The indominable Zane Caplansky is on the forefront of another important food trend. Yeah, I know: what else is new? Here is a man who turned a pop-up into a a group of restaurants and pioneered food trucks in Toronto, despite an ever-reluctant city hall. Now, every Saturday morning at 11am on 1010 CFRB AM Radio (that’s an amplitude modulation radio station, Millenials) Zane is on the radio with a show called Let’s Eat. It’s an hour of discussion between him and two or three guests on whatever food and restaurant-related topic needs to be chewed on.
I was Zane’s guest a few weeks ago along with Marie Nicolla, a social media strategist and blogger at KarmaCake.com, and Luke Sheenan from Just-Eat.ca. Out topic was benevolently called “food online”, but what we were really talking about was the etiquette around using your smart phone around the table and whether peer review sites, like Yelp, were of any use. Before we started, the show was live, Zane gave us a bit of coaching. He said, “Everyone on the show says they feel like they could keep talking for another hour.” And he was right. Perhaps this is the secret talent of a successful deli man: he gets people to talk. Zane is also, of course, an experienced television broadcaster, so it makes sense that he’d be comfortable in the studio. And he knows everyone in the business, so if something happened this week in the restaurant scene in and around Toronto, he’ll have heard about it.
Maybe it’s Zane’s insider knowledge that makes Let’s Eat distinct from other radio shows about food here, say on the public broadcaster, that haven’t worked out. Since most of us eat in restaurants at least from time to time, we all think we’re experts. But, of course, knowing how to go to a restaurant is not the same as knowing how they work or where the next big trend might come from. But right now, for an hour an week we can get a little entertaining insight into the industry. Zane says plans are underway to create an online archive for the show, but for now, you have to listen live.
Malcolm Jolley is a founding editor of Good Food Revolution and Executive Director of Good Food Media, the company that publishes it. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
lovin’ the Zane show!