BLOGS WE LOVE
RACHEL RAPPAPORT'S COCONUT AND LIME

June 26, 2012 by MeStro Team

Summer is crazy hot—the kind of hot that pulls at you, wilts, you, makes you yearn for the frostiest winter day. And today, when even under the shade was blistering, it made us at MeStro wish for something homemade, delicious, cold, and superbly shareable. As such, we started in the best arena for foodie perusal: food blogs—recipes and quirky tales from chefs, professional and less so, just like you (and us). Boy did we hit a jackpot. Smack dab in the middle of the opening page of Rachel Rappaport’s award winning blog Coconut and Lime was an absolutely arresting recipe: Creamy Blackberry & Raspberry Ice Box Pie with a Coconut Crust. It’s first impression led to a reverent moment of silence—sweet, cool simplicity, and enough to go around—full-proof perfection in a crumbly crust. We want more. Tell us about your icebox pies; how do you share them? 

A TABLE FROM THE GROUND UP

THE ART OF PICNICKING

June 7, 2012 by MeStro Team

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Bold though it may be, at MeStro we think the best part of summer is outside. Summer sun shimmies through leafy branches in scintillating ribbons of joy, like nothing else. And unlike every other time of year, the days are long and giving, the air is warm, and getting a good tan is highly probable. So, what can be better than mixing the best with the best: earth and food, sun with savory, hot with a glass of cool—oh, and just enough wind to carry the magnificent aroma for miles.  Yep, it’s just the right time picnicking. At The MeStro Blog, we’re hoping you do it big. No scrawniness; just food, friends, and you the chef doing your impressive skills justice. Hence, we’ve scoured our brains and the World Wide Web for bounds of inspiration. From menu to décor to activities and the exciting tidbits in-between, it’s a table from the ground up. Why not make a MeStro meal out of it—expand your culinary influence, combine cookery and community. We can’t wait to see your masterpiece.

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The Great Outdoors Around the World

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MENU

Fresh Corn Chips with Guacamole

Pita Pockets with Grilled Brisket and Vegetables

Spanish Roasted Potatoes

Salad of Arugula, Grilled Peaches, and Goat Cheese

Apple and Pear Turnovers

Vanilla Ice Cream 

For this menu, we went around the globe, using some amazing recipes we found to craft culinary perfection

Tyler Florence - Fresh Fried Corn Chips

Food52 - Spanish Roasted Potatoes

DECOR

With decor, don't be afraid to play with the theme. We started with a picnic table in a large veranda finished with succulents, tall hurricane glasses full of colorful wild flowers and a vibrant indian beaded runner. 

West Elm - Succulents

ACTIVITIES

For fun, we looked to our favorite global sports and pastimes, from cricket to croquet. And

whimsy is a must, entertain small children with games of tag and necklaces of daisies.

Martha Stewart - Daisy Chain

FOOD AND COMMUNITY

A NEW PATH

June 6, 2012 by MeStro Team

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As children great memories were made with food, the smell of buttercream frosting, sweet, moist chocolate cake mingling with the last vestiges of candle smoke; charred edges of tender brisket slathered with sticky sauce on a warm bun punctuated by sour pickles and a tall glass of sweet tea. These memories remain with us not only because of great food, but also good feelings—mom, dad, friends, neighbors, guests—cooking, eating, sharing; why—because food is community. At MeStro we’re taking this fact to heart. As such, we’re forging a new path, one where great food is not reserved for the more sterile environment of restaurants, where sharing delicious meals needs no arsenal of crew, hostess, and maître d’hôtel--just you, the chef. After all, good food comes from the heart, not the pocketbook. So, come cook and share. 

UPDATES

WEBSITE PREVIEW

February 27, 2012 by MeStro Team

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We're so excited today to preview a couple of pages from our upcoming launch. We went through ridiculous numbers of designs to present you guys with what we feel is the simplest, most elegant iteration of the MeStro concept. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please just comment or shoot us a note at mestro369@gmail.com

First up is our landing page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77358123@N05/6934781457/in/photostream/

Secondly, we have our home page (the "cockpit"):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77358123@N05/6788668546/in/photostream/

We can't tell you how awesome we find this, and how stoked we are to launch MeStro in the next few days. Stay tuned for lots more cool pre-launch information!

Sincerely,

The MeStro Team

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FOOD AND COMMUNITY

A LETTER OF PROGRESS

February 27, 2012 by MeStro Team

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To all MeStro supporters,

We know we've been absent from the blogosphere for two months now (forever in internet time), and just wanted to apologize and explain this to all our loyal readers and followers.

It's been hectic here on the development side. Initially, our goal was to get MeStro out there as fast as possible so that this amazing concept could be explored by the general community, but in late November, we realized that this just didn't click with what MeStro is.

MeStro is a platform on which we see people building relationships and communities. As such, we feel that it's completely inappropriate to release something not up to our standards. The social web is crammed with shoddy products, and to be honest, we're sick of it. As such, we made the decision to delay our launch and start development work over from the beginning.

We're proud of what we are and what we're doing, and we can't wait to show you a new and improved MeStro soon. Stay tuned for updates, because it's going to be a blast.

Sincerely,

The MeStro Team

MESTRO

THE 3 GOLDEN RULES OF MESTRO

November 8, 2012 by MeStro Team
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We'd like to continue our introduction to MeStro with a quick overview of what we feel are the most important traits that our users can demonstrate. MeStro is obviously a revolutionary way to look at the dining experience, and we want to help everybody to have the best experience they can! As such, we've identified what we consider our 3 Golden Rules for each type of user.

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For Guests:

1) Communicate - We simply can't stress this enough. MeStro is a social community, so don't hesitate to contact a Chef or MeStro regarding any questions you have. Especially if you have a food allergy, we strongly advise you email the Chefs before booking just to make sure that you'll be ok with the food.

2) Be Repectful - Don't forget, you're in somebody else's home, eating their food. Would you want to invite strangers to sit at your dinner table only to have them be disrespectful? We thought not.

3) Review - Whichever Chef's MeStro you were at, you can be assured that they poured their heart and soul into the food they served you. Show a little love, and leave them a comment or send "kudos" to the chef. Believe us, they'll appreciate it more than you would think.

For Chefs:

1) Keep Commitments - don't forget, people are going to show up to your MeStro hungry and expecting. Nobody likes a host who shows up late to their own dinner.

2) Respond - A good guest will likely communicate with you a few times to confirm the event and perhaps query about the food. Please don't wait to respond to them, as they're putting a lot of faith in you by coming to your MeStro.

3) Be Passionate -Passion always shows. ALWAYS. And at the end of the day, great food and experiences come about because of passion. Your guests aren't coming to your home just to eat food, they're there to share your passion for food with you.

So that's it. 3 simple rules to ensure that you have the amazing dinner experience that MeStro provides!

Sincerely,                                                                                     

The MeStro Team

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How does MeStro work? (Users)

UPDATE

HOW DOES MESTRO WORK? (USERS)

November 5, 2011 by MeStro Team

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Today (with the launch of me-stro.com in the very near future!), we're going to start off a series of posts describing the functionality of MeStro. MeStro is a service by which people can create and book dinner events, so we'll kick things off by explaining the types of user that will exist on me-stro.com.

Throughout the process of creating this service, we've done our absolute best to keep things simple, so MeStro will have only 3 user levels:

1) "Visitors" - Visitors are anybody who browses me-stro.com without logging in. Visitors will be able to search and view events, as well as view MeStro pages. However, because they don't have an official MeStro account, visitors won't be able to access our messaging and event-booking systems.

2) "Guests" - Guests are users who have created a basic-level account, which only takes a name and an email to do (or just use your Facebook and save the effort!). Guests have access to pretty much all of our features - they can access the CockPit (a home screen with all sorts of useful tools for MeStro), message Chefs with questions, book events, and more! However, Guests can't create a MeStro yet, and thus can't host events.

3) "Chefs" - Chefs are our fully enabled users on me-stro.com. To become a chef, all you have to do is create an account and give us the address of your MeStro! We'll take care of creating the basic page, and then you can customize it from there on out. In addition, you'll immediately be able to set up your first dinner event, right after you create your account!

So that's MeStro users in a nutshell: 3 simple levels of user for one very powerful experience. Me-stro.com will be launching soon, and we can't wait to see everybody at the dinner table!

Sincerely,                                                                                                    

The MeStro Team

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Technoratti: ADTS49M2FCVU

MeStro for the Entrepreneur

A lot of us who consider ourselves "Foodies" dream of starting our own restaurant. In fact, one of the founders of MeStro was actually trying to open an Asian Fusion Bistro when the ridiculous economics of restaurants dissuaded him. That's been one of our major drivers behind the MeStro concept - to enable restaurant entrepreneurs ("restaurateurs") with a zero-risk way to test their food in the market!

So how is a MeStro so much better for budding restaurateurs over starting a restaurant? Well, first off, starting a restaurant takes a LOT of capital. Forbes actually wrote an article where they estimate (click here for the article) the startup costs of the average restaurant to be $100,000 to $300,000 dollars! We love our cooking, but it's hard to say that we love it enough to take a $300,000 dollar risk on it! In addition, the amount of costs is just a headache - you have staff, licenses, supply chain, insurance, etc.


Now, after this massive expenditure of capital, restaurants must make back the money in spades right? Wrong. According to Forbes, "if you end up clocking 5% profit margins, pat yourself on the back". Think about how ridiculous that is - say you have $100,000 dollars in revenue one year (5000 meals at $20 a meal, meaning that you have 14 customers every day!), you'll only make $5000 after you pay your expenses.

Let's compare this to a MeStro. Startup costs? None. Staff? None. Rent? Whatever you already pay for your home/apartment. Supply chain and logistics challenges? Only the difficulty of driving to the local grocery store.

We think it's amazing to see how MeStro can enable budding chefs and restaurateurs. With MeStro, all you need is an idea and a frying pan!
MeStro is getting really close to launch, and we can't wait to see all of you at the dining table.



Sincerely,                                                                                                    
The MeStro Team

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Food and Community

At MeStro, our slogan is "Food is Community". Obviously, eating in itself is a very social experience, but what about a MeStro goes deeper than a normal dining experience?

Let's think a bit about how becoming friends with somebody often goes. Quite a lot of the time, there's a three-step process going something like this:

1) You meet somebody(sometimes awkwardly!) at a networking event or randomly, exchange contact info, and go your merry way. Obviously, networking events provide food to try to make the environment more friendly, but we always feel that these events lack a LOT of depth.

2) You meet up for lunch or a drink. Things are a little bit more friendly, but it's still hard to say that you're actually friends. Again, we think it's noteworthy that these meetings are almost always over food of some sort, but seemingly never in a very close environment.

3) You meet at their home, for dinner. All of a sudden, the game has changed a lot. By the end of the evening, it's pretty clear as to what sort of friends you'll be. The connection is far more close and personal, which is why the most intimate dates are always the ones where you have dinner at your partner's house, not at a restaurant. This is where truly deep friendships are forged.

Now imagine that you skip (1) and (2) and go straight to the deeper connection, the more intimate experience. Think about the time you'll save, the experiences you'll have, and the friends you'll make. That's MeStro. That's food helping to build community. We're 100% dedicated to providing that deeper dining experience, and we can't wait to see everybody at the dining table!



Sincerely,                                                                                 
The MeStro Team

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What's a MeStro?

We're guessing that a lot of you are probably wondering, "What's a MeStro?" Well, a MeStro is an experience where community meets food. A MeStro can be a home restaurant, a supper club, a pop-up restaurant, a personal bistro, a home cooking school, or any other personal venue where food is shared. We earnestly believe that food is community, and that starting a MeStro can help you to bring your incredible food to a wider audience.

You can run a MeStro anywhere. Most people we know run them out of their homes, but they've been run from offices, parks, museums, and many other places. MeStro is about the people and the food, not the location.

The key difference between a MeStro and going to a restaurant is the experience. To us, restaurants feel somewhat contrived and artificial. When you dine at someone's home or at a very personal event, there's a certain warmth and depth to the experience which no restaurant can replicate. That's MeStro at its core. Great people connecting over wonderful food.

The launch of MeStro is coming very soon, and we're really excited to share what we've been working on with all of you. 
 
 

Sincerely,

The MeStro Team

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