Follow Friday: Francis Lam, Heather Poole, Mashable

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a full-fledged Follow Friday post, but I’ve been waiting for some quality reading to materialize.  So without further ado, here is some reading/Tweeting to kick off your weekend:

#Food – Francis Lam: @francis_lam

“An Immigrant Thanksgiving”
Francis Lam is an incredibly talented writer and trained cook who earned his stripes in the food writing world at the now defunct Gourmet.  Lucky for us food geeks he’s landed at Salon.com, where he handles the food section.  I would have mentioned this particular holiday-themed story last week but we were all busy stuffing our faces with turkey — or in Lam’s case, not turkey.  Lam, who grew up in a Chinese immigrant family like myself, relates growing up without the traditional American Thanksgiving bird and trimmings.  As his mom said, “It doesn’t taste good. It’s so dry.”

I laughed out loud — might as well have been my mom in that story.  Ahh, fobby moms.  Gotta love ‘em.

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#Travel – Heather Poole: @heather_poole

“Airline seniority, bidding & working undesirable trips”
A small part of me has always secretly wished to be a flight attendant.  Perhaps it’s the glamour of traveling around the world, or their perfectly polished look and impeccable make-up.  (P.S. Korean Air takes the cake on that category.)  Real-life flight attendant Heather Poole casts a light on this mystique, offering up insider “Galley Gossip” about the ins and outs of working for a major commercial airline.  As you may expect, it’s not that glamorous, but Heather has a way of endearing her lifestyle to her readers.  All that jargon and insider secrets — you can’t help but feel like you want to be a part of the cool kids.

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#Media – Mashable: @mashable

“The Tao of Tweeting”
You know that social and online media has reached its apex when there are entire sites devoted to showing people how to effectively utilize it.  Mashable is one such site, covering news and how-tos on everything from Facebook and Twitter to WordPress and Blogger.  I picked “Tao” by Soren Gordhamer because I loved the thought process in this story — Gordhamer uses principles of the ancient 2,500-year-old Tao Te Ching to set guidelines for modern-day “tweeting.”

My favorite:

“The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity; For this reason, he has integrity.”
– Tao Te Ching

In other words, show, don’t tell.  Until next time!