As a foodie, one of my frustrations is following the many blogs in the growing food blog community, local or otherwise, and reading about food or food-related events I could have attended had I known beforehand.

As a local food blogger whose goal is to make Ottawa a foodie destination, I blog to highlight our growing restaurant scene and encourage people to visit our eateries and attend events. To date, I have been mildly successful via Twitter, a calendar application, and Post-It notes.

Yesterday, I discovered BeTidings. According to the Webster's dictionary the verb "betide" means "to happen (to); befall." Aptly named, BeTidings (@betidings) is a free online social calendar, built by local entrepreneur Treena (@TGrevatt), to make events accessible. It allows registered users to setup calendars, add events, share events, "collect" events, and "follow" other users' calendars. Best of all, individual calendars are publicly accessible and the web application is really easy to use. Though, I have not tested the GCal integration yet...

Here is a screen capture of the calendar I setup for Ottawa food/food-related events.

foodiePrints on BeTidings
Click here for the live calendar.

To date, I have added the events I know about. And, I have tweeted several local event organizers, caterers, and restaurateurs to send me lists of upcoming events, which I will add as I receive them.

As time permits, I will also add a widget to foodiePrints’ layout to list the 5 upcoming events.

In the meantime, if you know of a food or food-related event, feel free to drop me a comment. If you see us on twitter, drop us a tweet too.

We at foodiePrints were very excited when we discovered that when you enter "f-o-o-d-i-e-p-r-i-n-t-s" into the Google search field, it auto-completes when the "p" is entered.


foodiePrints Auto-Completing

This means that the most popular search engine on the Internet suggests "foodiePrints" from time to time.

To Google, I apologize for the multiple times I submitted the search. I just couldn't believe what I saw!

It's been quite a ride since foodiePrints first went online Sunday, December 3, 2006. Almost 3 years later, it's time for the food blog my better half and I operate to dust off the covers and look at some renewal. Renewal for a blog usually means working on the layout, adding some functionality, and doing a little graphics design.

While I'm up for some layout work, as the foodiePrints prototype demonstrates, I decided to seek out help from a local graphics design artist. foodiePrints could use a logo. My skills just don't cut it. Besides, I have no vector experience.

Quite the professional, my chosen artist sent me some "usual suspects" questions to give her a profile before starting work. Among them are the following two:

• Who is your target audience? Whose attention do you want to catch?
• What kinds of things do you want people to say about foodiePrints? What kinds of words would they use?

When I started answering the other questions, I discovered that outside of Twitter, I speak to a very select few people. The new foodiePrints will change that and I am offering you a say in the outcome of the renewal.

I want to get to know my readers, so Jenn and I decided to hold a "Have Your Say Giveaway." A pair of tickets to this year's Feast of Fields ($80 value) are up for grabs. Feast of Fields is an annual event in Ottawa that pairs local farms with chefs from some of the best restaurants in the national capital region. This year, it will be held Sunday, September 13, 2009 in Vincent Massey Park, from noon until 4:00 pm (16:00). We picked up an extra pair when we purchased ours at a Bridgehead coffee house.

How to Enter

• The foodiePrints prototype is equipped to accept comments.
• Drop us a comment on the prototype website, answering the following questions, and you will be up for the draw.
  1. Who are you? (Leaving this one open ended...)
  2. What on foodiePrints brings you back for more? We've foodie's musings, coverage of local festivals, restaurant reviews, and recipes.
  3. Bearing in mind that foodiePrints is a food blog, concentrating on Canada's national capital region, what can you suggest we do to attract more readership?
  4. What do you think of the prototype?

The Details

• The contest opens today, Sunday, August 30, 2009 and runs until Sunday, September 6, 2009, 11:59 pm (23:59).
• Please make sure to include a valid e-mail address to reach you if you win.
• Only one entry, per person.
• A winner will be randomly chosen via a a number generated from random.org.
• The Winner will be notified by e-mail and will be given 24 hours to respond with a mailing address. If the winner does not respond, another winner will be chosen.

Several weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to the Wellington Oracle, offering them some of my upcoming write-ups of local restaurants in the area. After all, the majority of my reviews are of eateries along Ottawa's west-end Epicurean Row, Wellington Street W. and some of its adjoining streets. While I am trying to get to eateries in the greater Ottawa area (currently working on filling the gap for Chinatown), I live in Wellington West and, as a resident, I am proud to support many of its local businesses.

Like the Wellington Oracle, please allow me to take this opportunity to raise awareness of a joint initiative by the Wellington West Business Improvement (BIA) and Hintonburg Community (HCA) Associations, the "Shop Local" campaign.

The campaign is designed to support Hintonburg businesses as they struggle to overcome the disruption caused by Phase 2 of the Wellington Street W. Road Reconstruction (Parkdale Avenue E. to Bayview Avenue) by "living locally, loving locally and shopping locally."

Phase 2 is one of the most ambitious road reconstruction projects attempted by the City of Ottawa (1.4 km in a single summer!). And while we welcome this investment in our Main Street, there is no denying that it has had a significant impact on local businesses. With sidewalks crowded by machinery, traffic down to a single bumpy lane, construction noise and dust, it has been a challenge to say the least. Some businesses are even in danger of closing due to the construction, which will not end until late November.

Source: "Wellignton West BIA website.

2 recent pictures of the road "reconstruction":

Phase 2 - Direction of Parkdale

Phase 2 - Direction of Somerset

If you are heading out to pick up a gift, eat, or get a haircut and you live nearby, try to spend your money locally. If you do, you can enter into a draw to win great prizes. Both associations have already circulated 10 000 ?Live Local! Love Local! Shop Local!? postcards both through direct mail to residents and to shops along Wellington Street West.

My Shop Local Campaign Post Card
Fill in one of these cards with the name of the business where you shopped and provide some contact information. Deposit it at the Hintonburg Community Center (1064 Wellington Street W.) and you will be eligible for 10 gift certificates worth $25 to local businesses. Draws will be made monthly until construction ends. Winners will be announced in the Kitchissippi Times (a neighborhood newspaper) and on the "Wellignton West BIA website.

I'm off to a hair appointment at Celebrity Hair Design (1024 Wellington Street W.) where master hair stylist Rob Myers will be giving me a trim. It will be my first of many submissions!

Update: I just came across the original City of Ottawa notice about the Wellington Street Reconstruction. The same notice was sent to residents living around the Somerset Street Bridge Modifications, Preston Street Rehabilitation, High Pressure Transmission Main on Bayview Road, and something called a Booth Street Regulator.

Among the "measures" the notice warned us of, Jenn and I have seen the following:

• side walks on one side of the street
• temporary bus routs
• road/lane closures
• local traffic only provisions
• detours

I guess the saying that Ottawa only has two seasons, winter and construction, is apt.

A little over a week ago today, I started fooling around with Twitter feeds and created an account for foodiePrints.

In case you're not familiar with it or its iconic blue bird, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to create and/or participate in communities of like-minded micro-bloggers. Micro-blogging is the practice of posting quick entries ("tweets" in Twitter's case), no more than 140 characters long. Since Tweets are very concise, they often include links. Twitter allows you to combine together streams of tweets, called feeds, so you can "follow" them in unison. Many people use Twitter to document the minutia of their day-to-day lives.

The twitter bird image comes from inconspedia.com.

For foodiePrints, I intend its Twitter feed to allow me to announce newly posted foodiePrints blog entries, describe what works in progress are underway for faithful readers, and post links to food-related happenings around the web. Essentially, I want it to fill in the gaps between posts on foodiePrints proper.

If you're on Twitter, you can follow me directly. Else, you can bookmark "twitter.com/foodiePrints" and check back from time to time to see what's going on.

I should also note that I'm considering adding a tumblog to foodiePrints for orphaned food-related pictures as well. More on that later.

As always, happy eating!

Update: Here is a "manual" on Twitter, penned by David Risley, a self-professed "six-figure blogger." It describes the benefits of using Twitter and symptoms of Twitter-addiction. I actually found myself checking Twitter before I went to bed last night. I wonder if I'm doomed...

Update 2: If you're like me and you like open source operating systems like Ubuntu's distribution of linux, you're probably using pidgin for instant messaging. If you go to the lostInTechnology.com website, there is a walk through for adding Twitter to pidgin.