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Local blogger in finals for dream job

Photo from Jenna Weber

Jenna Weber of South Tampa is among 10 finalists for a $60,000, six-month gig blogging and tweeting from California's Sonoma wine country.

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By JEFF HOUCK | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 16, 2009

In April, friends flooded my e-mail with a press release from Murphy-Goode winery announcing its "Really Goode Job" contest. The winner would get a $60,000, six-month gig blogging and tweeting from California's Sonoma wine country.

After months of online voting, Jenna Weber of South Tampa is among the 10 finalists selected. The winner will be announced Tuesday after the group goes through a round of interviews this weekend.

Weber, who in January graduated Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Orlando, writes the blog EatLiveRun.com from her home. She started it two years ago, giving an insider look at culinary school and sharing pictures of what she was making. The site now attracts about 360,000 visits a month.

"I saw someone else do it and I thought, 'I could do that,'" she says.

Weber heard about the Murphy-Goode contest in May. Spurred by the death of her brother a month earlier, she asked her mom, Lynn, to record a short video clip which she sent to the winery.

"I was working as a baker and decided that I can't do something I'm not passionate about," she says. "It basically was a million to one. I sort of spilled my heart on camera. I'm shocked they picked me."

Once the video was posted by Murphy-Goode, blog readers sprang into action, voting for her and writing e-mails to the winery on her behalf.

"They're amazing," she says. "They keep writing to ask how they can help. I consider my blog readers my very good friends."

If she gets the nod from the winery, the job will start Aug. 15. Her goal would be to do what she can to bring a personal aspect to wine.

"I'm someone people can trust. My readers trust me immensely," she says. "I want to make wine seem not so stuffy."

Can I just call you Mr. Hut?

If you've ordered takeout from Pizza Hut recently, you may have noticed that the fast-food chain is now co-branding itself more simply as The Hut.

It's more familiar, more colloquial. It's short and easy to remember. It sounds like something you'd hear after a frat party. As in, "I'm drunk. Let's call The Hut." Or, "I hate my lower intestine. Let's call The Hut."

Pizza Hut is keeping the formal name, but dropping The Hut onto boxes and store signs. The idea: To promote the idea that they offer more than just Pizza.

I'm all for giving nicknames to fast-food franchises. Mickey D's. The BK Lounge. The Double D. I can live with those. They're fun. They're organic.

But I can't bring myself to refer to Pizza Hut as The Hut. It's like calling your dad by a nickname he got in the Philippines.

Moo moo, MOSI

From noon to 2 p.m. today, you can celebrate National Ice Cream Day in the lobby of the Museum of Science & Industry on East Fowler Avenue in Tampa. (Blue Bell ice cream samples are free with a MOSI admission.) Also on hand: MOSI's InterActors demonstrating the Science of Freezing using liquid nitrogen.

For information call MOSI, (813) 987-6000.

Mmmm, cheese

By the end of the week, you'll probably be sick of hearing about the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing. Blah, blah, blah, Neil Armstrong. Blah, blah, blah, it was expensive.

For real quality, pay attention to the hoopla surrounding the event. Like a life-size astronaut carved out of cheese.

Sarah Kauffman, known as "the Cheese Lady," will slice, nick and whittle 1,800 pounds of Wisconsin mammoth white cheddar to make her sculpture. Playing off "the moon is made of cheese" legend, Messr. Fromage Armstrong will be holding a wheel of "Man on the Moon," Swiss cheese.

Kauffman is to finish the sculpture today at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, where it will remain on display next to the world's largest MoonPie.

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