Food Blog Chain: Smitten Kitchen
You're on your favorite food blog, you scan the side and there's the list: "Recommended Sites," "Links," or just, "Blogroll." But why did those sites make the cut? Many links even go to dead sites — sometimes these ghosts of internets past just resemble a sad graveyard of quid pro quo. Who does everyone really read?
To find out, The Daily Meal has launched the Food Blog Chain, a feature inspired by Grub Street's Food Chain. Each installment asks a food blogger to name another food site he or she follows regularly. Blogger, critic, chef, everyone can play. They answer two questions that say a lot about the food blogosphere. What recent post on that site caught your eye? And does it have a feature you wish you'd thought of?
In the Food Blog Chain's previous installment, Adam Roberts of The Amateur Gourmet said Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman was the site that he reads regularly. He particularly enjoyed her recent post about garlic butter roasted mushrooms. In turn, Smitten Kitchen singled out food52 by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs...
Which food website do you read regularly and does it have a feature that you wish you had thought of?
As one of those bloggers with a long list of sites I read — and I do, I really do! — picking just one has been torture. But it's not a cop-out that I picked one that is really many. I get a ton of inspiration from a site that is actually a community site, food52. The founders, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, created a site with the best recipes from a community of enthusiastic home cooks and organize them through weekly contests.
They do a lot more, too — cookbook contests, an online help line if you have a kitchen emergency or burning question about coconut oil, a blog where they cook their way through submitted recipes and present their own — but it's these crafty variations on a weekly theme that constantly get my creativity flowing. A recent contest was Your Best Lentil Dish, and recipes were shared for everything from the dals and stews to "lentil and goat cheese hummus," and "linguine with wine and lentils," and "refried lentils". I bet you hadn't realized how clever you could be with lentils.
As for a feature on food52 that I wish I had thought of, I would love to highlight ways that readers have improved upon recipes I share. I read them in the comments. I see them shared on other websites. Food52 has gotten me thinking about ways to better line them all up in one place.
Which post did you find of particular interest recently?
After Thanksgiving, I was sure if I saw another variation on raw, shaved, and ultimately disappointing Brussels sprouts salad, I was going to scream, but I am incapable of resisting the dried cranberries, walnuts, speck and piment d'espelette, Amanda's version of one she had at a Long Island diner, and I have to make it this weekend.
Tune in next time to find out who Amanda names...