Food

A lucky handful of food bloggers have found the recipe for success and have been able to create a large following for their blogs.  With that large following, they have been able to generate an income from their blog – sometimes even substantial incomes.

Case in point, Lindsay and Bjork Ostrom, the couple behind Pinch of Yum, were able to make blogging their full-time job.Their blog earned more than $430,000 from Dec. 2015 through November 2016, according to a Huffington Post profile. Other successful food blogs like Cookie + Kate and Sally’s Baking Addiction are making money as well.

How have they been able to accomplish this?

Certainly, there are plenty of qualities that go into a successful blog, but two qualities that we would like to emphasize here are the value of photography and keyword targeting.

The Value of Good Food Photography

Let’s face it, the web is image focused.  Let’s also realize that we like looking at photos of delicious food almost as much as we like eating it.

Food photos are eye-catching and high quality images will set your blog apart from others. Buy a good digital SLR camera and photo editing software. Yes, it’s a big upfront investment, but it will pay off if you would like to have a successful food blog.

Also, consider scouring house sales and flea markets for interesting looking serving plates and accessories that will create a unique backdrop for the foods you’re presenting.

Set up Pinterest and Instagram accounts and publish your blog photos there. Then link back to your blog to drive more traffic there.  Food and drink is the most-pinned and most-browsed Pinterest category, according to Cision. And food photos are a natural for Instagram.

Cookie + Kate has some great tips for how to compose effective and aesthetic food photographs.

Keyword Targeting and Other Blog Marketing Tools

Use keywords effectively. Go for specific “long tail” keywords: simply adding the word “vegan” or “high-protein” to a generic recipe title will push it upwards into less competitive search territory.

Also, attract readers to your posts by writing intriguing headlines that make people want to read on.

Bloggers with large followings can make money from advertising on their site. Well known ad networks include Google AdSense and MediaNet. They pay based on cost per impression, so the blog’s followers need to number in the 1,000+ category. Others pay based on click through rate, or the number of clicks an ad gets. The Foodie Blogroll Publisher Program is designed specifically for food bloggers and helps them monetize their blog and social network pages.

Some bloggers charge a subscription fee. You can do this yourself by charging a small amount, or use a service like ConnectPal. ConnectPal is a social media site where members set their own monthly fee to let people view their ConnectPal pages. Users can add videos, audio and photos to their pages.  It’s free to set up an an account and users can promote their ConnectPal presence by linking to it from their other social media profiles.

Mentioning specific products or ingredients can be a way to get paid endorsements from the companies that make or market them. But if you decide to go this route, choose your product carefully. Make sure it’s a good fit for your blog’s personality and focus.

Most blogging experts recommend cultivating a diverse stream of revenue sources. While none of the above may generate a ton of money, together they could add up to freedom from day jobs.

In a country full of spectacular stretches of coast, Italy’s Amalfi Coast manages to stand out with its multitude of hues and picture postcard scenery. Indeed, the views are so perfect that they seem to have been lifted from a glossy magazine to represent the ultimate luxury Mediterranean yacht charter. However, the dramatic coastline is real; from the beautiful fishing villages that dot cliffs and inlets to the glamorous resort town of Positano, some of Italy’s finest restaurants grace the shores of the Amalfi Coast. While you are on your Amalfi Coast yacht charter make sure you stop off at these top-class waterfront restaurants and sample sublime cuisine as you soak up the atmosphere and views.

1.  Quattro Passi, Nerano

If you’re looking for expertly crafted dishes that exude authenticity, look no further than the Quattro Passi Ristorante. This sophisticated restaurant has justifiably earned itself two Michelin stars for its Campania specialities, of which the burrata (cheese made from mozzarella and cream) is a highlight. The pasta is melt-in-your-mouth delicious and comes with fresh sauces, garnishes and flavourful cheeses like the smoky Provola. The hospitable staff can undoubtedly find you the right wine to pair with your Campania cuisine since they have a cellar with several thousand bottles of vintage. Ask for a tour of their spectacular underground wine cellar to see for yourself. Not only is the food dreamy, but the setting of Quattro Passi is equally as magical. It overlooks the Bay of Nerano and offers alfresco dining when the weather permits – which it often does in this sunny location.

2. Chez Black, Positano

Chez Black is a local institution and the place to come if you want to people-watch, particularly if those people are celebrities. The walls are covered in photos of famous faces who have stopped by to sample the mouth-watering seafood dishes and wine selection. Denzel Washington is a regular customer among the numerous famous Italians who are lucky enough to have a meal here. Chez Black’s specialties include zuppa di pesce (fish soup) and spaghetti con ricci di mare (spaghetti with sea urchins), but the pizza is also superb. The restaurant is based on a nautical theme, built in wood in the shape of a boat. This is the place to come to see and be seen, but fortunately, the flavourful food and views alone are worth a visit.

3. Don Alfonso 1890, Sant’Agata

A heady combination of luxury, local warmth and exceptionally high-quality cuisine distinguishes the two-Michelin star Don Alfonso 1890 as a very special restaurant. The forty-year-old business is run by the Laccarino family, who respect the traditional recipes of the Sorrento peninsula and put their own unique twist on it at their boutique hotel restaurant. From pistachio-stuffed guinea fowl to pumpkin gnocchi, everything is sublime. If you try the chef’s tasting menu you’ll experience all the wonderful flavours on offer including an array of desserts. The ingredients originate at the family’s organic farm on the coast and the cavernous wine cellar is a masterpiece which dates back to antiquity. Fortunately, the restaurant shares its culinary knowledge and offers Mediterranean cooking courses and catering consultations.

4. Maria Grazia, Nerano

Perched on the Amalfi Coast, the sublime sea views from the beachside Ristorante Maria Grazia are heavenly. The traditional food will bring you down to earth as you indulge in the wonderful local flavours. This restaurant also has a place in the region’s culinary lore as the birthplace of the legendary pasta made of spaghetti and fried courgette. The dish was apparently invented in 1952 by Maria Grazia, the grandmother of the current owners. The recipe has become known as “Spaghetti alla Nerano” to distinguish it from any other spaghetti and courgette creations. Besides their most famous speciality, the restaurant offers a variety of delicious fresh fish dishes and the ever-popular Prosecco with fruit. The restaurant offers a shuttle taxi boat for those who moor their yachts nearby.

5. Il Riccio, Capri

Conspicuous by its distinctive blue chairs and stunning beachside setting by Capri’s famous Blue Grotto, Il Riccio is where the beautiful people come to see and be seen, all while eating cuisine of the finest quality. The food is deceptively simple and sticks to the staples of seafood, pasta and Campanian wine, but does it well since it has earned the Beach Club a Michelin Star. The only thing bluer than the furniture is the sea which is of the deepest azure and almost blurs with the cloudless horizon at times. The interior was designed by the highly renowned designer Marco de Luca who decked the place out in billowing white drapes that lead to a terrace perched above the Tyrolean Sea with possibly the best sea view in Italy. Don’t forget to bring your swimming gear as there are sun loungers for those who can’t resist taking a dip in the scenery.

Camping is an activity that many foodies avoid, because they are afraid that they are going to be eating like slobs during the whole trip. While this has been known to happen, it is NOT a necessary part of a camping trip. Forget hard boiled eggs and horribly cooked baked beans and iffy trail mixes;

The fact is that outdoor cooking, even on a portable cooker or similar, is one of the best ways to cook food, and if you have something nice like a BioLite stove, camping cooking can be even better in many ways than traditional cooking even in a highly endowed industrial kitchen.

Stoves and Burners  that are good for camping are plentiful in today’s market. You can start with something basic and functional (but high quality) like a nice little Highlander Portable Cooker, which performs perfectly in just about any natural setting powered with a butane gas cartridge. Those who doe not want to carry much might opt for the BioLite CookStove instead. However, the BioLite CookStove works after being charged. It doesn’t need any other fuel than the wood you can find around, but it needs to be charged beforehand to provide 30 hours of extremely efficient wood cooking.

But if you really want to be awesome and have an amazing camping experience, go all out and get yourself a BioLite BaseCamp. it combines eco-friendliness and convenience being able to use wood for energy with an amazing degree of efficiency and temperature control.

Actually, you may wind up buying a BaseCamp for camping and wind up using it regularly in your backyard for great outdoor cooking all the time as it creates energy while burning wood. BaseCamp cooks and creates energy at the same time and is big enough to offer cooking solution for groups.

The real genius of the BioLite technology lies in the fact that you can convert biomass not only to heat but also to electrical energy, so your fire can also power your music, your phones, cameras, whatever else you need to be powered. And the BaseCamp comes with a light on a gooseneck, so you’ll never bump into it no matter how dark the night is!

Another thing definitely worth mentioning is that this technology is incredibly efficient. The added 17 pounds and change to your backpack will be more than made up for when you go looking for decent wood for a fire and need a lot less of it. BioLite systems can boil a liter of water with as little as 46 grams of wood, for example.

So next time someone want to plan a camping trip, instead of saying you’re not interested, bring the appropriate equipment along and have a foodie experience and a camping experience all in one!

To choose the proper diet shake a number of factors should be considered. First, you need to know the purpose of use of the shake. Usually, people take meal replacements to substitute a full meal or to lose weight. Based on the purpose, you need to select proper nutritional data such as calories, protein, fat, carbs, sugar etc.

Nowadays, the assortment of shakes is huge. There are different brands offering different products of various quality and prices. Below, a compare of Shakeology and Vega Shake in terms of quality, efficiency, nutrition value and pricing is introduced.

Ingredients and nutrition value

The content of Vega Shake is generally natural. The product provides many minerals and vitamins without any GMO. The protein of the supplement is also plant based. One serving of the product offers 20g of protein, which comes from pea, hemp, saviseed (also known as sacha inchi) and chlorella vulgaris. Though the amount of protein source is rather significant, it should be considered that the plant protein is not as good as whey protein. The plant-based protein lacks in essential amino acids required for proper digestion and other processes in the body. For this reason, four protein sources are used to refill this lack of amino acids.

One portion of Vega Shake supplies 170 calories, 6 grams of fat, 7 grams of fiber, and less than 1 gram of sugar.

The components of the Shakeology shake cannot be called absolutely natural, however they are free of soy and GMO. The only harmful ingredient is fructose. It can trigger issues with liver and other health issues. The protein of the shake is made of several mostly plant-based sources including quinoa, sacha inchi, flax, pea and chia. It is also specified that whey protein is added to the shake, but the share of each protein source in the blend is unknown.

A serving of Shakeology provides 160 calories, 17g of protein, 6g of fiber and 6g of sugar, as well as 2g of fat.

Pricing

A month supply of Shakeology is available for almost $130. This price is rated for 30 servings. However, if you are going to take the shake two times a day, be ready to double the costs for this supplement.

A package of Vega Shake costs almost $70 and contains 20 servings. The price seems quite affordable, but if you increase your daily dosage of the shake twofold, the price will amount to $210 for a month supply.

Efficiency and customers’ feedbacks

The efficiency of Vega Shake is poor. The users are dissatisfied with the price, quality, taste of this shake. Besides, several cases of side effects including vomiting have been reported. The product is not intended for losing weight, while its main purpose is to substitute a meal.

Despite the high price, Shakeology is rather good meal replacement. It has only one potentially harmful ingredient. The shake offers sufficient amount of calories and protein resulting in good efficiency as a meal replacement. The consumers are not so critical about Shakeology, and no cases of side effects have been reported

What types of people may you refer yourself to? Are you a person who likes to watch food to be prepared by top chefs and served brilliantly, as if it is a piece of art? Maybe, on the contrary, you prefer to create such masterpieces by yourself and surprise your friends and close relatives with the view of a beautiful, luxurious table with dishes worth to be served in the greatest restaurants of the world? If you have chosen the second variant, it is obvious that this article will help you a lot on your way to a successful culinary promotion.

According to Wikipedia, the feeling of pleasure is an attempt of a person’s inner space to minimize stress and pressure of everyday living. Food is one of the most efficient instruments to obtain some sort of esthetic satisfaction. Especially, it brings a lot of endorphins when a dish has a delicious look and is wonderfully decorated. Not only chefs can create such masterpieces, but you can as well. All you have to do is to read one of the following cookbooks that will turn you into a real Gordon Ramsey of your kitchen.

Six Culinary Pieces of Writing You Need to Read

These books on culinary art are highly recommended for every person who thinks cooking is the only thing he or she must do in this life. However, ordinary amateurs of the cooking process may get some useful tips and pieces of advice as well and fall in love with the food preparation. Baking, roasting, boiling, and, particularly, serving will be much easier with these recipe books.

1. New Larousse Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne (Octopus)

If you are a person who needs to know everything and a little bit more about cooking, this book is certainly worth to be read by you. Moreover, here you can find 85 biographies of the most famous chefs whose recipes are added in this collection. Along with the illustrated process of preparing some dishes and exact instructions of how to cook a certain dish, you may also have a look at the history of some of them, origins of some cooking techniques, and some useful tips and pieces of advice on how to make your meal more gorgeous. It will also be a perfect present to a devoted cook. Our estimate is five stars out of five.

2. The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater

A great volume of simple and seasonable recipes that every housewife can prepare in her kitchen having bought all ingredients in a neighboring store or farmer market. Sometimes you don’t have to stick to your shopping list to create a tasty dinner from some food that you have in your fridge. With this great publication, you will be able to prepare a good and toothsome dinner for a guest-night without spending much money and time. An absolute “must have” for every person!

3. Le Guide Culinaire by Auguste Escoffier

The work of this outstanding chef and food researcher is a real bible for every devoted cook who wants to reach the absolution in food preparing. Despite the fact that this book was originally published in 1903, most tips and secrets are still topical nowadays. His deliberate sense of dish creation allows to understand basics of the culinary art and create your own food masterpieces with the help of this noble man and his recipes. Besides, sometimes it is very interesting to try to cook a meal as your great grandmother did.

4. “A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen”: The Evolution of Women Chefs by Ann Cooper

Who said that a woman can be only a lady cook who prepares simple and ordinary dishes for her children and husband? Ever more women chefs are proving the opposite. That is why Ann Cooper decided to list the most skillful and professional lady chefs who can be good examples for everybody. More than 130 women are enumerated in this volume together with their biographies, recipes, and techniques. After you read this work, the famous phrase “A woman’s place is in the kitchen” will not sound so rude for you anymore, as there are many perfect lady chefs that can work wonders with food.

5. Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson

Do you want to learn culinary art from a person who has opened a bright and fashionable restaurant in London? This chef knows what you need to have some good and delicious dishes. His approach to cooking is simple and bold, so you will eat everything from nose to tail. Bon appetite!

6. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

As soon as the movie “Julie & Julia” was shown on the big screen, the cookbook about French cuisine written by Julia Child became a bestseller for the second time. This woman taught American housewives to cook as famous chefs can. You may find 524 recipes with illustrations on the work’s pages and step-by-step instructions that differ from numerous ordinary confusing culinary recommendations and catalogs.  Prepare dishes for everyday life and special occasions with a simple and comprehensive book of this genius author and cook.

No matter how good you are at culinary art, you will certainly become a master of knife and kitchen with these interesting and helpful volumes on how to make your meal more pleasurable and tasty.

Maybe you have some recipes to share with us, too? So why not write your own book? However, this is not as simple as it may seem. Not every author is able to describe the process of food preparation with proper words to make a reader understand the subject. That is why you may always address the professional essay writing service to bring your dreams to life! Stop reading, it is time to compose your own culinary paper!