Facebook Users are PIGS!

So what makes a Facebook Page better (or at least, more interesting) than other tools to aid in the Consumer Relationship Cycle?  It is one of very few tools where a brand can interact with consumers along almost all fronts of the Cycle.  The one thing that Facebook doesn't do is provide e-commerce functionality, allowing you to actually buy stuff on the site, but it comes pretty freaking close.  On top of that, almost everything is free.

http://verydemotivational.memebase.com 

I like bullets to list things:

• Avenues of Market Awareness
• Ads / Sponsored Stories (the only thing that really costs money)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations
• Methods to sway the flocks towards your brand
• Media (Photos, Videos, Links to external sites like reviews and news articles)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations
• Continuous Interaction
• Feedback
• News in a relatively non-intrusive way (Facebook News Feed vs. E-mail Newsletter)
• People's interaction with the Brand's page typically gets reflected on their wall and other's News Feeds:  Likes, Shares, Recommendations

Promoting interaction with a brand's page is obviously the most important aspect of managing a Facebook Page.  However, you can't promote interaction if people aren't "liking" the page.  Getting people to visit, like, accept your news feed, and interact is an entire Consumer Relationship Cycle in and of itself.  You're practically selling a Blog (really?) to promote the Brand.  

So let's think about just who we are targeting in order to raise awareness of the Gumbo Shop Facebook Page.  Warning: The following may seem extremely obvious, but as I've found, you sometimes have to go over these as people tend to not explicitly think about them... because... well, they're obvious.

Neo Geo's Obviously Awesome
http://keithapicary.bandcamp.com/

People Who Already Know of the Gumbo Shop and Like the Place

It will be pretty easy to get these people to visit the page and yet they are by far the most important.  This is because they are most likely to enthusiastically (and sometimes, emphatically) promote your brand as they interact with the page.  The Gumbo Shop has a pretty large work-lunch following.  If you're starting out extremely early, these people would pretty much be made up of your friends.  The usual points of entry to the page would be through Facebook Check-Ins or the fact that you just told them to visit the page in person (or with a sign on your cash register).

People Who Only know of the Gumbo Shop, but Haven't Ever Visited...

...or maybe at some point a long time ago.  At least they're aware of this place.  This is where the page content can tip them over into actually visiting the Gumbo Shop.  

Have no clue that the Gumbo Shop existed...

Honestly, I consider this group of people to practically be in the same bucket as those who haven't ever visited or haven't been in a long time.  This is because the starting point of interaction is the same for both groups: ads or news feeds from other friends on Facebook.  Of course, people could stumble upon your page from a link on your Website and from there a slew of other sources.... buuuuut we'll get to that some other time.

Next time, we'll talk more of these "points of entry."  There are many, much like in Deus Ex... which I've seriously been neglecting, lately...

Wait, so What Do You Do, Again?

I guess before I get into the actual crap that I'm doing, I should talk about the actual and ideas behind them.  My main goal is to increase foot traffic to the Gumbo Shop to help them sell more food and make money.  One additional side effect is to get more consistent foot traffic throughout the year, which can lead to significant cost savings and headaches.

I can try to accomplish that in a couple ways:  I get more people to recognize the fact that there is such a Cajun place called the Gumbo Shop at Manchester and McKnight in Rock Hill, MO.  I convince them that the Gumbo Shop, is indeed, the place to be and a place for good eats.  Lastly, I remind them that the Gumbo Shop really is some place they should visit at least once a week.

Honestly, the ideal customer is me, who isn't too far from that depicted in this particular Oatmeal Comic.

Replace the Pizza with Fried Oysters

To take another look at this whole thing, I'm turning to consultant-esque diagrams that you'd see at business school classes or meetings where people are trying to sell you on the idea that giving them $500 an hour is actually a good idea.  This thing can be called a variety of things ranging from "purchase cycle," "Customer Engagement Cycle," to "Consumer Relationship Cycle."

In my search for just the right diagram, I realized two things.  Firstly, there are all sorts of different points of view and little details that yield a shit ton of very different looking diagrams, but are very similar in nature.  It all depends on what direction you want to tackle the problem from.  Secondly, not one of them had a picture of a dog.

Notice the lazy eye...

For the sake of the fact that I'm too lazy to do a detailed flow chart, just believe in the following.

• A customer starts out not even knowing that the Gumbo Shop exists and therefore, out of the cycle.
• The first state of interaction is "Awareness," having the Gumbo Shop be somewhere near the front of their minds.
• At any point in this cycle (I guess somewhere on the arrows), a customer can drop out and the interaction has to start all over again ("oh yeah... I forgot about that place...").  

So let's go through these boxes:  

• Awareness:  Obviously people won't go to the Gumbo Shop if they don't even know it exists.
• Consideration / Comparison:  If people in general are anything like me, choosing what to have for lunch is an epic struggle for an hour starting at 10am on a daily basis.  Something's got to point out just how the Gumbo Shop should be at the top of the list on a consistent basis.
• Purchase and Evaluation:  Eating at the Gumbo Shop.  This is grouped together as this is an event that's going on practically simultaneously.  This is largely out of my hands... or is it?

FEAST

• Continued Engagement:  Usually, you only have the previous experience at the restaurant to ensure whether another visit is going to happen anytime soon.  This is where Continued Engagement comes in and where it can get sort of confusing.  I attempt to remind people that it's been absolutely way too long since they've been to the Gumbo Shop amongst many other things.

All Over Again?  

So just how can I keep this endless cycle of violence going?  My use of Facebook is the core part of Continued Engagement and Facebook Ads is by far the most invested method of increasing awareness.  The next posts that I'll put up will likely bounce around from topic to topic in this cycle, especially as new observations crop up.  I'll be tagging those with the appropriate term.

I totally expect Nestle Purina to steal my doggy diagram...

Why Facebook?

Eat at Joe's!

... and by Joe's I mean the Gumbo Shop...

So one of my life-long dreams is to own and run a restaurant.  One of my favorite things is to share the joy of good eats with someone, be it from something that I cooked myself or from a simple introduction to a new restaurant.  Each year I've been doing parties that have essentially been operational logistic exercises with crawfish boils and meats on sticks.

Unfortunately, I'm missing a certain something...

"... a set of these."

I am a risk avoiding coward.  There was absolutely no way that I'm going to drop my job to pursue any sort of risky venture.  So instead of actively pursuing my lifelong dream, I decided to try to learn as much as possible about the business on the off-chance that I am absurdly wealthy and the risk is diminished as much as possible or until I grow a pair.

Enter the Gumbo Shop.

I figured I'd spend some of my spare time offering the minimal skills that I do have to one of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis to accomplish a couple things:

• See how my skills apply to the restaurant business
• Learn whatever I can from the good people at the Gumbo Shop
• Have an excuse to visit one of my favorite restaurants more often

So earlier in the year I helped them set up a simple website and Facebook page.  Along the way I've cooked crawfish for them on Saturdays while it was in season and did some catering orders, both pickup and on-site.  Most recently, I've been bumbling my way through Facebook Ads.

I figured I'd take the chance to write some of my observations and experiences down from Customer Relationship Management through Facebook to this day when I dumped a total of 60lbs of crawfish for 80 unusually well dressed people.  As I think on this now it will likely be chock full of unfounded assumptions and too much thought going into something that's pretty obvious.  Either way, I get to share my experiences, those who care get to have my experiences shared with them, and the Gumbo Shop now has yet another avenue of an online presence.

Next: What AM I Doing?

Baking Soda is the Shit.

That is all.

Cheeeeeeeeeese

 Kevin:  oh welp

man im looking up instructions to this apartment and my eye happened to fall on one part which was
"Turn right onto Cheesequake Road."

and i was just like...cheesequake road?

 me:  that's an awesome name

is it like this magical cheese place?

 Kevin:  i have no clue i wonder if it's even pronounced like that or it's some silly native american pronnounciation we don't know

like

chessequack or something

 me:  that would make sense

but Cheesequake is way more awesome

it makes me think of Rescue Rangers and how cheese always looked so delicious...

 Kevin:  mice cartoons made cheese

look amazing

just like...pooh cartoons made honey look amazing

 me:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARqOxtNIMJ0

Andy's Cheese Reality feat. David

 Sent at 8:58 AM on Tuesday

 Kevin:  haha i always wondered

"why would you drop a safe on someone then shoot suction cups?!"

 me:  hahahaha

 Sent at 9:01 AM on Tuesday

 Kevin:  pretty sure there wree sequences like that with anvils too

anvil falls -> suction cups or arrows

like no that's not how it should workkkkkkkk

you aim next to it!

What the fuck is Broccoli Raab?

To be honest this isn't a broccoli raab recipe... it's a recipe that you can fold broccoli raab into....

0.5 lb of linguine - Porcini linguine was pretty awesome for this...
1-2 bulbs of garlic - depending on how much you like garlic... peeled.
Shit ton of shrooms - trumpet, oyster, porcini, cremini, white, whatever your fancy... but get three kinds cuz it's just awesome that way. I'd say... 20-30 oz of it.

That damned broccoli raab. However much you feel like... I used all mine up in one go. Chopped... I tossed most of the stems into the compost.

half stick of butter

Half a pack of fresh Savory... uh... 2-3 tablespoons chopped?

1 tablespoon salt, Couple coarse grounds of pepper

Slice the mushrooms. It doesn't matter about being clean about it. I used the slicer attachment on the food processor.

Prepare 6 quarts of water to cook the linguine - start getting it to a boil.

Melt butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Toss in garlic and savory. Toss around a bit and then throw in all the mushrooms and broccoli raab. Season with salt and pepper and saute for a bit. With all those mushrooms, the liquid's going to start coming out and steam. Cover and bring to medium low.

Let simmer in its own juices for a while... a good half hour at least. Now's the time to cook the linguine. Cook for about half the recommended time.

With tongs, put the linquine in with the shroom mixture and fold in. If there isn't enough water, spoon in the pasta water. Cover and let sit in medium low heat for the remainder of the recommended cooking time. If it seems to be dry, spoon in more pasta water. Keep cooking until the noodles are at the texture you want it to be (the wife likes it more over done...).

Der Stroganoff

From America's Test Kitchen


Ingredients

3/4 lb of beef stew meat
1 lb pack of wide egg noodles
12 oz sliced mushrooms
1 medium chopped onion (it's under the mushrooms...)
1 can Chicken Broth
1 can Beef Broth
1 small pack (8oz?) sour cream
1/4 cup brandy (not pictured)
Salt, Pepper, cooking oil





Equipment: Wooden spoon, large skillet. A large skillet is key in that you won't have to brown the meat in batches.

Cut the beef stew chunks to a more uniform size. How small is up to you but the smaller you do the less you have to cook to get it tender. I cut them into about 1/2" cubes.

Pat beef dry with a paper towel and toss with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet on high. Dump the meat in and keep it on high. Ensure that the meat is getting to brown and not overcrowd and steam. Otherwise, you may want to brown the meat in batches. You want them brown bits on the pan for flavor. Remove the beef.

While still on high heat, dump the mushrooms and onions. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. This is more to draw out the liquids as the broths are salty enough. Cover for a couple minutes for them to steam themselves.

At this point there should be enough liquid to scrape up all the brown bits in the pan. Do so with a wooden spoon. Cook uncovered to let the liquid reduce out as the onions and mushrooms cook, about 10 minutes. Add brandy and let that cook out.

Dump in the broths and add the meat back in. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. Prepare about a cup of warm water on the side.


Now it's time to add the noodles. Just dump the whole bag in. I don't really care about overcooked egg noodles so I think this method's just fine. Stir in to get as much noodles as you can in the liquid.

Let simmer covered for about 2 minutes and fold the top less cooked noodles in. Simmer for another 2 minutes. Repeat this process until the noodles are fully cooked. If you don't think you have enough water, add a bit of that warm water.

Remove from heat, stir in sour cream. Serve in the skillet.

Screw you, brussel sprouts rock.

Annnnd they're in season!

Salami, the kind you get whole and cut into chunks. Used some Volpi brand "rose" salami.

1/2 lb Brussel Sprouts
3 cloves chopped Garlic
1/4 Onion
2 tablespoons butter

Luckily, I had some clarified butter (damn you Byron for wanting so much damned butter!) so I used that. On medium high heat, sautee the onion until brown, added the salami until it was crispy. Removed.

Add the garlic and brussel sprouts, season with salt and pepper. When the brussel sprouts are a bit brown, add 1/4 cup water and reduce it down.

Anna won't even try the stuff....

Clams Recipes Synergies

Sooooooo... you know what I turn to when I'm all tired and stressed?

Clams.

Clams fucking rock.

Baked Stuffed Clams

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 Cherrystone Clams
1 12oz pack of bacon, finely chopped.
At least 1/4 cup Freshly Grated Parmesan
Bread Crumbs
Chopped Italian Parsley
Some cooking wine (1/4 cup?)

Clams Oreganata

2 dozen littleneck clams
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 teaspoon italian herbs
At least 2 tablespoons Freshly Grated Parmesan cheese
Chopped Italian Parsley
Bacon Grease

Render the Bacon:
Chop up the bacon and render in a large skillet over medium heat. Now's a good time to finish up your chopping/slicing/grating/cleaning up. Render until you have crispy bits and a good about of grease. About 10-15 minutes.

Saute the veges
Empty the grease into a small bowl. Turn the heat on high. Toss in the stuffed clams veges (not the parsley). Add some black pepper (NO SALT). Saute/Sweat until the shrooms and onions are cooked. Because there're a good amount of veges, they'll probably steam up and you can use that to deglaze the skillet. Otherwise as some water or cooking wine. Remove to a mixing bowl.

Cook the Cherrystones
Toss in the Cherrystone clams with the cooking wine. After about 3-5 minutes the clams should start to open up. Remove them as soon as they open.

Separate the clam shells and take out the meat. Rinse out the shells and place on a baking sheet. Chop up the meat and mix in with the stuffed clams mixture.

Cook the Littlenecks?
Now you're supposed to shuck these guys but after a couple attempts (I never bought a shucking knife, which my parents swear by) I figured you know what... I don't really care if it's overcooked and sometimes the clams that don't close while I'm cleaning them are actually alive and when (up until I cook them.). Soooo why not.

Toss into the same skillet, which should have a good amount of liquid from the wine and cherrystones, but this time over medium heat at a low boil. Again, remove the clams upon opening, even just a bit. Separate the shells.

Finishing up the Stuffed Clams
Add bread crumbs and cheese to the mixture so that everything's coated with cheese and bread crumbs. Add some parsley to taste. ASo now you have a good amount of clams liquor that's also deglazed the bacon bits in the pan. Slowly add the liquor to taste (add some, mix, taste.) Spoon the mixture into the shells.

In a preheated oven at 350 degrees, bake for 15 minutes.

Finishing up the Clams Oreganata
While the stuffed clams are baking, you can mix up the clams oreganata mixture, and mix in clams liquor and bacon grease to taste. In my mind, you can never have too much parmesan cheese in it so feel free to add more. So now you should have this paste that you can smear onto the half-shell clams. Place on a baking sheet.

When the baked clams are finished, take them out to cool and turn the oven to the broiler setting (or if you have one of them bottom broilers, I guess you can do this whenever you damned well please.) Wait about 3 minutes for the broiler to heat up and put in the clams on the top rack. Leaving the door slightly ajar, broil for about 1-2 minutes or until the clams are golden brown.

Serve both with some lemon.

St. Louis Restaurants have Shitty Eggplant Parm

So St. Louis Italian food is pretty weak. On top of that, they have some pretty shitty eggplant parm. So here's yet another thing that you should consider just making at home.

Really good eggplant parm is greasy crap with cheese and sauce. The fact that it's vegetarian's just a way to keep people happy.

Oh wait... this recipe was based off the "How to Cook Everything" book that the Lady supposedly bought for herself to learn how to cook food...

Ingredients:

2 Medium Eggplants
Flour
3 cups - shredded Cheese - I just get whatever "Italian Mix" is on sale. You can be all fancy and get mozzarella (for the inside) and parmesan (for the crusty topping) but I'm too cheap for that.
Fresh Basil

2 cups Tomato Sauce:
http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/2007/10/marinara-sauce-americas-test-kitchen.html

Notice how this is sort of similar to the zuppa di clams recipe... it's no coincidence, folks.

Optional Super Robust Stuff
16oz sliced Mushrooms
Crushed Garlic (lots)

Slice the eggplant thin, like a 1/4 inch thing. You can trim some of the skin off but that's supposedly the healthy part. Salt both sides with coarse salt and drain in a colander for 30 minutes or so. Rinse and squeeze dry with a paper towel. (My mom was like don't throw the paper towel away! You can still use it! We did. :P)

Heat up olive oil in a large skillet/pan to medium heat. Dredge eggplant slices in flour and brown both sides, about 3-4 minutes a side. Drain on something (like those air dried paper towels from earlier... :P). Add black pepper as they cook (remember that the eggplant's already been pretty salted.)

Super unhealthy optional delicious thing to do:

So after going through all that eggplant, you now have a boat load of brown floury goodness. Hopefully, none of it is burnt... you can get rid of that. Toss in shrooms and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and saute. Set aside.

In a baking dish, spoon the sauce to just coat the bottom. Layer down eggplant, cheese, basil, shrooms, cheese, and repeat with the last being cheese. Don't let your structure touch the edges, pour the remaining sauce around the edges. Your thing won't be stuck to the pan that way.

Bake in oven for 20-30 minutes. Mince some basil on top and serve with any of the remaining sauce.

When will I learn...

So whenever Stephen Chow comes up in conversation Anna has to bring up some Wei Xiao Bao movie that he's done that I've ignored for quite a while. Eventually I tracked it down (Called the Royal Tramp), downloaded it and watched it.

It was a pretty freaking stupid movie. Even for Stephen Chow.

DELETED.

It came up in conversation again. I said it was a dumb movie and I don't ever want to watch it again.

I'm downloading both movies right now...

Leg'o Lamb

Ancient Chow Recipe most likely derived from when Dad decided that he hates turkey for Thanksgiving

1 Boneless Leg'o Lamb
Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix - 2 bags

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees f

Boneless leg'o lamb is usually netted. Take off the netting and pat the leg dry with a paper towel. Season with the mix all over and tie back up into its original form (one way is to take the netting off without cutting it and then reuse it.)

Stick a meat thermometer in the center of the roast.

Put the lamb on a roasting rack in the oven and bring the temperature down to 300 degrees. Roast until the meat temperature reaches 130 degrees for medium rare. Take out, but don't take the thermometer out. Let it rest for at least ten minutes with aluminum foil loosely covering it.

Slice and serve.

Zuppa di clams - redux

So after boat loads of iterations I've finally come to a recipe that I think will be THE recipe for clams from me - it's essentially using a tip from America's Test Kitchen for the tomato sauce:

24 Clams
1/4 cup red wine
12 olives (or more or less depending how much you like them)
3 tablespoons olive juice (the stuff the olives have been sitting in... I pretty much take as much juice as I can from the bottle so that there's still enough left to leave the rest of the olives submerged)
1 tablespoon capers (I didn't rinse these.)
1 28oz can whole tomatoes
1 Shallot - minced
2 cloves garlic - minced

Preparing the tomatoes - seed and strain the tomatoes and remove center green parts. Leaving too many seeds in there can make it bitter. Try to leave the tomato meat in as whole a piece as possible. Diced seeded tomatoes may work just as well but I didn't like the texture as much. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the tomato juice.

Big deep stainless steel skillet (or anything... just not nonstick.): sweat the shallots, garlic, and capers. No need for salt.

Turn the heat up to medium-high to high. Add the tomatoes. They should be strained enough so that they start leaving a fond (brown bits) on the skillet. After a tomatoes stop steaming up for a while, add the red wine to scrape up all the brown bits until the tomatoes are getting sticky.

Dump in the clams, olives, olive juice, and tomato juice. Cover.

Stir periodically to let clams open. It's done when all the clams are open. Serve with bread for dipping.

DONUT CRAWL

Tentative route for a donut crawl cuz yelp.com couldn't handle links with ampersands O_o:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=10602788046972978433,38.616931,-90.261886%3B11766214560119156495,38.604800,-90.263150%3B6943662351902346876,38.604920,-90.264470&saddr=Arsenal+St+%4038.604920,+-90.264470&daddr=World's+Fair+Doughnuts+%4038.616931,-90.261886+to:Eddie's+Southtown+Donuts+to:6525+Chippewa+St,+St+Louis,+MO+63109+(Donut+Drive-In)+to:Lubeley's+Bakery+%26+Deli+Inc+to:Donut+Stop+to:6935+S+Lindbergh+Blvd,+St+Louis,+MO+63125+(Krispy+Kreme+Doughnuts)+to:Arsenal+St+%4038.604800,+-90.263150&mra=ps&mrcr=0&sll=38.614993,-90.254145&sspn=0.050902,0.087204&ie=UTF8&ll=38.586552,-90.26041&spn=0.101844,0.174408&z=13

If the direct doesn't work, try cutting and pasting into your browser.

Original yelp thread: http://www.yelp.com/topic/saint-louis-time-to-take-this-offline

Bourne Ultimatum is a Platformer

RUN RUN!!!!

PUNCH PUNCH!!!!

JUUUUUUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Randomly ran into Simon and Jim at Dos Reales at 4:30pm. What are the odds of that.

Children of Men...

Awesome movie. Reminds of me THX 1138 for some reason... in terms of how the storytelling went.

Chicks and Robots

So transformers was ridiculously cheesy with a broken flow... but Transformers rocked. It saddened me that a lot of the Autobots except for Optimus and Bumblebee were pretty much pussies, but the Decepticons are much cooler anyway.

Soundwave totally stole the show.

Back with a vengeance

Macaroni and Ham Soup: My roommate in college used to make a heaping crap load of mac and chop up a huge thing of ham so there'd be individual bowls of mac, ham, and green onion. Roomies and neighbors would just spoon the individual ingredients into their bowls and season to taste. For people who would like measurements, here some some guesstimates for 3 servings.

Ingredients:
8oz uncooked macaroni
1 cup cubed ham
2 green onions, chopped
2 cans of chicken broth s
esame oil (about 1 tspn per serving) w
hite pepper

Cook the macaroni per instructions and heat the chicken broth (microwave or on stovetop... whatever). In a bowl, top the macaroni with ham, green onion and pour in chicken broth. Add white pepper to taste. Let sit to cool off for about a minute to let flavors meld.

Rack of Lamb

Recipe
Continental

2 frenched racks of lamb (they usually come in packs of 2)
1 pack of fresh mint (1/4 cup?)
1 pack of rosemary (1/4 cup again?)
Salt 2 tablespoons?
Pepper 1 tablespoon?
4 cloves garlic
1 cup Olive Oil

2 cups Madeira Wine (The cheap stuff is fine...)

Throw all spices/herbs into a blender/food processor and start blending into a paste, gradually adding the olive oil so that it forms a paste. Brush onto the lamb.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Set pan on high heat and sear all 4 sides of the lamb and place on a roasting rack and stick one (through the small side) with a meat thermometer. Roast in oven until internal temp reaches 140 degrees... about 3-4 hours.

While roasting:
In the searing pan reduce whine on low heat until about a half cup is left, whisking the burnt yummies into the sauce. salt to taste. You can run it through a strainer to get the gunk out but they taste good :)

Remove from oven and transfer to a cutting board or someting and cover with tin foil and let sit for 15 minutes.

Cut and drizzle sauce over it.

Yay.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ANNA'S MOVING TO ST. LOUIS!!!!!!