by Nicole Ouellette | Mar 3, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Too Cute Tuesday involves fun friends, a cheap craft, and a cool cocktail. To get involved, check us out on Facebook or contact Nicole.
Something about this rainy gross weather in Maine has made me pretty ravenous. Good thing was this was the week for lava cakes at Too Cute Tuesday.
My friend Kate had sent me a link to what I thought were lava cakes until yesterday when I realized they were whiskey cupcakes. This is what happens when I don’t read carefully. Sorry Kate, we’ll definitely make them another time but I had been advertising lava cakes on the Too Cute Tuesday Facebook page for two weeks, so I sort of had to do them! Good news is I was able to cover my gaff by finding a recipe for lava cakes on Foodista.
The effort was coordinated over email today. Everyone was so contributory. “I have a port that was made for chocolate!” Jen said. “How about Frangelico for the cocktail?” Sue added. How about those being great fillings for our lava cakes in addition to being good things to drink?!
Materials
3-4 oz chocolate chips
3/4 of a stick of butter (for chocolate), rest of butter for ramekin greasing
4 eggs, 2 whole eggs and 2 yolks
2/3 c. flour
1.5 c. confectioners sugar
pinch of salt
ramekins
various liquors (for filling)
bowl and whisk (or mixer if lazy)
bain-marie to melt chocolate and butter (or microwave if lazy)
Cocktail of the Night: Frangelico and milk, served on ice.
1. Gather in kitchen. Preheat oven to 450 and chat about the day for a few minutes. Let’s bake!
by Nicole Ouellette | Mar 1, 2010 | Marketing Monday
Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog looks at a individual, business, or website promoting itself in interesting ways online. Have an idea? Do tell!
When I first began my blog in 2007, it was a hard choice between whether I would be talking about money or food. I decided that talking about money would force me to learn more about it but I still love food, follow several food blogs, and overall am interested in food-related issues.
My friend Sarah tipped my off to Foodista, a website startup from a few former Amazon.com employees. It was seeking to be an open source food encyclopedia, not just of ingredients but of recipes. Being the good friend that I am, I followed Foodista’s progress throughout Sarah’s internship there but continue to keep in touch now. (Sarah had to return eastward to finish her MBA.)
Foodista has done a few things well that I’ve noticed:
Foodista has a specific enough focus that it isn’t doing too much but a broad enough concept for it to grow.
As a website, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself but you do want to give potential visitors an idea what they’ll find in relation to content on your site. Foodista tackles the expected ingredients and recipes but also discusses techniques of food preparation and cooking tools, which is less commonly found information. Having the focus of food (and food in the title of their domain name), however, gives potential web visitors an idea of what this site will be about. (If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, click here for an example of a much less clear website.)
Foodista allows users to submit content… without logging in.
As a web person constantly exploring new things, having to register for every website is a pain. Sure, it gives the website publisher/owner my contact information but for many people, having to register to do something simple like look around or even comment can be a deterent.
Foodista allowed me to upload my two fiddlehead pictures last spring with absolutely no issue. It also effortlessly connects to accounts you may have on other sites, like Flickr or Facebook. If I use the site a lot, I will no doubt create an account but for now, I feel the pride of being slightly famous in my own head, in relation to cookable ferns anyway.
by Nicole Ouellette | Feb 26, 2010 | About Us
Every Friday, I write about whatever the heck I want… because it’s fun.
I pretend to hate video games… but I really don’t. I just stay away because I have no self control. Anyone who doubts this should watch me in the same room as a bag of Cap Cod kettle cooked salt and vinegar chips…
Yum.
Oh right, yes, computer games. I may have never got past level three in Super Mario Brothers when I was a kid (or even now) but I did have some games that I was good enough at to actually enjoy.
I started off with Tetris on the Gameboy. That thing got passed around in our family so much, I am surprised it didn’t melt the year we got it.
Briefly in college, there was Snood. I had to uninstall it off my computer, the only time I’ve even had to uninstall anything.
I even went through a Spider Solitaire phase that was so intense, I would dream I was playing it all night. I had reached a point in my life where I had enough self control to just not let myself even open the program for a year. And I’ve gone the last few years being a pretty productive internet user…
by Nicole Ouellette | Feb 24, 2010 | This Week In Business
Sometimes, all it takes is one person to make a difference. This week, I salute that one person, and the many forms they came in:
My friend Matt and I had one person sign up for our workshop…and hopefully more to come.
We took the plunge and Matt and I went forward with our presentation idea. We reserved the room. We advertised the presentation to our networks. We bought the projector and screen (nothing like the thrill and terror of spending $850 in 5 minutes). I began to panic this week when no one was signing up. Did we charge too much? Was it too early to hope for more enthusiasm? Did we schedule this workshop the wrong time of year?
And just when I was second guessing the whole thing, someone signed up. And paid. Insert sigh of relief here.
Here’s hoping for a few more participants. For more information or to sign up yourself, click here.
I’ll be presenting to the Deer Isle-Stonington Chamber of Commerce, and as part of the Schoodic Arts Festival this summer.
Based on my Ellsworth Chamber presentation, I booked two more speaking gigs for the coming months.
by Nicole Ouellette | Feb 24, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Too Cute Tuesday involves fun friends, a cheap craft, and a cool cocktail. To get involved, check us out on Facebook or contact Nicole.
Who doesn’t love it when crafting is part of a larger movement? When Meg (friend and craft enthusiast on Vinalhaven) alerted Too Cute Tuesday of the Morsbag movement (‘socialable guerilla bagging’), we wanted to join in.
Morsbag seeks to empower people to create their own bags in an effort to cut down on use of plastic shopping bags. You make them and give them to people (and yourself if you want).
Materials:
Fabric (18″ by 4″ sections, 18″ by 20″ sections- 2 of each)
Sewing machine
Iron and ironing board
Thread
Pencil
Tape measure
Straight edge
Click here for the pattern! (a one page, relatively easy to follow .pdf you can print off or pass on)
Cocktail of the Night: Seadog Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale (Sorry folks, getting my sewing machine down from the top of my closet was challenge enough for the evening)
1. Gather supplies. Observe that this may take the longest time of anything you are going to do this evening. Print off pdf of instructions. (Sorry environmental folks, easier to pass around the table that way! I’ll write on the back of the paper though, promise.)
