Eat Write Retreat ’13: A Bird’s Eye View & Recap

 

Once again, Mr. Flamingo insisted on sharing his view and a recap of Eat Write Retreat 2013. Who can stop a 6’2″ flamingo? Go ahead. Try. 

Yes, it is I—the flamingo— the true spirit behind Freakin’ Flamingo and Flamingo Musings. I’ve finally managed to flutter my wings enough to draw the mistress away from the keyboard, so now I have a chance to tell you about my annual migration to Eat, Write, Retreat. This year it was in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love (until, of course, you want a parking space). While there was nowhere near enough shrimp (so my feathers are a little faded), it was a very different locale than the not-too-distant Washington. (Frankly, I’m afraid that there will never be an EWR with sufficient shrimp until they hold one in either New Orleans…or maybe Osaka, but enough about seafood.)

I declare EWR13 an eminent success; all the seminars were very informative (and because there were so many in attendance, no one even noticed a short, pink bird with long, spindly legs— so I was able to sneak into every one of them this time!)

There were some very unique seminars this year. The worldly-wise and widely traveled Monica Bhide was fun as the weekend’s first speaker, as she always is. Her sage advice, in a nutshell, is to discard your clichés and assumptions, and look at things differently. (Needless to say, I’ve used at least four clichés in the preceding sentence, but what do you want? I’m a flamingo.) We were challenged to come up with a new way of looking at (and presenting) some OXO salt and pepper grinders, which seemed like it would be an easy task since Mistress uses them all the time. For some reason, my suggestion of “Goes well on shrimp,” was rejected as the campaign tag line.  Joy Manning underscored the importance of the social  in social media in her talk “Contact High.” As she says, a simple snail-mailed thank you note may be worth more than all the analytics in the world: it’s important to remember, and act like, there are living, breathing human beings behind all those tweets, likes and e-mails.

Authors and bloggers Sarah Caron and Carolyn Ketchum took on low tech photography in the next session, and they obviously know a lot, but I would’ve liked to have seen an almost exclusive focus (pardon the pun) on phone-cameras. After all, that’s what many bloggers seem to use these days (my Mistress included) because they’re just so much more portable and turn out a pretty decent picture. (My Mistress even occasionally expects me to carry one tucked under my wing— “just in case.” I haven’t told her yet that, if “in case” ever happens, it would probably just fall to the ground. Flamingos make lousy camera caddies.)

Saturday afternoon brought us mushrooms: lots of mushrooms. Entire mushroom beds, in fact, provided by Tony and Joe D’Amico, who own a modest little mushroom farm outside of Philadelphia that manages to turn out a few pounds of mushrooms every year— oh, excuse me, I meant to say a few million pounds of mushrooms. They brought us button mushrooms, and cremini mushrooms, and portabello mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms. (Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that there are no actual oysters in the “oyster” mushrooms…but I digress.) They dispelled one of the popular misconceptions about mushrooms when they told us about the medium that mushrooms are grown in— probably more sterile and sanitary than most hospitals— and once used, that medium becomes your potting soil. So no more jokes about what mushrooms grow in, okay?

Canning expert Marissa McLellan took up the baton around 4 pm to demonstrate a quick strawberry-vanilla jam. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who could talk so quickly, and yet so clearly. (Mistress was very approving of techniques imparted; I wouldn’t know, since the only canning I ever do is when I fall on mine.)

Last, but not least, Valerie Coffman (Feastie Inc.) the aforementioned Carolyn Ketchum, and Jesse Gardner (Technology VP/Simply Recipes) attempted to explain the intricacies of such technical subjects as analytics and load times, but it being a little late into a very packed day, I found my head occasionally tucked under my wing for an inadvertent snooze. I learned a fair amount (and they could have extended this one from my perspective since it’s the technical aspects about which I am most ignorant) but I also would have appreciated it much more at mid-morning than the end of the day.

At last we came to the cocktail party at the stratospheric R2L restaurant and the unveiling of the four winners of the Amazing Appetizers Culinary Challenge, sponsored by U.S. Potatoes, California Olives, California Figs, California Raisins, and the Fleishman-Hillard agency. (Three times I’ve been to EWR’s famous cocktail parties, and never once has there been a “shrimp cocktail.” Is EWR anti-avian or something?) Not only did the venue feature a spectacular view from the 37^th floor, but some very nice tidbits capped off with samples of the four winning entries in the appetizer challenge: enough for everyone to try— something which really takes some foresight and planning.

Speaking of which, Robyn and Casey never disappoint. Never have we seen two people so capable of keeping things running on time, and not off the rails. I often wish they could apply their skills to other events, like political conventions and Academy awards programs, but they seem to be happy perfecting EWRs. They appear to be equally capable of connecting EWR attendees with very genial, not to mention very generous, sponsors. Oh, what the hell, let’s mention some of them. The very charming Veronica Chan representing OXO, the equally charming and courageous Atoosa Arfa ably representing Calphalon. (Who bore up so well under the rigors of the long march to Supper, I wanted to teach her how to fly as a gesture of admiration, but, alas, there wasn’t time for that.) The lovely Ronnie and Aja Campbell of The Burrell Group, representing tasty Jarlsberg Cheese, with more feathers in their caps than I can count (luckily none of them flamingo feathers). Jenn Sutherland and Diane Kelter representing the Mushroom Council (whom I forgive for the oyster mushrooms not containing any real oysters. Perhaps we could work on a shrimp mushroom?) Thank you to the above and many others with whom we crossed paths at EWR13.

Murphy’s law, however, never sleeps. Despite Robyn and Casey’s organizational genius, some things just happen. I doubt anyone could have predicted that two of the hotel’s four elevators would’ve been out of order. The resulting lines in the lobby reminded one of the latest fad restaurant. (I could simply have flown back and forth from my 12^th floor window, but for some reason the authorities wouldn’t allow it.) You might also have seen the three different ways necessary to access Wi-Fi at the hotel (depending on where in the hotel you were trying that at the moment) as lending some variety to the log-in process; or you might have considered it merely inconvenient. There were also things about EWRs’ past that, frankly, I missed. Washington EWR’s progressive dinner in the Capitol Hill district was memorable. The Chef’s lunches and dinners at Asheville are also a fond memory. And I would have liked to have “stretched my wings” and maybe seen the D’Amico boys on their home turf (or would that be “medium?”) but that’s just an idle wish. Even a flamingo realizes the logistical nightmare of that puts it on the YAOOYFM list. (That’s the “You’re Out Of Your Freakin’ Mind” list.)

Before we realized it, it was Sunday and on to Brona Cosgrove’s (of Cosgrove Communications) “What’s in your water?” Brona has become quite the raconteur when it comes to a most unlikely subject: water. Now, I’ve dipped my beak into a lot of water, including the city water that the Mistress fills the kiddie pool with when she lets me wander the backyard, but it turns out that there’s a lot more to water than just being a good place to stand and find shrimp. Among other things, the micronutrients dissolved in water vary widely between sources, and according to Deanna Seagrave-Daly, a registered dietician and Brona’s co-presenter, we don’t get enough of nearly any of them. Gerolsteiner Mineral Water stands high as a source of Calcium, Magnesium, and Potassium, and I think I may give it a lengthy try – as soon as I can figure out how to unscrew the cap with my beak.

Following Brona was Debbie Koenig’s segment on time management. She reminded us that “she who lives by the tweet, can get buried by it,” or words to that effect.  She had an excellent piece of advice to relate—keep track of what you spend time on for a two week period. Once you get over the shock of how much time goes into what parts of your life, you may want to do a little re-arrangement.

Last, but not least, the Barbecue Queens treated us to an hour’s grilling of spuds. It seems that grilling potatoes relies heavily on waving one’s hand like a monarch. (Maybe it’s the close relationship between potatoes and royal intellect. I knew this Red Queen once…but that’s a story for another time.) With the official end of the EWR, there was a lunch and get-together at the local Williams-Sonoma with dishes by some very fine Philadelphia establishments. (I was actually able to score some very good mussels in wine broth— not shrimp, but close enough.) Then I went back to the hotel and Mistress went on to her Pitch To The Pros. I might have attended that, but flamingos as a species are very unconceptual.

Congratulations, Robyn and Casey on another successful outing for EWR. And I hope I haven’t ruffled too many feathers.