Episode 76 features Toby Bloomberg, a digital marketer, co-founder of Diva Foodies, host of #FoodTVChat, and she’s been digitally marketing for almost as long as I have been aware of digital marketing.
We discuss how much of that started, being intentional, food and creativity, engagement, and much much more.
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- Finding a niche
- “Be intentional”
- Money and decision making
- Marketing and Art/Creativity
- Foorpreneuer
- Putting yourself out there
- Living for the approval of your creations
- Food is universal
- What is a “Foodie?”
- Where do you eat?
- Cooking at home
- Food marketing
- Live-tweeting
- Twitter Chats
- Sandboxing
- Engagement
- Food Tourism
- Culture
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:27:27
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer.com Field of red tape. Our team is a fantastic study of stadium ownership through the lens of the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. Master of redemption Eddie Munson, Metal Lords and Metal Head vindication. And after last episode, I’m thinking even more about perhaps dabbling into yet another medium. This is the Palmer Files episode 76 with Toby Bloomberg, a digital marketer, co-founder of Diva Foodies, and host of food TV Chat on Twitter.
00:00:27:32 – 00:01:11:58
Agent Palmer
She’s been digitally marketing for almost as long as I’ve been aware of digital marketing. We discuss how much of that started being intentional food and creativity, engagement, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:12:02 – 00:01:33:20
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer, and on this 76th episode is Toby Bloomberg, who’s been in the digital marketing game long enough to know that nothing is static and change is constant. She’s launched diva marketing and Diva Foodies tweet chats. Been blogging for longer than almost anyone I know and has chosen a niche.
00:01:33:24 – 00:02:07:24
Agent Palmer
We discuss finding that niche, being intentional marketing, creativity, food and creativity, living for the approval of your creations, Twitter, tweet chats, sandboxing, algorithms, engagement and just what is a foodie? All of that and a whole lot more is coming your way shortly. But first, if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest, Toby Bloomberg at Toby Diva, that’s Toby Diva or at Diva Foodies and this show at The Palmer Files.
00:02:07:29 – 00:02:36:34
Agent Palmer
You can find more information about Toby at Diva foodies.com. You can connect with Toby on Instagram, at Toby Diva, or on TikTok at Toby Diva one. That’s the number one. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s try not to bite off more than we can chew.
00:02:36:39 – 00:02:49:58
Agent Palmer
Toby, you are and have been in digital marketing, but you are currently, in the food print. I can’t, I can’t pronounce a food food product called.
00:02:50:02 – 00:02:53:08
Toby Bloomberg
Just call it, called small business food makers.
00:02:53:20 – 00:03:12:49
Agent Palmer
Small business food makers. I like it, but I wanted to ask you. You’ve been in marketing for so long, you haven’t been in food for nearly as long as you’ve been in marketing. What was it like to find a niche or to decide, like, this is going to be my my little slice of the pie?
00:03:13:02 – 00:03:42:47
Toby Bloomberg
Well, okay, let me answer that question. And going back a little bit, actually, my very first professional blogging client was was a food company, okay. And so along the way, I’d have worked with food companies. I also worked with small ones. Donna was a very small company. And I’ve worked with large companies. I work with chick fil A, and I helped them launch their first listening program.
00:03:42:47 – 00:04:05:14
Toby Bloomberg
This was many years ago, obviously. So I’ve had a taste. The taste of food, so to speak. Yep. And then, I was working with, Com a company, a media company called Cox Media Group, CMG, and I thought it was going to be my forever job, and it pulled everything together, and it was wonderful. And they supposedly loved me.
00:04:05:14 – 00:04:26:06
Toby Bloomberg
And then one day that I was reporting to said, oh, by the way, we really don’t know what to do with you anymore. And so you’re going to have to go away. So pretty much they, you know, they downsized me, they danced with me, collapsed my department, actually, they completely they zapped the department.
00:04:26:11 – 00:04:26:38
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:04:26:47 – 00:04:44:02
Toby Bloomberg
And so there I was and I didn’t know what to do. And I loved working with the company. I love working with media. And I thought, well, okay, let me see if I can find another job in media. And I couldn’t. And I thought, well, maybe I’ll go into the agency world because I’ve always wanted to do that and never quite did.
00:04:44:07 – 00:05:09:41
Toby Bloomberg
I got a bunch of interviews with agencies that fit just was not right. So instead of pursuing, pursuing, pursuing, I got really frustrated and started reaching out to people. And you know, when you do when you’re unemployed and decide that you need a change in your life. And one of my friends, Keith, said to me, Toby, no matter what you do, be intentional about what you’re doing.
00:05:09:46 – 00:05:31:32
Toby Bloomberg
And I thought, well, that’s interesting. I’ve never been intentional pretty much about anything. And so I thought, and I thought, what could I be intentional about? And obviously marketing and digital marketing were on the forefront. And then I thought, well, I really needed a niche. And I’ve been dabbling in the food thing. And I thought, well, okay, let me see if I can’t make that work.
00:05:31:33 – 00:05:37:45
Toby Bloomberg
So that’s how it came about. Somebody be intentional and and went down that road.
00:05:37:45 – 00:06:07:43
Agent Palmer
I’m I’m reading I, I hesitate to call it a self-help book, but it’s basically a self-help book. That it’s it’s along those lines. It they didn’t say be intentional specifically, but it’s kind of like, don’t widely swing at everything. Like, you know, wait for your pitch, so to speak, and I’m having a bit of a what’s the word?
00:06:07:48 – 00:06:34:17
Agent Palmer
I don’t want to say existential crisis, but I guess you could call it an existential career crisis because I think in in the same vein as where you were, I’ve never done anything intentional. Well, I mean, not intentional that, like, other than paying bills, right. Like, I, I, you know, I went from a retail job to a professional marketing job, which is a is an improvement, right?
00:06:34:17 – 00:06:56:17
Agent Palmer
It puts me closer to the field of communications that I have a degree in. Was that job which I’m no longer in, but was that job the end all be all? No. So I don’t know if I’d consider that intentional. And for the last few years, I’ve just kind of been I’ve gone from thing to thing to thing because, you know, bills to pay but never intentional.
00:06:56:17 – 00:07:16:55
Agent Palmer
So I’m reading this book and they’re asking one of the reasons I actually like this book, despite the fact that I put it down for a couple days because I was like, I can’t handle these kind of questions right now. Because it is very don’t bullshit yourself. You know, but also don’t get in your own way, right?
00:07:16:55 – 00:07:38:43
Agent Palmer
Like, oh, yeah, I mean, I could do that if. Well, take the f out, like, why don’t you just go for it? And so I’m at the same place that I think I’ve been for the past maybe 4 or 5 years, which is, well, what do I want to do? And it’s that being intentional. It’s that what what’s what’s next.
00:07:38:43 – 00:07:48:58
Agent Palmer
And it I think for me it’s it’s very easy to decide what I want to do if money were no object.
00:07:49:03 – 00:07:49:43
Toby Bloomberg
00:07:49:48 – 00:08:09:49
Agent Palmer
But if money’s important and it is because I like having a house. I, I that’s where my whole thing falls apart. I want to go back when, when you chose your space, was it a pie in the sky? Like, no matter what, this is what I want to do. Even if I can’t make, you know, I want to be in it.
00:08:09:49 – 00:08:17:19
Agent Palmer
Even if there’s not a lot of money or I see, an opportunity for money and I want to be in it.
00:08:17:24 – 00:08:44:57
Toby Bloomberg
I originally saw both, and I did it, and I did research, and I looked at what people were doing in the space. And I saw I saw a gap between what the small business owners were not doing and what I could bring to the table. Okay. And at first, what I thought I would be doing is I thought I would, reach out to restaurants and, and help them with all that.
00:08:44:57 – 00:09:26:06
Toby Bloomberg
However, I assumed very quickly, first of all, you really need to be local in order to do that. Thank you. What? Anybody says you need feet on the ground, you need to understand what’s happening within that space. But put that aside. It turned out very quickly that I realized that the public relations agencies here in Atlanta, because that’s where I was focusing, had the restaurants also open up tightly, and the restaurants that didn’t have a relationship with PR agencies have, the restaurant world has very thin margins to begin with, which really probably was stupid for me to go in that direction.
00:09:26:06 – 00:09:52:13
Toby Bloomberg
But that’s besides the point. And so they really couldn’t afford me to begin with. So it went from, okay, let’s not do the restaurants because I couldn’t make leeway there because they were already had relationships. And it’s a very relationship driven world. And I thought, okay, what can I do instead? I’m very comfortable with small business. I grew up in a small business and I’ve been working with small businesses probably my whole career.
00:09:52:17 – 00:10:17:51
Toby Bloomberg
And so I thought, why not food, small businesses? And I, one thing led to another, and I got a contract and started working with, small business and then started working with a chef and started working with a catering company. It sort of sort of grew from there. It has not been easy. It has not been fast, and it’s definitely been a roller coaster ride.
00:10:17:51 – 00:10:46:35
Toby Bloomberg
And then the pandemic happened in wrong business to be in. Yeah. When Covid happened. Wrong business to be in right now with with the economy so shaky. But what it turns out for me that I really like a lot is I wanted to be part of a community. I wanted to be part of a group of people who had a passion for something.
00:10:46:39 – 00:10:52:26
Toby Bloomberg
So in another life time, I was a theater major. I think you knew that. I.
00:10:52:26 – 00:10:55:05
Agent Palmer
Don’t know that I did.
00:10:55:10 – 00:10:58:07
Toby Bloomberg
Okay. I was a theater major in another life. Nobody has.
00:10:58:12 – 00:11:08:04
Agent Palmer
Now, here’s the question. Yeah, like, because I do want to pause. You were a theater major. Did? Yeah. Did you get the degree or did you change majors?
00:11:08:09 – 00:11:09:10
Toby Bloomberg
No, I got the degree.
00:11:09:10 – 00:11:40:22
Agent Palmer
Okay. All right. So. And so you’re talking. You’re not necessarily talking like that. I mean, that’s the timeline we live in. It’s not like you changed majors. So that’s cool I like that, I mean, but then again, everybody I know in marketing is, what’s the best way to put this artistic adjacent in some way? We were all writers or theater geeks or musicians in some capacity.
00:11:40:27 – 00:12:07:49
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That creativity. And that’s what I found when I started to delve into food, is I found that the chefs and even the people that aren’t chefs that were making these, food preneur products and that it’s anywhere from cheese to, hot sauces to maple sirup to, you know, the the whole gambit. They brought the passion of the arts.
00:12:07:54 – 00:12:36:57
Toby Bloomberg
And so I found that what I was missing in other segments, that passion from people, I found it in the culinary world. So when you think about it, Jason, when you are performing anything, when you’re writing and, and you, and you put your writing out into the world when you’re doing your podcasts, when you’re a musician, when you’re you’re an actor, you put yourself out into the world.
00:12:36:57 – 00:13:03:33
Toby Bloomberg
It’s you and sometimes people don’t like your work, but sometimes it’s hard to separate your work from you. And that’s where the food people are. So if you’re a chef, you put your heart and soul into making that one dish, not only creating it and designing the dish itself, but plating it and serving it. And you know, if somebody loves it, then that’s great.
00:13:03:33 – 00:13:15:28
Toby Bloomberg
If somebody doesn’t love it, you know, is it just too that they’re rejecting or are they rejecting you? So it’s sort of the same thing but different.
00:13:15:33 – 00:13:43:54
Agent Palmer
I, I and I talked about this in a recent episode, but it’s where I go every time. It’s the beginning of the movie chef, where he just goes mental on the reviewer. I think if I think if I was a chef, that would be me, right? I have no doubt about it. Like I because I’m that guy on, the basketball court that’s like, that was not a foul.
00:13:44:05 – 00:14:15:30
Agent Palmer
Even if it is, it’s not right. Like, and and yet somehow when it comes to the blog and the podcast, I’ve, I’m not that person. And I, I don’t know how I’ve disassociated that where people don’t like the episode, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like me. And I have separated that for, at the very least, just the blog and the podcast.
00:14:15:35 – 00:14:16:20
Toby Bloomberg
00:14:16:25 – 00:14:45:55
Agent Palmer
And I don’t know how because I’m, I’m, I’m 100% sure if you put me in a kitchen in a competition and somebody hated my food, I would be like, I can’t believe you don’t like me, like I would like. And I see that. And yet somehow in a in, in, in the two things that I’m most public with where I would have the most positive and negative, just general feedback at all, I’m, I’m removed from that somehow.
00:14:46:00 – 00:15:08:34
Toby Bloomberg
And I think the people, the chefs and, and the food makers have to be to some extent as well. Otherwise you go nuts. I mean, not everybody’s going to love everything you do. And so you, you have to draw some sort of a boundary around what you do in yourself, in the negative and the positive and accept the feedback and go on from there.
00:15:08:46 – 00:15:15:15
Toby Bloomberg
And you can internalize everything or else you’re you’re just going to need a lot of drugs.
00:15:15:20 – 00:16:00:11
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Well, and that’s actually a fairly good segue for me, what one of the. So I worked in fast food, I had a fast food job for what is probably now a defunct, chain. Okay. Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips is no longer a thing. Okay. But even just a few years, you know, there. And I understood the community of Cullen, of the culinary world that I read and was introduced to by Bourdain in, in, in a cook store, but moreover, in a Kitchen Confidential.
00:16:00:16 – 00:16:25:01
Agent Palmer
And I wanted to ask you, it I mean, I’m not on that level, but I was there like, I, I mean, I think if you’re in any kitchen at all, even just a fast food kitchen, you understand what he’s writing in those books. Is it easy to talk to the culinary world when you’re not also a chef? Because I, I, I don’t know, it feels very much from the outside.
00:16:25:01 – 00:16:35:20
Agent Palmer
Like there’s a barrier there. Or like they protect their own. Like, if there’s a bunch of chefs getting together, good luck getting a word in edgewise.
00:16:35:25 – 00:17:02:04
Toby Bloomberg
It’s it’s it’s not so much. It’s not so much that. And to answer your question. I’m not a chef. I’ve never worked in a restaurant. And after seeing all this stuff, I never want to work. And I never, ever, ever could be a chef, ever. I mean, I love to cook and I love to entertain, and, but I’m, I’m nowhere near professional anything.
00:17:02:09 – 00:17:37:13
Toby Bloomberg
However, I find that the people that I’ve met, the chefs that I’ve met, the people in culinary that I’ve met are really open and very giving. And, you know, when they’re sitting around talking about industry stuff, I may not have a lot to add to the conversation, but I think they appreciate it. And I think they appreciate me being there because I’m so excited about it and I’m so passionate and I learn so much from them that it’s like, oh my, you know, you’re you’re letting me into this little world of yours.
00:17:37:13 – 00:17:49:16
Toby Bloomberg
This is really cool. And so I get really excited. So yeah, I may not be able to contribute to the conversation, but I definitely can appreciate it.
00:17:49:21 – 00:18:13:29
Agent Palmer
I mean, that’s the thing about food, right? I think that, we all have to eat, and and whether you cook for yourself or you go out all the time, somebody’s got to make that food, and you have to have some kind of appreciation for it because you’re eating it. I, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask, do you consider yourself a foodie?
00:18:13:34 – 00:18:39:55
Toby Bloomberg
Well, you know, after the, article that I wrote, I never thought that I was. And the word has so many really weird connotations, but I did this article, and I, I found that the word and I interviewed a whole bunch of people and basically chefs and people in this world, and I asked them what the word foodie meant to them, and some of them said, oh, it just really means something negative and it’s really elitist, and I would never use it.
00:18:40:07 – 00:19:04:56
Toby Bloomberg
And other people came up with their interesting definitions about how it’s your perception of what you do, it’s your love of what you do. And so the more I talk to these people, the more I realized that the word foodie really has taken on a different meaning in 2000 and this article was written, I think in 2021, but now than than it did before.
00:19:04:56 – 00:19:30:32
Toby Bloomberg
We looked at foodie as people that went to white tablecloth restaurants. So I came up with what I call the seven steps of a new foodie. And the restaurant part of it is only one step. So yeah, I guess to answer your question, I do consider myself to be a foodie because I love the world and I love all of the the nuances around it.
00:19:30:37 – 00:19:46:54
Toby Bloomberg
You know? I love the farmers markets. I love going to the the farms. Although I’m definitely not a farmer. I love the restaurants. I love the white table restaurants, and I love going to the little dives that nobody knows about. You know.
00:19:46:58 – 00:20:19:34
Agent Palmer
I think I’m a very much a diner person. I don’t know if I would consider myself a foodie like I’ve. I’ve eaten that, those white tablecloth, restaurants. But but I, I’m much more comfortable in a diner. And I don’t know, I’m putting myself on the spot here. I don’t know if it’s the food or the atmosphere or both, for that matter, because I, I, I, I’m, I, I, I’m a bit of a chameleon.
00:20:19:34 – 00:20:46:11
Agent Palmer
I think I can fit in almost anywhere. Like, I’m not going to. I shouldn’t say I’m not going to feel out of place. I’ll feel out of place. Maybe at, like a high end restaurant, but I can still, I don’t know, take my cues and, you know, mind my manners and eat with the proper fork. I I’m just going to not be quite as comfortable as I am at, like, a diner.
00:20:46:16 – 00:21:13:17
Toby Bloomberg
But just remember, my definition of food restaurants are only one step. Yeah. And so the restaurant that you most gravitate to and are most comfortable with, quite often, it’s what you would what you grew up with, what you remember. So did your parents take you to diners when you were growing up? Was it a family thing that maybe that little, memory comes through?
00:21:13:21 – 00:21:23:21
Agent Palmer
Kind of. I mean, when I think of my childhood restaurants, and I have a little bit of pressure riding on this answer.
00:21:23:26 – 00:21:26:24
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah.
00:21:26:29 – 00:21:48:47
Agent Palmer
Yeah, a little bit riding on this answer. Because my father listens to this show and my mother probably will. And so I’m going to get a text or a phone call, whatever, with whatever answer I give, I, I remember Chinese restaurants, like, I, we, we, we, we go out to China as a family. When I was a child, we went out to Chinese.
00:21:48:47 – 00:21:50:32
Agent Palmer
I remember that.
00:21:50:37 – 00:21:51:51
Toby Bloomberg
00:21:53:08 – 00:22:05:36
Agent Palmer
I remember going to dinners on occasion. I think diners really took off for me in my college years. Because that’s where we would go.
00:22:05:41 – 00:22:08:27
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah.
00:22:08:32 – 00:22:31:44
Agent Palmer
I mean, we went out to eat, but I think I, I grew up in what I like to consider an atypical household because while both of my parents worked and could cook, they took turns. And most of the time, a parent cooked. We didn’t do a lot of, ready made meals. And we definitely didn’t do takeout very often.
00:22:31:49 – 00:23:07:35
Agent Palmer
And that, I will tell you, has 100% trickled down into my, adulthood where I, I look to cook something first, then I look for maybe something a little bit easier that might be prepackaged. And then after that, I look to going out and, I don’t, I don’t know, I, I like cooking, but I have a love hate relationship with it only because, if you’re going to do it right, it takes a lot of time.
00:23:07:40 – 00:23:30:36
Agent Palmer
In fairness, that’s everything in life. Probably it’s it’s not it’s not unique to just food. But, you know, at the end of the day, it’s 5:00. And what are you going to make for dinner? And maybe, maybe you just want to relax. Maybe, I don’t know.
00:23:30:41 – 00:23:31:28
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah.
00:23:31:33 – 00:24:06:48
Agent Palmer
But food has kind of taken off, right? I mean, Food Network is, was the tip of the iceberg, and now there are multitudes of dedicated YouTube channels to food, not just cooking, just food. And there are, Instagram influencers that just do food, right? Like, food marketing is very different than it was. I mean, I feel like it’s like any kind of digital marketing where it changes, day by day, week to week.
00:24:06:53 – 00:24:30:46
Agent Palmer
But from what you were used to, and this is a general question and not a trap at all, or I hope it’s not. But how have you evolved as all these things change? Right. Like, you know, you may need to reach out to an Instagram influencer, which is something that ten years ago you would have been like, what are you talking about?
00:24:30:46 – 00:24:43:02
Agent Palmer
Or you might want to chat to a YouTuber, like, how have you, not evolved, but dealt with the change in everything?
00:24:43:07 – 00:24:46:51
Toby Bloomberg
The change? The change in the media, you mean? Or is that.
00:24:47:04 – 00:24:56:10
Agent Palmer
It just in in the fact that in the in the methodology, I guess because you know, we’ve got platforms now that didn’t exist before that now are important?
00:24:56:15 – 00:25:24:58
Toby Bloomberg
Well, let me, let me tell you, about Twitter, about me and Twitter. Okay. So when I started, when I started getting into this world, I knew very few people and I knew that I needed to again, be part of a community in order to make an impact in order to get clients. Yeah, this, this. And to say, I would like to pay my mortgage and I would like to eat as well, and I would like to go on a little trip and buy this and that and the other thing.
00:25:25:03 – 00:25:57:49
Toby Bloomberg
So at the end of the day, what I’m doing, as much as I love all this stuff, you know, you need you need a little bit of cash in your pocket. And so for me, it was making relationships with people within the food world. And I didn’t know enough people in Atlanta to do that. And so I reached out to to what was really intuitive to me because as you had mentioned, I’ve been in the digital world for so long, I think your mom and I were one of the pioneers of blogging, two of the pioneers of blogging.
00:25:57:54 – 00:26:26:33
Toby Bloomberg
And so I was really used to being in that world. Although don’t tell anybody. But I hate technology. I really hate it. But I’m online all the time, so I started to build up a, a community on Twitter. And one day I was watching one of the Food Network shows and I thought, I wonder if anybody is live tweeting this, because people were live tweeting movies and were live tweeting TV shows and obviously politics.
00:26:26:33 – 00:26:49:57
Toby Bloomberg
And I thought, is anybody live tweeting food shows? And Jason, I found out they were they were live tweeting the shows. And, you know, the food shows, you have to suspend reality because they are taped way in advance. And the winters are like months and months ago. But you watch the show and you don’t know what’s happening next, even though it’s already happened.
00:26:49:57 – 00:27:12:28
Toby Bloomberg
So you suspend your reality so people were watching the show, they were interacting with each other, and then every once in a while, the contestant or the chef would come in and interact with people within their their Twitter communities. And I thought, well, this is pretty cool. So I identified a couple of shows that I really loved, and I started to live tweet.
00:27:12:42 – 00:27:54:35
Toby Bloomberg
And what I found out was I became part of that community. I actually made some friends, and I started to interact with not the big chefs like the Gordon Ramsay’s or the Bobby Flay’s of the world, because I’m sure they don’t do their own social media. They’re everybody else, sure. But I started to interact with the contestants who were were real people, and the more I interacted with them, the more I got to know them, the more I saw that the people also the community wanted to interact with them as well, and they weren’t really interacting with their fans.
00:27:54:39 – 00:28:18:52
Toby Bloomberg
And so what I did is I put together a tweet chat, ran it for about, I guess, 4 or 5 years. And we did it every single week. Where I identify find one of the contestants chefs from one of the major Food Network programs or master chef programs, and they would come on, we would do a tweet chat.
00:28:18:52 – 00:28:48:38
Toby Bloomberg
I talked to them beforehand, explain everything that we would do, and then they would talk to their their fans. It was amazing. So through Twitter, I actually interviewed, I think about 40 different chefs. Some of those chefs have turned into really good friends. A couple of them turned into clients and as good as that, it turned into a network that I could tap.
00:28:48:47 – 00:29:14:30
Toby Bloomberg
So if I had a question about something, I could reach out to one of these chefs and ask them something. And because I had built these relationships with these people, and wanted to do more than the tweet chat, I decided that what I would do is I would do a, a Valentine’s PDF book of recipes from chefs from TV shows.
00:29:14:35 – 00:29:37:03
Toby Bloomberg
And I reached out to a bunch of these people and I said, would you give me a recipe? And they said, yes. And one of the chefs, he was the one of the winners of MasterChef junior Logan Gilmore actually created a recipe specifically for this. And so we put the PDF together and we gave it away for free.
00:29:37:07 – 00:29:42:39
Toby Bloomberg
So these little relationships grew and there you go.
00:29:42:44 – 00:30:00:52
Agent Palmer
I got into a bit of trouble professionally because of Twitter chats. I was, I was, I addicted at one point, I guess would be a, the safe thing to say I would jump into if it was. And look, I’m.
00:30:00:57 – 00:30:31:12
Agent Palmer
We’ll call it well-rounded. Right. So I would jump into, an IT Twitter chat or, content Twitter chat or a marketing or digital marketing or just a straight up, just digital advertising or PPC or you name it. I and I still have the calendars of, you know, probably if, if you look for it, or even if you don’t like, you could find a Twitter chat almost, you know, round the clock about something.
00:30:31:17 – 00:30:51:04
Agent Palmer
And I got to ask you, what was it like to stop because I, I’ve been a, I like I’ve been a part of those communities. I’ve never run one, but I’ve been a part of the community where the whoever’s running it is like, I, you know, I can’t do it anymore. Guys, you know, this one’s done. If somebody wants to pick up the hashtag, they can.
00:30:51:04 – 00:31:13:54
Agent Palmer
And it usually falls apart because the. I don’t want to say that for every Twitter chat, the heart and soul is the host, but kind of the heart and soul is the host. I think that’s not too much of a stretch. But what was it like, to, to stop because I’ve never been able to ask this question to somebody who ran one.
00:31:13:59 – 00:31:18:13
Agent Palmer
I’m sure there were people that missed it, but you know, what was that like?
00:31:18:24 – 00:31:46:27
Toby Bloomberg
We we stopped because, during the pandemic, they weren’t doing live shows anymore. Okay. So it just sort of naturally fell apart. And it was a little sad. But I have to tell you, on all of the tweet chats, all the 40 plus Twitch apps that I did, there was maybe 1 or 2 comments that were a little bit snarky, but for the most part, nothing.
00:31:46:41 – 00:32:06:14
Toby Bloomberg
People were so excited to talk to these chefs. It was just it it was just pure excitement, pure love, pure. I don’t know, just it was fun. It was just fun to get to speak to somebody who you didn’t think you’d ever get to speak to. Yeah. It digital talk.
00:32:06:24 – 00:32:37:39
Agent Palmer
Well, I, I think that’s the that’s been my experience in Twitter chats in general. And like I said, I’ve done a whole bunch. But I think one of the things about it is regardless of who the host or the special guest is, if you’re showing up for that, you’re of a certain level, right? Like I, you know, they’re they’re you know, I’ve been a part of them where, you know, maybe there were some interns or some students that were showing up to professional things because they were looking to further their career or just learn more about a certain thing.
00:32:37:43 – 00:33:05:04
Agent Palmer
But when I was doing, I don’t remember what the I really wish I could remember what the actual hashtags were, but there was one that was like, content marketing chat and everybody there is there for content marketing, whether it’s your passion or your profession. And and so everybody was nice. You’re right that maybe people made some jokes, but it wasn’t, harmful.
00:33:05:09 – 00:33:27:45
Agent Palmer
Or at least none that I saw. And it was just kind of. And, you know, people might say like, oh, well, Jason, you’re, you’re a white guy with a, you know, just standard, you know, bearded white guy avatar. Well, that might be true. But for most of my Twitter chat stuff way back then, that was before I quote unquote unmasked myself.
00:33:27:59 – 00:34:14:44
Agent Palmer
I was still Agent Palmer and Michael Caine as my thing, and everybody recognizes that that’s not me, and that clearly Michael Caine is not on Twitter in this Twitter chat about content marketing. Right. So, you know, some of that I was shielded and I still was just me. Every platform has its positives and negatives. I think for for professionals looking for even the like, the most wholesome things I saw on Twitter chats, at least in the professional thing, was the, the agreements, the, you know, somebody would ask you, like, what’s the number one problem?
00:34:14:44 – 00:34:44:08
Agent Palmer
You’ve got scheduling and then just five replies of like, I feel that. Yep. Like just the, the, the you’re not alone scenario because a lot of people don’t work for a big major corporation with a marketing team of 500 or whatever. And a lot of the people that go to these Twitter chats are like by themselves, or they’re in a marketing team of four and it’s social media or content is their one thing.
00:34:44:23 – 00:35:07:11
Agent Palmer
Yeah. It’s I learned a lot. I really should probably get back on that because I, I do kind of miss some of it because there is a community around everything. I mean, we, we, we talk about food earlier, but like, there’s a community of content creators and there’s a community of book readers and there’s a, like, you name it, there’s a community for it.
00:35:07:11 – 00:35:35:52
Agent Palmer
And I think that that’s we all want that. I, we all want to be a part of that. And I think maybe now more than ever, like, if you can find a safe digital community to be a part of, that, like, find that like, go get it. And, and, you know, that’s. Yeah, it’s it’s I’m I’m excited that.
00:35:36:05 – 00:35:38:24
Agent Palmer
Would you bring it back. Are you are you thinking.
00:35:38:28 – 00:35:50:32
Toby Bloomberg
I mean, I’ve been thinking about it, but, you know, life happens and so much stuff gets thrown at you. So I don’t know. We’ll see. Perhaps, perhaps the next thing is the podcast.
00:35:50:37 – 00:36:03:30
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s the other thing. So, you know, you’re thinking about a podcast and obviously you’ve done the blogging thing, so you know what it’s like to create content.
00:36:03:35 – 00:36:06:36
Toby Bloomberg
Yes. And I’ve done a podcast before as well.
00:36:06:40 – 00:36:22:32
Agent Palmer
So are you, are you always on the look? I mean, you’re a you’re also a marketing. You have a marketer’s brain too. So, like, I feel like you’re probably always on the lookout for the next thing. Is that safe to say?
00:36:22:37 – 00:36:23:32
Toby Bloomberg
Yes.
00:36:23:36 – 00:36:56:48
Agent Palmer
Is that, I’ll. Okay. So I’m currently not employed, but I, I find myself being burdened with my old mentality of, well, you’re the social media or you’re the digital marketer. Find out what’s next. And I’m always looking, I can’t I can’t shut it off. I’m always looking for the next thing because we know there’s always a next thing.
00:36:56:52 – 00:37:13:49
Agent Palmer
I have to be honest, I find it tiring. I find it tiresome. Do you and are you always kind of like, you know, not necessarily head on a swivel, but, you know, scanning the horizon for the next thing.
00:37:13:54 – 00:37:35:39
Toby Bloomberg
It. Yeah, I am, and and I do what? What a term that the tech people use to say I do a lot of sandboxing. Okay. And and by that, I mean, you know what that is? I go in and I test and I play, and I may like it and I may not. It may not be right for me, but I feel that at least I got it.
00:37:35:39 – 00:37:39:39
Toby Bloomberg
So, right now I’m playing around in TikTok.
00:37:39:44 – 00:37:40:29
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:37:40:34 – 00:38:06:38
Toby Bloomberg
And, I find it really interesting. And, every once in a while I go on and I post a video in it, and then I post the same video, maybe on Instagram and see what happens in the one of the last ones that I post was, I went to a, an Asian restaurant, nearby, and we were eating soup, stew.
00:38:06:42 – 00:38:09:15
Toby Bloomberg
Not. What are the soup dumplings? You know what those are?
00:38:09:19 – 00:38:13:23
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah, they’re the ones with, like, soup in them, right? Yeah.
00:38:13:23 – 00:38:31:44
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah, I never had one, so I was really excited about it. So I said to the waiter, would you show us how to eat this? And is it okay if I video you put you on social? And he said, oh yeah, sure. So I did, and I put it up on, on my Instagram page and it just took off for my page.
00:38:31:44 – 00:38:57:20
Toby Bloomberg
I did my stuff and social is very small. It’s not it never went really viral. I never I never was a 50 bazillion follower influencer even though I was respected. I never got to that. But it doesn’t really matter. But it went. I think it might have been 7 or 800 views on it, and I was just like, wait a minute, this is crazy.
00:38:57:25 – 00:39:06:26
Toby Bloomberg
So I put it on TikTok. I think there’s maybe 12 views. Exact same thing. Exact same thing.
00:39:06:40 – 00:39:07:15
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:39:07:20 – 00:39:47:49
Toby Bloomberg
So who knows. But it’s all the it’s the algorithm and you just don’t know. Yeah. Because they change and they don’t really tell you. But the funny thing is, Jason, that if you listen to what the channels are saying, they’re saying the exact same thing about the algorithms as they were saying ten years ago. And that is great content engagement of your followers, a little bit of SEO keywords, and by engagement, a comment and a share will get you more brownie points than just a like, yeah, so they’ve been saying for forever.
00:39:47:57 – 00:40:22:49
Agent Palmer
And and yet it’s and yet and yet they really still mean different things on different platforms. And because you’re right, Instagram and TikTok will tell you the same thing. Good content is good content. And yet you put the same thing up. And good content not the same. It’s not equal. And look, I, I think one of the things and we talk about differentiating yourself from the art and the food and the content and the whatever, I don’t look at my statistics any more.
00:40:22:53 – 00:40:58:46
Agent Palmer
Or at the very least, I don’t put a lot of stock into them because I know as we’re about to talk about, you have very little control over how that works. Like, I put out a weekly blog of what is interesting to me, of what inspires me to put pen to paper. My traffic is, generally speaking, in the ballpark of the same average visits per day all the time, and it’s been that way before the pandemic, during the pandemic, after the pandemic.
00:40:58:51 – 00:41:37:44
Agent Palmer
And occasionally I’ll see a big spike or a gradual spike and then a gradual loss. And that’s when they change the algorithm, and then the algorithm fixes itself. And I see a. Net zero experience. And I I’m not going to say all of my content. Great. I would say all of my content solid. But engagement we we used to I remember and and you you’re you’re going to remember this I remember we were told as bloggers to end every blog with a question so you could get comments up.
00:41:37:49 – 00:41:57:43
Agent Palmer
That was before Facebook and Twitter kind of really took off. And then all of a sudden you could ask the question at the end of your blog, but people were not going to comment on your blog. They were going to respond to you in Twitter. I read your post, by the way. My favorite. You know, whatever is blank, right?
00:41:57:43 – 00:42:16:33
Agent Palmer
And so it changed. And that was people changing it. You know, I think people still want comments and engagement and stuff, but and you should still probably ask a question if you’ve got it, but people are going to find you where they’re going to find you. They’re not going to they’re not going to comment in your blog anymore.
00:42:16:38 – 00:42:17:52
Agent Palmer
That’s done. Right?
00:42:17:57 – 00:42:45:53
Toby Bloomberg
Right. Yeah, it’s it’s sort of sad. It was it was an amazing world. And I’m so grateful that I was part of the the introduction of that into the business world. I mean, I made so many wonderful, wonderful friends and I learned so much. And those people are still like your mom, still friends to this very day. But for me, when you go back to any of these platforms, you really have to consider why you’re doing this.
00:42:45:53 – 00:43:07:42
Toby Bloomberg
And some people say, well, you need a goal. And I say, yeah, you need a goal, but you need to know why. Maybe that’s the same thing. So for me, I do it for a couple reasons. I do it for credibility. Yeah, I do street cred. I do it oftentimes when I write it, when I haven’t been writing a lot of blog posts recently.
00:43:07:42 – 00:43:39:43
Toby Bloomberg
But when I do write a blog post or when I do something on one of the social networks so that I can point out to somebody what I’ve done and make it into a learning situation for for others. So that’s more like it for me these days. It’s not, I don’t look at I was obsessed when we first started blogging and I would look at stats, I mean, multiple times down.
00:43:39:48 – 00:44:01:02
Toby Bloomberg
And now if I go on and look at stats once a week in any of these platforms, it’s a big deal. It doesn’t matter to me anymore because that’s not what I’m using it for. The other thing is, it’s really hard to get a momentum going in any one of these channels unless you decide to put in the time and energy.
00:44:01:02 – 00:44:23:33
Toby Bloomberg
And by that I mean multiple posts a day, and not only multiple posts again a day, but being proactive and talking and engaging with other people outside of your, outside of your bubble and inside of your bubble. And that takes a lot of time. Yeah.
00:44:23:38 – 00:44:24:08
Agent Palmer
Yep.
00:44:24:12 – 00:44:26:23
Toby Bloomberg
I’ve and lot of energy.
00:44:26:27 – 00:44:52:10
Agent Palmer
I’ve, I’ve Twitter’s my thing. If I was going to say I’ve got one right. You know, I think, I think you and I are different. We’re a unique breed because as digital marketers, we have to sandbox in everything. And when somebody asks you about Facebook’s newest update, you still kind of need to have an answer for your credibility.
00:44:52:10 – 00:45:20:10
Agent Palmer
But that doesn’t mean that personally, you have to be on Facebook all the time. You just have to know what’s going on. Twitter was the easy one for me because it was the one that I felt most engaged with. And so I also know that people would say, Why Twitter? Why aren’t you, you know, it’s just a bunch of people telling you what they had for lunch or whatever, because that was always the the standby stock answer.
00:45:20:20 – 00:45:45:36
Agent Palmer
Well, if I’m going to be completely honest with you, I have a girlfriend who lives with me now because of Twitter. Like that was our first introduction. We were both listening to the same podcast and and we were both tweeting with the hosts, and that kind of had spit balled into the rest of our story. But that’s for, you know, that’s kind of how it happened.
00:45:45:36 – 00:45:58:46
Agent Palmer
And so would we have met otherwise? Probably not. If I’m being completely honest. I think the that was the platform we were both on, that was the platform we were using.
00:45:58:51 – 00:46:01:50
Toby Bloomberg
That is so cool. JS and I love that platform.
00:46:01:55 – 00:46:32:09
Agent Palmer
And and and yet to the same thing. I have friends that I consider very close friends that I’ve also just met on Twitter. We’ve we’ve taken that relationship off of Twitter. I called them I have friends, you know, in other countries and, you know, outside of my, I guess, you know, locale, so to speak, that I talk to on a regular basis, soapbox moment.
00:46:32:09 – 00:46:51:33
Agent Palmer
Like, I feel like we could all call our friends a little bit more often. Even the people that are just acquaintances that we really like and we want to hear from, like, that’s if your phone’s not ringing their phone’s not ringing either. And I started to give people a hard time. Like I can never get Ahold of you.
00:46:51:38 – 00:47:00:25
Agent Palmer
Let’s find out when we can make this happen. But again, some of these things started on Twitter, and that just it’s what you use it for.
00:47:00:30 – 00:47:28:21
Toby Bloomberg
Exactly. And I agree with you about Twitter. Twitter is really my favorite as well. And it’s because it’s so easy to use and it’s so easy to meet people and it’s so easy to build relationships on because the share is easy. You can’t share anything on Instagram, you can story it, or you can share. If you’ve got an app and you want to go down that road.
00:47:28:26 – 00:47:51:04
Toby Bloomberg
But, you know, the stories are sort of fun and they’re here today, gone in 24 hours. And one of the PR people that I work with sometimes say to me, when you do something for me, would you mind please, putting it up as a regular post, because we do Instagram for these people. And she said, even if you decide to take it down in a month or so, would you just put it up as a post?
00:47:51:04 – 00:47:55:39
Toby Bloomberg
Because at least it will be there for more than 24 hours and people might see it.
00:47:55:44 – 00:47:58:52
Agent Palmer
So, yeah. I.
00:47:58:57 – 00:48:17:30
Toby Bloomberg
Think that people are just I mean, they’re scrolling and all we want is we don’t even want to read anything. We just want little bits of communications, little bits of fun. And I think that’s one of the reasons why this stories are so popular. Because you don’t have to think you can just scroll, scroll, scroll. And same thing with TikToks.
00:48:17:35 – 00:48:21:22
Toby Bloomberg
You know, they’re two minutes, three minutes with that scroll.
00:48:21:25 – 00:48:58:37
Agent Palmer
And I think I think that’s why I like Twitter, I think is like Twitter force. Even with moving from 140 to 280, you gotta be brief. I am not brief. No one will ever call me brief. And I’ve met a lot of people on Twitter that I would also say are in that boat. Like, ask them a question and you’ll get a novel in return, but it forces you to be short.
00:48:58:37 – 00:49:26:05
Agent Palmer
And yes, people talk about, oh, the current and this is current to, you know, summer 2022 threads are huge. And that may well be, but that’s for now. A year ago, threads weren’t that huge, and a year from now we don’t know what will or won’t be huge. But I think that idea of here’s 280 characters, oh, I’m going to respond now.
00:49:26:09 – 00:50:02:01
Agent Palmer
And oh crap, I have a lot to say, but I gotta condense it. And I think part of it for me was a game. How do I say what I want to say in, at the time, 140 characters? That’s not easy for me who I the average question I ask on this show is like two minutes, probably because I have to tell you a story and then give you the relevance and get it to where, like, I can ask you a question and that’s that’s not all the time, but that’s the thing I do and I’m comfortable with that.
00:50:02:05 – 00:50:12:50
Agent Palmer
I can’t do that on Twitter. Nobody nobody’s following that thread just for me to be like, well, what? You know, well, what’s your favorite food like? That’s, you know.
00:50:12:55 – 00:50:35:11
Toby Bloomberg
Yeah. And and we haven’t talked about so many other things like the farmers markets and, and the books and, TV shows to talk a little bit about TV shows and not only my food, but the food that goes back into your culture. One of the cool things that’s happening these days, more and more and more, is that food is becoming integrated with travel.
00:50:35:16 – 00:51:05:23
Toby Bloomberg
And so you have people that are doing food travel experiences, and it’s on experience and it’s all about the culture. It’s all about the history before, Covid, I took a trip to Greece with some friends and I made it into a food truck for me. And so I did a couple things. It was so much fun. I took a cooking class in Athens and we went to there, to the farmers market in Athens, a big farmer’s market and big cheese stores.
00:51:05:23 – 00:51:30:44
Toby Bloomberg
And we bought the produce and we went back to the, to the classroom and we cooked, we bought this fabulous. And then I took a real funky food tour on the different part of Athens and different part of Athens. And the tour guide, who was very much into politics, took us down these streets, these back roads, and showed us all these old, old buildings.
00:51:30:44 – 00:51:53:53
Toby Bloomberg
And we went into, little bars that were hundreds of years old. And then we went into delis and, and of course, when you do these food tours, I have everything all set up for you. So we went in and we had all these lovely little bits and tastes of food and alcohol and wines and stuff. And at the end of it I found, and I’d been to Greece before.
00:51:53:53 – 00:52:13:35
Toby Bloomberg
I’d spent several weeks there a long time ago, but it was just, this is this is the way to go to do this. And now, more and more, you find food and travel are the things that, that the networks are playing around with. Look at CNN.
00:52:13:39 – 00:52:46:33
Agent Palmer
I guess I, I always put them together, like, for me, I don’t know, like, for me, I think Chicago, I think pizza and hot dogs like I can’t they’re up there. They’re like, I know there are other things, right? There’s there’s sports, there’s, iconography, there’s history. I think of the food. And look, I’ve actually never been to Chicago, and I still associate it with food, and maybe it’s because of my proximity to New York and to the pizza argument and the hotdog argument.
00:52:46:38 – 00:53:03:37
Agent Palmer
But, you know, I have friends that come and they’re like, they know I’m close, or they know I was in the tourism industry for a while and, you know, they’re going to New York and I tell them to get a bagel. No. Like, no thank you. Yeah, I’ve had a bagel. No, you get a New York bagel, right?
00:53:03:38 – 00:53:26:46
Agent Palmer
I, I think for, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I, I always think that that’s part of it. Because it’s, it is part of your culture. And I, it’s important I you’re in Atlanta. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t dare drink a Pepsi in Atlanta.
00:53:26:51 – 00:54:01:22
Toby Bloomberg
You know, but it’s, you know, it’s interesting within within a city, probably within towns, there are these little niches, little cultural niches. So if I were to tell you that on the outskirts of Atlanta, there is a very large Asian population with it’s not like a New York Chinatown or it’s not like, Boston Chinatown, where everything is, is can is, is within a small radius or a large radius.
00:54:01:33 – 00:54:33:46
Toby Bloomberg
This is an actual, they call it a highway. Okay. It’s called for these. Buford. That’s pretty southern, right? Yeah. Buford highway and for several miles. I mean, I’m talking three, 4 or 5 miles. There is restaurant after restaurant and these little strip shopping malls of all these amazing Asian, Asian food restaurants. So who would think that if you came to Atlanta, you would definitely want to visit Buford Highway and have some amazing Asian food?
00:54:33:59 – 00:54:58:39
Toby Bloomberg
One would think, perhaps you’d want some southern food. And they’re great southern restaurants here. We’re finding it more and more of a fusion of you. So one of the, the chefs that I work with was trenches. Southern grew up in the South. And she combines her training from school in Paris with her culture, her southern culture.
00:54:58:44 – 00:55:04:21
Toby Bloomberg
So she calls it southern food with a French twist.
00:55:04:26 – 00:55:05:04
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:55:05:09 – 00:55:30:14
Toby Bloomberg
So it’s food fusion when that’s happening, I. But, you know, then we go back to what? What brings you comfort and is that, is that your mom’s chicken soup or what your mom made when you were sick? Is that what is comfort for you? And that’s part of being a foodie too, of all those experience. So think of it, Jason, as a mosaic.
00:55:30:19 – 00:55:56:15
Toby Bloomberg
So being a foodie is not just eating at a restaurant. It’s not just cooking. It’s all of these other little pieces that come together. And when you think about it and when you think about all these little pieces, you can take these pieces any place, you can take it on a trip and you can say, okay, I’m going to Chicago and I’m going to the farmer’s market, and I’m going to explore the pizza world.
00:55:56:20 – 00:56:19:38
Toby Bloomberg
And so you have your farmer’s market, your restaurant, and when you’re in the farmer’s market, what do you do? You’re looking at all the fresh vegetables you’re talking to, all the food corners, the vendors. So your experience within the culinary art world just grows and gets richer and richer and richer, and that’s just one aspect. Then you go someplace else and maybe you decide to go to a vineyard.
00:56:19:43 – 00:56:33:36
Toby Bloomberg
And so here you have the farms. And so, you know, so sort of like follow the food, don’t follow the money, follow the food and sewer agent.
00:56:33:41 – 00:56:38:36
Toby Bloomberg
You.
00:56:38:41 – 00:57:05:36
Agent Palmer
Social media connections are great, but how are your real world connections doing? And while it’s true that if your phone isn’t ringing, their phone probably isn’t ringing me either, I’ve started to make sure that their phone is ringing. And for those friends and connections who are geographically close by, I’ve centered those meetings on food or around food. Meeting at coffee shops or diners are a good way to get out and catch up all at the same time.
00:57:05:36 – 00:57:30:27
Agent Palmer
But for me to the shock of no one listening to this, it’s the conversation first. It’s why I can miss friends. I’ve never even been in the same state with much less the same room, because we used to talk often. The phone is a great tool. It has become ubiquitous for many things, but phone calls. My smartphone is mainly a phone, but I don’t believe many people can say that.
00:57:30:32 – 00:57:52:36
Agent Palmer
And because of that, when we are out to eat or just out and gathering, people want to check their socials and messages, and I’ve started making sure that I don’t pull out my phone. I’m here, you’re here. Let’s have an experience. Which brings us back to food. Because when you are out at a restaurant, no matter what kind, you are there for a reason to eat and experience something.
00:57:52:41 – 00:58:12:50
Agent Palmer
Maybe it’s the atmosphere of a high end white tablecloth restaurant. Maybe it’s a local diner in the experience is just conversation with your friends. And of course you don’t need to go out for those experiences. I cook for my friends and invite them over. My parents trade off cooking meals every month or so. When we get together at each other’s houses.
00:58:12:55 – 00:58:42:19
Agent Palmer
Food is always been the great gatherer of our species because we have to eat and we really like to be social. Combining the two isn’t complicated, you just have to do it. So when was the last time you invited a friend out for a meal? Or have had someone over for one that you cooked? And if the answer is more than a week, then it’s time for your phone to go back to its longest primary function calling people.
00:58:42:24 – 00:59:06:59
Agent Palmer
Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 76. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest, Toby Bloomberg at Toby Diva. That’s Toby Diva or at Diva Foods, and this show at The Palmer Files.
00:59:07:04 – 00:59:27:14
Agent Palmer
You can find more information about Toby at Diva foodies.com, which includes her blogs and other ways to contact her, including other social networks beyond Twitter like on Instagram, also at Toby Diva, or on TikTok at Toby Diva one. Again, that’s Toby Diva one. The number one email can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com.
00:59:27:14 – 00:59:35:53
Agent Palmer
And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent Palmer, dot com.
00:59:35:58 – 01:00:17:37
Agent Palmer
You.
01:00:17:42 – 01:00:20:01
Agent Palmer
All right. Toby, do you have one final question for me?
01:00:20:13 – 01:00:33:34
Toby Bloomberg
Yes, I do, Jason, this is a question that I ask chefs when I interview them. And so I want to ask you the same question. What does food is love mean to you?
01:00:33:39 – 01:01:06:23
Agent Palmer
I think it is, like my brain first goes to cooking for someone else. So I am not employed and my partner is, and I do the cooking for her. I do the cooking for us, but also I’m cooking for her. Right. And I think that that’s some of the cooking is love. Food is love.
01:01:06:23 – 01:01:35:42
Agent Palmer
Because I’m not. I could just be like, I’m going to make this for me, and you’re on your own. But for, you know, almost most nights of the week and weekend, I’m cooking for two. Because I know she’s had a rough day. Most likely. I think that’s kind of the the small piece of it. The other the other piece of it is, good.
01:01:35:47 – 01:02:07:10
Agent Palmer
I don’t want to say good conversation because that’s just a byproduct of being with people you love around the table. And I have made attempts lately to, I don’t know, expand, my regular eating habits. And by that, I just mean that, once a week, I have a friend who’s single who lives a couple miles.
01:02:07:15 – 01:02:30:05
Agent Palmer
I make sure he comes over and eats with us, or I go have lunch with him. I make sure that as a single guy, he’s not eating alone all the time. He knows he has a place here that he can come. He knows I will meet him at a restaurant. I’ll just bring over food, whatever. That’s a piece of it.
01:02:30:05 – 01:02:56:14
Agent Palmer
There’s other people that I’ve kind of lost touch with. Either because of the pandemic or they were former coworkers or you name it, that I am starting to reach out to because I realize it’s not just my best friend who it, you know, that I’m concerned about, and I don’t want him to eat alone all the time, and I want him to I, I want to get together with other people.
01:02:56:18 – 01:03:22:27
Agent Palmer
And I have, I think we all have a capacity to care about, large swath of people. And so what’s the easiest thing to do? Let’s go out to eat or I’ll cook a meal or whatever. I mean, most of the time you go out to eat because it’s more convenient, right? Like we can pick some place in the middle and what have you.
01:03:22:32 – 01:03:47:00
Agent Palmer
But I, I have no problem cooking for people. And I part again. It goes back to, you know, my parents cooked a lot, when I was growing up. And even when I was single, I cooked a lot for a single guy. Circumstantially, from all the other people I know, I cooked a lot for a single guy.
01:03:47:04 – 01:04:01:43
Agent Palmer
But for me, food is love is just. It’s it’s a conduit. It’s more than the meal. It’s a it’s the camaraderie, the conversation and all that other stuff that comes along with it.
01:04:01:47 – 01:04:13:38
Toby Bloomberg
Excellent. It’s a catalyst. It’s a that’s the catalyst. Yeah. For nurturing and building relationships. New new relationships and old relationships.
01:04:13:43 – 01:04:46:38
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I think that the, the old relationship are the ones I feel that they have to, they need it more I think of it like, a mixed drink specifically like a powdered iced tea. That’s every relationship. If you don’t stir it, it gets a little stale. All the stuff floats to the bottom. You gotta you gotta stir it up a little bit so you can’t just talk on the phone every once in a while, or even just weekly.
01:04:46:38 – 01:05:24:29
Agent Palmer
You gotta you gotta just sit down around a meal. Right. And look, if if there’s one thing we’ve learned as consumers of food, television, it’s that when there’s good food and good people, you laugh. Period. It doesn’t. I don’t care who it is or where you are or what it is. Okay. You know, my my two biggest food television things were, no Reservations and Diners, Drive-Ins and dives.
01:05:24:34 – 01:05:52:13
Agent Palmer
There is plenty of laughter on both of those shows. And most and both of those hosts don’t know the people, so if that can be done with strangers, I can invite my best friend over and we’re going to have a good time period. And we could all use some laughter or more laughter, some laughter, more laughter, but we could all use it.
01:05:52:17 – 01:05:54:39
Agent Palmer
I hope I answered that it was.
01:05:54:39 – 01:05:55:48
Toby Bloomberg
It was excellent.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).