BLD Restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine Diana Stavaridis (@BLDChefD) is encouraging people to tweet a dish to her Twitter handle by April 15.  The winning dish will appear on the menu as that night’s plat du jour, and the winner and friend will also get to eat at the restaurant for free.

I see lots of Twitpics happening on her page; seems the number of followers should increase too!

- Rebecca

There’s an interesting article in The New York Times about how well-known chefs are using Twitter as a marketing tool for their restaurants and to “air their grievances” virtually.  I thought Chef Joe Dobias (@chefjoedoe) of the East Village Restaurant JoeDoe said it best:

“JoeDoe is a character I play online to keep my name in front of people. I just need them to come into my restaurant, and then my food will do the talking and I can shut up.”

JoeDoe was recently in a Twitter war with a local supplier after he criticized them for not delivering produce on time (or something).  Not going to lie, I am now following all the chefs listed in this article to see what other Twitter controversies are happening in the culinary world!

- Rebecca

…if you check out NBCNewYork.com and answer some trivia questions for their  Around Town Contest.  According to Luxist, 500 lucky trivia winners will be given a cart location and a secret password to present at the cart, speakeasy-style, in exchange for their free lunch (cool!).

The campaign is to promote NBC New York’s new food site, Feast, which is set to launch this winter.  Mmm, can’t wait.

- Rebecca

If it’s not the first-ever Facebook marriage, then it must be the first-ever Facebook marriage where both people, boy and girl, have the same exact same name - Kelly Hildebrandt.

Kelly Hildebrandt Girl was bored one day(?) and went searching on Facebook for people with her name.  Lo and behold, she found Kelly Hildebrandt Boy, they started messaging, and now they’re engaged.

Must be love at first site! :)

- Rebecca

Last year, three friends started a Web site, meandgoji.com, allowing people to create their own cereals from a selection of healthy ingredients.  Now, to celebrate their 1-year anniversary, they’re asking people to submit creative videos discussing what’s great about the site (and the creators), and new ideas for the future.

You can win a $100 gift certificate, and you get a free sample just for submitting.

- Rebecca

James Oseland, Editor-in-Chief of Saveur Magazine, has launched a new blog on the Saveur.com homepage that provides links to fascinating food finds all over the Web. It’s called The Feed, (not to be confused with Josh Ozersky’s The Feedbag).

- Rebecca

From CNN.com:

1.  You lose sleep over Facebook.

2.  You spend more than one hour per day on Facebook.

3.  You become obsessed with old loves.

4.  You ignore work in favor of Facebook.

5.  The thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat.

Sound familiar?? :)

- Rebecca

Job title translated: A summer intern who uses Twitter. The New York Times posts this job opportunity from Pizza Hut - an interesting new category that’s hiring in this market!

- Rebecca

The Observer challenges U.K. top chefs to take part in a growing phenomenon of tweeting full recipes in the allotted space of 140 characters or less.

So a simple tomato sauce recipe (by Angela Hartnett, protégé of Gordon Ramsay) would look like:

Heat 4T olvoil. + onion/squashedplumtoms/tompuree/garl/sug/rosemary. Remv rosemary. Heat low30m. + Oil to srv.

Could be a cool challenge for mixologists, too!

- Rebecca

President Obama has tweeted once again!  His first post since January 19.  It says:

Question about the economy?  Ask President Obama.

And then there’s this link,  http://www.whitehouse.gov/OpenForQuestions/ , encouraging you to post a video of yourself asking him a question!

- Rebecca

This Friday the 13th, Mark Zuckerberg will be appearing The Oprah Winfrey Show as part of her weekly “Oprah Fridays Live” program, to demonstrate the recent changes to the Facebook service.  Good luck, Mark!

- Rebecca

Google has set up a site called Tip Jar to help people save up during these hard times.  The site allows users to read, submit and rank money-saving tips on topics including finance, shopping, food, vacation, family and others. Worth checking out!

- Rebecca