Warning: This is a biased opinionated RANT about food blogs. So read on at your peril, k?
Because of being burnt too many times in the past, I now have a practice with food blogs:
I look at the PIC of the blogger first. IF they have a “blonde (usually but sometimes not), pencil-thin (like they live on a stalk of celery a day), Insta-perfect” photo and are dressed in clothes no-one would DREAM of actually wearing in a kitchen to cook”, then I move on. That tells me quickly that the recipes are probably not theirs. They are probably using this as a side-hustle. The blog will contain more chatty details about their wonderful life with husband and kids (which I do NOT care about) and less info about the important thing: RECIPE. There will be GREAT REVIEWS from readers saying HOW EASY the recipes are; how every recipe turned out JUST as it looked on the site; and the glow will fill my screen as I read the comments while I’m trying not to gag. (And I know from past experience with these type of bloggers that the reason all of these comments are SO positive is that they REMOVE the negative ones.)
So. I look for blogs that are written by bloggers that LOOK like people who cook; that I’ve found in the past to have recipes that reliably DO work, even for folks with special diets; who don’t go on and on interminably about non-food matters (I wanna read about that, I’ll KUWTK-ugh); that have been vetted by friends who also have special diets. OR are written by flour and other product makers, cook books, and cooking sites. Those ALREADY have revenues and aren’t looking to gouge me. (Yeah, some ads might crop up if you don’t have ad-blockers, but that’s a different convo.) But they are less likely to have recipes stolen from other sites, weird recipes, or fake reviews. AND added bonus: no extraneous lifestyle chat!
Okay, rant concluded. I got that out of my system. Do I feel better now? Maybe. Consider yourself warned, if you have hadn’t discovered this already about food blogs.