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11-24-2006, 08:11 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Private Chef | | Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 88
| |  CHEFTALK mentioned in Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2006
I'm not sure where to post this, but I thought you'd like to know that ChefTalk.com was mentioned favorably in a recent Wall Street Journal article by Yulia Chernova, Food & Drink section.
The title below is linked to the full article: Soggy Stuffing, Dry Turkey? Now You Can IM a Chef More Web Sites Help People Connect With Professionals
I could post the text or quote from the article, if permitted, for those who cannot access the page.
Last edited by Vera Bradley; 11-24-2006 at 08:13 PM.
Reason: typo in title
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11-25-2006, 06:53 AM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: The Carolinas
Posts: 1,189
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I cannot access it. But would like to read it. Do not have a need for the Wall Street Journal so I cannot see subscribing to it. I guess you could post the article has long as you give credit to the author who wrote the column. You would have to PM Nicko and find out.
Rgds Rook |
11-25-2006, 08:40 AM
|  | ChefTalk Moderator Culinary Experience: Cook At Home | | Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Wisconsin USA
Posts: 8,616
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Thanks for posting the information, Vera! Yes, this is the best forum for posting news like this.
Even though the paper didn't print much of the interview with our own Jim Berman, we did get a mention. You never know when you'll see a Chef Talk reference, and it's great when members make sure to point out those occasions.
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11-25-2006, 09:30 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Private Chef | | Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 88
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My pleasure!
The article follows (remove if necessary). Quote: Soggy Stuffing, Dry Turkey? Now You Can IM a Chef
More Web Sites Help People Connect With Professionals; Deboning a Chicken Via iChat
By YULIYA CHERNOVA
November 22, 2006; Page D1
For cooks planning a Thanksgiving meal, it's crunch time.
When things go wrong, the idea of taking questions to a professional chef has long seemed about as realistic as pushing through the swinging doors at a restaurant and heading into the kitchen.
But that's changing quickly. A growing number of chefs are communicating with home cooks via phone, email and instant-messaging services. Web-based services like ChefsLine.com and chefs.com, both launched in the past year, let anyone contact a chef for help with a cooking crisis or a routine query -- investigating why that flourless chocolate cake never cooked through, for instance, or explaining how to truss or tuck the legs of a turkey after seasoning the inside.
More chefs are reaching out to the public by participating in online cooking forums such as cheftalk.com that encourage instant-message exchanges, or creating cooking Web sites and blogs that provide contact information and solicit questions. The most accessible chefs aren't generally big names, but they include restaurant chefs, personal chefs and cooking instructors with backgrounds in diverse cuisines.
The rise of the chef-connection services comes amid a boom in hobby cooking -- and the decline of basic cooking skills. More home cooks are finding inspiration on food TV shows and online recipe sites, even as fewer people tend to -- or even can -- turn to family members for help.
"Recipes don't teach you how to cook," says Jennifer Beisser, founder and chief executive of Chefs Line Inc. The chefs at her service can talk people through recipes or answer more general questions, such as what wine to serve with a particular meal.
Chefs Line charges $10 for 30 minutes of talk (which can be broken up into several calls), $65 for event menu planning, which includes several consultations, or $15.95 a month, with the first month free, for unlimited calls and chats. The Web site also has a free service that allows users to post questions online and get chefs' responses via audio files posted online by 5 p.m. The company normally gets about 25 calls a week, but in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, it has already logged more than 100.
"I don't want to do that much research just to cook," says Melissa Taylor, of Chicago, who calls Chefs Line's hotline about once a week. She's a vegetarian but says she often cooks for her boyfriend, a "big carnivore," and she needs to know more about cooking meat. To get ideas, she says she often starts by looking up recipes online, but when the going gets tough, "it's nice to take advantage of someone else's education."
More home cooks seeking quick help are also heading to Chefs.com, another Web site that allows people to email or chat with a chef. Editor in chief Ken Rubin says he fields between 50 and 70 queries a week, with the number spiking to about 100 last week. The questions have included how to adapt a recipe last made in Dallas to a higher-altitude city and what substitutions to make in a menu for a dinner party where someone was allergic to soy. Once he received an urgent BlackBerry message requesting help buying grocery-store ingredients -- for $20 -- that would get dinner on the table within 30 minutes. Queries on Chefs.com, which is owned by Career Education Corp., operator of the Cordon Bleu cooking schools in the U.S., are free. A recent query emailed to Chefs.com about the best way to quickly defrost, marinate and bake a small chicken was answered in a few minutes, but responses can take up to 48 hours.
The options for home cooks are growing in part because a new generation of chefs and restaurateurs are becoming more savvy about reaching out to the public to promote their businesses. Some see Web chats and blogs as ways to showcase their knowledge and personalities, in an industry that has gained considerable glamour in recent years, while others are simply looking to gain customers.
John Zehnder, executive chef at Zehnder's family restaurant in Frankenmuth, Mich., fields about 20 emails and phone calls a week, free of charge. Mr. Zehnder, who writes a column with recipes and reminiscences for the restaurant's Web site, has walked people through cake disasters, tried to resolve a married couple's argument over what a "new potato" is and given out his recipes for things like German Christmas cookies. Mr. Zehnder isn't worried that people will stop coming to the restaurant if they get his recipes. Instead, he believes they will prepare the dishes for guests on special occasions, bringing the restaurant more clients.
Adam Bernstein, executive chef at Adam's Place restaurant in Eugene, Ore., agrees. "You build a relationship and a bond, and it gives people another excuse to come in, have some dinner and check in on how that recipe came out," he says. Mr. Bernstein has even had a video-conferencing session via iChat with someone who wanted to know how to bone a chicken.
For quick help, home cooks can also check out online cooking forums like those on cheftalk.com, where quite a few chefs provide screen names. Jim Berman, a ChefTalk administrator, gets about five requests a week via IM and email for cooking advice. "People see something on TV, the Food Network, but because they don't know how to hold a knife, they can't quite repeat what these chefs are doing," he says. With instant messaging, he says, it's getting easier to identify people's problems.
Other Web sites where home cooks can get questions answered include www.Askachef.com and some sections of www.allexperts.com. Meanwhile, a growing number of individual chefs solicit questions on their Web sites. A list of chefs' blogs -- some of which offer contact information -- is available at www.chefsblogs.com.
Kathryn Hill, a San Francisco home cook, recently had an intensive IM exchange with Joanna Minecci, a personal chef in the Los Angeles area, hoping to find out whether it was safe to refreeze a meat sauce. "Her questions were very thorough," said Ms. Hill. "Did you thaw it in the fridge? Did you cook the sauce? Did you cool it in an ice bath before putting it back in the fridge?"
Ms. Minecci, who displays her Yahoo and AOL screen names on her Web site, www.chefjoanna.com, gets up to five IMs a week, she says, most of them from people who don't know her. Ms. Minecci chats for five to 10 minutes free but sets up a paid appointment for people interested in a longer session. Questions Ms. Minecci gets often correlate with what's on FoodTV that week, she says. Another cause of much frustration: the seasonal appearance of truffles.
Because people are accustomed to being intimidated by chefs, they often are surprised to find them so accessible. Mark Tafoya, a personal chef who runs an online food magazine, creates cooking podcasts, and has answered a few calls from Chefs Line customers, leaves contact info via email, his Skype phone number and his voicemail on his blog at remarkablepalate.blogspot.com. One day, a man called Mr. Tafoya and hung up, only to call back and say that he was so shocked that Mr. Tafoya actually answered the phone that he couldn't figure out what to say.
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11-25-2006, 09:36 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: The Carolinas
Posts: 1,189
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Vera the links don't work.
Rgds Rook |
11-25-2006, 11:48 AM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Culinary Instructor | | Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 582
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Thanks for the info and links!! |
11-25-2006, 04:31 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Culinary Student | | Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Burnsville, Minnesota
Posts: 30
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The link leads to a password requirement. Unless you are a member of WSJ online, you can't access the article.
Good read, and cool one of the admin got to say a few words!
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11-25-2006, 05:57 PM
|  | Cafe Administrator Culinary Experience: Culinary Instructor | | Join Date: Oct 1999 Location: New Castle, De USA
Posts: 2,397
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11-25-2006, 06:19 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: The Carolinas
Posts: 1,189
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim  | Jim I think it speaks volumes for Cheftalk. The amount of experience and talent that is here is unreal.
Rgds Rook | |
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