Would like your suggestions as readers PLEASE!

M

mimi

Well-known member
Hi all. I'd like to ask a favor of those of you who read food blogs.

A friend of mine is starting up a food blog. He's not just "anybody"...he's a former professional chef who worked in 5-star restaurants who changed careers when he started using a wheelchair. He still loves to cook and wants to get back into it with a food blog. He's a very interesting guy, a great chef and all his recipes are original (except, you know, stuff like how to make mayonnaise).

Anyway, I'd like to hear your suggestions about what works for you in a food blog. I will be helping him set up the site. What do you prefer in terms of:

writing style,

topics,

recipe format,

site layout,

graphic design,

advertising,

and any other advice you might share as readers.

THANK YOU!!

 
Good recipes, well organized site, good photos a must.

I like the pioneer woman a lot as she always does the step by step prep with photos, so you know the way things should be looking before the finished product photo. Plus a sense of humor!
Techniques as well as recipes, a place for comments from people that then try the recipe (not just commenting that it looks great)
still thinking.
Please wish him luck and let us know where to find the site. smileys/smile.gif

M

 
I'm with MoNJ, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

is by far my favorite blog. Every recipe I have ever made from her site has been excellent. I think she just won the best blog award (I don't know what they call it). And she gives you a little glimpse inside her world. She has a wonderful sense of humor.
Another one I like is the Food in my Beard. He and his girlfriend make some really great recipes and they photograph it along the way.
Printable recipes are always a plus too. Sometimes on blogs the recipes will be inserted with the photos, which makes actually printing it out a big pain. I also like being able to click on a photograph to enlarge it.

 
Also - reviews AFTER people have tried recipes - not comments before.

This is my beef w/ Smitten Kitchen. Love her style of writing and chat about what recipe she's highlighting.

I wish there was a section for reviews where people can talk about what they liked or adaptations they'd make. Too often people make comments about wanting to make that particular recipe and how delicious it looks, blah, blah, blah.

 
Another vote for printable recipes....

I like blogs that have a "print this post" button of some sort. The print out should include the blog address on it. Then after I have tried it I can go back and comment, like Tessie mentioned (or share it with my FinerKitchen friends!). Often times when I have to cut and paste my own print out I often forget to include the site address and no longer remember where the recipe came from!

 
I think people come to food blogs for a variety of reasons. The big thing is

to consider who his audience is. Pioneer woman is talking to the masses, not the chef types. If he's looking for a peer to peer or aspiring chef audience, that's something different. My favorite publication is Saveur because they mix recipes with context of history, culture, technique, etc.

What's been missing, in my opinion, is a strong vioice in the chef world, portraying the chef experience in a blog. People love Tony Bourdain and his Kitchen Confidential series and I think that's a tribute to the "behind-the-scenes" look at how a restaurant works. Now not all kitchens work like that, but I'd love to hear from a voice that captures more of the educational component. Like a Chef teaching a new apprentice...

Mimi, I'm currently working on the International Food Blogger Conference and you can see the agenda here: ifbc.foodista.com/agenda. We'll be covering many of the topics you posed.

To monetize a site or not has been a debateable issue and frankly, I think that's in the past. There's a ton of work that goes into a blog (I spend an average of 8-10 hours on each post) and I think it's reasonable to monetize the effort.

But the bigger issue is who do you want the audience to be? Large audience or chef to chef.

 
I really dislike blogs that do not have a "print" capability. I do not want to print

all those pictures. I end up copy and pasting into word and then have a huge edit job to clear out the pictures or size the one I do want, which is usually the finished product.

 
karen, if you go into "edit" and choose "paste special unformatted text" it takes away all the pics

 
I agree too but...just wondering...how do you stop readers from posting whatever they feel like?

Any ideas on that? With Christmas-Cookies.com I approve every comment but WOW it's hard work and at the moment I have a backlog of hundreds. :eek:( Have you seen some good blogs that have a creative way of dealing with this problem?

 
Agree on monetizing, Traca. (and relieved by your comment) Unless you're independently wealthy...

...it's just not reasonable to expect a really well done, professional-quality site with no advertising! There's SO MUCH work involved.

 
Thanks guys! How about content? Recipes, food writing, personal life as relates to food...

...or a mixture of all these things?

 
I like King Arthur's blog - they take what people would think are complicated things

and show you the reality that they're not. In the bread baking world, I get overwhelmed. I figure I could never bake a bagette or those pretty loaves, etc. And then they break it down, step by step - show you exactly what it should (and should not) look like. I've gained a lot of confidence in my own baking because of it.

 
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