Taste Archive

RIP Old Blog

They say “a change is as good as a rest” and, although I’ve always wondered who “they” are, I have to agree in a couple of ways.

Firstly with my writing this blog post.

My blog has always tended to slant towards internet marketing because that’s what I do.

Me writing about digital has always made perfect sense to most people and I’ve had a lot of contact regarding speaking opportunities etc as a result of me being out there in a personal way.

Well recently I’ve been writing more and more about my experiences on my travels, on the way to or at conferences around the world, and finding folks taking a lot more interest in those because there’s been more of an everyday insight element to some of the entries.

This got me thinking about how I could combine my love for my work with my love for wine, food, hopping on planes, gadgets, photography, messing about in boats and general all-round globetrotting.

After a bit of noodling and a lot of generous help from Jon, Dave and the very talented Kean………….Technology – Taste – Travel was born.

Welcome New Blog

We hope the design speaks for itself. As it give me more scope to talk about other things, you’ll being see a lot more entries from me, even if it’s just the odd photo or location update.

Rest assured it’ll have everything the previous incarnation had, but it’ll be enhanced with travel tips, restaurant reviews and a lot more video/photography from wherever I am in the world.

I hope you enjoy it and please let me know if you have any thoughts or observations on what you’d like to see……

So that’s the new blog!

What about the new life?

Well, after 20 years working in the UK and 5.5 at Microsoft in London, I’m moving to Seattle, Washington.

Ashley and I will be upping sticks from Richmond in SW London and rolling up in Redmond to work for Microsoft over there in March 2011.

My role will be much of the same and more,  evangelising Microsoft Advertising, and doing my best to help marketers deliver their dreams.

Burley Lagoon – Gig Harbor – Washington

We’re looking forward to a fantastic life on the other side of the pond, and although it’s a change, I’m not sure our feet will touch the ground long enough to call it a rest!

For those of you too sad for words (and I know there are at the most two of you) we’ll be back often as my job has always been global.

So despite moving lock stock and barrel, you’ll find me propping up the bar in some conference venue somewhere in the world very soon!

Stunning reflection on our 20 year anniversary Worth School reunion a few weeks back in Sussex shot by film director Shaun Severi.

Such a great few hours full of laughs and reminiscence.

Wonder where we’ll all be in another 20 years time!

Simply adorable! My best man Matt’s little boy! How old do you have to be to audition for X Factor?

I’m in Seattle right now for my last meetings of 2010.

Just bought a new camera – Panasonic Lumix G2 – and got to try it out for the 1st time just now.

It’s just started snowing here, so I popped out with my new Pancake (!) lens and took a few snaps.

It’s really just out of the box, but I’m loving the micro-four-thirds way of doing things.

The camera is much smaller and lighter than a traditional digital SLR, but it’s just the sort of thing I need for holidays and conference work.

More detail on how it’s working out soon…..in the meantime, enjoy our head office in the snow…I used Windows Live Photo Gallery for the editing…

During our wine tasting trip to Napa in California, we stayed in a couple of really great places.

The first stop for 2 nights was Dr Wilkinson’s Motel which boasts hot springs and a mud bath spa!

You can get some really good deals on a room if you take up one of their spa packages.

Ashley had booked us on a two hour jolly where we got to sit in a bath of hot mud for 15 minutes – bit weird, especially as you’re totally naked – but nevertheless an authentic and box-ticking experience.

Then we had a 10 minute whirlpool bath followed by a blanket wrap, which is essentially a “lie down” with a sheet covering your modesty.

The highlight was the massage, which was a welcome antidote to the long flight there, coupled with “post-wine imbibing twisted sleeping position” aches and pains!

It was a totally grey few days, so these photos don’t give it true justice, but the motel was seriously 1950’s Americana in style which was excellent for an out of towner like me and really added to ambiance.

There were two swimming pools, one heated and one fffffreezing cold, but I imagine on a nice Spring/Summer’s day (we went late October) they’d be gorgeous to lounge out by.

There are plenty of restaurants a few minutes walk away, but if you’re wine tasting, be aware you’ll get nobbled with a minimum $10 bill for each one, so I’d recommend popping to the fabulous supermarket next door and stocking up breakfast provisions and “to go” coffee, and scoffing them in your room before heading out for the day…….with a designated driver of course!

Last year it was Stephen Fry, this year the IAB managed to secure the acerbic services of Jimmy Carr to end their marvellous Engage 2010 event in London’s Mermaid Theatre.

Jimmy used to be in marketing at Shell, so was well placed to take the p*ss out of us advertising folk, something he did in spades. Not that anyone minded because of the hilarious way he did it, leaving Richard Eyre, chairman on the IAB, speechless on more than one, if not most of the time Mr Carr was on stage.

Sat in the front row, I couldn’t resist asking a question when the time came, and wondered what brand would Jimmy like to do a voice-over for or represent in a TV commercial.

At first he said, “Show me the money!” but then actually got quite serious citing that celebs have to think really hard about what brand they align with because it has to help them in their careers as well as them helping the brand.

He mentioned what the John Smiths ads had done for Jack Dee’s early life as a comedian and how Peter Kay had perfectly picked up the baton and run with an evolved advertising campaign with the same beer-maker to great success – not just in sales, but for the personal brand of Peter Kay.

It was genuinely interesting stuff from a bloke who’s obviously as super-sharp as the suit he was wearing!

It’s not often I eat the perfect meal at a restaurant.

Ask my wife and she’ll recount stories of me sending food back for being cold, getting shirty with waiters for not laughing at my jokes, and just general glumness – especially in the UK – at the flippin’ prices of mediocre dishes that are far from memorable.

Okay, so the 2nd story was a joke, but Morimoto in the California wine country town of Napa isn’t!

Ashley had booked the table a few weeks before – you have to as they are generally jam packed every night – and we sat in the corner with a great view of the whole, light and cavernous room.

To be honest, on 1st passing the door, it looked like no one was eating there as they have a couple of tables in the window, but once inside you hear the cacophony of conversations and satisfied stomachs as you’re lead through to the main part of the eatery.

I went for sake, which was delivered in a jug on a decorated bed of ice – nice touch – and Ashley stuck to beer.

We shared a soft shell crab roll – big, crispy, divine and perfect for 2.

Ashers was then delivered the biggest bit of braised black cod we’ve ever seen. It was cooked to perfection in a soy reduction and well worth the $23.

I plumped for “ishi yaki buri bop” to test my palate as well as the service, as it’s yellow tail cooked in a stone bowl with rice and veg at your table. The server said the bowl was heated to 400 degrees (!) so I couldn’t lick it clean if I had wanted to………..and I did. It was an awesome eating experience – great tasting and professionally prepared and delivered. It came with a secret sauce which added some intrigue to the mix.

Following up the rear was some chocolate ice cream sandwich concoction, perfect for sharing and just enough without getting sickly post some delicate flavours preceding it.

Topping it off with a slug of Glenmorangie “Lasanta” – which I had to show our server how to drink (with an equal measure of water at room temperature) as it was in danger of being ruined “on the rocks” – the bill came to less than $150 including tip!

The service was so good that when I asked for recommendations for foody blogs in the US, our waitress came back with them all written down!

Here they are: SF Eater – David Lebovitz – Chez Pim

We’ll be tucking into them with the same gusto we tucked into our meal at Morimoto.

I seriously don’t wax this lyrical about places we eat at, but this was one worth every penny. Better than Zuma in London which is twice the price!

Can’t wait to visit their sister place in NY very soon…

PS: Just discovered the owner Chef Morimoto on Twitter

Just back from a fabulous birthday trip to the Napa Valley in California.

More of what we ate and drank in later posts, but I wanted to show you some photos of why October is the best time to travel there.

October is harvest time for the grapes, and there’s plenty to see before your start stumbling in and out of the wineries.

Here are some snaps – kicking myself for not having my video camera on me – of the picking and crushing process…….

Grapes, ripe and juicy and about to be picked!

Pickers start making their way down the vines – in all weathers

Paid by the weight of their quarry, they move very fast until they’ve filled a basket

The grapes are then loaded onto pallets and towed by tractor to the winery

Stacked and awaiting crushing!

They’re then helped into a massive machine and sorted – no feet in sight!

The stalks are then removed by the machine….

….and the grapes fall down a crusher while the stalks….

…..end up being recycled as compost

As someone who’s drunk a LOT of wine in my life, it was real joy to see the actual picking/crushing process in action.

Now I know the work that goes into preparing the grapes, I’ll try not to drink the end result quite so quickly in future!

Howard Jones VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

As part of their International Food and Wine Festival, those folks from Disney hosted Howard Jones in concert at the Epcot Center last night.

Through a bizarre set of connections, all to do with social media, I got wind he was playing. As I was in Orlando for the ANA Masters of Marketing and a HUGE fan, I duly coughed up the $80 odd entrance fee, bought a bud and plonked myself near the front of their outside theatre.

Howard would play three sets of 30 minutes between 5.15pm (I thought that’s when pop stars got out of bed!) and 7.45pm.

On Twitter he had promised “Hits Baby, Hits!” and we weren’t disappointed.

My earliest memory of his music was at school. Way back in 1984, albums like Human Lib and then Dream into Action were the ones that got the most scratches because they were played so much on our common room record player – yes I can remember vinyl!

I guess his popularity was about the great songs, the fact he was solo with banks of synths and drum machines to accompany him which all us boys (I’d have been about 12 then!) found super-cool, but for me it was his vulnerability and positivity that shined through.

He obviously thought about what he was writing, wrote from personal experience and didn’t particularly care who thought he was cool or not. It was all about the music!

He was an ordinary guy from High Wycombe who wrote about life and love in a more approachable way than many of the songwriters of his generation.

After the second set I overheard a guy telling a friend he’d left his wife in the mid-80s and went back to her after listening to one of Howard’s songs…..and they’re still married.

Coupling those lyrics with great melodies made those two albums sell millions and helped make him an international star.

Everyone I asked in the US knew who he was!

Anyway the gigs obviously took a bit of time to get going, in that the 1st was in the early evening and the crowd hadn’t quite warmed up.

Kicking off with Pearl in the Shell, a heart-stopping moment came at the start of the second song when his pedals malfunctioned. A low battery was blamed and Howard laughed it off as a techy was getting fixed saying, “I’ve been beset with technological problems the whole of my career!”

But that’s the thing, he didn’t have a paddy, got it fixed and carried on, winning over the crowd even more as he stormed through the night with hit after hit – No One is to Blame, Everlasting Love, Conditioning, Like to Get to Know You Well, What is Love, Things Can Only Get Better and New Song.

Guessing there’d be some die-hards in the audience that’d come to all three sets – we had to leave the theatre and queue up again to get in! – he mixed up the running order and had new surprises in each one.

With a back catalogue like his, 30 minutes isn’t really enough to do history justice and the glaring omission was by far my favourite song – Hide and Seek – the song he sang at Live Aid.

Guess I’ll have to wait until 6th of November when he’s performing Human Lib and Dream into Action in their entirety at London’s O2.

It’s set to be a very special night, and if anyone’s in any doubt whether he’s up to the job, last night’s note/pitch perfect performance showed HoJo’s got it more than ever!

X-Factor wannabes – if Howard Jones ever learns how to bottle his talent, you’d better be first in line when he sets up his stall, or come on the 6th, soak it all up, listen and learn!

Enjoy the slideshow above!

From the Windows Phone team:

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I’ve seen one.

I’ve even touched it.

I’m getting one.

Will you?