Aloha

After a couple of months of straight, consecutive, hard and long days, I am enjoying a little rest on the island of Maui. Entertaining in my business is definitely fun and I love it, but it is also draining. Ya gotta refill to keep on going.
So here I am with my wife in Kahana Maui, bloggin from the living room with my feet propped up, watching the many whales swim by spouting back and forth about their day. It’s beautiful here, but more important, it is restful.
Gettin a little sleepy, think I’ll take a mornin nap…before I get too busy.
Aloha!

“So Go Ahead Then…Talk Amongst Yourselves”

I have been using Facebook and Twitter for business marketing and branding the past couple of years now. I used to think when no-one commented on my posts, it meant my message was not getting out or people just didn’t care about what I was saying. I also thought that I needed to control the conversation, ya know, keep the good, delete the bad. I wasn’t really getting the whole social media thing, but by-golly I was gonna figure it out. So I kept at it. I figured the worst that could happen was a little wasted time. Even the fact that I had committed my companies to dropping all traditional advertising didn’t pose a threat. Gees, have you seen what ads costs these days? So I save some money along the way too, not bad.

How does one really know the effect or reach of their posts/tweets, etc? Just because someone failed to “like” or comment on my post doesn’t mean they didn’t see it. Maybe they shared it, or re-tweeted or tumbled it. Maybe they just appreciated it. Maybe they are talking about it within their own group of friends. For marketing and branding, I think the real beauty of social media begins when you stop talking…but the conversation continues. And if that’s the case then we will never really know how far our message goes. You can’t count something you don’t know is there. So how does one know if their social media marketing/branding campaign is working? Do you have any reason to believe it’s not?

Social media is a conversation. Just get in it, ’cause it’s gonna happen with or without you. Don’t try to control what’s said [you can't], don’t even try – bad juju. When people talk, they might be talking about you, good or bad! So go ahead then…talk amongst yourselves!

SiZZLED SHRiMP

Been serving this in my Berryhill restaurant since we first opened in March of ‘98. It’s a salty dish whose inspiration came from my father in-law while dining over too much red wine at a tapas bar in Madrid Spain called Casa el’ Buelo. It’s so simple and delicious, it has become my family’s signature McCall cabin starter. I know you will enjoy it!

1 ancho chile with seeds / Extra virgin olive oil, to sauté
1 minced garlic clove / 1 lb. raw peeled and de-veined shrimp
Fresh ground pepper / 1 tbs. coarse chef’s salt

Re-hydrate ancho chile in hot water until tender. Drain chile with the seeds, stem and coarsely chop then set aside. Bring olive oil to medium high heat in sauté pan then add chopped chile, garlic, shrimp and ground pepper. Cook until both sides of shrimp turn color, just a few minutes. Transfer to serving dish, season with chef’s salt then serve immediately with bread to sop up the goodness.

CHEERS!

GROWiNG…

You’d think everyone wants to grow. Seems simple, yeah. I think though, everybody just wants to be big or be there already! There’s a great quote I really like that I recently got from Twitter, “Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow” [by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe].
Where ever an individual or company wants to go, to get there they’ve got to grow. It does not happen by itself. You’ve got to grow. Growth is also where all the learning is. That’s where you really figure it out, what does and does not work…DOING = GROWING.
Wanna be somebody? Then get busy doin something about it. Don’t be stagnant. GROW!

Learning to Converse with a Little Help

For the past year i’ve been learning what I can about social media and how active interaction through personal conversation can relate back to business, especially the business of restaurants. I must say i don’t think I’ve learned much, ’cause there’s so much to learn; HOWEVER, if you wait till you know it all before you move on something, it will NEVER happen. So I’ve been doin “stuff” along the way in my journey.

Facebook I love ’cause I’m a visual person, and I enjoy being able to “birthday” everyone of my friends. The fb conversations seem to last longer typically, unlike those on Twitter which are long gone after a couple of minutes. But I like that about Twitter. It’s so fresh. I’ve played with Utube, but only to the extent of silliness really. I have not really figured it out. I have a written blog (okay, I just realized how stupid that statement was), but have difficulty getting back to it as I should. All these forms of conversing take time obviously, and unless I am SOLD and CONVINCED on their impact, like many I presume, I will give them up or at least limp along mildly to the point of why bother.

A good friend of mine recently gave me a book by Gary Vaynerchuk, titled CRUSH IT! All I can say about this book is, you gotta read it. This guy’s incredible! Gary shares from his experiences of figuring it out and then MOVING ON IT. He’s the guy who started Wine Library TV and etc, etc (too bad he’s a Jets fan, but heh, one can’t do everything right). Anyway, this book is not just a read or a re-read, but it’s a road map you’re gonna want to dogear and highlite in your quest for the conversation. Anyway, I’m smarter today than I was yesterday, and I have more tools (or tongues) to converse with.

I recently started allowing our restaurant staff to post, picture and text while at work. By building conversation, in friend pools I’m not a part of yet, I figured it had to be good. It’s a win-win. My staff get to build their personal brand (something I learned from the book-if it backfires I know who to blame it on, ha) and I get to expand my brand, ’cause they’re posting from work. Now obviously things could go wrong, but we do have some guidelines, and really it’s what we all want to do anyway, TALK.

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it goes. If anything, I’m learning to converse (with a little help) and hopefully through that, getting better at what I do.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 10 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 20 posts.

The busiest day of the year was August 2nd with 64 views. The most popular post that day was KEEP AT iT!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were berryhillandco.com, facebook.com, treasuredvalley.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, and spam-filtering-service.net-us.info.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for can you grill spam, can you grill spam?, chefdeanfuller.com, berryhill bacon boise, and refererx internet marketing.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

KEEP AT iT! July 2010
1 comment

2

Talking… February 2010
2 comments

3

“If you can’t say anything nice, then say nothing at all” July 2010
1 comment

4

Spam: To Grill or Saute? July 2009

5

My Tomato Basil Soup December 2009
1 comment

DON’T LOSE YOUR PASSION – CONTROL IT.

When you are passionate about something, you want more than anything to get it right.  Whatever it is, you want it to be the best.  Second place just will not work.  By the way, this is no rationale for saying something hurtful, ignorant and stupid.  One can do that with or without passion. Passion is no excuse for imature outbursts.  Cause maybe, but no excuse. 

Passion can be alive, hot, wild and loose.  You gotta always watch what you say, and how you say it.  Someone might not perform to a standard you’ve set, and you have to confront them.  You just gotta be careful.  Temper and passion play on the same court.  You can, and you will be misunderstood. 

DO NOT LOSE YOUR PASSION!  It is what separates you from the pack.  Control it.   It can be controlled.   It takes 2 things to control passion.  DESIRE and TIME.  It takes time to master anything.  You’ve got to have the desire to control your passion, and then you will…over time.  You’ll get better and better. 

You will…I know, this is where I live.  This is me.

Consider this when you vote…

Consider this when you vote…“YOU CAN’T LEAD A CALVARY CHARGE IF YOU LOOK FUNNY ON A HORSE” (JOHN PEERS).

He (or she) who leads must look like a leader, they must sound like a leader, and they must act like a leader.   If they don’t have these 3 basic traits, then don’t even bother voting for them.  By chance if they did get elected, they wouldnt be able to get anything done.  They’d be squashed into a corner, told where to go and what to do by those who actually lead charges and look good on horses.  Those are the people who look, sound, and act like leaders.  Those are our leaders. 

By the way, honesty and integrity are not needed to lead.  I’m only stating facts here.  Being a leader says nothing of a person’s character, but it says much of their personality. 

So all I’m saying is, when you vote, picture each candidate on a horse.  If they look funny, then vote for the other guy!

A Dish by John Berryhill

 

I’ve been serving this in the restaurant since we first opened in March of ‘98. It’s a salty dish whose inspiration came from my father in-law while dining over too much red wine at a tapas bar in Madrid Spain called Casa el’ Buelo.

It’s so simple and delicious, it has become my family’s signature McCall cabin starter. I know you will enjoy it! 

 

  

SiZZLED SHRiMP

1 ancho chile with seeds

 Extra virgin olive oil, to sauté

1 minced garlic clove

1 lb. raw peeled and de-veined shrimp, tails on

Fresh ground pepper

1 tbs. coarse chef’s salt

1. Re-hydrate ancho chile in hot water until tender. 
2. Drain chile with the seeds, stem and coarsely chop then set aside.
3. Bring olive oil to medium high heat in sauté pan then add chopped chile, garlic, shrimp and ground pepper. 
4. Cook until both sides of shrimp turn color, just a few minutes. 
5. Transfer to serving dish, season with chef’s salt then serve immediately with bread to sop up the goodness!

 

 

 

 

“If you can’t say anything nice, then say nothing at all”

Ever met anyone who can’t seem to say anything nice about someone else?  Or the person who can always do it better than the person who’s actually doing it?  Ever heard someone say, “why would you do that when you should do this?” 

I had someone tell me the other day that “they can purchase my Berryhill Bacon at the Boise Co-Op”, since that’s “where they knew I bought it”.  They went on to inform me that “it was not my recipe but another chef ‘s” (who just happens to be a former employee and friend, and now owns his own very successful restaurant).  Why were they dissin me and my bacon?  I have no idea.  Their comments just came out of nowhere.  I figured it out though when they started in dissin  the other chef they just used to dis me!   I couldn’t believe it!  I’m not sure why some people feel they have to dis the guy that’s always doing something.  Apparently they (the dissers) never do anything, so they (the dissers) have always got the time to dis.  That’s just how they roll I (the dissee)  guess.

“If you can’t say anything nice, then say nothing at all,” Jackie Gibson used to say.  By the way, you can only purchase Berryhill Bacon from my restaurant…and it is my recipe.