by Keyen Farrell on March 15, 2010
Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of leading a cooking class at St. Martin de Porres in New Haven Connecticut. We had a blast! For the past 10 years I’ve fished for Lobsters off the Connecticut Coast as a hobby, and I took the catch of the 
day down to the boys at St. Martin de Porres.
These Lobsters were pulled from the waters off Guilford, Connecticut. Long Island Sound suffered a massive lobster die-off over a decade ago, and stocks have recovered nicely in some local fisheries. For $60 per year, the state allows you to tend as many as ten lobster traps.
To say the boys were happy to add some seafood to their lunch menu would be an understatement! They loved checking out the creatures – One of the boys wanted to take one home as a pet. He was eating lobster 20 minutes later with no regrets.
I also brought along an old lobster trap with me. They got to see how the lobster enters the trap and gets caught which 
was really neat.
St. Martin de Porres Academy is a faith-based nativity middle school that provides tuition free, extended day education for underserved girls and boys from low-income families in the New Haven area.
The lobsters we cooked were steamed – in my opinion the best way to cook lobsters. Boiling can produce a waterlogged & overcooked lobster. I’ve been cooking lobsters for a long time and if there’s one piece of advice I’d give, it’s to cook them for less than you’ve been taught. It’s amazing how the flavors come out if the lobster is cooked for even a minute or two less than you’d expect.
In case anyone’s interested, here is the Keyen Farrell go-to steamed lobster recipe:
- Fill the pot with two to three inches of water.
- Add 1/4-1/3 cup of salt per gallon of water.
- Insert a steaming rack into the pot if you have one. If not, you can use a bed of smooth stones.
- Bring the water to a boil.
- Add the lobsters to the pot, cover, and begin timing
- Place the lid on the pot and return the water to a boil.
- Plan on 10 minutes for the first pound of lobster, and two additional minutes for every additional 1/4 pound. A 1 1/4 pound lobster will take 12 minutes, a 1 1/2 pound lobster should get 14 minutes, and a 2 pound lobster will need around 18 minutes.
by Keyen Farrell on March 9, 2010
It still surprises me how many incentive marketing & cash back websites maintain minimum payout thresholds. In a space where trust is paramount, payout thresholds destroy credibility. If users must accrue $10 or $20 in rewards before seeing those earnings, many will invariably hit the eject button. Site owners mostly use payment thresholds as a means of withholding payouts from low-earners under the guise of covering transaction costs. The transaction cost argument no longer holds water given the efficiencies of bulk e-payments. PayPal mass payments cost a mere 2%. If you choose to go the snail mail route and cut paper checks, your costs will be astronomically higher. I, Keyen Farrell say, “Don’t do it!” Unless you are operating at enormous scale (think Ebates, NetFlip circa 2002), or have unusually lucrative offers, the price of cutting checks is simply too high. Keeping your transactions purely electronic will save you time and avoid needless headaches for you and your users. You can even designate a single bank account into which commission revenue flows and from which incentive payouts are drawn.
If you follow the Zero-Threshold Rule, your visitors will be inclined to complete more, not less offers on your site. You may find that users complete one or two offers to test it out. Yet once you hold up your part of the bargain, they will almost always return. The Zero-Threshold Rule builds trust with your users and should not be ignored as a selling point. You can further leverage the rule by working it into your site’s messaging. It’s astounding how many incentive websites have not only minimum payout thresholds, but bundle offers together, forcing users to complete several offers at one time. Bundling offers is the antithesis of the Zero-Threshold Rule and not only destroys your user base but compromises the quality of transactions. Sustained incentive marketing rests upon happy users and happy merchants. The last thing you want is low-quality, chargeback-prone transactions caused by bundled offers. If your site contains a varied selection of offers, and users are given the flexibility to complete which offers and how many, everyone comes out on top.
day down to the boys at St. Martin de Porres.
was really neat.
In case anyone’s interested, here is the Keyen Farrell go-to steamed lobster recipe:
