politics, you should be following her on Twitter as she tweets links when she has new posts as well as links to other pertinent news stories. 

Follow Fridays: Introduction and #Reading

In my first months of tweeting I learned about #FF which stands for Follow Friday. It’s a way to suggest to your followers who they might enjoy following on Twitter based on the fact that you like how they tweet. If you are starting out on Twitter it is also a great way to get your handle out there and show some appreciation for the people who keep you tweeting. Friday’s hold a special place in my heart thanks to Twitter and it is all because of #FF. Since I still tweet my series of #FF every week, I thought I would explain the people I typically suggest. Also, I wanted to extend the list beyond the 140 character limit to include the accounts I like but don’t always make room for on Fridays. For the next six or seven Fridays I will give you a post on Friday mornings with all the accounts I like in one overall category.

To begin with I always give a list of my favorite writers or sources labeled as #Reading. This list stays pretty consistent but changes depending on what I am reading that week. If the author, magazine or blog I’ve been into lately has a Twitter account I will always include them. So here is how I tend to get things rolling on Friday mornings:

@GaelGreene – Gael Greene is a food critic and author best known for her hats and sensual writing that blurs the line between food and sex. When I started tweeting as @culinarylibrari the second season of Top Chef Masters was airing so my love for Gael was just starting to bloom. After I read "Insatiable" this past fall my head was filled with all sorts of naughty ideas thanks to Gael. My appreciation fully bloomed and she has been on every #FF #Reading tweet since their inception.

@ruhlman – Around Christmastime I learned about Michael Ruhlman while watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Holiday Special. I thought to myself—who is this handsome man with great knife skills and even better hair? After Googling him and finding a recipe for homemade English muffins on the first page of his site I knew I wanted to learn more about him. He is the author of a myriad of books about cooking and being a Chef in addition to the handful of books he has co-authored with the heavy hitters like Thomas Keller and Eric Ripert.