Yesterday I spoke with Elena (elenavi, group E) about the pleasures of cooking. We both agreed that cooking can make you feel relaxed. Whenever I am sad, I “explore” my mother’s huge cookbook collection, looking for a recipe which catches my attention. Then, I start cooking. I like experimenting with recipes, learning new techniques, trying new ingredients. Cooking requires a special attention, so that my problems slowly fade. Then, I must admit, I feel completely satisfied when I share with my friends something delicious I’ve just baked.
Sometimes, however, when you have too many cookbooks, it is difficult to find the best recipe and you may end by cooking the same recipes over and over again. Heidi Swanson tries to solve this problem in her own blog. 101 Cookbooks is a blog which chronicles a cookbook collection, providing a recipe at a time. The idea behind the blog is the following: “When you own over 100 cookbooks, it is time to stop buying, and start cooking”. 101 Cookbooks contains a lot of recipes coming from the author’s cookbook collection or from her everyday experience (travels, interests). You may even find vegan recipes or vegetarian menus on the right side of the page. I suggest you to visit this bolg also because it is a winner of numerous awards (among them 2006 Food Blog Award Winner - Best Food Blog – Recipes).
Unlike most of the previous blog, Simply Recipes contains only a few hundred recipes. This blog is a sort of family project, even though its popularity have incredibly increased during the last period. I loved it because it is full of tips and advice. However what impressed me most was the atmosphere in the blog. As the author points out in the presentation of her blog, the site is a sort of a family kitchen. All these recipes are tested by the author (Elise Bauer) or by her family. They are divided into different sections therefore it is easy to find what you are looking for. Many of the recipes are family recipes and some of them are very easy to make. You can leave a comment after trying them!
As the title suggests, Bakingbites mainly deals with baking. It is not merely a collection of recipes, it also contains tips and advice, reviews and discussions. This blog is clearly structured, for example you can easily find on the left side some suggestions about delicious recipes containing pumpkin among “October favorites”.
Generally speaking, the language on blogs is simple and plain. The posts are short and they give the essential information. However, you can click on one of the links you find in the text in order to retrieve the information you miss. In each blog dealing with cooking I found a list of other blogs which share the same subject. I visited a lot of blogs before choosing these ones. I tried to use different tags in order to see if the language changed according to the topic. Actually, the register can vary noticeably depending on the subject matter. For example, we may find a lot of colloquialisms and neologisms in personal blogs dealing with life experience of young people. In these blogs you can find abbreviations, sms language and even mistakes. On the other hand, there are other blogs dealing with grammar issues where people use an academic style.
4 comments:
Dear Silvia,
Thank you for your interesting contribution on blogs about cooking.
As you may have already noticed, you and Veronica share the same passion for cooking. You both could come to lessons with some of your delicious cakes or dessert... it could be a very good idea, isn’t it? =)
In your brief but detailed description of the blogs you give us useful suggestion about where and how to look for a good recipe. When you are very good at cooking (it’s not my case) you are always looking forward to something new to try, isn’t it?
So, it’s important to look for new inspiration in order to develop your creativity!
As regard language, you clearly point out the style, the register and the language of the blogs you read. As a matter of fact, a good recipe must be short, clear and easy!
See you tomorrow!
Huge kiss
Martina Urbani
Hi Silvia,
very pleased to see that our talk about cooking has inspired the topic of your blogs! I really enjoyed reading through the three blogs you suggested us…You are right: too many cookbooks are useless and the more books you have, the less you cook new dishes! At home I have, like you, a number of cookbooks (not to mention stacks and stacks of monthly or weekly magazines about cookery!), but my mother never tries new recipes; she always cooks more or less the same things or, at the most, she might make new recipes suggested by some friends of hers…
Well, I read some recipes from the blogs you suggest us and, obviously, my gluttonous nature drove me to the section dedicated to desserts and some of them did really make my mouth water: ‘Strawberry Cream Cake’, ‘Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte’, ‘Triple-Layer White Cake with Orange Curd Filling’, and so on. What a delicacy!
And…how much patriotic I feel when the discourse is about cooking; We, Italians, must be proud of our culinary specialities. It is such a pleasure to see that a lot of recipes comes from Italian cuisine and to read comments written by foreigners about ‘Porcini Mushroom Fettuccine’ or ‘Napoletana Pizza Dough’, such as the following ones:
-I studied abroad in Rome in college, and lived just blocks from the Campo dei Fiori. I would buy a bunch of fresh basil, bright-red tomatoes (I was there during the summer), lumps of buffalo mozzarella, and fresh bread at one of the little bakeries...I had caprese sandwiches almost every day for lunch!
-The Italians knows how to eat well.
-Ah, Rome. What a fabulous place!
You can't make pizza like in Italy without the flour. Italy have 2 type of flour Type "0" and type "00". When you are able to use "00" then you can make Pizza like Italians do!
Altogether, the blog that I mostly appreciate is the third one because of the graphic and because there are more images. I think pictures are essential in a blog about recipes: photos of food can give you a synaesthetic sensation involving your palate (besides your sight) and this can play an essential role on whether you read a recipe or not. Moreover, I read your comment to Veronica’s post and I agree with you when you say that photos showing the preparation of a dish step-by-step are really helpful to check if you are doing well! Last but not least, Halloween is coming soon and in the third blog, as you told us, there are very spooky and impressive Halloween candies to try!
See you!
Elena V.
PS: Sharing this passion for cooking and having become so expert in blogs about cooking, why don’t we create our cooking blog where we exchange our recipes???!!!
Hi Silvia,
I've just finished reading your post and having a look at the blogs you suggested us!Well, as you can read in other comments I wrote, I'm not so fond in cooking because my mother loves cooking, she cooks all the time and she doesn't want anyone in the kitchen with her...and...when I ask her to teach me she tells me that the best is learning by myself, as she did!
So...I really appreciate the blogs you suggested us!
The language of your post is informal, friendly, but accurate at the same time, well done Silvia!
As for the blogs, I particularly like the first one...it's a real professional blog, I like its style (some parts of the texts are almost "poetic"), its layout and also the photos!
I love photography and for this very reason I appreciate the kind of photos which are available in that blog: there are very good photos, it must absolutely be said!
I was wondering how much time does it take to have a blog like that...it becomes a work, isn'it?
As for your analysis about language, I quite like your choice of putting your observations about language at the end of the post, even if it is a bit complicated to understand which blog you are referring to, but the general analysis about language in blogs is very short but well done!
I appreciate short but exhaustive posts!In my opinion online communication must be fast and concrete, unless you want to get lost in reading the huge amount of information available in the net...so...I like your style!
See you soon!
Camilla
Hi Silvia!
I enjoyed reading your post, since I love cooking too! I am not a perfect chef, but I am learning… I like trying out new recipes and I prefer preparing cakes and desserts. In my post you could find a link to an interesting blog about cooking!
I visited the three blogs you suggested and I found them wonderful! They all contain a wide number of recipes, suggestions, comments and links. I appreciated the fact that there are specific recipes for every occasion (for example in the third blog there are some recipes for Halloween) and for every special diet (for example: vegetarian recipes, low carb recipes, high protein recipes, gluten free recipes).
Finally, I think that your post is written in a very precise and clear way; it is also well structured, since you divided it in different paragraphs, according to different topics.
Good job!
See you soon!
Veronica
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