When I heard about the Cupcakes for Charity event that SM4SC (Social Media for Social Change) was putting on to benefit the American Cancer Society, I was instantly excited about the idea. Cupcakes, a great cause, and a lot of new faces, all on one night under one roof. How can you beat that? I thought it was a perfect chance though to try out a new cupcake recipe and put those fun Halloween cupcake decorations I bought at Target to use.

Cupcakes going in...

As I’ve noted before, one of my all-time favorite flavors is maple. I’ve never seen or had a maple cupcake though. I thought this was a good time. I came across this recipe, and liked that it had maple in both the icing and the cupcake batter itself. Double maple. Lots of maple. I’d had some fabulous Canadian maple syrup from my Montreal trip that for some reason (??) I had not yet polished off. I figured no better time to put it to use.

The cake batter part was very easy and went according to plan. I didn’t do a trial run on these. The batter came out light and fluffy. I cookied each batch for 20 minutes according to the recipe and they came out a nice pale golden brown from the maple, like taking a vanilla cupcake and adding a smidge more brown into it. The icing would turn out to be the problem of this recipe.

Double Maple Cupcakes

I honestly can’t recall if I’ve done homemade icing before following a recipe. If I’m preparing icing, it’s usually a quick flavored confectioner’s sugar glaze for sugar cookies or for icing some breads or rolls. My mistake here I learned is that I went with the ingredients based on the proportions. Literally. Which next time I won’t do. I ended up making two batches of icing. The first batch came out stiff. It was hard to move and when I put it on the cupcakes, it was literally like putting down some hard Play Doh on them and trying to make it look pretty. I smudged it across the cupcakes (with the cupcakes trying to flake off throughout the process). They looked shiny and kind of interesting, but it wasn’t the fluffy pretty crown I was hoping for. In fact, I’d bought a pastry bag in hopes of making them look really nice, but that poor bag is still clogged up with remnants of icing batch 1 (the top 6 cupcakes in this photo).

Finished product (next to my sister's contribution for the event)

For the second batch of icing, I ended up halfing the amount of powdered sugar since it seemed to be what was doing the cupcakes in. Even that though seemed to be a bit too much, as the icing was sort of chunky and didn’t quite want to spread either. Both ways though were tasty, even if they did not lend themselves to the most spectacular of presentation. Add in the decorative skeleton topper and they couldn’t help but look tasty and seasonally festive. I was worried the icing wouldn’t lure people in, but they went fast! At 12 a cupcake, that batch was $24 towards the fabulous cause. Oh and PS the event ended up raising in excess of $1,100! Bravo!

What I loved about these cupcakes though is how it filled my apartment with the maple smell. And when I pulled out my carrier and removed the lid, it filled the room with the fresh scent of maple. I might alter the icing recipe or go with a different one altogether next time, but I do recommend for sure the cupcake recipe itself since it turned out so perfectly for me.

Here’s a video on the event. Should be more cupcake events here in NYC to come. If you missed it this time, stay tuned! There’s now a website, http://cupcakes4charity.org or http://twitter.com/cupcake4charity.

Przeglądając na Flickr liczący ponad 2000 zdjęć, fotostream hotelu Roger Smith zorientowałem się, że wiele z tych zdjęć – zwłaszcza z imprez – już wcześniej widziałem w sieci. I wtedy zrozumiałem dlaczego Econsultancy.com nazywa ten nowojorski hotel: “najsprytniej wykorzystującym social media na świecie”.

Z zewnątrz hotel jak hotel. Prawda?

A najlepszym dowodem na prawdziwość tych słów jest to, że ja, czyli facet z kraju, o którym pewnie większość nowojorczyków nie słyszała, opisuje właśnie jeden z dziesiątków art hoteli w Wielkim Jabłku, w którym pewnie nigdy nie będzie. Ten hotel nazywa się:  Roger Smith’s Hotel.

Hotel ma pięknie prowadzony blog, prowadzi konto na Twitterze, na którym ma ponad 3 tys. “followers” i do tego ma swój kanał na Youtube z 352 filmami. Aha! Zapomniałbym o Facebooku, na którym ma 800 fanów.

Czy wymienicie mi choć jedną polską firmę, która dysponuje podobnym arsenałem marketingowej “broni masowego rażenia”, ery social media?

To właśnie go wyróżnia wśród konkurencji. Jeśli rzucicie okiem na wpisy na blogu, zdjęcia i filmy, to zorientujecie się, że to naprawdę sympatyczny hotel, w którym obsługa “stara się bardziej” i o którym wiecie już całkiem sporo. A to, w chwili, gdy jedziecie do obcego miasta i zastanawiacie się nad noclegiem, może być decydującym czynnikiem wyboru.

Bo czyż nie zatrzymujecie się zazwyczaj w hotelu, który już znacie? Ja tak mam.

Warto przeczytać cały wywiad z szefami tego hotelu. Znajdziecie go tutaj.

Every commercial for travel, wine, restaurants, tourism, etc. all end up being about lifestyle, hospitality and the extraordinary lengths to which the hosts will go to take care of you during your stay with them.  Once you have the essentials met, a comfortable bed, room essentials (iron, mini fridge, mini bar, toiletries, wifi, i-home …) it becomes a matter of not just making your stay comfortable, but extraordinary.  To me, this includes anticipating your needs, going the extra mile, and a kind of unassuming kindness that’s subtle and authentic.  If you’re heading to New York that place exists in mid-town Manhattan.  That place is the Roger Smith Hotel.

The bar & restaurant, Lily’s, looks like an avant garde art gallery and feels like that artist’s family room.  The bartender Paul (see smiling bartender, Paul, pictured below) makes you feel like most great bartenders and hair dressers…you can tell him anything and he’ll not only have humor, compassion and words of wisdom, he’ll know exactly what cocktail to make for you.  I couldn’t get enough of the house plum infused gin and tonics he made for me.  Brunch on both days were delightful twists on traditional fare:  I had granola crusted french toast one day, vegetable frittata with fingerling potatoes the next …I’m not admitting to any morning cocktails.

The weekend I was there also happened to be the start of Social Media week in New York:  A set of meet ups, openings, releases and social media focused gatherings that includes Twestival NYC and the regular Social Media Breakfasts at…you guessed, The Roger Smith Hotel.  So on Sunday, Mr. Hospitality (see Brian Simpson pictured at top) hosted a Tweet Up (#tweetuprsh)…and since @ChrisBrogan was also staying at the RSH for the week, we amassed an impressive gathering that went for over 12 hours including a raucous, impromptu Grammy watching party to close out the evening.  Some attendees include: @coffeewithian (going for 100 hugs by Feb 14 and documenting them all on twitter via i-phone), @sukifuller (completing her MBA), @emilyspearl, @rachelreuben, @nexeus (NYC DJ, U-Streamer), @robbin_g (East Coast wine goddess), @hvwinegiddess (managing the Hudson Valley Wine Competition this spring), @chazfrench (winner best T-Shirt at the meet up…ask him),  @davekerpen (ZBuzz Marketing), @sandraschubert, @robblatt, @nadiapayan, @daveyarmon, @chrisbrogan, @bsimi, and me…@winedivergirl.  Though there were 20+ tweeters there, if I missed you, please let me know and I’ll add you right into this list!

An additional set of concierge services from RSH pointing me to fabulous shopping, restaurants, great bars and transportation back to the airport  made my weekend overflow with something beyond satisfaction.  New Yorkers are the friendliest f*cking city people ever (RSH and beyond).  While I was in NYC for an Art Opening at the Walter Wickiser Gallery, my time there was jam packed from end to end with the best of what New York could offer me in a 3 day weekend with only 10 hours sleep total.  I made the most of it.  Now it’s your turn.

Photos from my Blackberry Storm

P.S.  I didn’t even get to Henry, the RSH mascot (see below left…)  That will be it’s own post altogether!

Yamile, Chief Restaurant man at Lily’s…demonstrating hospitality pictured below right.

For the best photographic pictorial : visit @BSimi ’s Flicker page.

Proof of ROI in Social Media:

That’s for the boss’ bottom line.  But I think the real ROI isn’t measured by the bottom line.  The most valuable investment we all make in social networking is our time and ourselves.  Without those two things invested…and invested authentically, there is no real return.  How do you measure and put a dollar value on connecting, shared information, generating ideas, developing conversations?  I’m sure there are social scientists that will study and follow these activities and endeavor to measure the trail and where it leads.  And as soon as the numbers are in black and white, I think the measure will have already missed the essence of the most valuable return from social networking.

In this particular case, however, I have been VERY lucky to have a short, direct trail with a couple people in the chain to point to a measurable outcome.  Brian Simpson, (F & B at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City) and Shannon Marshall,  (Northeast Divisional Manager for Hahn Family Wines ).  Through the power of social media, twitter and 12seconds.tv, Brian & I have connected & have been posting 12 second videos of the RSH daily lunch special paired with wine.  We started in early November.  By request, I connected Brian with Shannon & by early December we have the menu above :  5 wines from Hahn Family Wines by the glass with 3 more by the bottle.

For me the return is in the relationships and connections I am allowed to cultivate world-wide through social networking.  The bottom line ROI is a secondary result I am grateful for…but not my primary pursuit.  The connections are.  Which brings me back to wine.  I feel the same way about sharing a bottle with someone.  Happy New Year everyone.  Cheers.

Maybe it’s me, but there’s something special about, um, the Special of the Day.  Ok, maybe that’s redundant, but listening to the waiter offer his practiced listing of foods, flavors and preparation always makes my mouth water, even if I don’t order the Special.  But there’s something else;  it is the Chef’s pick of what’s best today, what’s fresh, something new, fun and different from what’s on the menu all the time.  And it is only for today.  So the expiration underscores the ephemeral nature of the moment:  today’s lunch.

Over the past week I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying a 12Seconds.TV video of the daily lunch specials at New York City’s Roger Smith Hotel.  As I watch at 9 am PST, delicious preparations inspire me to look forward to my own Napa lunch, fantasizing about pan seared lamb chops with carrots, chanterelles and figs.  So I started responding with a video reply recommending a wine pairing.  It is actually great fun.  They post today’s special and I find a wine I’d order with it.  I’m in Napa, California.  They are in New York City.  But we’re bridging the gap with our passion for food and wine, sharing along the way and I hope, adding value to people’s daily food experiences.  We’re focusing on the senses, the visual, and your imagination, using a couple social media tools to connect us all.  To what end?  I hope to heighten the experiences we have together in person, over a shared meal.  And maybe world peace too.

Today I recommended our 2005 Bin 36 Merlot (Hahn Estates in partnership with Brian Duncan of Bin 36, Chicago)  with their pan seared lamb chop. You’ve got to watch the 12 Second video to enjoy it.  Then there’s a video reply just beneath offering a wine pairing.  Not much detail in the 12 seconds, but you know you have time for it.  I always have time for my 12Seconds friends.  It is one of my favorite ways to connect.

I’ve said it before, but am astounded the way technology really does build relationships and bring people together.  It’s not the cold, impersonal tool once dreaded.  Web 2.0 and beyond, with user generated content and participation is able to bridge the gaps of time and space that went neglected before.

I’m meeting a friend for lunch and will relish the specials and our hour of conversation and just taking a moment to breathe.

Now I can’t wait for lunch.

501 Lexington Ave. NY,NY,10017 (212)-755-1400

After spending my first week on the new job, Assistant Food & Beverage Director at the roger smith hotel, I am proud to announce that I am very happy with my new home!  I will post more on the job as I go along and as we host events like tweetups, wine tastings and chef’s dinners.  For now I want all of my readers to see the hotel and the restaurant called lilly’s.  

One of the many pieces of art created by Mr. Knowles

There are many funny stories behind both the name of the hotel and the restaurant – the website explains them with some help of Mr. Knowles, the hotels owner.  I already feel like I am part of a very special family and all of the colleagues have been welcoming.  

My new home !

Please keep checking my blog and my twitter updates for special events and happenings at the hotel and lilly’s.  Most importantly ~ if you are in the area please stop by for a bite to eat and of course a beverage!

 We have a new kitchen, new Chef and on November 13th we are planning a grand re-opening of lilly’s.

Stay tuned for details!  

~ Hope to see you soon ~