Daily Loaf

A few weeks ago, I joined Twitter on the advice of super food blogger Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen. It has been great. The hardest thing by far is to schedule actual “twitter sessions” during my work day, or I’ll just produce absolutely nothing and tweet all day.

For anyone who’s unaware, on Twitter, you can “follow” people (meaning you can read their constant updates in real time) or you can be “followed” by others (meaning people who “follow” you can read your constant updates in real time). Needless to say, the more followers you get, in comparison to the ones you follow, the cooler you are in Twitterville. But also, the quality of the people who follow you is really important. Following Barack Obama, Demi Moore or Jay Leno, for instance, is not as cool as being followed by said persons. It’s a balancing act.

There’s always someone you admire, a guru you cherish, or a big shot you respect. For chefs like me, being followed by Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud or Grant Achatz would be a huge deal.

And that brings me to Eric Ripert. Chef Ripert of Le Bernardin in New York City is one of the leading celebrity chefs today. You may have bought his cookbooks or seen him on the Food Network. Chef Ripert is on Twitter. So it was only normal that as a new Twitterer and follower of the most followed, I decided to follow him.

A few days later, I assumed, Chef Ripert checked my bio and my website out, and thought I was cool enough to be followed. That was exciting enough to deserve a public post on Twitter: “Guess what, Eric Ripert is following me!!!”.

About 3 days down the Twitter road, I noticed that someone “un-followed” me. Being un-followed is quite a shameful process, after all you’re now unworthy of a following. It’s a big blow to Twitterers.

I jokingly posted: “Hey, someone just un-followed me. How dare she/he? Hope it’s not Eric Ripert!”. Sure enough, it was. The disappointment was hard to take, but I took it nonetheless.

However, it came to my attention though a news feed that the reason for Eric Ripert’s ungracious un-follow was a fairly decent one, and more importantly, one that didn’t brush my ego the wrong way. He had a good excuse.

As things turned out, Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin was outraged for the illegal use of his identity on Twitter. Twitter’s Eric Ripert was an imposter; someone who was pretending to be who he is not, and who profited off the fake identity by selling kitchen knives, pots and pans, and other stuff a celebrity chef might hawk.

So to conclude, my honor was miraculously saved. Eric Ripert, the real one, never followed me, anymore than he followed other low-life chefs in the Twitterverse. He may never have followed me, but he also never un-followed me, which is what really, really matters.

Twitter being what it is, and experiencing the phenomenal growth that it is experiencing, it probably is only a question of time before Eric Ripert realizes he wants to follow a few folks. Then, maybe, my time will come and I’ll have the joy to being followed for what I am: A great follower.

Gui Alinat is a regular contributor on the Daily Loaf. He’s a local executive chef, blogger and food writer. You can check him out on his blog. And of course, you can follow him on Twitter.

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