If you follow any of the Foodspotting team on Twitter, you'll know that we're all fans of Instagram - so it's with a lot of excitement that we're announcing that you can now connect your Foodspotting account to Instagram.

Starting today, you can post food photos directly to Foodspotting through your Instagram account. If you follow these steps, we'll instantly import your photos to Foodspotting:

1. Connect your account via Foodspotting Settings.
2. Fill in the What or Caption field on Instagram with the dish name. (Resist urge to add commentary here (or other tags); please comment on your own Instagram post instead!)
3. In the What/ field be sure to include the tag #fs, #food or #foodspotting.
4. Fill in the Where field with the place name.

P.S. Don't forget that filters are optional. Retro food doesn't always look better. ;-)

P.P.S. Also, if you don't include the place or we don't have a matching place on Foodspotting, it may not post.

We're thrilled to be one of the first companies to use Instagram's new real-time API, which makes the connection between your two accounts possible.

Huge kudos to our awesome website guru Ben for working hard and fast on this with the Instagram team. Go on and give it a whirl - feedback is always welcome!

From Foodspotting's inception in fall 2009 until we announced our angel funding last summer, we were a bootstrap operation through and through. So, when we announced that we raised $3 million in Series A funding in early January, it was nothing short of a dream come true. But who are these people who believe in Foodspotting so much that they invested in us? Meet Jay Jamison, venture partner at BlueRun Ventures, who advocated for us from the beginning and who made the funding possible. We sat Jay down for an old-fashioned Q+A and found out that food isn't only the best way to someone's heart, sometimes it leads to a great working partnership too...

Why did you invest in Foodspotting?

At BlueRun Ventures, we were immediately drawn in to Foodspotting, I suspect in large part for the same reasons that so many users are. We love food, and Foodspotting helps me enjoy my passion for food even more. I enjoy spotting food, and I love seeing the dishes others are submitting from all over the world.

In addition to loving Foodpsotting as users, we admire and respect the Foodspotting team—passionate professionals who are have such a great dedication to creating a vibrant, authentic brand.

Let's talk about dishes. You’re stuck on a desert island, and you only have ingredients to create three dishes for the rest of your life. What are they?

Edamame, buffalo mozzarella and tomato salad, and grilled salmon with beurre blanc (a type of French butter sauce) topped with poached egg and asparagus…

Spill it - Favorite meals of all time?

I wish I’d had Foodspotting for each of my favorite meals. They are:

Gotham Bar & Grill in New York. I took my wife there on our first date.

Daniel in New York. On the evening of June 17, 1994—the day OJ Simpson led the LAPD on a low-speed pursuit in LA broadcast on TVs everywhere—my parents and I ate here. We had what I can only describe as the best meal I’ve ever tasted.

Il Mulino in Tokyo, Japan. On my 35th birthday, a group of close friends and I spent the day golfing and then rolled into a dinner at the Tokyo branch of Il Mulino. Best Italian restaurant I’ve ever been to.

Blue Ribbon in New York, c. 1994. After I finished college, I moved to New York to pursue a career as an actor. Much of this time, I was waiting tables. Open until 4am nightly, Blue Ribbon was the restaurant for restaurant professionals to go after their shifts. My brothers in arms from different restaurants and I had a blast rolling into Blue Ribbon at about 1:30 and staying until close.

This again shows why I think Foodspotting can be such a powerful brand—many of us can tie certain very fond experiences in our lives with the food we were eating at the time.

Last but not least, what are some key goals you have for Foodspotting this year?

Foodspotting is an application and community that we all love being a part of. If we continue to focus on continuing to extend that to more and more people in the same authentic, high quality way, then we will have achieved what I think our key goals are for 2011.

In honor of Presidents' Day, we decided to take a look at what US presidents past and present love to eat. Thanks to the Internet, we soon learned that George Bush senior famously expressed his dislike of broccoli and that, throughout his presidency, Jimmy Carter often served some variety of grits to White House guests. Much like our own taste in food, presidential food preferences cover a wide range, from Abe Lincoln who was "almost entirely indifferent to food except that he liked apples and hot coffee" to Bill Clinton who didn't shy from fast food at all. Below are some more presidents paired with their favorite dishes.

HINT Click on the photos to reveal the presidents' favorite foods.

Research based mostly on The Food Timeline.

Our World Foodspotting Day eat-ups, which were hosted on Meetup.com, were so successful that we've decided to kick off monthly eat-ups! Henceforth known as Foodspotting First Fridays, we're inviting our community to gather around good food, get to know each other and get spotting.

To kick things off every month, we'll send out guided themes to help you pick eat-up venues, and of course, they'll take place on the first Friday of each month. For the inaugural event, we're spotting circular foods. (Get it?? Ha!)

To host or attend an eat-up in your city, visit our Meetup.com page. Be sure to email us photos from the gathering. And fear not if sign-ups for your eat-up are low! Simply bring your friends together over a good meal and spot to your heart's content; it stills counts as a Foodspotting First Friday eat-up. Looking forward to hearing the stories and seeing the sightings from your first gathering :)

When you're a small team of seven like we are at Foodspotting, it's hard not to consider your coworkers as family. To that end, we're celebrating everyone's special day with cake and birthday blog posts! Last month we saluted our co-founder and chief tech man Teddy for turning thirty, and today we're turning to camera shy Benjamin Bloch, our developer/engineer extraordinaire. Here are a few things you never knew you wanted to know about Ben, the only vegetarian in the Foodspotting family...

1. What kind of shenanigans were you up to before Foodspotting?

Before Foodspotting I worked at a startup called Scrapblog, a digital scrapbooking product founded in Miami, which later relocated to San Francisco and luckily brought me along with it.

2. You're from Miami. Do you miss it? What's one memorable dish from your hometown?

I was born in Fort Lauderdale, to be specific, but most recently lived in Miami. I don't miss the humidity, but I do miss my friends and family. The most memorable "dish" would be the Kitchen Sink at Jaxon's Ice Cream, which is literally a huge tub of assorted ice creams and toppings. Somebody needs to spot this!

3. What inspired you to become a vegetarian? How do you deal with being the only one in the Foodspotting family?

I get this question a lot... Becoming vegetarian began as a personal challenge three years ago, with the theory that it would lead to eating new, healthier foods. Positive health benefits aside, I view it as an act of compassion towards our animal friends. The Foodspotting family is very accepting of my dietary constraints, it's not difficult to deal with, and I honestly don't think about it.

4. Favorite vegetarian dish?

Vegetarian Burritos! Papalote has a really tasty soyrizo burrito.

5. You've been known to venture into scary neighborhoods in San Francisco to take photos. How did you get into photography? Are you trained, self-taught, a combination of both?

I was inspired to explore analogue photography and plastic/toy cameras like the Holga and the Lomo LC-A by playing with photo sharing apps, namely Instagram. It's a great way to explore the city and get away from my laptop. I have no formal photography training.

6. What do you think about the amateur food photography trend?

It's incredible to see people increasingly connecting and communicating around food through photos. Food carries so much cultural and emotional context. I think the trend is in it's infancy.

7. Tell us about your dog, Roxy. How long have you had her? Is she vegetarian too?

Roxy is a little Boston terrier, and the love of my life. I've had her for almost three years. She's not vegetarian.

8. If you were not at Foodspotting, what would you be doing?

Professionally, I'd be working to build a startup in some capacity. Personally, I'd love to just travel and take photos.

9. What are you working on right now that's going to rock every foodspotter's world?

I can't tell you, it's TOP SECRET... but it'll be awesome.

10. How are you celebrating your birthday?

Chuck E. Cheese's! You're all invited.

What makes a job the best job ever? A few weeks ago, Foodspotting got the chance to talk to one of our heroes, technology and gaming video hostess, Veronica Belmont, for Best Job Ever. In this segment, our co-founders Alexa and Teddy talk about the qualities we look for in a Foodspotting team member, and discuss what makes for a great developer in any company. Think you might be a good fit for Foodspotting? Apply here.

Considering how popular green markets have become in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Minneapolis in recent years, it's hard to believe there are still many farmers who have yet to get their goods to customers even when there is demand for them. That's where our friends at Plovgh come in. Last Friday, Plovgh launched their first virtual farmstand with eggs from Neversink Farm.

Right now, Plovgh co-founders Elizabeth McVay Greene and Nikki Brovold are using a neighborhood-based distribution model to make food from farms available at hubs throughout cities across the States. To start, they have sign-ups in New York and 80 other cities. For foodspotters who are interested in getting food straight from the farm, take a look at Plovgh's website! Elizabeth and Nikki say that once they have sufficient demand in a particular neighborhood, they'll match that neighborhood with farms that can feed it.

A few days ago, Plovgh stopped by Foodspotting's New York office to chat about their venture and farm fresh food, like the beautiful multi-colored eggs from Neversink Farm, which got us thinking about egg dishes. We considered cooking with the eggs, but our good intentions were thwarted when we realized we had a big kitchen, but no stove! Nevertheless, just think of all the egg dishes in the world, like the Croque Madame Soraya had this morning and, my favorite, burgers topped with eggs. For our #heartspotting Valentine's Day campaign, Foodspotter JKat even submitted a heart-shaped egg in a hole!

Tell us - how do you like your eggs? And what are some of your favorite egg dishes?

EDITOR'S NOTE Today's guest post is by Foodspotter Kat Chan from London.

We love burgers. And we love food trucks. So it's a real treat that in London we've got The Meatwagon, which serves the world’s best burger. Their juicy meat feasts have seen kids queuing up for hours to get their chow on.

That is, until the truck got stolen.

To celebrate World Foodspotting Day and to help raise some money while we were at it, Protein organized an eat-up at The Meateasy: the temporary pop-up diner by The Meatwagon.

Loads of people jam-packed into the dimly lit Meateasy sipping on jam jar cocktails and stuffing their faces with onion rings, buffalo wings, coleslaw, and, of course, the best burger ever. We took over the top floor of The Goldsmiths Tavern in New Cross and made some money to go toward a brand new truck for our fair grey city. We'll be organising more eat ups soon, for sure. Until next time, we wish Foodspotting a happy birthday. We love you! KC

ABOUT KAT Kat Chan heads up feeding and seeding for the Protein family, which means getting the word out on what's good. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Kat is now based in East London where she works, eats, and drinks pints of Guinness. Follow her foodspottings and on Twitter @fatchanny and @proteinfeed.

PHOTOS BY Teddy Fitzhugh of Protein.