Josh Shear

What else would you do with a week's worth of leftovers except start making omelets? And, of course, apologizing for the hideousness of the photo you took with your cell phone.

I'm going to just run on the assumption that you know how to make an omelet. If not, here's a reasonable primer.

My Sunday morning breakfast was made with roasted peppers, catfish and pineapple chunks left over from the catfish bites we went over yesterday, along with some mozzarella I had left over from the eggplant caprese from Wednesday.

And since I'm a dork, that's cinnamon toast. And you won't be surprised to hear there was coffee nearby.

This was the unexpected winner of the night. I kind of went out on a limb with this but it worked out.

First, roast some peppers and let them cool.

Next, sautée two catfish fillets in butter, lime juice and peppermint, and let them cool.

I used canned pineapple for this, but you could certainly cut up some fresh pineapple. Your call.

Cut the peppers and catfish into bite-sized pieces. Stack a bite of catfish on top of a bite of pepper, and top it with a piece of pineapple. A toothpick goes a long way toward holding it all together.

Refrigerate and serve cold.

We're taking a break from the roasted peppers today, but don't worry, they'll be back Thursday and Friday!

This is an easy one, and pretty darn delicious.

• 1 large eggplant
• 2 large beefsteak tomatoes
• 8 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
• fresh basil leaves

I prefer to draw some of the liquid out of the eggplant. To do that, slice the eggplant, arrange the slices on a paper towel, lightly salt the slices, and put another paper towel on top. You can do this in multiple layers as long as you keep a paper towel between the layers. Come back in about an hour; your eggplant will have dried a bunch and your paper towels will be soaked.

You can slice the tomatoes and mozzarella (matching the number of slices is the way to go) while you wait.

Start with the eggplant, then add a slice of tomato on top of that, then a slice of cheese, then a basil leaf.

The end. See how easy that was?

Food week continues here on the blog with a roasted pepper hummus you can dip pretty much anything into.

First, you should roast some peppers and let them cool.

Next, get out your blender. This recipe is scalable, so I'll just give you the ratios I used based on one can of garbanzo beans (also called chick peas).

• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• water (just have your sink nearby)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 8 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 roasted pepper

Purée the beans, adding water as you go to help. Add oil and garlic; blend. Add pepper last.

Note: If you wind up adding too much water, you can boil some of the liquid off.

I hosted a small gathering over the weekend and, as usual, cooked too much. So, I'm taking the week to offer up my recipes on the blog.

The theme of the night wound up being roasted peppers. It turns out that roasting six of them gives you more than you need to work with. If you've never roasted your own peppers, you're missing out. As you know – because you've bought the jarred ones – roasting brings out the sweetness. But jarred roasted peppers tend to be salty and briny.

Roasted bell peppers

I used orange, yellow and red peppers (they're all sweeter than green). Seed and wash the peppers and cut them in quarters. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. I added rosemary and basil; I've been known to use clove on occasion, as well.

Place the peppers in the pan, drizzle lightly with more olive oil. After about 8 minutes, flip the peppers, roast for another 5-6 minutes.

Line a plate with paper towels, then put the peppers on the plate to cool, but don't let them dry completely. These will last in the refrigerator for a few days.

Salsa

Now for the salsa. Ingredients:

• 1 roasted pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 4 large beefsteak tomatoes, cut into eighths
• 6 cloves garlic
• 3 jalapeño peppers, sliced
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can corn, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup water

In a saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic, onion and jalapeño pepper. Add tomato and water, turn heat down to medium and cover. Bring to a boil.

Add remaining ingredients. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

Drain some liquid if desired (I prefer my salsa on the thick/chunky side).

Makes about 3 quarts, and would qualify as a mass-market medium salsa. A tablespoon of cayenne pepper or another three jalapeños would kick up the heat a bit.

There were over 20 people at the Syracuse tweetup Thursday at Recess Coffee. There is no science to setting up such an event, and getting people face to face is not brain surgery. Here's how this one came about.

Picking a date and time. Ask on Twitter. People seemed generally to think Thursday would be a good evening for them, and some mentioned specific dates. You're not going to please everyone, so you have to just pick a date. Most people get out of work between 4 and 6, so 5:30 seems like a good starting time, figuring that some people will arrive early and some people will arrive late, but nobody has to go home and urge themselves out the door after they've kicked off their shoes.

Picking a place. Again, you're never going to please everybody. But there are things everyone wants in a location: parking, something to eat and/or drink, and – something we learned from the last tweetup – someplace where they don't have to shout over loud music and loud dinner conversations. Since Recess Coffee is smallish, I called them three weeks ahead of the date and asked if they would mind if something on the order of 20 of us showed up (the worst thing we could do for them would be to scare away anyone who would normally be there, if we were going to show up once). They said sure, and most people bought coffee (or peanut butter hot chocolate), and we're good to go back, as long as we give them some notice.

Why? We're already connected on Twitter, why do a tweetup? Personalities and ideas tend to germinate in person, especially when people get to talk for several minutes and exchange business cards. And when great minds get together and create great things, everybody wins.

Who's in to plan the next one? I'll help!

If memory serves, the following people were at Thursday night's Syracuse tweetup. If I missed you (and I likely will miss someone), @ me and I'll get you on the list post-haste. If you're on MySpace, friend our hosts, Recess Coffee.

• @beaslee (Nicole)
• @billpfohl (Bill)
• @bradfordmorse (Bradford)
• @bradintheam (Brad)
• @burrito19 (Beth)
• @dagsly (Frank)
• @Gaelen2 (Pat)
• @itsahero (Rachel)
• @JayClewis (Jay)
• @Jill_HW (Jill, with Tom)
• @JoshShear (Josh)
• @kelvinringold (Kelvin)
• @kitschqueen (Susan, with Jason)
• @Mitch_M (Mitch)
• @paddyshaughn (Patrick)
• @philatsun (Phil)
• @samskelton (Sam)
• @tdog4494 (Tim)
• @toddengel (Todd)
• @tracytilly (Tracy)

I really enjoy Vimeo's Discover function.

Take five minutes to watch this presentation. Thanks to Susan Hall (Twitter) for passing it along.

First let me say that that newspaper is gorgeous. Decorate-your-wall gorgeous. And if you transfer those infographics to the web, they'd kill on digg. And yes, I'd probably buy it with some sort of consistency, because I like pretty things.

I wrote about 2,000 words about why I think this wouldn't work in the U.S., focusing on the fact that people who read newspapers like to read stories and people who write newspaper stories like having a place to show off their writing and more and more, the stories in this paper are being told with photos and graphics.

But I realized as I was writing, it's fairly obvious that readers don't enjoy reading quite as much as writers enjoy writing. So the fact that there might be no more than 200 words on a front page or 500 words in any interior spread isn't a problem for me.

I do, however, think it has a magazine-like quality that makes it less attractive as a daily news source and more appealing as something to look at slowly throughout the day or week. It makes me want to admire the artwork, not find out what's going on at school board meetings – I think I'd be distracted from the news.

But then, maybe that's just me. I like news, and I like the written word. Perhaps people would get more out of bigger graphics and shorter stories, though – USA Today has done very well on that model, and it's not a paper I pick up at all, which means I likely wouldn't be the target audience for something like this.

What do you think?

I won't lecture you on link exchanges and search engine optimization. Instead, I'll tell you one way to fish for more work (and possibly end the link exchange requests).

I received this email the other day:

Dear Webmaster,

We sell health products at [a vitamin site] and are interested in exchanging links with your website.

Regards,

[person's name]

This email is NOT sp/\m. It only ever gets sent to each website once. If this is not the case please let me know.

Rather than deleting it, I decided to write back.

Hi [Name],

The new social web is adamantly against link exchanges, so much so that search engines like Google and Bing recognize link swaps that don't appear to make sense (e.g., I don't write about vitamins, supplements, or even health with the rare exception, so why would we link to each other?) – and worse, they penalize sites for such exchanges, sometimes even de-listing them entirely.

I am available to help better optimize your site for search engines and improve the usability on your site, if you are in need of such services. Please see this page for a description of what I do and a current portfolio.

Best,
Josh

I'll let you know if they take me up on the offer. Cuz that'd actually be pretty cool.