Newtown Producer’s Website A Foodie Wonderland

By Nancy K. Crevier

Foodies and those who love all things food have somewhere new to go to dish and dine. But this new place with a welcoming façade will not be found at a street address.

Craig Rogers, a Newtown resident and a Stone Wall Web Ventures partner with Cheryl Carlesimo and John McCally of Westport, invites food lovers to a new website, DishAndDine.com, which was launched by the three in April.

The trio, also partners in Stone House Productions since 1996, is not unfamiliar with the world of food trends. Stone House Productions has produced several programs for the Food Network, including one season of Cooking Thin, 115 episodes of Food 911 starring Tyler Florence, the Ham on the Street series with George Duran, and specials starring Rachael Ray.

Realizing that web communities play a big part in today’s society, the partners began noodling the idea of a food community about two years ago, seeking to create a user-friendly food site that could integrate information and user input in a more welcoming venue than they felt other sites presented. “The Web is the new medium. Having a social community about food was a real natural thing to us,” said Mr Rogers.

“It’s a site for ‘foodies,’ and a social networking site to put up user generated videos and recipes,” explained Mr McCally. “What’s nice is that it can go off in whichever direction the user wants, because it is such a flexible forum,” he said. Unlike many other food websites that are tied to supporting a magazine or a product, DishAndDine is solely a place “to share people’s passion for food,” Mr McCally said, adding, “I do think we’re doing really well in getting interesting people to show us interesting food.”

“We are all people who are very interested in food,” said Mr Rogers, “and being on the food sets so much, we have all become better cooks. We all spend a lot of our down time in the kitchen.” Ms Carlesimo, the brainchild behind DishAndDine.com, said Mr Rogers, “has that mothering, feeding instinct.”

“I’m Italian,” laughed Ms Carlesimo, “so you live, eat, and breathe food.” Bemused by all of the food sites that she had visited over the years, she felt that “a better thing” could be done utilizing all of the new media.

“I saw something between YouTube and Facebook,” she said. “Our food background was very helpful, but doing DishAndDine was also a leap of faith,” Ms Carlesimo said. “I love that we can become involved with food issues, too. We have several recipes from Divabetics — recipes that are diabetes friendly, as well as recipes that are heart friendly, or gluten-free. There’s really every niche reaching out to people with the same issues.” The Jewish community “Feed Me Bubby” videos at DishAndDine.com have been featured regularly and have been well received by the new web community, too.

The Website

The DishAndDine homepage is a map of the site similar to a drop down menu, allowing the user to roll over each graphic to go to any of 14 categories: recipes, spices & herbs, pasta and grains, produce, tastes of the world, the wine cellar, cheese, games, fish, meats, the coffee shop, bakery, gadgets and gizmos, and the charity piggy bank.

In the process of creating the website, the three partners learned a great deal about making every aspect of the site intuitive and available to the user, said Mr Rogers. “It’s like a big open-air market feel,” he said.

Users can also access the site by selecting the red Enter button that will take them to the welcome page. There they will find an introductory video produced by Mr Rogers, and learn how best to navigate the site. Users can read reviews, view videos, check out the “Hot Dish” du jour, get recipes or cooking tips, and gather other food related information. It is also at the welcome page that a My Plate profile can be set up, for interaction on the site.

The videos are the piece of the site that makes it stand out from other food sites, said Mr Rogers.

“Anyone with a My Plate profile can post a video, and we encourage readers to do so,” said Mr Rogers. The videos must fall into one of four food categories: recipes, tips, review, or food related question, and a “How To” guide on the welcome page drop down menu is hosted by Food Network personality and cookbook author George Duran showing how best to create a 7-minute video. “People can submit a video and recipe, or they can post just recipe, or a recipe with a still photo,” said Mr Rogers.

But wait — some of the videos smack of professionalism and feature celebrities like Rachael Ray, Eric Ripert, and Jimmy Fallon. That is because Stone Wall Web Ventures produces some of the videos, and leveraged their food world contacts to shoot popular celebrities cooking in their own homes.

“Ours isn’t a celebrity site uniquely, but because of our background, famous people we know have contributed videos and recipes,” explained Ms Carlesimo.

 “I would say that 99 percent of the recipes are posted by users, though,” said Mr Rogers, “and most recipes seem to be original, family favorites.”

“There’s a different aspect to the site that makes it stand apart from other food sites,” said Ms Carlesimo. “I love the whimsical map on our home page, and the Coffee Shop, where you can take a ‘break’ and listen to music,” she said. “The Daily Special trivia game, written by Peter Sherman, a writer with whom we’ve worked for years, is challenging enough for the foodies, but I hope it’s not intimidating to other users,” Ms Carlesimo said. My Plate users guess the answers to questions posed in a four-course format, with highest scores being posted at the Daily Special leader board. High scorer for the month wins a prize, like the Flip video camera won by a Texas player most recently.

Mr McCally, Ms Carlesimo and Mr Rogers have been impressed with the quality of the home videos they have received to date. “So far, it’s very much what we were hoping to create,” said Mr Rogers. “We want people to know that they do not have to be a professional to make a video,” added Ms Carlesimo.

Some videos are just a single shot, with no editing, others have a slicker finish to them, and the recipes range from the super easy Scrambled Eggs demonstrated by a four-year-old, to a more time-consuming Spicy Pork Kebab Salad by “Chef Snowball.”

“We like it when we see people of all ages. We have received videos from the very young and the very old, and the quality level has been good,” Ms Carlesimo said. DishAndDine is a great venue on which to preserve special family recipes, as well, she said.

The Charity Piggy Bank is a category near and dear to the hearts of all three creators. “In a community like DishAndDine that celebrates the pure pleasure of good food, it’s even more important to remember there are those who struggle each day to put any food on the table,” reads the introduction to this category, and it is here that readers can link to the sites for The Food Bank for New York City, Rachael Ray’s Yum-o! site, and Share Our Strength.

“This is a very important piece of DishAndDine,” said Ms Carlesimo. “When I saw the big piggy bank outside of Pike’s Place Market in Seattle collecting for charity, I thought, ‘If I ever get to do my site, we’re going to have a big piggy bank like that, to remind people that they can help those who don’t have enough food,’” she said.

“It’s the responsible thing to do,” said Mr Rogers.

The three site creators are pleased with the initial reaction to DishAndDine. “The big push right now is to get it in front of more people,” said Ms Carlesimo. Because they are not backed by million dollar businesses, they rely on word of mouth to generate more users.

“A lot of food websites do recipes and reviews, but it’s the community angle we think makes DishAndDine.com different,” said Mr McCally. “What we need is a lot of conversations between a lot of people, the sheer numbers. Then we can get into a second phase.”

“For  now, we’re happy with the traffic we are generating. We hope that it is a warm, welcoming place that looks different from other food websites, and is easier to use,” said Mr Rogers.

To dish and dine with others around the world, visit DishAndDine.com. Bon Appetit!