In 2011, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer declared Social Media Day an official holiday. This year ABC15 has teamed up with Pink Media, Mashable and Meetup to host this year’s celebration and observance of Social Media Day Phoenix.

Join 40 local businesses who use social media and networking on a daily basis from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m this Friday at the Ritz-Carlton. The event, themed “Connect. Engage. Support Local.,” will include workshops, games and a social media-inspired fashion show.

To RSVP for the event, visit Mashable or Facebook; join the conversation on Twitter @SMDayPhx; or text SMDayPHX to 72727 for exclusive offers from event sponsors.

If the concept of eating locally and buying fresh produce from the desert sounds foreign to you, Friday’s Panel Discussion at Changing Hands Bookstore might clear up some confusion. At 7:00 p.m. January 27, Edible Phoenix Magazine will moderate an interactive panel with Cooking the Wild Southwest author Carolyn Niethammer and Southwest Comfort Food author Marilyn Noble. Along with a tasting of Southwestern foods and a book signing, the authors will discuss how to shop smart at the farmer’s market, how to find locally-produced grassfed meats and how to utilize desert vegetation in your own kitchen.

Changing Hands Bookstore | 6428 S McClintock Dr. Tempe, AZ | 85283

Today is the first installment of 120 Seconds, a new regular post that you will see here on DLT. It’s quite simple, we grab one of our local tastemakers and fire a bunch of questions at them for two minutes.  What follows below is the result of just that with chef/restauranteur Mark Tarbell.

Are you ready? YES

»READ MORE

Looking for the perfect summer drink to pair with your Finger-Licking Labor Day soiree? Stop by Whole Foods Scottsdale for their BBQ Wine Tasting event, Thursday, September 1st from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sample a swig of Mark West Pinot Noir, Seven Deadly Zins, Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc and Rutherford Ranch Merlot, perfect to pair with your weekend barbecue. Taste for just $5 and includes a little nosh of cheese and fruit.

Image via BlogYourWine

As chosen by you, here are the most popular stories OF ALL TIME (aka last week). Just in case you missed it.

What do you do when you have played every role in the restaurant business? You open your own. At least that was the case for POSH chef/owner Joshua Hebert, who began cooking at an early age and was doing it professionally before he even graduated high school. The impressive pioneer has a resume a mile long including an executive chef title at Tarbells, a gig at San Francisco’s famous Zuni Café and the opening of Café California in Tokyo, Japan. With a passion for instruction and a love for the calm found only in the pastry kitchen, Josh’s restaurant (on Scottsdale road nestled in the retail and dining area of Optima) seemed like the kind of relaxing place you look forward to going for dinner. We had a chance to chat with him and you can read our Q&A after the jump.  »READ MORE

It’s time for us to take you behind the bar with AZ Mixologist and the Merc Bar’s newest face, Micah Olson. The young pioneer has been mixing drinks around the valley since his college days at ASU and even has a Sommelier’s certification under his belt. So what drives a man to pursue a career in cocktails? Find out in our tell-all Q&A.

Micah Olson got his start working at a sports bar in South Dakota at the tender age of 17, but it was his experience working at some of Arizona’s most famous restaurants during his college years that sparked an interest in high end wines. After bouncing around the restaurant scene and earning his Sommelier’s certificate, Micah made the transition to behind the bar and thus one of the state’s most innovative mixologists was born.

How did you make the transition from Sommelier to Mixologist?

Sommeliers and mixologists are actually a lot closer in nature than most people think. You analyze and taste spirits in almost the same way and also need to do lots of research to keep up with the changing trends.

It started off about four years ago when I started to fill in bar shifts to help out a friend who needed some unexpected time off. During this time the Sanctuary hired a mixologist out of Portland to train and educate the bar staff.  The mixologist, Ryan Magarian, opened me up to the endless possibilities that the cocktail world offered.
It wasn’t only this but the fact that I actually got a chance to create. »READ MORE

Amidst a sea of gourmet cupcakeries and trendy frozen-yogurt shops, the mother-daughter duo of Donna Gabrilson and Stacey Barnes have taken the desert’s dessert world by storm with their brainchild, Goodytwos Toffee. Launched in 2004, Goodytwos has expanded to include a storefront complete with a commercial-grade kitchen that is baking up seven traditional and contemporary toffee creations sure to please any palate. And rest assured, there’s no cookie cutting here, just handmade, hand broken and hand packaged product available in your backyard or shipped to your door anywhere in the world.

Like most company’s, Goodytwos started out small. Donna Gabrilson was ready to start fresh after a divorce and opted out of a career in Corporate America in order to go back to the kitchen, a place she connected with as a young girl. With a little encouragement from friends and family, Gabrilson began selling her traditional toffee recipe at Farmer’s Markets and relied on word of mouth from fans to spread the delicious gospel which lead to an upsurge in corporate gifting.

»READ MORE