Hello! It’s been a while between episodes and for that I apologise. Round one of the My Open Kitchen ecourse kicked off a couple of weeks ago and writing and delivering the course to our first round of amazing students has been all consuming! But we are back today with a brand new episode full of inspiring people, ideas and things to read and do. First things first – THANK YOU AS ALWAYS TO OUR AMAZING SPONSOR COUNTRY STYLE MAGAZINE. This is the cover of their latest issue (June 2017) and as always, it’s a wonderful, inspiring and excellent read. 
And because it’s all been about the ecourse for me at least recently, this episode’s interview was originally intended for students only – but it’s so good, and so full of fabulous advice (and such a great example of the kind of ‘guests’ we have visit us in the ecourse to share experience and advice) – that I really wanted to share it here on the podcast too. And if you were looking to send me an email to enter the competition I mentioned in the podcast intro, please do! My email address is [email protected]
Thanks!
Today’ we are chatting with food writer Barbara Sweeney. Barbara has been a regular contributor and columnist for Country Style magazine for many years, she runs the Food and Words Writers festival and the talking cookbook. She spoke to me about how to write about food – she tells me we should all ban the p-word (passion) – because the fact that we are doing what we do shoes we are passionate about it. Less gush more storytelling. Honestly if any of you guys are using social media to tell the story of your product, produce, farm, kitchen whatever – please listen to this interview because she dishes out some excellent advice. This is one of a bunch of interviews I originally recorded exclusively for the ecourse but Barbara’s words were just so worthwhile to me I couldn’t help sharing a slightly shortened version of this interview here on the podcast. 
Helping out this episode again while our regular co-host Skye Manson is away, is Holly Manning of Manning PR and events
Holly’s top 4
- Invisible Farmer Project, largest ever Australian study of women on the land.
- Women who farm
- Photo editing app Touch re-touch
- Instagram business profiles, also a great podcast episode from Social Media Examiner about why we should all ‘convert’ from personal to business.
Sophie’s top 5
- Gary Vaynerchuk – I love this video/audio he posted recently on ignoring the haters and the negative comments.
- Explore your enthusiasm with Tara Swigger. This podcast is full of great ideas and lots of advice for women (and men) who are running and marketing a small, creative businesses online.
- A website called Mamabear – absolutely chock a block with resources and advice for winning at social media.
- Another inspiring woman of the land…Paulette of Provinence growers. She shares so much, so generous. Such passion. Love her column in Gourmet Traveller.
- The Canva phone app – I talked about my love of Canva in the very first episode of this podcast and it has only grown since then. But I’ve only recently started using the phone app for My Open Kitchen stuff and it’s just as great. Better because it’s so quick and easy. For those who don’t know of this app – it lets you create all kinds of designs, Social media posts, presentations, cards, resumes, advts for your local papers, menus for your event, whatever – mostly free, all beautiful. Get on it! Get the app as it’s so useful.