The Wide, Wide World of Web - Monday, August 27th
Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, on the web, wide, wide world of web on August 27, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Can you do the mashed potato? Or do you prefer to just eat the stuff? Over at BlogTO, Tanja sets out on part 1 of her search for the best mashed potatoes in Toronto - the verdict so far - stay away from Fran’s. Also at BlogTO, Frank says what everyone else has been thinking - the hot dogs are Buddha Dog are mighty tasty, but probably not worth the extra cost or the trip to Roncy just for some tube steak. And Paul enjoys his visit to Kubo Radio, while Debbie loves Mikado.
Both Torontoist and Spotlight Toronto brave the opening week crowds at the new T&T Supermarket down on Cherry Street. The Torontoist piece is especially enthusiastic and spurred a flurry of comments back and forth on whether the post was a “special advertising feature”. Suresh at Spotlight Toronto seems pretty stoked about the new grocery store as well. He’s also stoked about lunch at The Real Jerk.
Eye has a Food Notebook from last Monday with lots of stuff about booze. And the Local this week is a real local, The Green Room, where lots of people do hang out because they love the place and feel like a part of the community, not because half the clientèle is wearing short-shorts (hello, you girls who were parked on the sidewalk outside The Parkdale Drink on Friday night - skanky much??).
At Beyond Burgers, Catherine Jheon dives into some Filipino cuisine at Casa Manila, while at Toronto Life, James Chatto is still vacationing in Greece, making friends with salad.
Gremolata’s Malcolm Jolley interviews one of the “winners” of a certain mayonnaise company’s scam contest to have a free community garden plot for the summer. No word on whether the man will be able to get his crop out of the ground before the mayonnaise company shows up with the plows to pull up the whole mess on September 15th. Also at Gremolata, Dean Tudor looks at the last of the summer cookbooks.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Sheryl,
I see “scam” has been crossed out from your blurb. I must be really naive, because I thought the mayonnaise garden was pretty cool. And so did Tanzeel the gardner who showed me around his plot. I get enough PR crap that I’d like to think I know the difference.
When I visited two weeks ago, everything had pretty much come to maturity. So, I think he’s been well fed. The mayonnaise people also told me that they want to expand the program next year.
If there’s more to this story that I’m not picking up on, please let me know. I don’t owe big mayonnaise any favours, and if I’ve been fooled I’d like to know why.
Malcolm
August 27th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Well… there’s the fact that “big mayonnaise” paid a lot more to run ads in prime time on national TV to tell the world how down they are with supporting community gardens than they did on the gardens themselves. A shitload more.
And while the September 15th plow-down date might be fine for the guy in Toronto, it’s NOT fine for the folks in Halifax where the growing season is 3 - 4 weeks behind and many of the crops will still be at their peak. Those folks are SOL.
There’s also the fact that corporations have no place in community gardens. I think the quote in this piece from the Coast in Halifax says it all - “It’s not a community garden—it’s an advertising campaign.”
And that’s my beef with the whole thing - Hellman’s doesn’t give a shit about those gardeners. Hellman’s cares about being seen as part of the local food movement, as being environmentally friendly, and as being part of the “community”, all of which, as a corporation, it’s not.
If they really want to support local community gardens, that’s a fine goal, but that’s not why they’re doing it. They’re doing it to sell mayonnaise.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
So it would be better if there were no gardens?
August 27th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
There are many community gardens throughout the city, either where you can rent plots or where people work together and share the bounty. I think community gardens are awesome - when they’re about the community and not promoting a corporation.
Would we be better off without Hellman’s gardens? I’m sure the people who won the plots wouldn’t think so, but if it means the rest of us are not subjected to the little rabbit on the bus telling us how delightfully, absolutely wonderful and fabulous Hellman’s is for funding a garden, and let’s all have a big group hug while we’re at it, then yeah, definitely better off without these particular gardens. It benefits what, 10 or 15 people in a handful of cities? Meanwhile millions are subjected to having to listen while big mayonnaise pats itself on the back and shows off its gold star.
If Hellman’s really cared, they’d fund permanent gardens in viable locations and would do so quietly, just because it’s a nice thing to do, and not to con people into buying their product because they look like a conscientious company.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Um, I don’t think anyone’s going to get “conned” into buying a particular brand of mayonnaise. Miracle Whip people will not likely be persuaded IMHO. Let’s not get too down on advertising: some of us depend on it to pay for our websites.
I imagine it’s more of a goodwill exercise. The success of which is clearly no without controversey.
Anyway, I’ll agree to disagree, if you will. And I really wanted to make it clear that Gremolata is not part of the campaign. I just thought it was a better way to use a parking lot, however fleetingly.
Cheers,
Malcolm
August 28th, 2007 at 7:38 am
You’re very optimistic Malcolm. Corporations like Unilever don’t take part in “goodwill exercises” - it goes against the main principle of the corporation itself, which is to increase market share. Sure there are the die-hard Miracle Whip people but there are also a lot of people who will buy whatever. And if you don’t think Unilever knows that a lot of people will be more predisposed to their product if they know the company supports community gardens, then perhaps you are a bit naive.
Like I said previously, if they really cared just about supporting community gardens, they’d fund those gardens privately and quietly, in a way that made them viable in the long term. This is an ad campaign, as evidenced by the TV spots. They’ve done it because they can make money off it. No other reason.