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.

3. The photography in the cookbook is stunning. What was it like working with Steve Legato?

I absolutely love the images that Steve made for this book. He was wonderful to work with. He spent a considerable amount of reading my blog before the photo shoot, so that he could get a feel for my style of photography. The result of that is that the feel of the book is similar to the blog. I couldn’t be more pleased with how the book looks.

4. Back to food blogs, who are some of your favorites? Any local favorites?

There are so many excellent food blogs out there these days that it’s really hard to pick favorites. If I’ve forced to choose, a few of my all-time favorites are Local Kitchen (a fellow preserver located in New York State), Remedial Eating (so much lovely photography) and Mostly Foodstuffs (a friend with a tendency to make the most delicious fruit-infused spirits).

Around these parts, I’m always on the lookout for new posts from Messy and Picky (confession: authors Albert and Kate are dear friends), Mac & Cheese (blogger Taylor is expecting her first baby!), The Cozy Herbivore (Sara May is also a pastry chef down at Franklin Fountain/Shane’s Candies) and Madame Fromage (Tenaya was my advisor when I wrote my masters thesis. Be kind to your professors, as they may turn into some of your closest friends).

5. Philly is full of fabulous foodies, many of whom likely have cookbook-writing-aspirations. Have any advice for them?

Find a niche (what could make your book stand out?). Start a blog and build an audience (you are a heck of a lot more valuable to a publisher if you can point to a group of people who are already engaged in what you do). Keep trying (Before I got my contract with Running Press, I spent nearly a year working with another publisher. When the deal there eventually fell apart, I gathered myself up and started over). Be prepared to compromise (once you do get a deal, you rapidly learn that it takes a team of people to create a cookbook. These people have worked on many, many cookbooks. They often know better than you. Figure out when to defer to their judgment and when to stick to your guns).

6. Is there another cookbook coming up? I’ve heard from a reputable source it’s going to be called Food in Jars II: Jar Harder.

Love that title!

Right now, I have a couple ideas for future cookbooks, but nothing is official yet. Working on this book has been so engrossing that focusing my energy on a new proposal has been more than I’ve been able to manage. I’m hopeful that soon, I’ll get my act together and get those ideas down on paper.

7. Anything else you’d like to share?

Just two things. The first is that if this canning thing intrigues any of you readers out there in Geekadelphia land, don’t forget that I teach canning classes. You can find me at Indy Hall and Greensgrow all summer and fall (schedule here). The second is that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of my husband and fellow geek, Scott McNulty. You should buy his books too!

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.

According to Horton, he never had any plans with the site aside to evoke some laughter. Though, he does say he’d love to get a cease and desist letter from Jordan one day. “That’s when I’ll really know the site has made it. If not a cease and desist, at least some acknowledgment that Mike has seen it.”

It’s still entirely unclear if Jordan himself has seen the website. However, in the past year-plus that Horton’s Tumblr blog has been around, it’s definitely made the rounds. As of today, the blog has around 3,750 followers and has been mentioned by Grantland (which netted the highest spike to date, 40,000 hits in one day), Business Week, The Root, Huffington Post, Complex and even Glamour’s Parisian site.

As a lifelong NBA fan and Philadelphian, Horton has had a long history of rooting against Mike. In the early ’90s he was cheering on Charles Barkley, by the latter part of that decade, he was cheering on an up-and-coming Iverson, a then newcomer to The Sixers. To dispel some confusion Horton proclaims, “Despite what may sound like Jordan hate, this is NOT why I started the Tumblr, despite the accusations…” Though a lover of basketball, Horton isn’t into fashion at all, “The stuff Jordan wears is just extraordinary bad. I can’t even say “bad”. His style is unique and very indescribable. But by no metric is he a well-dressed man.”

“Honestly, MJ is a 50 year old man, he’s not expected to be the most stylish person. Or even halfway stylish. So photos of Mike with his pants a bit hiked up, or an ugly ‘dad sweater’ don’t really display what makes him truly special.”

For now Horton plans to continue his occasional posts on the blog, there’s apparently no shortage of photos but he’s very particular about which photos do make it onto the blog. Throughout, the most surprising part that has been the overwhelming positive reaction. He’d assumed that he would be receiving nasty comments from Jordan fans, but that’s apparently been far from the case. Occasionally he’ll hear something akin to “Jordan is a legend and can wear whatever he wants. I bet you dress like crap.” To which he responds, “I usually tell them that they are correct on both points.”

To follow one of basketball’s greats and his fashion follies, be sure to check out “What The F*** is Michael Jordan Wearing?” on Tumblr.

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.

Word on the street is that you’ve got a seriously impressive video game console collection. Let’s hear as full of a report as you can provide.

I got way into the Atari 2600 when I was old enough to pick up the sticks, with my favorite games being Adventure, Pitfall, and Yars Revenge. We had an original from 1977, which still has the price tag from Boscov’s on it. A note to people who bitch about pricey game systems, the Atari was $175 back then, which translates to almost $600 today. Crazy.

I subsequently got my own first game console when I was 8 years old in 1986, which was the Sega Master System. All of my friends had the NES, but the SMS was a little more powerful, and a little more cutting edge. From that point, I was hooked on gaming, and collected systems.

I own 32 systems total, past and present. Most of them have been purchased long after release, as no kid could really keep up with the technology financially. The crown jewels in my collection are the Vectrex, and the Odyssey2, because of their rarity.

The systems I own are: Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Coleco Vision, Intellivision, Sega Master System, NES, Gameboy, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, Turbo Grafx 16, Turbo Xpress, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Super Famicom (Japan), Sega CD, Sega 32X, Neo Geo Gold, Panasonic 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn White (Japan), Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Playstation 3.

My favorite series to this day is Metal Gear, and all of its many incarnations. Hideo Kojima was the first game designer to bridge the gap between games and movie productions. He pushed the technology to its limits, and created a real culture and universe where Solid Snake lived. Character development, dialogue, directing, and epic set pieces were his M.O.

Collin and HughE Dillon of PhillyChitChat.com

What’s currently your favorite spot in town?

I have a soft spot for Zahav, as Mike Solomonov is one of the most talented chefs I’ve ever met, and more importantly he’s one of the nicest people on the planet. My other haunts are Bibou, the French bistro in South Philly, and Barbuzzo, Marcie Turney’s place on 13th. The best bowl of soup is at Cafe Diem, the pho joint on 8th, where I eat lunch two times a week. For beer, I head to Varga Bar, Monk’s, SPTR, Good Dog, and The Standard Tap, but my homebase is definitely the P.O.P.E.

What’s your favorite dish (or drink)?

I have a few favorite dishes. The Chicken Liver Rigatoni at Osteria, The Bun Bo Hue at Cafe Diem, Stuffed Pig’s Foot with Foie Gras at Bibou, Twice Cooked Eggplant at Zahav, and David Ansill’s Steak Tartare.

Drinkwise, our local beer scene is chock full of amazing stuff. My favorites are Troeg’s Nugget Nectar, Sly Fox Pikeland Pilsner, Flying Fish Exit 4, Yards ESA, and Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady. I also have a soft spot for Bear Republic Racer 5 I.P.A., and Russian River Supplication. I do have a tattoo of Brasserie Cantillon Brouwerij on my shoulder. I’ve got a thing for sours.

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Thanks for chatting with us, Collin. To read up more on his latest food adventures, check out The Feast – Philadelphia. In the meantime, we wait excitedly for pictures of your complete video game collection. As the old adage goes, pics or it didn’t happen.

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.

The 10 word limit yields some pretty creative use of language. If you aren’t the wordsmith, you can always share a video or picture instead.

Go on then, tell us your story.

First Person Arts Tumblr
firstpersonarts.tumblr.com

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.

Why did you end up making the change to StreetsDept? How is it different than Philthy?

Part of me wants to admit how much of a control freak I am, and say it was all because I wanted to control every aspect of the site’s design and format. (And I guess that’s largely true.) But I think it really all started when I bought my first digital SLR back in December. While I had previously had a decent point-and-shoot, and was constantly taking photos of sunsets and stuff, I had saved up for nearly a year to buy this DSLR, and I told myself I was going to put it to good use. And I did.

Within the first few weeks in fact, I had so many photos that I wasn’t even sure exactly what to do with them all. I knew I wanted more than a Flickr page though, so I figured I’d start my own photo blog. And considering that the vast majority of my photos dealt with street art, I figured I’d start a blog devoted mostly to highlighting its ever-changing, vibrant life in Philadelphia.

The name alone was a big thing though. It took me about a month to pin it down. All of my friends hated me because it was all I could ever talk about.

How do you seem to be everywhere at all times? Do you, or have you ever, had any contributors to your blog(s)? How do you do it?

Well firstly, I walk around a heck of a lot. After breaking my leg in a bike accident in 2009, I’m still kind of freaked out about biking in the city, so I walk almost everywhere I go. And I always have my camera on me. So a lot of the time I just get lucky.

But, yes, I definitely have people who email me with either photos of street art in their neighborhood, or just details on where I can find some new stuff. I usually get at least a dozen emails a week with hints or photos, and it’s only getting better as more people learn about me.

Lately I’ve even been getting emails from the street artists themselves, telling me how much they like the site, and letting me know where to find their newest work. Gaia, the internationally renowned street artists, recently made a trip to Philly and emailed me the location of a few of his wheat pastes that I otherwise would have never found.

In a few cases, I’m even teaming up with the artist to shoot them putting up their new work. Ishknit’s contacted me a couple of months ago about yarn bombing the seats on a few of the Market-Frankford line trains, and I of course followed her along. Since then, those photos have blown up so much, she was even just interviewed by the New York Times! Insane.

The site’s growing really fast, and I think people are excited about it and are fantastic about helping me.

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Thanks, Conrad. To experience his love of Philadelphia, his wonderful photography and see his Apartment Complex features and more, please visit StreetsDept.com