Corn Chowder and Ask Chef Dennis

I would like to thank every one for all the well wishes and emails sent to me about being under the weather a bit….sigh…..the weather…….hang in there, spring is on the way, I mean its March!!!
But again I digress…..it did mean so much to me, so thank you all for caring about me.

When this all began last year, and I started to find so many wonderful people in our online community, I had no idea how much you all would mean to me. One of my new friends asked me lately how to keep up with his foodbuzz friends, he had read my Foodbuzz Etiquette 101, and now it was starting to get hard keeping up with all of his contacts……He had also followed my advice about finding new friends.

What I told him was that there is no way we can keep in contact with everyone, to much happens in our lives to have that much time to spare…..so what I told him was, that he would find his group of friends…..it’s natural, and there is nothing wrong with it. We tend to want to be around people that we have something in common with, and it can be one of many things. Whats important is to realize that and to embrace it, these are the bonds that tie us together. I told him, keep in contact with 150 of your friends, you’ll keep 100 of them close,  keep 40 or 50 of them even closer, and find the ones within that group that you will hold dear.

I find myself fortunate to have found my place in the grand scheme of things, and to count so many wonderful people as friends, and what really makes me happy, is that some of my friends have found each other because of me. Now to me that is quite an accomplishment in life, to bring people together who may never have known each other, and it makes me smile my biggest smile when I stop to read a friends blog, and I see a comment from another friend who found them because of me, just as others  introduced me to their friends.

I feel I don’t say it often enough just how much your friendship and support mean to me. You certainly make my days brighter, and how I do look forward to the times I can stop and read your blogs. I may not always have the time to leave a comment, but I stop to see what you have created or what has happened in your life….sigh……ok enough of the mushy stuff, lets get to why your here…….food, glorious food!!

I guess I’ve been in a soup mood lately, my last homage to winter…..although I do make soup everyday at school up until June….when it finally gets too hot, the soup stops.
But today I’d like to share with you one of my wife’s favorites, and that is Corn Chowder. I haven’t made it in a long time, and she does like soups when shes not feeling well, so I thought in between making her jello (she only eats that when shes really sick), I would make her a soup that would sustain her. Something thick and rick and full of flavor, so Corn Chowder seemed like a good choice to me, I hope it seems like a good choice to you!

Corn Chowder
2 sticks unsalted Butter
1 cup flour
1 qt chicken stock
2 cup milk or Greek yogurt
2 carrots small dice
4 stalks celery small dice
1 medium onion small dice
2 potatoes unpeeled, small diced
1 lb frozen sweet corn
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a  sauce pan add your butter and allow to melt
add all of the diced vegetables and allow to sautee for about 7-10 minutes
add in the flour and mix well, turn down the heat and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes to let the flour cook. This is your roux with the veggies, if the mixture looks too greasy add a little more flour to take the shine off the roux.
add in the hot chicken stock and mix well to get all of the roux incorporated.
add the milk and corn, reduce heat and allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes.
If the chowder appears to thick, thin it out with additional milk, stock or water.
If you really want to kick it up a bit and aren’t worried about all the calories and fat, add in a half a cup of heavy cream!
Salt and pepper to taste and serve with your favorite sandwich or salad.

Ask Chef Dennis


Food Bloggers Conference Asheville, NC
I have been getting questions about our conference in Asheville, and all I can tell you at his point is its still in the planning stages. As for cost it will all depend upon the sponsors we secure, the more money we get from sponsorship the less we will have to charge to attend.
Content has also been a question, as of now we do have numerous sessions that will be covered, topics which every blogger always asks about. Photography, Social Media, and Growing your blog to name a few. We will have more specifics as soon as our website is built and we can start posting information.
If you have any suggestions of topics you would like to see covered please let us know!
The dates are Friday  July 8th for the welcome party, and Saturday  July 9th for the conference……that leaves you with Sunday to be on your own in beautiful Asheville, and I would definitely plan on spending part of your day enjoying the city!
I will let everyone know as soon as more information is available.

Foodbuzz
This seems to be are favorite subject, and no Ask Chef Dennis would be complete with out covering a few items.
I did have a question about category placement for your posts. For a brief period while foodbuzz was breaking in the channels we were allowed to pick two to place our post in. After the test period, foodbuzz chose for you, and that option was removed……well, not entirely.
If you open your homepage on Foodbuzz and click on your activity, then on your latest post and open it up, at the top of the page are options…..share….comment….save…..edit…..delete. If you click on edit your post will come up and the channels will be visible. You will now be able to chose your two channels, after choosing your channels click on update post at the very bottom of the edit page and you are done! Now this is important if you want your posts in the right channels, if you don’t care then no need to worry!!

I have also been hearing grumblings about over sharing posts by some bloggers, or bloggers who share everything they have…..I know our mailboxes are bulging, but everyone is chasing that elusive 99!!
But if its too much to handle, and you think that we are sharing too much, you can defriend us, its really that simple, I have actually done a few who just seemed to be relentless in their sharing, mostly sharing others posts too, doing anything to drive traffic up at their site. Well it then becomes spam to me, so I did say bye-bye to two this week (not bad out of almost 2000). So if anyone imparticular is annoying you or if you just want to cut down on your mailbox start checking off that box to unfriend……

Start at your home page on foodbuzz, and click on the foodies tab after the restaurants tab…..your friends will appear in buzz order with the option to unfriend, and the option to unfollow from the feed.
Now if you unfriend them I think you get both, if you just unfollow their feed, they just won’t show up on your list of new posts.

One other foodbuzz tip, if you want to see your friends new posts, click on buzz at the top of the page, then at the far right side on the very end of the channels bar is my friends, click on that and all the new posts from your friends will appear in chronological order. If you don’t have time to read them all, its an easy way to buzz them quickly! We do want to support and buzz our friends!

Blogging
I guess by now everyone has seen the big push by the Foodie Blog Roll to start using ads for their featured publisher program, like foodbuzz. There are some major differences though, you can have any ads you want in addition to theirs…..no restrictions, unlike foodbuzz. They count all the hits from all over the world, not just the US…..unlike foodbuzz, and while were on the subject why to they seem to hate our Canadian friends over at foodbuzz? (They seemed to have put them in some kind of limbo, now that’s just not right. ) But to me the biggest difference is the sight itself, its stark…..in fact its ugly!
There is no community to speak of, no interaction, none of the beautiful well designed website we love, even if we don’t understand it most of the time……and after looking at the contests they run, well I’ve seen bloggers do better give aways…..

So basically its up to you as the individual on what is important to you…..what are you looking for?
If its just money then absolutely the Foodie Blog Roll is the place for you, you can still keep a regular membership with foodbuzz if you like, or I guess if they allow you too. But just remember one thing, Foodie blog Roll is trying to grow, they are wonderful people and it is a nice site, but they are trying to grow….I said again to emphasize it. That means in the beginning, they will offer the moon, sun and stars to try and make up ground quickly……will it always be that way if they get as big as foodbuzz? Only time will tell. But in order to attract bloggers not just interested in money, they are going to have to do a lot more.
Don’t get me wrong, I would certainly like to see a check I wasn’t embarrassed to cash, but at this point money isn’t the driving factor in my blogging…its a nice benefit, but not the deciding factor for me at this moment. I also keep hoping foodbuzz realizes what they have and make things better for featured publishers……we all can dream….sigh.

Well I think that’s about it for tonight, its been a quiet week for ask chef Dennis, so in the future to avoid the rants you just read, send in your questions…lol….or you never know what kind of commentary you might just get!!

Spring is on the way, I can feel it getting warmer, the days are getting longer…..pretty soon our farmer’s market will open, and all will be right with the world once more…..

Enjoy the rest of the week my friends, get outside and enjoy the sun and the warm days if you get them, think about having a picnic to celebrate spring and remember……