Blogging Vanity and Pickled Eggs

Since cooking is a major hobby of mine, I read lots of food blogs. The ones I like best are written by people that seem to me to be down to earth and don't have "the tone". What I have dubbed "the tone" is one that implies "I know everything". When I first was inspired by the likes of Smitten Kitchen, but I grew weary of the tone. I don't know SK, and I don't think she's someone I want to know. She recently blogged about how Club Med invited her to visit as part of an elite group of food bloggers. Bloggers that have "the tone" are always assaulting me with advertising. I am always a little suspicious of a little too many Amazon pass-throughs or Google Adwords on a food blog. Is the goal to share recipes or to make money?

Another blogger that I used to love and felt like we were practically blogging twins separated at birth has decided to use her food blog to make political statements quite regularly these days. I liked her so much better before I found out her political preferences. Next time I am cleaning out my google reader subscriptions, she will be deleted. I want to remember her just the way she was, where her blog post inspired a few of mine. I keep using this as an example for a newly divorced friend of mine that's considering internet dating...you can never really know someone by what they write on the interweb.

I write this food blog mostly to share recipes with friends. I am always thrilled to find out that someone found my blog and is a regular reader and it is some one I don't know. Wow! I'm surprised to find out about which ones are most popular. I love to get comments. The blog post that got the most comments was one I wrote about meatloaf. But are comments the best way to know what content is most popular? Probably not...for that I turn to Google Analytics.

I have a love/hate relationship with Google Analytics. I love that it just told me my readership is up by over 5000% since last year, but hate that it says my readership is only 2% higher than last month. Have I not been a good enough blogger? Who knows?

Google Analytics tells me that my most popular posts over this past year were:

• A recipe for the bread they make at Olga's Kitchen - I worked at Olga's Kitchen when I was a teenager and kept the recipe all these years
• My camping recipes - I am the mom of Scouts, I do lots of camping. Plus we have a pop up camper
• An easy craft to make mittens from old sweaters - I suck at crafts, but this one features using sweaters I accidentally shrunk in the dryer, so it works for me!

My most read blog post of all time is my recipe for B&B Bar pickled eggs. It was my 4th blog post. ever. Google Analytics tells me it got over 1500 hits in this past year. Why pickled eggs, I wonder? Anyway, for the good people that didn't read my blog back then, follow the link and take a gander. Pickled eggs are spicy and are a upper peninsula bar room snack. They go great with cold beer, and they are a great snack for my Lenten fast from meat. Just writing about them is making my mouth water. I am going to have to make some to enjoy this weekend.

Thank you to everyone that reads my blog!