eggbeater

Dynamo Donuts, San Francisco. Just Opened!

Doughnuts and me go way back. I have always known them, loved them, and accepted their round fried selves for who they are, not who I want them to be. I have rarely met a doughnut whose merits I could not find, even if they were the wallflower kind, or still wore high-waters in college.

Every doughnut counts is what I say. And every doughnut is a snowflake: unique.

Not every doughnut is created equal. This we can all agree upon. But why should they be monotone? Stagnant? Bla? Jaded?

A doughnut is round. It's movement, dynamic, a three dimensional sculpture, to be appreciated from all sides. There's  hole in the middle, or a whole, depending on how you look at it.

Doughnuts are exterior, interior and the balance that makes them unique lies in their creator's vision. How hot should the oil be? What kind of oil? How much baking powder? Will the dough rest or sleep or be seared fresh from the mixing bowl? A million ideas, possibilities! Flavors, sizes, combinations! Colored sprinkles or double glazed? Too sweet or just right? A tad salty? Crispy? Tender? Melt in ones mouth or give a fight?

O Doughnut, we love you.

So when I read, when I heard, when I knew, a doughnut shop like no other, was on the way, coming to a  counter near me, I waited and slowed my breath, like a hunter, in the San Francisco quiet. Ears alert, mouth watering, I pounced when the news came in!

DYNAMO DONUTS

is here, my friend. Go. Now. Get your morning fix. Afternoon snack. Late afternoon treasure. Or do what I did-- get some to go and mete bites out as the hours pass by, or expose one to a friend the next day. What delight! What deliciousness!

Now I warn you: these come with a heavy price tag. They are served alongside Stumptown espresso via Jermy Tooker's not yet opened Four Barrel Coffee. This may not be your doughnut & coffee of yesteryear, but it's a nouveau treat worth trekking for.

PS: Dynamo Doughnuts are produced and conceived by Sara Spearin, pastry chef extraordinaire. I met Sara @ 2001 when she worked at Stars and I was at Citizen Cake. I absolutely thrilled for her! Yeah pastry chef owners!

DYNAMO DONUTS
2760 24th St, between York & Hampshire 415. 920-1978

Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago

If you have any interest in what I saw and chose to capture in Chicago, check out this photo set at Flickr.

To see what Kat saw, follow this portal to her Chicago photoset.

Slowly but surely I am attempting to paint the three dimensional picture that was Chicago for me, and hundreds of others, many meeting and speaking in public for the first time. Blogher 07. I hope you can make it to Blogher 08. We are the largest blogging conference in the world, and you don't have to be female or identify as one to attend.

My favorite part about the conservatory?

The entire room dedicated to cacti & succulents of course.

Chicago Impressions

Priceless, these:

When we asked our cab driver what that large body of water was he replied, "Michigan Lake."

The first fellow I inquired about where to get the best ribs in Chicago invited us to his uncle's house.

Day one: breakfast at a family owned joint where the 2 egg breakfast had 3 eggs, all the waitresses were stacked, young & friendly, and the hash-browns had tasty caramelized onions added for an extra .75c

The fabulous gardening all over the city, in little iron-fenced plots.

Michigan Avenue's meridian gardened with overflowing containers of glorious flowers.

Sleeping in a park across from the Museum of Contemporary Art.
    Waking up to the park filled with lunchtime office workers and hundreds of summer camp children!

Eating lunch at MoCA's cafe, Puck's, surrounded by thousands of cartoon eyes on a pink background.
    {The food here might be some of the freshest and liveliest of all the "chains" in Chicago, BTW.}

The bizarre sight of seeing hundreds of little girls dressed up as little girls and carrying dolls which looked just like them.

The beautiful, old slate-roofed, red bricked buildings hiding and dwarfed among all the new shiny structures devoid of character.

The incredible, thought & emotion provoking photography show in the Water Tower.

Learning there was a swimming pool at the condo we'd rented.
The view of Lakeshore Drive and Lake Michigan from many stories up.
The fantastic lightening storm we watched through these massive plate glass windows on our first night.

Riding the 66 bus and witnessing the remaining Cabrini Green projects out the window.
    And understanding how important it is to see a whole city when visiting. {Besides visiting East New York in Brooklyn, I have never seen housing the likes of this devastation in the United States. First impression: like a prison turned inside-out. Visceral. Painful. Terrifying. Desolate.}

Riding the eLevated subway train packed with happy, drunk White Sox fans.

Eating Carson's ribs, in Chicago. {The first time I ate these was in NYC almost 25 years ago!} 
    Our table was made of 8 fabulous food bloggers from all over the country: Elise, Kat, Jasmine, Alanna, Kalyn, Susan, and Heather.

Seeing crazy neat-o Niki Saint Phalle sculptures at the Garfield Park Conservatory.
    Coming upon their education/installation/showing of possible green roofs was exciting as well, especially in the Midwest!

Hunting down and finding a Polish restaurant.

Seeing the furnace of a steel foundry in operation. Deafeningly loud. Hot. Black smoke. Massive equipment.     Impressive. Clinky-clanky to the point of my whole body vibrating with its sound. Terrifying. Bright. Sparks flying: light like stars twinkling.
[Name of foundry: Finkl & Sons]

Swimming in the swimming pool at night, watching fireworks and flirting.

Staying up all night talking about the conference with old friends and new. Waking up with "happy hangover."

Driving all over the city with a native Chicagoan, getting the history, the facts, the change-ables, the names. Seeing neighborhoods. Eating Italian Ices. Finding restaurants. Taking photos out of the car window. Getting to "the bean" {Actually a sculpture called Cloud Gate.} late at night and seeing the skyline reflected in it.

Hearing cicadas for the first time in almost 30 years.

Seeing old neon signs. Trying to comprehend a city similar to NY, my home, but so very different and absolutely unique.

I am happy to have met you Chicago, albeit briefly. Thank you for your hospitality.

{find First Impressions/ the photos at Flickr.}

Blogher 07, day two, session two {Art of Life: Crafts}

A Report from Day Two.

The Art of Crafts
The CraftBlogging community is diverse and large, covering everything from scrapbooking to knitting to other handi-crafts. They use their online communities to collaborate, to provide critiques, to engage in commerce, and simply to learn. How do you find your piece of the CraftBlogosphere? And yes, we'll also talk crafts...our favorite solo and group projects. Leah Petersen moderates the conversation with Kathy Cano Murillo (aka Crafty Chica), Kristin Roach, Natalie Zee Drieu and Amy Sedaris.

Is the room packed because Amy Sedaris is here or is Amy Sedaris here because the room is packed?

It's a lively crowd, some great hair and outfits and crafters and DIY'ers and laughers. I have already "answered a question." The question is, 'How do you put a price on your craft on your project for resale?'

[Yesterday (at another craftblogging session) there were a lot of discussions/questions/philosophical musings about money and applying a price and even a "PR / Marketing scheme to."

Is money dirty?

When it comes to art?

Why?

Does class play a part in how you value your work? Gender? Who gets the privilege to not have to market their work? Are these people independently wealthy? Or do they pay their rent on the faith that good things come to those who make good things?]

Now the question is, "How do you explain that that which you are making with your own hands is of higher quality of those things that they can get for a fraction of the cost? How do you explain that it's worth it?"

Another question, "What do you do about those who copy you? Intentionally or not?"

Sometimes you can copyright something.

'But then you have to chase them.'

"But at least you know you are the owner of it."

CREATIVE COMMONS is now being explained. All of us who do anything and place it on the Internet should know about it. There are all different versions of how to copyright what you create. *We are not talking recipes here.*

-------

I'm not able to post fast enough about the energy in the room. I don't want to flatten it with words which keep me from being inside the experience.

I have been quite moved here. By what happens when people who would not normally be heard, can be so easily heard by something described by such a silly word as blog. It's powerful beyond measure to be here.

Thank you.

For reminding me my voice is one which needs to be heard. For reading and visiting and commenting and questioning and asking and critiquing and baking and sharing and giving and coming to my classes and bringing me to your city and feeding me and flirting and everything.

Blogher 07, session three {Technical} Building Traffic

Technical Tools To Build Traffic
Grabbing an audience and keeping them engaged is enhanced by technical know-how. We're going to help you get some, including how to use syndication to your best advantage, and a little DIY search engine optimization. This is a reprise of what was one of our most popular sessions at BlogHer Business in March, featuring, once again, Elise Bauer and Vanessa Fox.

this session is so full it's two room, completely full, with many people sitting on the ground!

EB:

*"Want to know where everything I'm about to say is? Go here.

What you need to have to get traffic: Content, Community & Technology. And, be useful, timely &/or entertaining. I don't have time to cover all three, so I'm only going to cover Technology.

Have you heard of Google Alerts? How about custom searches, like this one, Food Blog Search?

Keep your images under 15.5k  Make your typefaces big enough for everyone to read.  Reduce clutter. "What are you going to carve out so people can find the important stuff. Don't make people do a lot of work to find thing on your sites. Broken links hurt you on SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) How do you find broken links? Go to alexa.com Type in your URL to see what's going on in the back end of your site. Use something to measure your stats. Don't fly without a map, so to speak. Some choices: StatCounter or Google Analytics. Each measure traffic in a completely different way.

Also, do you want to know who is looking at you through a feed. Check out a feed burner."

{just so yous know-- we are over my head at this point, but at least I'm taking notes and I can continue to learn. even if you don't care at all-- I'm here to make eggbeater better.}

A question from the audience: "What do I do with all this  information that you're telling me"

EB: "The traffic, seeing and understanding my traffic, helps me to understand my readers.

Looking for blogging technical tips? Go here, Problogger."

--------------------------

VF:

"I'm speaking about SEO.

Write useful, relevant information.

Make sure your site is getting indexed by Google/search engines. If your site is only music/video/flash, basically no text, the search engine is going to see a blank box or have to deal only with uploading, uploading, uploading. Search engines deal with words, so sites needs to have words in them.

Also, think about the words you're using. 'Keyword Research.' As in, using the words people use to describe what they're looking for. Imbed images with code = keywords so that when someone searches for that they will find your image.

[*" " I'm using quotes but these are not exact quotes. I am live-blogging, but I do not know how to type.]

 

Blogher 07, session one {Technical}

Because this year is my second year at Blogher I'd like to focus on Technology. I'd like to learn more about the computer and what I can do to make eggbeater better, from the back end, as they say. The categories of the conference are Art of Life, Business of You, Community, Identity and Technical.

Today we had a "speed-dating" exercise so we could get over our shyness about meeting new people. We said who we were, what our blog & its focus is, where we live and then we listened to the other person, for about 2 minutes. There are about 800 attendees, so it was quite loud in the grand Ballroom on the Navy Pier.

I'm wearing my white cotton Navy shirt as a nod to where we are. Orange 'cargo' shorts and white Rod Lavers.

Now I'm at "Getting Custom: What Web Designers Know."
*How to build a plan for your design and the elements of good design and usability, featuring Nelly Yusupova

{she's tough. has a power-point presentation, but it's not boring. she's very interactive with us: asking a lot of questions. she knows she has a time line and so she's going quickly but not so much so that she has no time to answer questions. in a way I know a lot of this information, but I love hearing it in one fell swoop. usability. communication. attracting return readers. design. branding elements. her favorite line,
"Loyal Readers Are Valuable Readers."}

*The elements of screaming-fast web site performance (aka does your blog struggle to fully load because of all your blog bling?), led by Tenni Theurer

{she only has about 20 minutes. it's very technical. glad I've at least heard some of these terms elsewhere. it helps to date and be-friend System Administrators, Software Engineers, SEO Specialists, Movable Type experts, etc. even if you think you have no idea what they're talking about. (and in my case, I don't. until I do.) as Khaleeq (my supervisor at Apple) once said, "opposites attract." she asked how many of us are engineers. maybe one. well, two including her. I have never felt very good at science. but now I want to be. it looks so appealing to get nerdier. we are now talking about words/ideas no one understands. HERE, lookie at this to see what it is. and yes, the explanations are there too.}

Blogher Chicago 2007, the adventure has begun

These two links will give you a better idea of why I'm here:

Day One.
Day Two.

We slept in a park near The Water Tower. We ate at Puck's: the restaurant at The Museum of Contemporary Art. We have ridden public transportation. We have already been to Greektown to eat dinner. We walked a very long distance after getting off a bus and learning that there are no transfers on the bus. oops. It's hot and humid, much like NYC, and last night we watched a ferocious lightening storm through 10 foot plate glass windows which did not open. We are overlooking Lake Michigan. We are not in a hotel but it does have a swimming pool.

I am on a mission to find these ribs I ate from Chicago almost 25 years ago. I'm getting very close. I have a persistent spirit and a good nose, if nothing else.

I'm off to the speaker training. I am wearing a T shirt today that says CHALLAH-UJAH! 
{from Veselka.}

It took us a really long to get an Internet connection, but I hope to write more soon.

Chicago, next.

If all goes as planned I will be strapped into an airplane right now.

I haven't taken an airplane to an absolutely new place in a long long time.
zzzzzoooooooooooooooooommmmmm.
It feels like playing.

My last big trip of the summer.
Exploring with my friend Kat.
Putting together the right outfit to speak on a food blogging panel at Blogher.

I can't say it better than ms. kung foodie, "Stay tuned for photos and serious Chicago food action."