How Food Blog Turns Into Experience Laboratory - Jason Anello

In Chapter 13 of 13, marketer and foodie Jason Anello and his brother travel around the world and equally enjoy food and culture. They start a blog, www.forkingtasty.com, to share experiences together and with friends. Over time, the uninhibited creative outlet provides the Anello brothers a laboratory to experiment with various initiatives, including "Tweeting What They Eat", supper club events, & food travel videos.

 

Erik:  What is the Forking Tasty World and how has this experience shaped your character?

Jason:  The Forking Tasty World is my blog with my brother, forkingtasty.com.  It started because my brother and I grew up in the same household and we both have this same appreciation for all the food and all the things that happens around food and when we realized that we kept sending pictures and videos and stories all these things to our family and friends in disparate ways that we should put it somewhere so everyone can see it all in one spot. My brother travels the world on a cruise ship and wakes up in a different country every single day.  I have a job that takes me around the world doing all sorts of different international marketing jobs and so we’re never really in the same place and it’s a way for us to see what each other’s doing, which is really interesting. It’s a place where I can have unbridled creative freedom.  And I can create all the little pieces of this thing that is really a super core piece of my life, because every single day I’m eating at least three meals. And it could be with somebody I could be cooking for 16 people, it could be in India, it could be in Italy, it could be with my grandma, it could be Thanksgiving. And it’s kind of fun because it’s creativity without anybody telling you, “You can’t do that.”  And in all of my worlds in every career I’ve ever had and in a lot of other things I’ve done, there’s always somebody giving you input on your creative and it’s just a fact of life, and it’s just the way that it goes and it doesn’t bother me at all.  But I’ve always had a place where I could be creatively free, like one hundred percent free.  So this is a place where I can be that free.  In addition to things like that, there’s another piece to the site, I tweet what I eat, and I’m very strict and rigid about that, you’ll never see a tweet that off from where I am, what I’m eating, who I’m with, and what the name of the restaurant is.  It’s very strict.  I also do this supper club called Real Tasty, so it’s a 16 person table that I then project a movie on the building behind me, this is all done on my deck, and so it’s a gourmet meal for 16 while you watch a movie.  And it’s a 4 course meal usually, unless my co chef Amy and I decide to throw more stuff in there, which it sort of spins out of control sometimes, and we somewhat pair the foods with the movie but there’s lots of little details, again it’s that creative freedom where no one can tell me don’t do this or don’t do that and I can spend hours and hours making a menu that fits perfectly in the soup bowl if I want to do that.