So, Top Local Chef, an event created by LocalShops1, has asked me to return as a “celebrity” judge for this year’s event. Now, I’d debate the “celebrity” bit, but not too much, because last year I had a great time eating all the things. ALL of them. I want to eat them all again this year. So, come April 26, you can find me in the Gulfport Casino, seated up front among Carlos Hernandez, Janet Keeler, Isabel Reis Laessig, Channel 10’s Mark Rivera, and Pipo’s chef Ramon Hernandez. That’s right, you can pay to watch my awesome table manners. Also, you’ll get to eat, too, which is really why you should buy the tasting pass (of course, watching me try and stuff it all in makes for some good entertainment as well).
In preparation, I’d like to say I’m cooking lots of things, but right now I don’t have a kitchen. I do have some lovely roughed-in wiring, delightful exposed wood, and the chance to see what concrete block looked like the year my house was built. That’s actually another post for another day, when I can laugh a little more about the architect who was TEN DAYS LATE getting us plans to remove a load-bearing wall… Seriously, don’t get me started.
Anyway, what I am doing in preparation for the event is retooling the food blog fellow foodie (and former volunteer test chef for Cooks Illustrated) Tiffany Taylor and I write, AphroditesHearth.com. Right now, it’s hosted on Blogger, and it looks fine but since I started working on this site in WordPress, I’m a convert, and every time I hop over to Blogger to post something, I just get frustrated at what I can’t do. The problem is that I bought the domain on Blogger, and moving the back end stuff is a royal pain in the ass because Google doesn’t . The blog looks fine if you go look at it, but I want it to look better, and for that to happen I can’t use Blogger. For me not to use Blogger I need to draw upon knowledge I haven’t used in over 12 years, and, well, if my brain was a MacBook, that would be no problem.
My brain is not a MacBook. These days, my brain isn’t even a first-generation iPod. No, my brain is more of a Rio mp3 player – remember those? Yeah, me neither, not really, and when I went searching for the link I was shocked to see they were still around. But I digress (totally serious about the brain issues, guys, it’s like pudding up in here some days.)
It’s OK that I don’t remember it all, because Kelly Wright knows everything. I can’t thank her enough for offering me savvy DNS-type advice. This isn’t an ad, because I doubt she reads this and doesn’t know I’m doing this, but if you need web stuff, she’s who I suggest you call. She’s also the one who has retooled the Gulfport Historical Society web site, worked on Reef Dog Gifts and Grooming, the Gulfport Area Chamber of Commerce, and a host of other web sites that look great thanks to her delicate hand. She also has an awesome dog and a great mural in her bathroom, but that’s not the kind of thing most of her clients know. I just think it’s awesome and so I mention it. This is a blog, not a Fortune 500 prospectus. If I want to talk about bathroom murals, I can. So there.
So what have we learned? I like to eat, I like to write about eating, and Kelly Wright is awesome for helping me so you’ll enjoy reading all the food things on Aphrodites Hearth. You can go the web site, of course, and I hope you do, but also please help me out by “liking” it on Facebook, too – and that’s where you can see how great it looks once I work out all this back end bullshit. Which will be this week. Pinky swear.
