Well it wasn't from lack of trying, that's for sure. Addie Broyles was amazing as our host and I really enjoyed working with my co-conspirator Sean Cunningham in producing something that we could all be proud of, but unfortunately even with a bare-bones budget, calling in favors with friends and begging/borrowing/stealing equipment, it still comes down to greenbacks.
It always seems to come down to money. Producing a multi-episode cooking show for public broadcasting takes financial support. Every business we contacted for help either gave us the run-around or just never returned our calls. Some we met with seemed excited at the idea and then we never heard from them again. The worst was a rather large corporation that would have given us a lot of serious bragging rights that would help bring in other donors. We were on track with these guys and then they started scaling back how much they were willing to help. Something the equivalent of, "We'll be happy to sponsor your show. How does five dollars sound?" After months of trying to convince people that we had a solid idea, it ended up going nowhere and the stuff we'd shot was starting to get out of date. I still held onto the idea that we could crank SOMETHING out, but by then it was too late and the project just faded away.
Its frustrating to watch something you've put so much effort into die like this. For a while I didn't want anything to do with trying to bring it back to life. Move on to other projects, focus on things you know you CAN accomplish and put everything else to the side. Its been a tough couple of years.
But during that time, I never stopped eating, cooking, and appreciating well made food. My day job keeps me watching other people's cooking shows pretty much all day, so I felt like I was picking up culinary skills just by osmosis.
So now I feel like I'm at a place were I can at least run a blog to show off things that I think are interesting in the culinary world. I like the name and Hell, I spent all that time designing the crest, so why not use it?
So with some gentle prodding from a friend of mine, I've decided to resurrect the Austin Supper Club blog. I figured, "why not at least waste some bandwidth dumping failed food ideas, restaurant reviews and home recipes into one location...for the good of all mankind... or something?"
So here we are.
I've also kept the Facebook group and will be using it to direct traffic to the blog and vice-versa. I hope you'll spend some time and read what I post. If you have suggestions for things I should be talking about or ideas for ways to improve things, I'd love to hear em.
Dig in!
-Rob
It's good to see you back!
ReplyDelete