The Last Appetite http://www.lastappetite.com Great eating from the white trash of Asia Thu, 03 May 2012 03:26:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Blogger entitlement: Not making money with your food blog. http://www.lastappetite.com/blogger-entitlement-not-making-money-with-your-food-blog/ http://www.lastappetite.com/blogger-entitlement-not-making-money-with-your-food-blog/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 03:23:30 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1565 For quite a while I’ve been meaning to update the “making money with your food blog” post that has drifted out of relevance over the past few years. I’m no longer certain that you can make money with food blogs, reliably, through advertising or affiliate links.

By reliably, I mean a predictable minimum wage, $589.30 a week in Australia, paid on a regular basis. If you’re willing to put in the hard work of conning advertisers out of their money, I think you’d need to pull in around 20K visitors to your blog each week, who look relatively homogenous (e.g. are all Australian). The best way to make money from your blog is by getting a related job with a wage or building something to sell.

Amanda Hesser recently wrote a great piece on her advice for future food writers, which is do something that pays and write on the side. It’s what writers have always done and it has never been a better time to be a writer. Publishing isn’t an industry, it’s a button that you press. You can break into what’s left of the industry by owning a smartphone.

There seems to be a sense that bloggers are somehow entitled to make money from their work; that by posting a slice of your personal creativity is in itself worth cash.

In a purely economic sense, creativity is worthless. If you can’t find a way to make money from it, it isn’t worth money. The great thing about working in a creative industry is that you realise early on that the ability to convince people to pay for creativity is worth more than the creativity itself. The realisation that making beautiful objects and ethereal writing doesn’t pay for itself is overwhelmingly awful but good ideas don’t sell themselves.

The three decade span where you could aspire to be a professional food writer is over, so you should probably get back to creating something which is useful.

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/blogger-entitlement-not-making-money-with-your-food-blog/feed/ 1 When fried chicken went awry http://www.lastappetite.com/when-fried-chicken-went-awry/ http://www.lastappetite.com/when-fried-chicken-went-awry/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:01:56 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1561

He still puts on a white linen suit every morning, rides in a chauffeured white Cadillac, visits Kentucky Fried Chicken’s white column headquarters and plugs his “finger lickin’ good” chicken around the country.

But Harland D Sanders, everyone’s favourite Kentucky colonel, is disturbed about what has happened to his chicken and to America’s dining habits.

While it sounds like an alternate history from Adbusters archives, it’s from an interview with Sanders in The Milwaukee Journal, 1975. You know something has gone terribly wrong with food when the mascot starts decrying it.

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/when-fried-chicken-went-awry/feed/ 0 Melbourne Restaurant Name Generator: Mexican Edition http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-mexican-edition/ http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-mexican-edition/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:20:30 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1549 Since the City of Melbourne passed an edict that no new restaurant can get a liquor licence in Melbourne unless it serves a fish taco, my Melbourne restaurant name generator has become redundant. I’ve been meaning to write some reviews, but most of the new joints do a pretty good job of satirising themselves. So inspired by this tweet from Beechworth chef Michael Ryan, here’s a Mexican edition of the restaurant name generator. Name that new restaurant:

My Bajacaliforniano Uncle

Press reload for more authentic Mexican suggestions. Also, inspired by my original generator, Willamette Week in Portland has made a local version.

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-mexican-edition/feed/ 0 Melbourne Restaurant Name Generator Twitter Bot http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-twitter-bot/ http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-twitter-bot/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:04:49 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1539 I’ve just released a new bot into the wild, who invents a new name for a Melbourne restaurant twice a day, just like the Melbourne Restaurant Name Generator but delivered directly to the loving bosom of your twitter feed.

Follow it for regular, nonsensical updates.

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/melbourne-restaurant-name-generator-twitter-bot/feed/ 0 Police on an Olympic Doughnut break, Footscray http://www.lastappetite.com/police-on-an-olympic-doughnut-break-footscray/ http://www.lastappetite.com/police-on-an-olympic-doughnut-break-footscray/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:46:42 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1530

Sampling Victoria’s finest jam doughnuts in downtown

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/police-on-an-olympic-doughnut-break-footscray/feed/ 0 -37.8012733 144.9021759 Footscray Market Opening Hours – Christmas 2011 http://www.lastappetite.com/footscray-market-opening-hours-christmas-2011/ http://www.lastappetite.com/footscray-market-opening-hours-christmas-2011/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:11:17 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1522 Another year down, another year where my local market, , fails to build a website. Opening hours for the market over the Christmas/New Year’s period are:

Saturday 24 December (Christmas Eve): 7:00am-5:00pm
25-27 December: Closed
Wednesday 28 December: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Thursday 29 December: 7:00am – 6:00pm
Friday 30 December: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Saturday 31 December: 7:00am – 5:00pm
1-2 January 2012: Closed
Tuesday 3 January: 7:00am – 4:00pm

The regular opening hours for Footscray Market continue to be:

Tuesday and Wednesday – 7:00am-4:00pm
Thursday – 7:00am-6:00pm
Friday – 7:00am-8:00pm
Saturday – 7:00am-4:00pm

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/footscray-market-opening-hours-christmas-2011/feed/ 4 -37.8005562 144.9018860 NGO Development Program Generator http://www.lastappetite.com/ngo-development-program-generator/ http://www.lastappetite.com/ngo-development-program-generator/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:50:18 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1499 In my last post Dr Maytel requested something that would generate development issues, and seeing that I’d neglected to send her (or anyone) a Christmas card and about half of my friends work for non-government organisations, here it is. You should hassle the UN to support:

CHILDREN’S PUBLIC ADVOCACY INITIATIVE

Press reload to inspire a new development program

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/ngo-development-program-generator/feed/ 0 2012 Food Trend Generator http://www.lastappetite.com/2012-food-trend-generator/ http://www.lastappetite.com/2012-food-trend-generator/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:30:09 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1464 Once again, it is the time of the year when food journalists wheel out the world’s worst portmanteau, the listicle, and predict where food trends will head in 2012. For a writer, they’re brilliant content. No editor is going to sack you if Cambodian does not become the new Thai or the world’s predicted hottest restaurant closes. Your audience does not hold you accountable if the hot food destination that you suggest collapses into civil war. So why not let a machine do the work?

Here’s my automatically generated predictions for the hot food trends of 2012. If they come true, you owe me money.

  1. Nose-to-Tail Veganism
  2. Crepes are the new Salted Caramel
  3. Hot Kitchen Tool: The Darning needle
  4. New Habit: Handmilling Wednesday
  5. Organic Vineyards
  6. Food Destination: Eritrea

Press Reload for increasingly accurate 2012 food trends.

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/2012-food-trend-generator/feed/ 7 May contain traces of glutton. http://www.lastappetite.com/may-contain-traces-of-glutton/ http://www.lastappetite.com/may-contain-traces-of-glutton/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 04:31:44 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1456 May contain traces of glutton

Spotted on a packet of pork and cabbage dumplings,

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]]> http://www.lastappetite.com/may-contain-traces-of-glutton/feed/ 5 Did McDonalds cause the decline of violence in America? http://www.lastappetite.com/did-mcdonalds-cause-the-decline-of-violence-in-america/ http://www.lastappetite.com/did-mcdonalds-cause-the-decline-of-violence-in-america/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:25:21 +0000 Phil Lees http://www.lastappetite.com/?p=1429 Violent crime has been on the decline in the US since 1990, and largely, the reasons for the decline have been inexplicable. Steven Leavitt (of Freakonomics fame) and John J. Donohue III argue that around 50% of the reduction in crime is the result of earlier introduction of legalised abortion (PDF). I’ve got a theory – and it is just a theory at this stage – that McDonalds in the US was also a causal factor in the decline of violence.

Over the last decade Cdr Joseph Hibbeln has been researching the link between violence and the consumption of omega 3 fatty acids. From the Guardian:

Over the last century most western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in the composition of their diets in which the omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids, mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower. In the US, for example, soya oil accounted for only 0.02% of all calories available in 1909, but by 2000 it accounted for 20%. Americans have gone from eating a fraction of an ounce of soya oil a year to downing 25lbs (11.3kg) per person per year in that period. In the UK, omega-6 fats from oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower accounted for 1% of energy supply in the early 1960s, but by 2000 they were nearly 5%. These omega-6 fatty acids come mainly from industrial frying for takeaways, ready meals and snack foods such as crisps, chips, biscuits, ice-creams and from margarine. Alcohol, meanwhile, depletes omega-3s from the brain.

To test the hypothesis, Hibbeln and his colleagues have mapped the growth in consumption of omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils in 38 countries since the 1960s against the rise in murder rates over the same period. In all cases there is an unnerving match. As omega-6 goes up, so do homicides in a linear progression. Industrial societies where omega-3 consumption has remained high and omega-6 low because people eat fish, such as Japan, have low rates of murder and depression.

[note: link added by me]. Apart from flaxseed oil, canola oil has the lowest ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 of the vegetable oils at about 2:1. Beef tallow has a omega 6 to omega 3 ratio of 6:1. In 1990, when violent crime hit its peak in America, McDonalds stopped using beef tallow in its fryers and switched to (mostly) canola oil – and as far as I know – almost all American fast food chains followed suit. This certainly increased the total intake of omega 3s and the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 amongst all Americans who eat a french fry-heavy Standard American Diet.

Exactly the same trend followed in the UK. McDonalds replaced beef tallow in the mid-90s, and and since then, the UK has seen the number of victims of violent crimes halve.

They’re interesting correlations but I can’t find (or at least, don’t have the time to find) better data to come up with anything approaching causality.

Any economists want to pick up the baton from here? Anywhere that I can get good datasets on per capita canola oil consumption?

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