Food Blogging Basics & Tools: How to start

Want to start a food blog? This write up is a long time in the making. Over the last few years we’ve been answering questions and mentoring new food bloggers behind the scenes. We receive many questions from people we meet at our conference panels and in private emails, that it’s wonderful to see this community grow with new voices, faces and content.

We realized that we needed to make this info we’ve been sharing behind the scenes public and honestly, much more manageable. Emails start to get overwhelming to answer and it would be even better if we can share this info with all our readers and those who have wanted to start a blog, but didn’t know how.

This will be a continuing series with information with not just basic technical information but also interviews from established food bloggers. The goal of these interviews is to discuss all issues associated with food blogging and how each person addressed problems they had in the beginning and what they did to solve those issues.

It’s important for everyone to understand that blogging  on all topics, not just food, is executed in different ways.

And how each person defines and achieves their success is vastly different. It’ll be nice to meet and see how each food blogger got to their point in blogging and what they consider is success to them.

We’ll also discuss later in the series our own journey in food blogging, the balance, the mistakes and focus it took to get to where we are today.

So to start on this post,  let’s discuss the basics.

Want to start a food blog?  Here’s how we started. Below are resources and affiliate programs we have used and work well for us.

Every blogger has a different network of resources and in those later interviews, they will discuss those resources that work for them. But these are what we use and love. 

1. Blog Name – Selecting a blog name to convey your voice, style and identity is very important. Quite honestly, we didn’t think about it too much when we came up with our random name and we pretty much broke all the rules. Our blog name, White On Rice Couple,  has absolutely nothing to do with food, gardening, photograph or travel.

Why did we choose our name? Because we were probably drinking and built this blog on a whim,  as a hobby and not as a business. A few margaritas late at night will do that to you— White on what? how about Rice? OK. Done.

So think about your blog name, what you want to do with it and where you want to go with it. Personal hobby or business?

-There are a ton of ways to do it, but we search for availability of a web domain and buy domains through Hover.

Hover is a internet domain name registration service. It’s a simple, clean and an easy way to manage your domains. If you like investing in domain names for future blog or websites, hover is a great place to manage all your lists.

Although Hover is not the cheapest,  their prices are fair and upfront. Unlike other sites that may charge cheaper, Hover doesn’t nickle-and-dime you on additional features like private registration.

2. Choose a Blog Platform: We use WordPress.org and we love it.

3. Hosting your blog: Hosting for Free or Self-Hosting?

Free hosting is available on WordPress.com (different from WordPress.org), which means that your blog lies on their server.

Your blog url will be FoodBlogExample.Wordpress.comRead more about WordPress.com herethis is route is good for those of you who just want a simple place to share content without having to worry about servers and customizationIf you don’t plan on growing your blog beyond the basic pages and without specific customization, then this option is fine.Low to no cost option

Upgraded hosting and other features are also available on WordPress.com for additional fees.

You can use a custom domain for your blog such as FoodBlogExample.com .Read about it hereYou will need to spend some money

Self Hosting- (WordPress.org) is the most customizable and allows you total control

You can upload custom themesAbility to upload pluginsYou have complete control to change the code on your blogThis route is for those to hope to expand on their blog and make it very specific to their needsThis is what we do for our sites.

Still confused on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org? Here’s a couple links breaking down the difference- WordPress.com Explanation and  DIY themes Explanation.

4. Choosing a reliable host. If you are going to self-host, you’ll need a provider to park your blog somewhere.

There are many web hosting servers, some good, some very frustrating. We look for reliable hosts, with great customer service and both BlueHost and Liquid Web have fit that bill. We have used both and have had great experiences with each and are pleased to recommend them.

Blue Host is where we host our smaller, private-hobby blogs and they have great prices, including a free domain name. When you host here you get a free domain, so you wouldn’t need to buy your first domain anywhere else.

Blue host offers everything you need to get started at a great price: email accounts, domain hosting and much more.

When our traffic started growing, we wanted to move to a dedicated server. We had heard from our close blog friends that they loved being on a Liquid Web dedicated server so that’s where we moved over the WhiteOnRiceCouple.com blog.

Since being on Liquid Web, we’ve loved the experience and always have great technical support. They have amazing customer service when we needed it on technical issues and have been very responsive when we have problems.

5. Choose a Theme or cool design for your blog

Thesis became a game changer for wordpress themes. It allowed an enormous amount of customization without needing to know code. A click of a button can change your site from 2 columns to three, change the fonts, colors, etc…

Today it has also developed into a great community of support when you want to customize further and continually works on becoming easier at the same time as being very SEO friendly. We love it and use a customized Thesis theme coded by Paul at ZelCreative.

4. Statistics and Analytics: as you build your traffic you might want a more advanced way to analyze your blog stats to understand more about where your traffic is coming from and what your readers are reading most.

 Google Analytics is a great tool and it’s free.

This is a service offered by Google that allows you to see detailed specifics about visits to your site. Google analytics lets you measure basic information about your visitors and where they’re coming from.

Clicky is where we go to for real-time data and analytics. Interface is easy and straight to the point. Accessing real-time data is a piece of cake on whatever platform you have on you, Droid, iPhone, iPad, laptops, etc. It is another great tool for knowing how and when people are using your site.

5. Food Photography & Styling – capturing nice food photographs can be helpful in gaining attention to your recipe. But this takes patience, dedication to practicing and studying the art of food photography & styling.

Some great resources for food photography tips can be found here:

Once you start learning food photography and want to add to your collection of gear.

Adorama and B&H are great resources to start buying.

These are where we make all our camera gear online purchases. The prices are always competitive and you’ll often find products in which they’ll offer free shipping (B&H free shipping – Adorama free shipping).

6. Setting up social media & where to share your recipes.  Start being a part of the online food community by connecting with everyone.  Also, there are many great community sites that you can submit your recipes to. If accepted, your recipe will be shared within their community.

7. Other resources for food blogging:

These resources is just a start and we’ll be adding more as we build this list for you!

We’ll be continuing with this series on how to sustain and succeed in food blogging, as well as interviews from experts in the community.

Have Fun,

diane and todd

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Cheap and Useful Kitchen Tools: 8 Favorites

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« Burmese Pork Belly, Pickled Mustard Greens and Tofu Recipe |Main| Soy-Glazed Black Pepper Chicken Recipe (The Hakka Cookbook) »

December 13, 2012Cheap and Useful Kitchen Tools: 8 Favorites

All Clad cookware makes me swoon as much as cheap cooking gadgetsfound at Asian markets and thrift shops. I love the high and low-brow as wellas the in between. You don’t have to spend a ton on cooking equipment to cookwell. In fact, the eight tools highlighted below are inexpensive and they canelevate your cooking quite a bit.

Here’s a round-up of metal kitchen tools that I reach foroften. (I chose metal as a way to group things and hope to progress to plastic,wood, and the like.)  You can find these handykitchen helpers at Asian markets, houseware shops, mainstream retailers (even Target!)and online too.

I have a stainless steel steamer as well as bamboo steamertrays. With the bamboo ones, I rig up a pan for steaming using a set of perforated pizza pans. This is one in a threesome and is good for small tomedium steamer trays. Set it atop a pot and put your bamboo steamer on thepizza pan.

You won’t have to worry about flames burning the bamboo orsteam escaping from below the steamer tray. The pizza pan is like a perforatedlid. On occasion, I use the pans for reheating pizzatoo.

Quarter sheet pans are great as prep trays, cooling and draining friedmorsels, and baking small quantities of food. I got several about a year ago atSurfas in Culver City and use them as much as I do regular half-sheet baking pans.You don’t have to use much parchment paper or foil when cooking with thesesmaller baking sheets. They’re sturdy and well sized. I can separately roastpotatoes on one and asparagus on anoother on the same rack in the oven. Thereare regular and perforated ones, which are terrific for food to a crisp.

This past year I also fell for small roasting/broiler racks (above, right). Costing less than $6 on Amazon, they were purchased to fit inside thequarter-sheet pans but work well for large roasting pans and baking sheets too.The clever design lets you choose the amount of elevation; just flip. The racks are also easy to clean  -- no grids,corners or folding parts to deal with. They’ve been so useful in my kitchenthat I bought some for my mom and stylist Karen Shinto – two people with whom Ishare kitchen tool tips.

I never thought I’d buy one of these vertical roasters but Idid for roasting Peking duck, a story and recipe I wrote for the Los Angeles Times. It works extremely well to mimic theroasting conditions of professional Chinese duck roasters. The skin crisps andbrowns and the fat melts downward. I’ve roasted chickens on the roaster too but it’s my go-totool for roast duck.

Japanese markets and dollarish stores like Daiso are where Ifind these lightweight stovetop grills.

I started using the foldable grills for tofu and it workedlike a charm. Yes, you can do some of thatkind of light grilling in a toaster oven but there’ssomething wonderful about direct exposure to the flame. This one fits rightover the griddle burner on my new stove, which I suppose means I found a usefor that burner.

For DIY dumpling making, take an Asian-Latin approach. Agood tortilla press will instantaneously made you a good Asian dumpling maker.I stressed over rolling out basic dumpling wrappers by hand until I realizedthat I could leap frog a tiny bit – and cut down on the work by half – bypressing the dough first in a tortilla press. The aluminum ones are not tooheavy so they won’t smash your dough too much. A tortilla press buying guide was posted on Asian Dumpling Tips.

There’s barely a week that I don’t reach for this scum skimmer.It’s sold at Asian markets and housewhare shops, as well as online. The fine mesh efficiently capturesa raft of scum from a bubbling pot of broth. It’s does a decent job with fatthat’s coagulated too. Shallow fine mesh skimmers like this work very well.

Asian vertical handled strainers are used by professionaland home cooks alike for reheating or cooking noodles for individual bowls ofpho, ramen, etc. You can dunk, shake and dump the noodles into bowls and getthem set up for the toppings and broth. 

Aside from making Asian noodle soup, the strainer is also fabulous for blanching small amounts of vegetables in a pot of water. For example, if I need to parboil green beans, carrots and pasta, I use the vertical strainer for each vegetable. The pot is still full of boiling hot water for the pasta, which I then boil as usual and drain the pasta in a colander. Strainers come with mesh, perforated metal, or wire. Match the size to your needs. I have medium and large.

I love these small tongs, which I call “tiny tongs” becausethey measure only about 7 inches long. This fall, I was invited to cook with corporateR&D chefs at a major food manufacturing company. When I was looking for tongs,all they had were these:

The tongs, which cost little though you typically have toorder a dozen or so to get a deal, are great for grabbing small pieces of food, turningdelicate foods over, and plating. Rosle makes gorgeous surgical-like tongs forchefs but Vollrath’s tiny tongs (mine are model 47007 but these look the same) are the poor man’s clever answer.

If you haveinformation to add or favorite tools to share, don’t hold back. These cheapand cheery tools make great gifts to your friends and yourself. I often get theholidays going with a little shopping for myself.

More posts on metal kitchen gadgets:

Vietnamese coffee maker buying guideWater spinach splitter (very clever design)8 Mighty Mini Kitchen Tools (small yet strong!)Posted in Cooking Tips & Tools | Permalink

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Comments Cheap and Useful Kitchen Tools: 8 Favorites

All Clad cookware makes me swoon as much as cheap cooking gadgetsfound at Asian markets and thrift shops. I love the high and low-brow as wellas the in between. You don’t have to spend a ton on cooking equipment to cookwell. In fact, the eight tools highlighted below are inexpensive and they canelevate your cooking quite a bit.

Here’s a round-up of metal kitchen tools that I reach foroften. (I chose metal as a way to group things and hope to progress to plastic,wood, and the like.)  You can find these handykitchen helpers at Asian markets, houseware shops, mainstream retailers (even Target!)and online too.

Stay Connected                    Asian Tofu in the News"A whole cookbook devoted to tofu? Yes, please."
— Kate Williams, Serious Eats 2012 Favorite Cookbooks

"Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)"
— Michael Rulhman on his tofu conversion

"This book should be a priority for anyone with the slightest interest in Asian cuisines."
— Anne Mendelson, Taste & Travel

"The most gratifying part about cooking from Asian Tofu is that all the recipes work the way they’re written."
— T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe

Book info, reviews, radio & TV . . .2013 EventsHands-On Classes @LoveAppleFarms, Santa Cruz

Sun, Jan 27, 12-4pm:Asian Dumplings (CNY is Feb 13)
Sun, Feb 24, 12-4pm: DIY Asian Tofu ++
Sat, Mar 16, 12-4pm: Get Into the Viet Kitchen!

More soon on 2013 classes...

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Great Kitchen Tools Video: Michael Ruhlman Had Something to Say

It’s always so invigorating to discuss and debate the topic of Stupid Kitchen Tools with Michael during our last video segment. To follow up on the topic of kitchen tools, we have a great line up of videos of Michael sharing his “Great Kitchen Tools”.

Today, we’re sharing the latest one we produced with Michael on this project about “Great Kitchen Tools. The topic for this episode is basically what he calls “rocks and sticks”.

Take a look and let us know if you agree!

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