Blog Review - Smitten Kitchen

I think I have fairly standard blog reading habits.  I have several favorite blogs that I visit every day (some several times a day), and a few others that I visit when I remember to or when I have time to.  I've never been a big user of RSS - or rather I subscribe to RSS feeds (via My Yahoo just because that's where I started doing RSS years ago) but I actually never visit My Yahoo page and see what's there.  RSS never really gave me enough information or context.  Twitter has changed my blog reading behavior somewhat - I will now go a read a blog post that has been mentioned on Twitter.  I also rely on del.icio.us to keep track of and categorize my favorites.

I've bookmarked a lot of food blogs in the past few months.  In general, I find that there are three different types: blogs about dining, food and food issues (locavore blog , NYTimes Diners Journal ); blogs by chefs, 'food personalities' or more professional publications or organziations, (Dorrie Greenspan,  Martha Stewart, David Lebovitz , the kitchen - a food spin-off of Apartment Therapy ) and 'amateur' blogs - ones that are written by non-professional cooks and feature recipes and thoughts about the recipes (big girls, small kitchen,  Much Depends on Dinner , Orangette).  It's a lot of writing, recipes and thoughts to keep up with.  But I've found a few that have been really inspiring - not only making me want to cook, but making me want to write in my own blog.

My most recent favorite is Smitten Kitchen.  It has all of the things I value in a blog:  great content that is well written, really nice photos and there's a personality behind it that comes through not only in the writing, but in the choice of topics and recipes.  Other things: unlike many food blogs, it has a categorized recipe index. It has a conversions and equivalents page!  There is also a very extensive links page (a blog roll) "Good Reads" that provides links to many different food blogs and other blogs of interest.

I made two recipes from this site over the weekend: Pickled Sugar Snap Peas  and Strawberry Shortcake.  I haven't tried the pickles yet (I'm dead set on letting them pickle for a week or two).  The shortcakes were really good.   They were different than other shortcakes I've made before (they were much 'shorter' and richer than I'm used to - I assume because of the addition of the hard-boiled egg yolks (!!)) but they were delicious and came out exactly as advertised.

The only thing I don't like about the blog is a direct result of the success of the blog:  there are obviously a lot of fans and therefore there are lots of comments.  In general, I can read 10 or so comments on a blog post, then I get overwhelmed.  This doesn't really matter on a blog like Gawker or Apartment Therapy where the most you'll miss is a witty comment, and where they have an editorial staff who reads through the comments and highlights interesting or relevant ones.  On a recipe blog, comments are important.  They are often by people who have tried the recipe and have alternate versions, tips or suggestions.  The users of this site have contributed a lot of content, and it kind of gets lost as new posts are added and as more content gets added.

Using my previously documented methodology for reviewing cookbooks, here's how Smitten Kitchen fares:

Inspiration:  Definitely an inspiring blog.  I made two recipes from it this weekend.  The photos are a huge plus here - she definitely knows how to photograph food and make it look good.

Instruction:  Again, the photos help here.   She often photographs the different steps in the process.  The recipes are clearly written, and give clear instructions.  The only improvement here would be a slight formatting change on the ingredients list to make it a little more scanable.   Make ingredients list a bigger font so you can glance at the screen and clearly see all of the ingredients.  A direct link at the top of the post and from the blurb on the main page directly to the recipe itself (it's often halfway down the page, after all of the photos) would be helpful as well.  I really like the links to "One year ago" and "Two years ago" that link to different recipes. 

Resource:  Again, the photos.  But also the recipe index is a plus.

 There is a really powerful community here responding to the great content, so I'm very interested to see how this blog continues and evolves.

Comments

[Jude]

your topic is very informative, thanks for sharing it.

[Nick the secret restaurant recipes guy]

Mmmm... Strawberry shortcake sounds absolutely delicious right now.. Sounds like the Smitten Kitchen might have some good recipes.. I'm headed over there now. Thanks for sharing.

[Wilma C Smith]

Thanks for your recipes. They look delicious. Congratulations for the blog.

[display kitchens]

Yum yum. That looks really delicious. Do you have a recipe for making marmalade jam? I'd like to make one for my sis.

[canister set]

Kim, thank you for the 411 on Smitten Kitchen, I'll check it out myself and see if I like it. I love sharing stuff about the kitchen. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and I enjoy it. Maybe we can share recipes.

[Recipes]

I like collecting various kinds of recipes. Your recipes seems delicious.......have a chance to test it..thanks for your post...