About Me
I'm a Melbourne boy, hailing from St Kilda with one ex, one current wife and four kids. Love the outdoors and making new discoveries. I cook a lot at home (cheers from wife) and do some preserving, mostly jams, pickles and fruit liqueurs. This is the diary of a cooking journey.

My Complete Profile

Recent Posts
Pointed
Words
A Sign
Say Cheese
The Means With Beans
Take A Peek
A Grate Adventure
The Operation
The Dark Recesses
Here I Am

Links
1001 Dinners 1001 Nights
A Few of My Favourite Things
Abstract Gourmet
Apellation Australia
Becks and Posh
BurgerMary ATX
Cook (almost) Anything at least once
Cooking Down Under
Cook sister!
Cooked And Bottled In Brunswick
David Lebovitz
Deep Dish Dreams
Chef Paz
Chubby Hubby
Eating Melbourne
Eating With Jack
essjay eats
Food Lover's Journey
Gosstronomy
Grab Your Fork
I Am Obsessed With Food
I Eat Therefore I Am
Iron Chef Shellie
Just Desserts
Kalyn's Kitchen
Kitchen Wench
Lobstersquad
Matt Bites
Melbourne Gastronome
My Kitchen in Half Cups
Nola Cuisine
Not Quite Nigella
Nourish Me
Seriously Good
Souvlaki For The Soul
Stone Soup
Sunnybrae
Syrup and Tang
Steve Don't Eat It!
That Jess Ho
The Elegant Sufficiency
The Perfect Pantry
The View From My Porch
Thyme for Cooking
Tomato
Tumeric & Saffron
tummy rumbles
What I Cooked Last Night
where's the beef
WhiteTrashBBQ
Vicious Ange

Food Blog Resources
Food Blog S'cool
I Eat I Drink I Work
Kiplog Food Links

Food for Thought
Autism Victoria
Autism Vox
forget me now
Lotus Martinis
MOM - Not Otherwise Specified
St Kilda Today

Monday, February 19, 2007
Transparency
Over at Food Blog S'cool, Sam has written a heads up to a post over at Almost Vegetarian regarding gifts from PRs to food bloggers. In the post, AV points out the pros and cons of accepting gifts from PR (Public Relations) and persuasively argues that accepting a gift is akin to making a deal with the devil, unless you can accept that gift on your own terms.

I wrote an article for The Age newspaper about vinegar some twelve years ago, before they changed their policy about accepting gifts and I recall all the vinegar samples that were sent to me and The Age; I simply boxed my gifts up and forwarded them to the paper who got a nice photo for the article. Okay, it was only vinegar, but I wonder if it was a truffles or foie gras how I would have gone? Of course if it was for an article I would have had to try some, but exactly what do you say about a freebie. Do you unconsciously write a few more encouraging words than you otherwise would? It's impossible to know, so why put yourself in that position?

Something that's been on my mind a bit is that I often write about food and wine retailers and one in particular, Prince Wine Store, has featured several times on this blog. Whenever I write about a store it's because something about them has piqued my interest and an article just flows from there. But because I've mentioned Prince Wine Store a few times, I've wondered if some readers might think that I have some special interest, financial or otherwise, in them.

So just to set the record straight, the only interest I have in the Prince Wine Store is as a customer. I shop for wine at three different stores, the other two being Dan Murphy's and Vintage Cellars. The main reason I write mostly about Prince Wine Store is that consistently they have the more interesting wines and to my mind they don't seem unduly expensive and the wines are very often put on tasting - absolutely free. Which I think you, gentle reader, should know about.

I know that, having attended several tastings, these people are not only passionate about wine, they are also very knowledgeable to boot. They have never approached me to write about a wine or publicise their tastings; the champagne I wrote about for one post, I purchased myself and in that instance they went out of their way to help locate a bottle that had just gone out of stock and charged me no more than the stock price list despite the champagne having gone up in price and not knowing that I was going to write it up. I like stores like that.

Back in December when I was looking for some donated prizes for the Menu For Hope campaign, I emailed them and asked if they would like to be involved. Because I wasn't sure if they understood the concept of blogging I did point them at some posts that were written about them and they very kindly responded with a prize voucher. That one instance is the sole time there has been any financial gain, not for me though, rather the world's hungry.

So that's it. I shop at Prince Wine Store as a customer. There are no special discounts or free bottles to try other than their regular free tastings which any person in Melbourne can attend on the same basis as me and I will continue to alert you to these tastings because I think you should know. Very often with tastings at other stores, they are promoting a wine or group of wines because there has been a deal done to push them, at Prince Wine Store, the feeling I get is they put certain bottles on, more because they like them. They are like proud parents showing off their children rather than pushing a wine because they have been paid to do so.

That's my kind of shop.

Labels: ,

 
  posted at 12:01 pm
  3 comments



3 Comments:
At 2:57 pm, Blogger MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

There are a lot of slippery slopes that one can fall into with gifts. When there are really no strings, I'm impressed with everyone involved.

 
At 12:23 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

sluuurp, slurrrp (on the wine that is).

 
At 2:24 pm, Blogger neil said...

Hi tanna, no strings - no puppets.

Hi greg, sip, sip, I'm just not a noisy drinker :)

 

Post a Comment

<< Home



Search


Recipe Categories
Soups
Salads
Vegetables
Poultry
Pork
Beef
Cakes & Desserts
Miscellaneous

Archives
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
May 2009
June 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
September 2011
July 2012

Miscellaneous
AUSTRALIAN FOOD BLOGGERS
Prev ~ List ~ Random ~ Join ~ Next
Site Ring from Bravenet


Site Feed

counter easy hit

Credits
Blog Design by:


Image created by:
Ximena Maier

Powered by:


Photos, Original Recipes, and Text - (C) Copyright: 2005-2010
At My Table by Neil Murray, all rights reserved.
You may re-post a recipe, please give credit and post a link to this site.

Contact Me
Neil Murray

Follow messytable on Twitter