This is another recipe adapted from Cuisine magazine. If you’re not yet a subscriber and if you love cooking, you should remedy that. It is the one magazine that I get – and keep every, single issue of.

This Miso Soup was awesome. Light yet filling. And healthy. A perfect thing for a winter afternoon. Miso is heat sensitive, so be sure and refrain from boiling the soup – keep it at a simmer.

The recipe makes 9 cups or six servings and prep time is about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

2 Tbs Sesame Oil

1 Bunch Scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated

2 Tbs Minced Fresh Ginger

1 Tbs Minced Garlic

6 Cups Low Sodium Vegetable Broth

1/3 Cup Red or White Miso

8 oz Shredded Rotisserie Chicken (about 2 cups)

1 Cup Canned Sliced Bamboo Shoots, drained

1 Cup Canned Baby Corn, drained

½ Cup Shredded Carrot

1 Pkg. Ramen Noodles, seasoning packet discarded

2 Cups Baby Spinach

Heat sesame oil in large saucepan, over medium high heat. Add scallion whites, ginger and garlic. Cook until mixture begins to brown, about three minutes. 

Add broth and simmer 10 minutes. Pour 1 cup broth into small bowl, whisk in miso until dissolved, stir broth-miso mixture back into saucepan, reduce heat to low and simmer. Do not boil!

Add chicken, bamboo shoots, carrot, corn and noodles and cook until heated through and noodles are tender, 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add spinach. Garnish each serving with scallion greens.

 

 

 

 

This wonderful dish was something we experimented with last night and it got a massive thumbs up. Recipe was from Cuisine, one of our favorite of all culinary mags and relatively easy to make – even the first time out. Warning, if preparing this for someone who is an avowed beet hater, cook them something else. I thought this was fantastic and the kids loved it, too. But beet-hating spouse was not a fan.

Makes: 10 Servings, Prep Time: 25 Mins, Cook Time: 4 Hours

Ingredients:

For the Goulash

1 3# boneless beef chuck roast seasoned with salt and pepper

¼ Cups Flour

2 Tbs. Olive Oil 

2 Cups Diced Onion

2 Cups Freshly Peeled Diced Beets

1 Cup Diced Celery

2 Cups Sliced Carrots, ½ inch thick

¼ Cup Tomato Paste

2 Tbs. Minced Garlic

2 Tbs Hungarian Paprika

2 tsp Coriander

2 tsp Ground Cumin

1 tsp Caraway Seeds

½ Cup Red Wine

1 ½ Cups low-sodium Beef Broth

¼ Cup Chopped Fresh Parsley

2 tsp Red Wine Vinegar

For the Noodles

1 Lb Dry Egg Noodles

1 Stick Unsalted Butter

 ½ Cup Chopped Fresh Parsley

Sour Cream

Coat the roast in flour and sear in oil in large sauté pan over high heat until deep brown on both sides, about 12 minutes. Transfer roast to 6-7 qt. dutch oven and reduce pan to medium-high heat.

Saute onion, beets, celery and carrots in drippings to soften, about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste, garlic, paprika, cumin, coriander, caraway and cook 2 minutes more.

Deglaze pan with wine and cook until nearly evaporated, about 1 minute. Add broth, bring to a boil and transfer mixture to dutch oven. Cover and cook roast until fork tender on high setting, about 4 hours. Shred the meat, return to dutch oven.

Add ¼ cup parsley and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

For the Pasta, cook noodles in large pot of boiling, salted water. If you want really tasty noodles, cook them in chicken broth instead of water, but that’s not required. Drain noodles, toss with butter and ½ cup parsley, season with salt and pepper if needed.

Serve goulash over noodles and garnish with sour cream.

Great read here from @briansolis

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Google and the Rise of Facebook November 22, 2010 32 Comments and 1169 Reactions Share385 In 2007 I said that Facebook would be the home page for your personal brand. Now it seems that Facebook is officially setting out to become your homepage period. The other day I logged into Facebook and noticed a new message at the top of the screen. I was presented with a simple way to make Facebook my homepage so that I could see “what’s happening with friends as soon as I opened my browser.”  And, I’m not the only one. Why am I taking the time to let you know that Facebook is making it easy for you to drag and drop Facebook to your home button? Facebook started out as a social network, but it is officially growing into a full-fledged personal OS, where friends and experiences are interconnected inside and outside of Facebook. And, at the center of everything is you. Facebook is a platform where relationships create the construct for the 3C’s of information commerce. The acts of sharing and consuming content in social media represent the social dealings between people and set the stage for interaction and education.But, it is the platform that offers a sandbox for development and also a solid foundation for social architecture. It is the sites that feature Facebook interconnects that weave the fabrics of relationships and the ties and interests that bind us. More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform. 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook. The more we interact with Facebook around the Web through Likes, Shares, and Comments, the more we feed the social effect and the greater the personalization inside Facebook and within its partner sites. Indeed, according to comScore, Facebook traffic soared by 55.2% hitting 151.1 million in October 2010, up from 97.4 visitors at the same time last year. It’s also important to note that Facebook was home to 300 million active denizens last year and now it has a population of more than 550 million. While Google is earning 173.3 million visits in the U.S., Facebook’s trajectory is only gaining in mass and force. And it’s only gaining momentum… - 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day - The average user has 130 friends - People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook Don’t Google Me, Facebook Me Over the years, Google has missed steps to foster a social network of its own, perhaps focusing on a culture of code rather than human culture and behavior. What lies ahead is a quiet war where  your social graph is at stake. Facebook is taking large steps to move you away from Google and toward the social web.  As this new “homepage” request rolls out to active users worldwide, we will see many follow Facebook’s instruction to now make the social graph the starting point to their online experience each and every time they fire up their browser. Doing so changes behavior and teaches us that we can indeed get a little help from our friends by leaning on them for empowerment, entertainment, and enlightenment. We don’t take to Google for insight, we  now take to the stream… What’s materializing before us may in fact represent the beginning of the end of the Google era of Web domination. This is the rise of the Facebook economy (F-commerce) where commerce represents the currency of information and engagement and the net worth of the relationships we nurture. While it doesn’t beat the drum in its march toward online supremacy, Facebook is in fact setting out to help you improve the way you communicate, discover, and share. Since you are at the center of the social egosystem, Facebook is designing products and services that make managing and interacting with your social graph more efficient. From Gmail to Facebook.com > We now have a new messaging platform on its way to us with @facebook.com email addresses yours for the taking. It changes how we think about messages and exchanges and may in fact, encourage us to follow Zuckerberg’s vision away from the traditional inbox. By integrating messaging into one system that connects through multiple clients and devices, Facebook also starts to minimize the value of Google Talk. Does Google turn its 193 million Gmail users out of the inbox and toward a social network…something like say, GoogleMe? Now with its social hooks in MySpace, Google must revisit its human algorithm. From Google.com to Facebook search > The future of search is social and we are already investing in social media optimization (SMO) in addition to SEO. We can’t underestimate Facebook search. Google has long dominated search and the behemoth of a company is showing its age and its weaknesses. Even though Google is experimenting with integrating social into traditional search results, its algorithm is in dire need of a human touch – a human algorithm. At the same time, Facebook is slowly but surely improving its search feature. What used to simply display results within the network, now starts to feature results from around the Web where the displayed list is curated by the actions of your friends – as part of the platform. This will only improve and become more substantial in the coming months. From Google Voice to Facebook + Skype > Google Voice is a valuable service that combines voice, Web, and email. While it’s not getting thunderous roars of attention, Skype and Facebook are introducing the ability to call friends directly from the News Feed. As this integration becomes seamless and demand for such a service gains awareness and pervasiveness, Facebook and Skype will rival Google Voice one day. From Google Latitude to Facebook Places > Google is experimenting with geo location, but Facebook Places is gaining mass adoption. Competing for attention online and offline is helping Facebook merge experiences and channel the activity into the News Feed. From Google Groups to Facebook Groups > Google Groups was once one of the Web greatest hosts for contextual networks, groups organized by interests, events, and causes. Now with the release of the new and improved Facebook Groups, people are forming nicheworks, networks within networks. Their focused activity is enhanced by a dedicated group framework that fosters collaboration and conversation whether the group unites relationships or actions linked by strong, weak, or temporary ties. From Google Docs to Facebook + Microsoft Office > Google Docs are the industry standard for Web collaboration around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and artistic canvases. While the world was abuzz with Facebook’s messaging service, Microsoft introduced Office Web Apps as part of the new messaging system. The technology alliance allows people to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments with the Office Web Apps directly in Facebook. It just the beginning of something more productive… Twitter Me This…The Facebook Generation And what of Twitter? I believe it is the moon that orbits a networked planet. It turns the tides. It defines its rotation. Twitter is your window to relevance, but Facebook is your homepage for the social Web. According to recent data released by Hitwise, Facebook accounts for 25% of all page views in the U.S. And it’s only going to skyrocket as we interact with content and one another through the Facebook platform. Depending on which data we review, Google is either in Facebook’s rearview mirror or in its sights. Hitwise claims Facebook has already surpassed Google in terms of views. Earlier we stated that comScore has Facebook nipping at Google’s heels. Either way, it’s just a matter of time until Facebook traffic surpasses Google with tenable data supporting the historic milestone. We are witnessing the dawn of the social consumer and their network of preference for the immediate future is Facebook. As I’ve previously observed, the medium is no longer just the message. In social, the medium is the platform and as such, people now represent both the medium and the message where reach is defined by a blending of the social graph, the context of the story and the expansion and contraction of strong, weak, and temporary connections. The Facebook platform serves as the foundation for our Social OS and in turn, we are its driving force. With every action, we trigger an equal and opposite reaction. With our relationships serving as Facebook’s construct, we are realizing that the social graph effect may in fact, spark greater volumes of reaction than Google, or any of us, may have anticipated. Welcome to the Facebook generation…the question is, will you call Facebook home? Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Facebook ___ If you’re looking for a way to FIND answers in social media, consider Engage!: It will help… Read more at www.briansolis.com

For AmEx's Small Business Saturday, I wrote an article about Kansas City small businesses and how they're faring. To them, success is about people. Go figure.

Amplify’d from www.openforum.com

In Kansas City, it’s All About the People Shelly Kramer about Facebook® Recommend The Facebook® Recommend button is incorporated only in select, public areas of the American Express OPEN website. To learn more about the Facebook® Recommend button, click here. Nov 30, 2010 - In the urban neighborhood known as Brookside in Kansas City, Missouri, small businesses abound. And flourish. In Brookside, shopping local is very much a way of life. There are a unique collection of stores and services, the owners often live within walking distance, and are all very vested in the community.   For ShopGirls, Brookside Toy & Science and Stuff it’s too early to tell much, but this holiday season feels good. Solid. And it makes them hopeful. Two of the three shared that 2010 had been their toughest year of the last three, but still, the signs are good.   They feel as if things are turning around and they’re less fearful of what’s to come than in previous years.   Aimee Green and Katy Hamilton, Mary Jo and Jim Ward, and Sloane and Casey Simmons all emphatically agree on one important point—what they sell isn’t about the stuff, it’s about the people. “Our customers know they could get something less unique somewhere else, and pay a few dollars less in the process,” says Mary Jo Ward of Brookside Toy & Science, “but they don’t want that. They want meaningful. And they want quality.”   These are retailers who don’t give a moment’s thought to competing with big box stores. Instead, all are laser focused on the things that make shopping with them different. Their collective calling cards are stores filled with unique, well-made and often one-of-a-kind items. They are staffed by knowledgeable experts who love what they do and it shows, and service that includes little extras like free gift-wrapping and personal attention.   Casey Simmons of Stuff might well have hit it on the head when she said, “We don’t compete with big box retailers, but we do compete. Because of the Internet, we compete on a global basis. Everyone is our competition. So, for us, it’s about the people. Funny, when you have a store named ‘Stuff’ that it’s not really about stuff. It’s about people, creating an experience and making the people a part of the business. That’s why we’re successful. It’s all about the people.”   That’s the magic of small businesses – it’s all about the people. Read more at www.openforum.com

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Want to Sell More Stuff? Humanize Your Brand Posted by Shelly Kramer on October 23, 2010 · http://www.v3im.com/?p=1868">View Comments (Edit)  Share I love Zappos. I have twin girls. And, while I’m not so good at math, here’s one thing I do know: Zappos + Twin Girls = LOTS of Shoes Why do I love Zappos? I love their selection, the fact that they remember what I like and let me know when they’ve got more of it. I like Tony Hsieh and the culture he’s created. He’s a smart guy who’s built an empire based on common sense and being real. And managing to grow Zappos to over $1 billion in gross sales annually, while also regularly landing on Forbes’ list of Best Companies to Work For list are no small accomplishments. Gini Dietrich wrote a great post about Tony. it’s here if you’d like to read it. She likes him, too. I really like Zappos because they make me smile. On a crazy busy day, when I’m wading through hundreds of emails and see an ad like this, well, I stop. After all, it’s about SHOES. And we chicks, we’ve got shoes in our blood. But when the ad copy actually makes me smile, that’s what I call winner winner, chicken dinner. That’s when I know that my love for Zappos is deserved. They get me. And I want to buy more of their shoes. Note to: Zappos Marketing Department + Ad Agency → Mission Accomplished! Read more at www.v3im.com

Come join us. If you dare.

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Sneak Peek: Social Media for Business Posted by Shelly Kramer on October 12, 2010 · View Comments  12Share I’m doing a webinar series with my smart and sassy friend, Erika Napoletano, Head Redhead at Redhead Writing. And yes, we are the geeky girls you might not have paid attention to in high school. But all that’s changed now. We’ve got the goods. And how. And we’re partnering with our friends at iThinkBigger and we aim to deliver to small business owners, Marketers and PR pros more tips, tools and information than they can shake a stick at. Never mind put to good use right away in their businesses or for their clients. If we could show you a way to get your brand to listen, hear, connect with your customers and build a group of people who will share your brand message for you – would you listen? There are no strings. No easy monthly payments of $29.99. No books to read or crap to wade through. No Ginsu knives and no spam in your inbox. Just relevant information, served up in an easy to understand format, with instantly implementable solutions for you and your business or clients. Just a single webinar that will let you know if you’re ready to work smarter instead of harder. Join us this Friday at 3pm EST/2pm CST/1pm MST/12 noon PST for a complimentary Sneak Peek Webinar on how your business can use social media effectively and with REAL results. In this no-fluff session, you’ll learn: * Resources you can use TODAY to improve your ROI on Twitter * How to identify influencers on Twitter and bring them into your circle * The importance of inbound marketing techniques to your business * Five simple, yet startling statistics that mean your current marketing techniques are most likely not working. In our world on Planet Geek, we call that a FAIL. It’s free – you have nothing to lose. We don’t waste anyone’s time by teaching sessions we wouldn’t attend ourselves. Register today. Interested in the entire Social Media for Business series? Click here to learn more about the sessions. Early bird pricing is in effect until 10/14, so get on it. Erika and I are pretty well known for being gals who don’t tolerate much BS and who tell it like it is. In this webinar series, we’ve done the work for you, and all you need to do is participate, get the information you need to fast track your social media efforts, and thank us when it works (and it will) by sending lots and lots of Red Velvet Cupcakes. Read more at www.v3im.com

Today's blog post. And if you don't know who Kendall Allen is, you're welcome.

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I discovered the brilliance that is Kendall Allen a few years ago. For me, her MediaPost content qualifies as ‘must read’ and it’s a good thing I live a few states away, because if I didn’t she’d have serious stalker issues . I’m a fangirl of the highest order and, although she’s a bona fide hottie, I have a massive girl crush on the gray matter that’s between her ears. Oh, and when I see her posts, I want to stop what I’m doing and read them. Holy crap, why she’s not paying me for that kind of devotion I seriously do not know. I’m a huge proponent of collaboration in the creative process – actually, I think it’s great in just about any process – and if you’re not doing it, well, that’s your bad. Personally, I collaborate every chance I can. It allows me to produce better results for my clients and learn from the massively intelligent people I’m lucky enough to know and who deign to work with me. Enough about me. Having read a great AdAge article recently about The Google 5, and being fortunate enough to have a creative client (T2 + Back Alley Films) who gets collaboration (which means I get to live it), Kendall’s post An Old Love Comes to Town on a Rainy Day really resonated with me. The Big Ad Gig is brilliant. Powerhouse agencies creating opportunities for young minds and fresh talent to work on and present a multi-dimensional campaign and, in the process potentially parlay that into an ad agency creative job ROCKS. It not only allows talent to be crowdsourced and the opportunity to spread through both traditional and non-traditional channels, it supports young talent in the best way possible. It gives them a chance to learn, a chance to shine and has a big, fat reward at the end of the tunnel. And, I’ll give you dollars to doughnuts (what does that mean, anyway?) that there’s not just one winner in The Big Ad Gig. I’ll bet that all the participants get serious consideration (and jobs) as a result of the exposure that participation in the event brings. The competition is over. I shared the YouTube clip because it made me laugh. Four women and four men gave it their best shot and, given the tragic events surrounding Tyler Clementi’s suicide, made more compelling by the the fact that the client was Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). According to Kendall, their presentations were nothing less than “professional poetry.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see the outcome. But no matter the official “winner” — all the participants, and the process itself, are winners in my book. And a hat tip to Kendall for the back story. Oh, and if you’re not reading her MediaPost column or stalking her on Twitter, you don’t deserve her. ‘ Read more at www.v3im.com

Star Light, Star Bright, first star I see tonight,

 

Wish I may,

Wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight,

I wish ........

Funny how the voices from our childhood, and the memories associated with them, stay with us throughout our lives. And how we pull them out as we age, and replay them again and again.

I don't know about you, but I love stepping outside on a random dark evening, tipping back my head, looking up at the sky and saying this poem - a simple verse that I've known since the time I was a little girl, and making my wish. Of course. You can't ever forget the wish, you know.

My wishes have changed over the years. The days of self-absorption are gone and these days, my wishes are for my beautiful children. I squeeze shut my eyes and say this childhood poem, and wish them lives filled with health, love, happiness and good things.

It's a little thing, but something I love doing. What about you? What are the voices from your childhood and how do you use them? Think about it, while you listen to this song - a treasure that I just discovered tonight.

 

This weekend for Family Dinner on Sunday night, we wanted to try something new. That's not unusual, because we're a family of foodies and always experimenting. What was unusual was that our experiment of choice was with a beverage. We found a wonderful watermelon at the Farmers' Market on Saturday, which reminded us of a recipe we'd seen for Watermelon Margaritas. Say. No. More.

Watermelon Margaritas (courtesy of Cooking Light)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 lime wedge

3 1/2 cups cubed seeded watermelon

1/2 cup tequila

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon Triple Sec (orange flavored liqueur)

Lime wedges or watermelon balls

1. Place 2 teaspoons sugar in a saucer. Rub the rims of six glasses with 1 lime wedge, spin the rim of each glass in sugar to coat, set aside.

2. Combine watermelon and next 4 ingredients (through Triple Sec) in blender, process until smooth. Fill each prepared glss with 1/2 cup crushed ice, add 1/2 cup margarita mixture and garnish with lime wedges or watermelon balls.

While we liked this drink, we thought that we might like it even MORE if we substituted vodka for tequila. So, for the next batch (and of course there was a next batch, people), we did. The tequila was great, the vodka stupendous! 

What a great summer drink. We're glad we discovered and even more glad that we experimented with it. If you try it, let us know!

And if you want to know more about the watermelon that started this drink, head on over to http://www.v3im.com/2010/08/vlogging-it-just-gets-easier/ and check us out.