Behind the scenes with Joanne Weir

It may come as a surprise, but the best thing about being a food writer isn't the food, it's the people you meet. And Joanne Weir is certainly one of them. I met her years ago and we quickly became friends. I've given her advice on blogging and social media and she has always been there when I needed career counseling and the inside scoop on folks in our industry. She's a genuinely nice and generous person full of enthusiasm and desire to help others learn to cook and have fun. Which brings me to her new show-Joanne Weir's Cooking Confidence. It's a natural progression from her most recent shows where she takes individual students into the kitchen and in no time gets them cooking.


"You stayed longer than anyone!" said Joanne as I was leaving. Despite the cramped space, I had a hard time tearing myself away. I wanted to see her at work and to share some tidbits about her new show. First of all it's shot in her home kitchen which gets transformed into a television studio for filming. As executive producer this time around, Joanne has assembled a crack team including director Paul Swenson who has worked with Lidia Bastianich, Eric Ripert and Christopher Kimball, culinary producer Chris Styler who has worked with Julia Child, Jacques Pepin and Jamie Oliver and a cameraman she has worked with since day one, eleven years ago. The result is a smooth quality to the process where everyone seems to know exactly what they are doing and anticipate each other's needs.



So what's different about the new show and what can you look forward to?

* A wider range of recipes
While Joanne is known for Mediterranean cuisine this time you'll get her take on all kinds of food including Indian, Asian and North African. Everyone on set was raving about her Moroccan chicken and sweet potato salad with pumpkin seeds. The day I was there she made an ahi burger with wasabi mayo and a crunchy slaw with grapefruit spiked with ginger and also an Italian pasta with tomato and cream and a salad made with ribbons of zucchini, summer squash and daikon radish. Look for ways to use more unusual ingredients too like farro and fregola.

*Great tips
I always learn something when I watch Joanne's shows. From little things like how to peel ginger with a spoon to making mayonnaise with nothing but mustard, an egg yolk and oil. I've always wondered what the heck to do with red pepper jelly and in this series she make corn muffins stuffed with a spoonful of it. And did you know if a label on produce begins with a "9" it means it's organic?

* Video app
This series will not only have an accompanying cookbook but also an app that has 20+ recipes and exclusive content. Look for it this Fall on iTunes.

* Confidence
You'll see it in the students and you'll see it in Joanne who literally seems more "at home" than ever before. I talked to her director about it and he said "She's evolved, you're seeing more of the real Joanne." Without missing a beat, she balances responding to student's questions with making sure every cooking step is explained. On the day I was there everything was being shot in real time, there was no swapping out of dishes. She's the quintessential cooking teacher on PBS and really what more could you ask for?

HOW TO START A FREE BLOG:

Background:

A blog or web log is a personal web site made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly from links and commentary about other web sites to observations about news or politics, diaries, photos, poetry, essays, project updates, even fiction. Blogs are a fast growing segment of the web. An article in the August 26, 2002 Newsweek estimated the number of blogs at 500,000 with a new one coming online every forty seconds.

Assumptions:

We will make the following assumptions about users who plan to follow these instructions:

• You have a personal computer with a connection to the Internet.
  
  
• You have a personal email account.
  
  
• You have a moderate amount of experience using the World Wide Web.

It is not necessary to know html to maintain a blog, but it is helpful if you want to customize it.



We will use the free web-based publishing Blogger and the free blog hosting service Blogspot.

Instructions:

1.) Go to the web site www.blogger.com. On the right hand side of the page, about half way down you will see a blue box that says, “Sign Up,” (see Figure 1). In the corresponding blanks, enter a username and password for yourself. Confirm your password.



NOTE: Remember your username and password. Write them down if necessary.



2.) In the next screen enter your first and last name and your email address. Then click the link to read the Terms of Service, and click the checkbox indicating that you have. After entering this information, you will return to the Blogger.com home page as a logged in user.



3.) On the right hand side of the home page you will see a blue box that says, “Your Blogs,” (See Figure 2). To start your blog, click where it says “Create a new blog” in the blue box. After your blog has been created, you will return here to update it.



4.) You are now at a screen that prompts you to enter a title and brief description of your blog, (See Figure 3). Also it will ask you if you want this to be a public blog. Enter your title, enter your description, choose public or not, click next. A “public blog” will be listed in the Blogger directory and might appear on the recently updated list on the blogger.com home page. If you choose no, your “Private Blog” will still be viewable to anyone on the internet.



5.) You are now given the option of hosting your blog at Blogspot or using Blogger to update a website hosted elsewhere, (See Figure 4). Make sure that “Host it at Blogspot.” Is selected and click next.



6.) Now you will choose an address for your blog and agree to the Blogspot terms of service, (See Figure 5). It would be a good idea to use the same address as the title you chose in step (4.)



NOTE: The address for your blog will follow the form:

http://whateveryouchoose.blogspot.com/

Remember this address. Write it down if necessary.



The address for this set of instructions is http://bloginstructions.blogspot.com/ Enter the address you would like to use in the appropriate blank, click the checkbox next to “I accept the Blogspot terms of service” and click next.



7.) This screen offers you a selection of eight templates for your blog. (See Figure 6). The template determines what your website will look like. Select one of the templates and click “Finished.” Select one of these eight right now, but you can change at any time to one of the many other templates available or even create a custom one of your own.



8.) Now you are at the Blogger interface that you will use to update your blog from now on. On this first visit, the following instructions will appear on the bottom half of the screen. I have copied and pasted them here for future reference.

Quick-Start Instructions

Posting: Enter text and/or HTML in the form field above and hit the post button in the upper right. All posts will show up here.



Saving to your server: To transfer the latest version of your blog to your web site, hit the "publish" button on the right of the black bar, above, or the "post & publish" button in the toolbar at the top. (If there are no changes since your last save, the "publish" button will not appear.)



Editing: All posts that you have permission to edit (which is all posts created by you, or, if you're an administrator of a collaborative blog, all posts) will appear with an [edit] link. To get to older posts that are not showing up in this frame, use the filter form on the right. This filter will not effect what appears on your actual blog page.

NOTE: Your blog will not be published and therefore not viewable for the public until you have published some text or html code.



Links

Here are some examples of great blogs to draw inspiration from:

Tony Pierce

InstaPundit

James Lileks

Andrew Sullivan

Matt Welch

Ken Layne

Talking Points memo

And Finally:

My Personal Blog