BLOGGER: Liz Stambaugh
FEATURED BLOG(S):
What’s to Eat, Baltimore?
Slow Food Baltimore’s Blog
FEATURED WEBSITE:
Baltimore Sustainable Food Examiner
Slow Food Baltimore
TWITTER:
@WhatsToEatBmore
@SlowFoodBmore
FACEBOOK:
What’s to Eat, Baltimore? on Facebook
Slow Food Baltimore on Facebook
WHAT’S TO EAT, BALTIMORE?
The daughter of a caterer and a native of Baltimore, Liz Stambaugh grew up in and around the local food scene. Having spent her own fair share of time working locally as a waitress and also as a partner in her mother’s catering business, it’s not surprising that Stambaugh’s blog is devoted to the food of the Chesapeake region, in all of its glorious incarnations. While Stambaugh does make some money from the blog, it’s primarily something she does for fun– something she thinks of as a public service to the diners of Baltimore.
Stambaugh's own 'Truffled Mac N' Cheese'
“My main blog is What’s to Eat, Baltimore? and I started it about two and a half years ago, mainly because my husband and I couldn’t find anything online about where the best places to eat are in Baltimore. Since we’re familiar with the scene, I felt like I needed to share,” Stambaugh says.
Stambaugh shares her passion for food by filling What’s to Eat, Baltimore? (which is also syndicated on Baltimore Eats) with useful information about dining out in Baltimore, as well as her own recipes and, of course, plenty of enticing food photography.
“My favorite things about blogging are the good food, the eating, and the pictures! I was never one for taking pictures, but because it’s one of the best ways to relay to people how awesome the food we’re sampling is, photographing the food is something I really like to do. I get upset if the lighting is really bad in a restaurant!” Stambaugh says, laughing.
Stambaugh admits that she used to feel self-conscious about photographing her meals at restaurants, but says that with the increasingly popular trend of sharing food photography on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, she no longer does. “When I first started doing it, I would sometimes get strange looks from the wait staff, but now I think the wait staff has been trained to ignore it,” she says. She now snaps away with abandon, though she does try to limit her photography at very formal dining establishments.
LOVE THE HATE MAIL
While Stambaugh has plenty of her own advice for bloggers, she says the best piece of blogging advice she’s ever received was from fellow Baltimore food blogger, Dara Bunjon of Dara Does It. Early in her blogging career, Stambaugh began receiving hate mail, primarily from vegetarian and animal welfare activists, because Stambaugh often writes about cooking and eating meat.
“Dara has been blogging for a very long time in Baltimore and she’s somebody I’ve looked to as a mentor. She said to me, ‘Hon, you have to take it with a grain of salt. If you get hate mail, that means you’re doing a good thing.’”
Stambaugh says Bujon also taught her not to take herself or her blogging too seriously. “I may make a typo occasionally, but I clearly state: I am not a professional writer, I’m doing this because of my love of food and my passion for food. I didn’t go to school for it. You just have to take it as it goes. If you don’t like blogging anymore and it’s stressing you out, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” Stambaugh says.
PAY FOR PLAY OR A-OK?
Stambaugh believes that her firsthand knowledge of the restaurant industry gives her credibility as a food blogger and says it helps to foster the positive relationships she enjoys with local bars and restaurants. Baltimore eateries frequently comp her meals or portions of her meals in order to entice her to come and visit their establishments, but Stambaugh doesn’t necessarily consider this pay for play.
Stambaugh notes that she does pay for many of her own meals, and that she always mentions that she was “invited out,” to a certain establishment when her meal (or a portion thereof) is comped: “Baltimore is very small, and especially in the food industry – they’re going to know you and invite you out to dinner,” Stambaugh says. “Of course, if a restaurant or PR firm has contacted me, I’ll say yes, I was invited.”
According to the Federal Trade Commission’s controversial guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials, bloggers and celebrities must fully disclose any “material connections,” they may have with advertisers or with any product or service they endorse. We’re not sure if noting that you were “invited out,” to a restaurant meets the FTC’s guidelines, however Stambaugh seems to be satisfied with this distinction.
EAT DANGEROUSLY, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER
Another benefit of food blogging is that one’s palate becomes more sophisticated. Stambaugh urges new or wannabe food bloggers to empower themselves to eat dangerously, noting that she herself has sampled many food items some might consider exotic, for instance blowfish, sea urchin and sweetbreads, as well as whiskey infused with pork belly.
“I used to hate mushrooms because of the texture, but I’ve found that in specific cooking methods, I like them,” Stambaugh says. “I like truffles, of course. But I also like mushrooms stuffed, and I like them fresh. I step out of my comfort zone a lot and eat things that I didn’t think I would ever eat, because it’s my responsibility to share. I’m not a wild mussel or oyster person, but I will eat them, especially if we go to a restaurant that specializes in them.”
Essentially, Stambaugh believes bloggers should always be striving to expand their horizons through their blogging, as blogging can open doors to new adventures and change a blogger’s life in unexpected ways. Stambaugh also says newbie bloggers should really spend time figuring out what they want to do and what they want their blog to become, without worrying too much about how their blog is going to stack up to already established ones. Perhaps the blogging experience will be a life changing one– but, then again, it might not be. The important thing, Stambaugh says, is to let the blogging experience evolve organically.
“Take your time and go at your own pace,” she advises. “Don’t compare yourself to other blogs. Do your own thing. If you like to use photos, do that. If you want to make videos with your Flip cam, do that. But don’t feel obligated to do things you’re not interested in.”
TAKE CHANCES, TWEET AND BE AUTHENTIC
Still, Stambaugh really encourages bloggers to take every opportunity that comes their way.
“If somebody emails you and says they want to talk to you about collaborating, pursue it,” she says. Stambaugh herself has been approached by advertisers and has also leveraged her blogging in ways that have allowed her to expand her writing portfolio and her bottom line. “I think of it as a business, even though it’s something that I love to do.”
Like every blogger we’ve interviewed thus far, Stambaugh says there is never enough time to accomplish all her blogging goals. “You get really excited and passionate about it, but when you have a full-time job and you blog [in your spare time], it’s hard to find the time to do it and do it right,” she says.
Using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook can help to fill the gap when you don’t have enough time to write a full blog post, however. “[Social media] makes me feel like I still have a bit of an impact everywhere I go, even if I don’t have the time right now to sit down and do a full article. If you want to increase your numbers, if you want to increase your publicity, if you want to do it full-time, you’ve got to use social marketing. [The popular Twitter client] Hootsuite has become my best friend since I’ve started blogging,” she says. (Personally, I prefer Brizzly, but it’s just a matter of taste – many swear by Hootsuite, others Tweetie. The important thing is to try out all the options and find the solution that works for you as an individual).
Another piece of advice? Be real. “Don’t be anonymous,” Stambaugh advises. “Put up a real picture of yourself. It frustrates me when bloggers remain anonymous– what’s your credibility if you do that? It frustrates me a lot when I want to get in touch with other bloggers and they don’t post their email address on their blog or even allow comments. If you’re going to blog but you’re not going to allow anybody to leave any feedback, why are you doing it?”
SLOW FOOD
In addition to her blog, Stambaugh works full-time for an insurance administration agency, an industry she fell into after studying 3-D art in college. Stambaugh is also Baltimore’s sustainable food Examiner, and since January 2010 she has served as the president of Slow Food Baltimore. She also established a blog for the chapter and is its main contributor. Stambaugh’s passion for the Slow Food movement comes through clearly in her voice as she begins talking about the organization.
“Slow Food Baltimore is a non-profit and we are partnered up with Slow Food USA. We do fundraising, organize events, hold community meetings, work with local food programs and things of that nature. I do all the email newsletters, the blog, the website. We’ve just gotten started with our community gardens – we want to connect consumers with the producer. We connect people to the food and educate them – we bring education to the consumer and publicity to the producers,” Stambaugh says.
Stambaugh says her passion for Slow Food stems from her upbringing in Maryland.
“I was born in Baltimore and grew up outside of Baltimore, in Harford County. We moved around a bit because I come from a military family, but then I ended back up in Baltimore. My husband and I just bought a house out in Baltimore County, and I’m always telling people – ‘have you heard of this farm, have you heard of that farm.’ I guess that’s been a big driver for me — the connection of food with people and responsibly raised food. Food has always been a passion of mine and, within the last few years, food ‘raised right, done right and served right,’ has been a big thing for me. The number of farms and the amount of local produce within the Chesapeake region is amazing. What I do intertwines food with the land and people,” Stambaugh says.
According to Stambaugh, one restaurant in the Baltimore area that is succeeding in providing food that’s ‘raised right, done right and served right,’ is Woodberry Kitchen in Clipper Hill. “Woodberry Kitchen is one of the few restaurants on the East Coast that sources everything locally, regionally and organically – they even do their own recycling. They’re one of the largest and most successful farm-to-table restaurants on the East Coast,” Stambaugh says. “Woodberry Kitchen is absolutely my favorite restaurant in Baltimore – they deliver amazing, seasonal food throughout the year. You can go there every day of the week and try something different.”
BALTIMORE: ‘ THE WIRE ’ WON’T GIVE YOU THE FULL, DELICIOUS STORY
In Stambaugh’s opinion, another group that consistently delivers are the people of Baltimore, as a whole. “The one thing I really love about Baltimore are the actual people,” Stambaugh says. “You can’t go anywhere without people being friendly. You go sit down anywhere in a bar or restaurant in Baltimore and someone sees you looking at the menu, half of the time they’re going to approach you and say, ‘Oh, this is really good,’ or ‘You should try that.‘”
She says visitors should know that while ’The Wire’ is good television, it’s not necessarily representative of Baltimore as a whole. “What happened with ‘The Wire,’ is true, but it’s only a small part of the city, and the average person or tourist would never really see that side,” Stambaugh says. Instead, Stambaugh encourages visitors to check out the ‘Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore when they come into town. “Federal Hill is right behind the Inner Harbor, and there are a ton of great bars and restaurants — what’s more, the bars in Baltimore are really intent about delivering quality food,” Stambaugh says.
This mix of high quality food and a laid-back atmosphere is typical in Baltimore, Stambaugh says: “Even the fine dining establishments won’t turn you away in a pair of jeans and a dress top.”
Of course, as much as she loves to dine out, Stambaugh also enjoys doing a fair amount of cooking herself, and was kind enough to share her recipe for ‘I Survived SNOMG 2010 Truffle Mac n’ Cheese,’ with us, which she came up with as an experiment during one of the huge snow storms that hit the East Coast this past winter. We will leave you with this ooey-gooey cheesy deliciousness and also with this thought: if this recipe is even half as tasty as what’s to eat in Baltimore, we think a road trip might be in order very, very soon…
P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther[at]outside[dot]in.
