She hates the word “foodie.” But given that she’s the
president of a highly successful cooking website with more 500 how-to-cook
videos under her belt, it’s hard not to think of Lynne Viera as a queen of the
local foodies. In her day job, she’s president of Rival Marketing, an online
advertising agency with inconspicuous little clients like Safeway and the PGA.
Food has always been a passion for her though, and for several years, Viera
maintained her own blog of recipes, restaurant reviews, and food news. Then
just over a year ago, she launched the website www.How2Heroes.com with a few
videos of her mother’s and aunt’s best recipes. With no previous film
background, Viera took an introductory course in video at CCTV in Cambridge and
began shooting. Within months, she had hired a professional camera crew and a
team of editors, creating a site that is a cross between YouTube and Gourmet.
Why did you decide to launch How2Heroes.com? I
saw a void. The food and cooking websites were sterile and lacked passion. I
wanted to create a playground for people who love to cook, eat, and be merry.
My hope is to become the premiere online video magazine for food and cooking on
the Internet. We would like home cooks to think of us as their source for
cooking how-tos, food field trips, and recipes. Then, we’d like to spread our
wings and cover more cities in America. We have shot in New Orleans, San
Francisco, and New York, as well on our home turf here in New England.
Isn’t it one thing to be interested in cooking, and another
to make this kind of investment of time, money, and energy? Good point.
The timing is right for this type of website. In some ways, the recession is
working in our favor. People are learning to cook so they can save money. So in
addition to all those people who were already cooking, now there’s an even
wider audience of people giving it a shot. And we help them in the kitchen,
whether [they’re] learning how to make Ming Tsai’s Thai Mussels … or my Mom’s
Apple Pie. (Yes, literally, my mom. It’s our #2 all-time recipe!)
Lots of people are good cooks with good recipes. Can anyone
be a TV chef? It’s not as easy as you think. Some people who are
great conversationalists freeze up in front of the camera. Some people who are
relatively shy come alive once the camera starts rolling. It’s a little weird
talking to an inanimate object like a camera. You have to pretend you’re just
talking to a friend across the counter, and then things get easier.
What’s your deal with food? Did you ever think of becoming a
chef? I grew up as the youngest of seven in a Portuguese-American
household. We sat down to dinner every night to a home-cooked meal, God bless
my mother! My father was the neighborhood green thumb, growing everything from
apple trees to zucchini. He was also a year-round fisherman. He spoiled us with
fresh seafood in the dead of winter. (A little brandy in his waders kept him
warm.) I spent hours watching my mom while she peeled, sliced, braised, and
baked. And I just loved it.
Do you ever get food-ed out? Have you
gained a ton? As you can imagine, we are either talking about food,
filming or photographing food, or eating it. I have no complaints. That’s not
to say I haven’t gained a few. But it’s the hazard of the job, eh? Small price
to pay.
