Meet my good friend Marisa McClellan. A celebrated blogger (and now a published author!), Marisa runs the wildly popular Food in Jars blog, where she teaches the Internet how to make delicious canned nibbles.

Yesterday Marisa’s book, Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round, hit stores everywhere via Running Press, a lovely publisher here in Philadelphia. The book is fantastic, the photography is beautiful, and you should absolutely pick it up immediately.

Seriously. Do it now. Here’s a link to Amazon. You’re welcome.

In honor of her book release, Marisa’s our Geek of the Week. Enjoy, and make sure you visit her blog at foodinjars.com.

1. What made you decide to launch Food in Jars? Why canning?

I started Food in Jars in early 2009 because my job as the editor of Slashfood (AOL’s now-defunct food blog) was ending and I wanted to stay in the food blogging world. I grew up canning with my mom and have been entirely obsessed with jars for years, so it was something that was always part of my life. At the time, there weren’t really any blogs out there dealing with canning, so I figured it would be a good niche for me. At the time though, I had no idea that canning would effectively become my career.

2. A lot of times when a blog lands a book deal, we see those blogs go quiet, start updating less. You? You don’t stop. How did you find a balance between writing on the blog, pursuing your other writing interests, and working on your cookbook?

To my mind, it was never an option to stop writing the blog while writing my book. One of the reasons that I got the opportunity to write the book was that I had an engaged community of readers. A large part of my value as an author was that audience. I had to continue to feed that relationship and develop that community so that there would be people welcoming the book when it was finally released. So I kept writing.

I will say that the summer of 2010 was really hard, because that’s when I was developing all the recipes for my book and was still working full time. I spent all my free time canning and making sure all the recipes for the book worked, while also continuing to invent stuff for the blog. It wasn’t so much about balance as it was general brute force.

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After nine years of publishing a print magazine, Next American City, a nonprofit media organization based in Philadelphia, is making the shift to create exclusively online content with the launch of Forefront, a weekly subscription based digital publication. The new website and publishing model is set to launch next Monday, April 16th.

Forefront will feature a single, long-form article every week, and will be available to digital subscribers or for individual purchase. You’ll be able to grab this content on all standard e-Readers, including iPads, Kindles, etc. “Through Forefront and americancity.org, Next American City aims to cultivate a national voice for the metropolitan opportunity movement, offering readers a coast-to-coast view of issues facing cities, while also pioneering a financially sustainable nonprofit business model for independent media,” says Diana Lind, executive director and editor in chief of Next American City.

Subscription rates are less than $20 a year ($17.99, or just $1.49 a month), and includes 50 original articles, published weekly. Single issues of Forefront are available for $1.99 an article… so clearly the subscription model is the best option here. Details on the upcoming editions were dished out via press release.

In the first Forefront single, which will be published on Monday, April 16, Los Angeles-based journalist Josh Stephens tells the story of how and why former California Governor Jerry Brown dismantled the nation’s largest urban redevelopment system. Stephens takes a comprehensive look at what the decision means for California’s cities and what other municipalities should take away from the situation. Sponsored by the American Planning Association, the first Forefront single will be available free of charge to all readers.

In the second Forefront feature, journalist Daniel Brook profiles Tony Hsieh, the Zappos.com CEO with plans to move his company’s headquarters to the heart of Las Vegas – and bring density, walkability and neighborhood vibrancy with him. Brook asks whether it is at all viable for a sole wealthy entrepreneur to will a New Urbanist vision into existence. Ben Adler, freelance journalist and contributing writer for The Nation, explores the Obama administration’s success in reforming federal housing, urban development and transportation policies, in the third single.

In addition to this new online publication model, “Next American City will also aggregate stories on urban change from partner media outlets reporting on local issues affecting cities, to create real impact with content and reach national audiences.” This will make them the only national aggregator of local stories about urban affairs. The redesigned version of AmericanCity.org is also set to launch on Monday.

With all the shakeups going on in the Philly media world, it’s nice to see something new surfacing. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.

St. Joe’s Prep grads often go on to create great things. Take Michael Nutter’s countless endeavors as Mayor of Philadelphia, Rob McElhenney’s much-rejoiced It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or perhaps the blog post you’re currently reading, also written by a Prep grad.

For Aaron Horton, Web Producer at GPTMC (or as he calls it, “the greatest city in the world’s tourism marketing bureau”) it was “making fun of Michael Jordan on the internet.”

When not busy helping bring visitors to our fair city, Horton has admitted to dreaming of new, ridiculous websites and often not following through. In the case of this one, he did; much to the celebration of Jordan fans everywhere. The topic of Jordan’s wardrobe spawned as many things do, from conversations with friends. The oddity of Jordan’s apparel can often be seen at Charlotte Bobcats games, which he co-owns, says Horton. It was from this oddity that wtfismikewearing.tumblr.com was born.
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When last we heard from Chris Sasser, the Philly-area native was working through an obsession with cinematic sharks via his blog Shark City. Since there haven’t been any attacks on the Brody family since 1987’s truly awful Jaws: The Revenge, Sasser has expanded his online presence to include the blogs Low Moan and Collect ‘Em All.

While the former is a celebration of the flight flicks that regularly used to run on UHF station Creature Double Feature-type shows, the latter celebrates “movie cards that never were, but should have been.” Remember when you were a kid and used to buy Topps trading cards based on the latest blockbuster? It’s a hobby that exists largely in the past these days, but Sasser is fanning the flames of nostalgia by creating mockups of cards that either weren’t previously available or alternate versions of familiar card sets such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

He cites Joe Dante and John Carpenter as his biggest influences, so it’s little surprise that Collect ‘Em All has featured Internet trading cards inspired by the Gremlins films and The Thing. But where the site really comes alive is by showcasing works based on cult flicks ranging from Amazon Women on the Moon to Day of the Dead. The only thing missing is the stale stick of gum.

So how does he decide which flicks are worthy of the Collect ‘Em All treatment?

“I simply pick and choose contents and cards for the site based on my own personal interests and obsessions,” he says, adding “some films lend themselves to bubblegum cards more seamlessly than others. I enjoy it most when I can incorporate a clever graphic design element into the overall look. For example, the Psycho II cards were fun to do as the background as made up to look like shower stall tiles.” In a throwback to his first blog, Sasser makes it clear that “my favorite cards are easily the Jaws one. I did two complete series of them.”

While Sasser also dabbles in creating retro-themed film magazines (including a downloadable one for Poltergeist) and original art, he is ramping up production on the serio-comic film “Side Effects May Include” through his Pending Pictures setup. It’s a safe bet that the short will also be a ghoulishly good time.

About a week ago Drew Bacon of Music Box Dynamo sent me a tweet about his ridiculously geeky guitar, The Poppler. After watching the clip that shows off the axe (and his vocal prowess), I had to post a little something about the instrument.

Drew admits that this isn’t the fanciest guitar in the world, a simple Fender DG8 acoustic guitar… but to him, it’s pretty damn special. It’s the guitar he learned how to play music on back in 2007.

Fast forward to 2011, and he’s regularly performing with a better guitar. He spotted his old ax sitting lonely in the corner and broke out pads of paper and pencils, furiously sketching characters he admired.

“It’s a little bit of good and evil,” says Bacon about the art on the guitar, “Superman, The Death Star, Bender, Leeloo Multipass, Lord Voldemort, The Bride, Spiderman, Philadelphia Skyline, Batman, The Joker, Captain America, A Snow Willow Tree, Wolverine, The Man With No Name, Mickey Mouse, an Iron Man [Arc Reactor], and a hidden hometown logo I don’t mention unless someone spots it.”

The whole thing took a little over two months to create, and it looks awesome. And in case you didn’t know, Poppler is a brilliant Futurama reference.

Make sure to check out Music Box Dynamo as they perform all around the city over the year. The song in the video is actually about their first show together. Hit up the band on their official website and on Facebook.

Being the film geek that I am, when I am not watching movies I’m probably either reading about them or listening to people talk about them.

Speaking of which, Film Versus Film is a great new weekly web series produced at our very own Temple University. The series features a different in-depth film discussion each week by a panel made up of local filmmakers, professors, critics and scholars.

While I am a fan of the series, I only wish that the shows were a bit longer, though the series looks quite polished and well produced. I highly suggest checking it out and you can see a sample episode below, enjoy!

Geekadelphia obviously hearts WordPress: it’s the very foundation of our beloved blog. And, as it turns out, we’re not the only ones in Philly who prefer to manage our content with Automattic’s open source system. There’s a great community of WordPress fans in our fine city, meeting monthly to discuss the popular blogging platform.

On November 5th and 6th at Temple University, that community will gather for the much bigger annual WordCamp Philly conference. With Saturday sessions for users, power users, designers and developers, WordCamp Philly covers all the bases, no matter what your specific interest.

Super-duper WordPress geeks can return to Temple on Sunday for more code-oriented fare like contributing to the underlying codebase that powers the platform and developing plugins that augment the great built-in functionality of WordPress.

The conference will include talks from a wide range of speakers, including one of those guys from that other blog. Of course, you may fancy yourself a WordPress guru, in which case you can cast aside all that humility we know you have for a moment and nominate yourself to speak at the event. And if a solid day or two of WordPress geekery just sounds like the best kind of weekend ever, hit the registration page to secure a spot.

Update: It looks like they’re sold out, but you can get on the waiting list here.

WordCamp Philly 2011
Temple University’s Alter Hall
1801 Liacouras Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19122-6083
Register here

Photo by Danya Henninger

Today’s Geek of the Week column features Collin Flatt, who a lot of you might know from his food writing here in Philadelphia. From Phoodie to the Feast, you’ve surely read his blogs about tasty noms. Read on to learn about how he got into food writing, his massive video game collection (MASSIVE), and his favorite haunts for food and drink.

Let’s start off with you telling me about yourself. People might know you best for your former involvement with Phoodie and presently with The Feast. How did you get into the food scene and blogging about it?

I am a food obsessed individual, like most young Philadelphians, but I just happened to get obsessed a little ahead of the curve. My mom was a bad cook (love you, moms), and because of this, I wasn’t exposed to great vittles when I was little and have no allegiance to her gravy or casseroles, like most food folks I know.

What this did, though, was provide my palate with an early education on odd flavor combinations, and food that was inexplicably out of balance. She made meatloaf that was covered in Rice Krispies, and her Chicken a la King is legendary for it’s bonding properties. Obviously it has scarred me for life. Because of those experiences, I searched out food from cultures all around the world, and made it my mission to be a better cook than she was.

I started writing about wine first, and it spread into food journaling, and then beer as well. Hobbies become your job if you decide to spend more time on them than what you’re paid to do.

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Everybody loves a good story, and local non-profit First Person Arts believes everyone’s got a good one to tell. If you’ve never been to one of their famed slams, you should do yourself a favor and stop by the next one.

Their latest and greatest idea for encouraging us to share our stories with each other comes in the form of a slick little Tumblr page.

The idea is simple: monthly themes are announced and YOU get to submit a story that goes along with it. At the end of the month, a favorite is picked. Even better, in celebration of their 10th anniversary, the stories are limited to just 10 words. (more…)

Welcome to Geek of the Week, where we highlight and profile a special geek in our wonderful city of Brotherly Love. This week we talk to Conrad Benner of Streets Dept, contributor to Phrequency.com and former blogger with Philthy.us.

So, Conrad, I’ve known of you for quite some time. I’m a big fan of your blog. You were with Philthy Blog for a while, how and why did you start that?

Well back in 2007, Paul Thorson (creator of Philthy.us) told me he was going to add a blog to his nightlife photography site, and he asked me if I wanted to run it. I had known Paul for about a year prior, mostly from him taking mine (and everyone else’s) photos all the time at different bars and clubs. And Paul had always liked my little blog, “Ugh News,” that, among other things, made fun of photos of drunk hipsters at clubs, so he asked me to do a similar thing for him. It was a match made in heaven!

Over the two and a half years, [Philthy] turned into a great soapbox for me to voice my opinions on everything. I bought a Flip camera one year and went to Barack Obama’s inauguration, then I’d interview a vegan bakery owner, then I’d go to First Friday with my friends and talk with artists.

It was really just an extension of whatever I was interested in at the time, and it really helped me build a bit of an audience that, I think, has followed me to Streets Dept and to my other freelance writing.

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“A long time ago and far far away,
A story was told of an epic space fray
The good and the bad
In the life of a lad,
How he was lost but then found his way.”

So begins the journey of one man to encompass the entirety of Star Wars into limerick form. But how can one person contain all of the Star Wars universe into a few stanzas with rhyme and meter… and in a format usually reserved for dirty poems? Well it is possible. I have seen it. And it is good. Surprisingly so.

This Death Star sized project is currently right in the middle of Attack of the Clones and is moving along at a clip.

Prepare to experience Star Wars like you never have before… and I’m not talking about the Special Editions with Han Solo stepping on a digital Jabba’s tail. Ugh that squeal.

Check it out.

Star Wars Retold in Limericks
starwarslimerick.blogspot.com

As a native of Atlantic County and a 7 year Philadelphia transplant, I am beyond pleased to learn that the local Philly startup, DrinkPhilly is covering their bases for weekend vacationers with the launch of DrinkJerseyShore.com.

After turning 21 in Philadelphia, the nation’s beer capital and living next to The Foodery, I lamented my first trip back toward the beach that summer, upon discovering the average swig in my hometown was Corona. Many bars supplied a laundry list of crappy domestic light beers — all significantly overpriced. This left me appalled… since when does being on the beach have to equate with terrible taste?

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