Good Morning, Friends
So, I heard someone say something about email newsletters being the new blog, and I thought I was tripping because... weren't email newsletters the OLD blog? Anyhoo, I started one of these new fangled email newsletter thingies, so yeah, I guess we’re gonna party like it’s 1999.
I did a little research (as little as possible) and decided that of all the email newsletter platforms available, good old Substack would be the best choice for me! Mostly because it’s as simple as a pimple to use, and I can add a paid subscription if I want to, which I do want to, so I eventually will.
Thank you for signing up for a free subscription in the meantime, and if you’re seeing this but you’re not subscribed, please sign up now!
But what will my newsletter be?
I already have a Blog, and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, plus Ashvegas.com and even Hendra’s World to express myself and reach my audience, and I pretty much share just about every aspect of my public life on those platforms, so what the heck am I doing with this newsletter exactly?!? Not sure. Stay tuned.
Win Tickets
I will start you out with some insider info tho: Today, Wednesday, July 28th, every person who orders delivery from KickbackAVL.com will be eligible to win a $50 VIP Ticket to this year’s Punk Rock Hot Dogs competition, which is this Saturday, July 31st.
I can also give you the heads-up that Punk Rock Hot Dogs 2021 will most likely be the last food fight that I organize. Even though they are fun, these types of events are also pretty stressful, and costly, and time consuming to organize and produce. I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll take a nap.
I hope that I will have opportunities to host, emcee, sponsor, judge at, and spokes-model for other food competitions in the future (text me) but I’m stepping away from organizing them for now and maybe forever.
Before it morphed into a competition, Punk Rock Hot Dogs was originally a pop-up that I did out of the old Clingman Cafe, and it will stick around as a concept, perhaps reemerging as a pop-up again one day, or even just as a section on the menu at Puke.
Puke is my imaginary restaurant.
Some more insider info: People often ask me if I’ve started doing tours with Asheville Food Tours again, and the answer is yes, and no. I’m doing some private tours here and there right now, but I’m still working for Kickback, and just don’t have time to do both.
In September, I will be pulling back on some of my Kickback work, and picking up more tours.
In the meantime, Asheville Food Tours is up and running with Paddy Riels and a new addition to our roster of great food tour guides, Aimee Morrison! Please sign up for a tour with either Paddy or Aimee, and look for me to be back at it in the Fall!
FOOD RECOMMENDATION:
Una-Don (Unagi / eel) rice bowl.
Chef Naomi Mikami from WakuWaku Eatery brought me some delicious food and told me that it’s a tradition for folks in Japan load up on eel from July 28th to August 1st as a “seasonal event to survive hot Summers.”
And that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed my first email newsletter. Well, it’s not my first first email newsletter, because I swear to gahd, we used to send these things out, like, way back in the 1990’s, when there was no such word as “blog.” ;)
Thanks for reading this far everyone, I’ll send these out on the regs, especially when I figure out what I’m doing.