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Pre-copa-mayhem

Pre-Copa Mayhem

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Pre-copa-mayhem

 

Well, the deadline is looming, the tension is mounting and the financial backers are getting nervous. With just 35 days to go, everyone is asking themselves same question: Will it be ready on time? Well I’ll tell you – it had better be ready on time or I’ll be in big trouble.

Wait, what? What were you talking about? I was talking about my first proper writing job which has to be delivered before the start of the World Cup. You were talking about the Copa itself? Well yeah, fingers crossed for that too I suppose.

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The Chowzter Awards in London

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British-bunting

 

First I tell you that I’m quitting my day job so I can spend more time on the blog, and then I go and disappear without blogging for a whole week! Well I won’t apologise as that sounds rather self-important (“How did you cope without me?”), but I will say that I’ve been busy!

Yesterday I got back to Rio after a week in London for the Chowzter Tastiest Fast Feast Awards. Chowzter have recruited some of the best food bloggers from cities around the world in their quest to track down the best Fast Feasts on the planet. A ‘Fast Feast’ could be anything from street food to a generations-old family recipe served up in a modest neighbourhood restaurant – the emphasis is on independent, non-pretentious, freshly prepared and delicious dishes!

As well as the awards ceremony, the weekend was filled with a variety of food related events (sometimes I wonder what I’ve done to deserve this good fortune!). And before that started, I even had a chance to catch up with friends and family around London. Now this, is what a proper pub looks like:

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Cristo-Redentor

The reason I started Eat Rio

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Cristo-Redentor

 

Next month Eat Rio will be 3 years old. During this period I’ve written over 400 posts and 48 static pages; you guys have left more than 4,500 comments, and I’ve filtered out almost 2,000 spam comments (if I ever do inherit 22.9 million dollars from a long lost uncle in Nigeria, I’m almost certainly going to miss out). The Eat Rio Facebook page has almost 1,000 likes (come on people!) and the Eat Rio Twitter account has almost 1,000 followers (are you trying to torture me?).

Now I don’t want to get too misty eyed here but, for me at least, Eat Rio has meant more than just the numbers. Writing this blog has pushed me to investigate and learn more about this great city. I’ve also made lots of friends through the blog, had several of those mythical ‘free lunches’ and just recently I was able to escape a less than satisfying job and switch career paths completely. Not bad for 3 years!

It feels like an age ago now, but I still remember why I started this blog in the first place.

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Tom drinking Toddynho

Waiting 60 years for a Toddy

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Toddy-antigo

 

-What’s the difference between a blogger and a journalist?

-Bloggers read and respond to their readers’ comments, journalists don’t! 

OK, please relax journalists, I understand that there are plenty of other differences such as a proper education and training in journalism, journalistic standards (properly citing sources, etc) and accountability. But there is a real point here – bloggers place far more importance on reader comments and interactions with their readers; journalists tend to adopt a more unidirectional approach.

I always like receiving comments on Eat Rio, but every so often something extra special comes in that stands out from the rest. And just such a comment appeared exactly a month ago.

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Tom-Le-Mesurier

A Skype Ambassador with a ‘passion for food’!

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Tom-Le-Mesurier

Check it out – it’s me!

 

Hi everyone! I’ll warn you from the outset, today’s post is mostly about me – I don’t normally go in for  the whole ‘Dear Diary’ posts, but some big changes are afoot and I thought I should give you guys a quick update.

News Item number one: yesterday morning the nice people at Skype announced that they have made me their newest Skype Ambassador – tweeting the news to over 3 million followers!

 

How cool is that? Currently there are 8 of us Ambassadors and each of us has a particular speciality. No prizes for guessing my specialisation – food! In fact the Skype Moment Makers page where they made the announcement describes me as having a ‘passion for food’ and while that is 100% true, I also rather like the way it sounds like a very diplomatic way of saying ‘greedy’!

Anyway, leaving my gluttony aside for a moment, what will my collaboration with everyone’s favourite on-line communication tool actually mean?

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