How To Be The Best Food Blogger Of All

you're the best blogger ever!

Listen guys… I’ve been in this blogging game for a long long time.  Six years?  I basically know everything there is to know.  Nothing is new… except everything is new once in a while.  Blogging is easy!  I’ll show you how to do it.

10 Quick, Easy, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Salted Caramel Tips To Be The Best Food Blogger On The World Wide Web.

You’ll just need a few of the items listed below and a big happy smile that never leaves your face ever ever.  Let’s go!

you're the best food blogger ever

1. A piece of marble pastry slab is the key to success.  It’s the best way to fake a fancy marble countertop when you’re really just working on tragic tan tile counters.  These Ikea dish towels with the classy red stripe say hipster chic all the way .  You’re also going to need something gold, a glass spoon of some sort, and something with a feather on it… just go with it.  In general, buy every kitchen linen you come in contact with.  You’re going to need it.

2.  All wooden items on your food blog must be worn and dilapidated, preferably from an old barn.  Spoons must be tarnished and rusted.  It’s true that you might not want to eat rust or splinters, but at least it looks really cool.  The plan always is to look really cool.  Never forget.

yelling

3.  Consider getting engaged, having a baby, or getting a kitten.  This will do wonders for your food blog!

See:  Tuna Catnip Kitty Treats.  Adding a major life event or small furry animal to your blog will allow you to discuss every single detail with your readers.  They’ll love it.  Seriously.  Don’t skip a single detail.

buttered popcorn cookies

4.  If one cookie looks good in a photograph, a stack will look uh-mazing.

See: Buttered Popcorn Chocolate Chip CookiesJust stack absolutely everything.  You can’t go wrong.  See: Spinach Artichoke Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

5.  Pinterest.  Don’t fight it.  Create Pin-able pictures that are the length of a football field.  People will pay attention. By ‘pay attention’ I mean that no one will ever get annoyed and most people will want to high-five your cleverness. Re-pin!

6.  Do not, under any circumstance, post a picture of your kitchen that doesn’t look Pinterest perfect.  There should be wood, white shelves, a marble counter, and not a single dirty dish in sight.  Hide all shame, especially the giant jar of Metamucil.  No one has ever pinned Metamucil.

the best blogger ever

7.  Shoot it on the floor or stand on a stool.  Tripod?  Ppfffttttt. Not in this house!  Sidenote:  always consider throwing in wildly patterned (MC) Hammer pants.   Second side note:  get a farm table or you can’t play in this game at all.

8.  Use a mason jar and a paper straw every chance you get.  Better yet… incorporate someone’s hands holding a mason jar.  Even better yes… a child’s hands holding a small mason jar.  Better than that even… kitten paws holding a mason jar.  Perfection achieved.

pumpkin pecan scones

9.  Talk about browned butter as often as possible.

See: Pumpkin Pecan Scones with Brown Butter Glaze  Also see:  Brown Butter Baked Doughnuts  Also see: Brown Butter Banana Bread.

Yes.  It’s really important.

10.  Above all else, take yourself very seriously.  Also try to please exactly every person on the Internet. This will ensure that everyone will like you and no one will make fun of you or have a single bad thing to say about you.  This is your task.  Don’t worry, your blog will basically write itself once you get started.

This post is sponsored by: SARCASM and April Fools’ Day.  All opinions expressed are my own and please don’t listen to them as they are 100% ridiculous.

 

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239 Responses

  1. I truly love every single one of your posts. I have so many articles pinned on Pinterest, it’s not even funny. After talking with my husband today, we realized that we have too many dreams for him to be stuck in a full time boring job. After explaining your story, and skimming your site, he was 100% on board. My blog is only in its infancy, and I finally started taking it really seriously today. Thank you for your transparency and honesty. You’re an inspiration. We have big goals, and there’s hope that we can accomplish them while having time to be good parents to our son.

  2. I have been trying to muster the courage to begin my own food blogging journey recently but I keep stopping myself from taking the leap because I am scared I’ll fail. This was an hilarious read and has made me feel much better about giving it a go! What’s there to lose?

  3. Oh this is hilarious!

    I struggle with so many of these ‘trends’ but somehow also find myself helplessly and mysteriously incorporating them on my blog. It’s like some zombie takes over once I open up the dashboard and posts on my behalf (maybe this is what you mean when you say the blog will basically write itself?).

    Oh and it is genius that you got the photo of the cat with its paw in the jar, Would it be possible to please try a little harder and get the cat actually holding up a smoothie jar and drinking from a stripey straw?

  4. Oh! Oh, my! I’m not even sure how I landed on this post but I’m so glad I did. HI LAR I OUS ! ! ! I’m off to get more kittens and some MC Hammer pants tout de suite! I KNEW I was missing something!

  5. You’ve completely fooled me. I was just ready to go to the store to get a farm table, a bunch of vintage-y silverware, and a slab of marble. Lucky you had that disclaimer at the end! Although, I must admit, I do like the idea of getting a kitten… too bad I already have three! (:

  6. Number 3 left me in total stitches!! Definitely one of those unsaid things which every food blogger too young to do do either of those things has thought at some point! But even so, this entire post was 100% hilarious and well written! Deffo gonna be coming back to this a lot!

  7. This was funny to read, but seriously, were the 10 tips a joke? :-) I’m really looking for great blogging-advises, and I thought these tips were super-great. I mean, this is really how great bloggers do it, isn’t it? Don’t you? :-)

  8. I love you, Joy. Of course, only in the best of ways. Your advice is definitely working, at least on your site! That’s basically the reason I love your blog so much. Keep on killin’ it!

  9. Highly larious, this. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it is awfully close to the truth. I have an ikea kitchen which is nice but its in a constant mess with not enough shelves, etc. I strive toward honesty in my blogging, though it could use better images (my kitchen has the worst lighting Ever)

  10. Firstable, sorry for my english. Usually, I read your posts without leaving any comment because my english is really very-very bad. But this time, I had to do it : I was laughing, alone in my kitchen, reading your post on my lab-top, just like a small girl one was talking a joke to ! (Oooh, is that english ?). It was really funny to read it ! Thanks for this good moment :)

  11. How do you create a website/blog? Even better, is this a template or something, I love the style. If anyone knows where to get templates (I don’t really know how it works so whatever you bloggers call it;) that would be awesome!

  12. Kale, brown butter or overnight oats. Put them together – à la brown butter kale overnight oats (and then make it vegan) and you’re pretty much guaranteed to go viral. lol I’ve been food blogging since 2005. I don’t do most of these things, which is obviously why I am not huge on the internet.

  13. Great tips! I’m not a food blogger and have no intentions of being one…..maybe you can create a post on how to be a great fashion blogger too – start with the trick of taking a picture with the toes of your shoes pointed inward.

  14. Hahahaha! How brave of you to even MENTION the Metamucil! Lots of admiration, esp. from a girl who’s been chugging that stuff like Tang, since she was 15. :D

  15. Hi Joy – so funny, and all true. Food bloggers especially have to take themselves not too seriously. I’d write more but I’m heading out to gather feathers off a dead seagull, my supply is low. Happy baking :)

  16. e-gads! Miss Joy, you have EIGHT cookies stacked. right on. you rock! Did you never learn [sigh] from your close friends that you should never EVER do a photo shoot with an even number? I am sorry, but you have violated your Oath, and all hell will now fall loose. ;) bad lighting. bad! bad!

  17. Ok I have to say, I’ve never written a comment on your blog (I’m just too lazy), but this here is comment-worthy. It’s HILARIOUS!! Although what you’ve said was playful sarcasm, most of the tips are very true for bloggers. Idk why people go crazy with browned butter-everything and they loooove those “behind the scene-shots” and those damn straws-I’ve had enough of those but I do like my marble slate. I think it makes me look fancy- Ha!

    Love this post; it just made my night!

  18. What about head-on shot of two hands holding a cup of flour/sugar/raisins/almonds/three eggs? So precious. So twee.

    I love you more than ever now, BTW.

  19. I have to run and tell my mom that all the, um, stuff in her basement would make great props for food styling! My grandmother, who basically hoarded it all during the Great Depression, must have been prescient. . . .

  20. LOL!!! Oh, oh, wait …and how would you forget the music notebooks laying under the cupcakes or the old printing press letters placed for some weird reason on the napkins or the soup plates… ;)

  21. Just the right balance of seriousness and sarcasm – hilarious! When I first started blogging, I was actually convinced that everyone had a rustic picnic table in their backyard, and couldn’t figure out how, since half of them seem to live in NYC.

  22. Rusty old spoons, Mason jars, paper straws, and an old rickety table…check check check check. Maybe NOW my little Alaska food blog will take off! Priceless entry, and SO TRUE! And yet I’m still a sucker for a Mason jar…

  23. Cute child’s hand holding mason jar. Check!
    White kitchen with wood. Check!
    Pregnant! Oh my ;) Check!
    Rusty cutlery. Check!

    Still need some marble slab, a barn table and a kitten!!! ;)

    OMG I love you for this!!! Needed the laugh ;) lol

  24. “Better than that even… kitten paws holding a mason jar. Perfection achieved.”
    This is awesome. The entire post is hilarious, but this is the best.

  25. I thought the best ever April Fool’s ‘thing’ was the BBC news report about spaghetti growing on trees in Switzerland, but I’ve changed my mind now … this ‘takes the cake’! Ha! Now I’m off to think up a brown butter recipe as I’m feeling a bit inadequate about the fact that I haven’t got one yet. ;-)

  26. Bahaha I could tell you were kidding at point one….but seriously, put your kitten on an old piece of wood holding a mason jar with a pretty straw in it. Totes makes sense.

  27. I am so hooked on your Blog (maybe, perhaps, kinda, because my daughter went to Tulane Law School and I L-O-V-E NOLA. Because I have a blog, forgetting this was April Fool’s Day, I took all this seriously and was on the phone purchasing a cat before getting to the end. I don’t particularly like cats – I’m a dog person – so Kitty, Kitty, Kitty is on its way to you in NO. Serious not kidding.,

  28. I own a million at one of those ikea towels. and the marble board. And about 10 other things in this post. Now to get a baby or a cat.
    P.S Kitties and mason jars would totally sell.

  29. Joy love all the tips….I hate to burst your bubble although you intention was sarcasm this post actually infuses only wit and charm!!!!!

    Thanks for sharing – I need to find a feather and funky comadina pj’s!

  30. I´ve been reading your blog for a looooong time and you always make me laugh. But this time it was the kind of laugh that made me want to comment. You´re awesome Joy, thanks for sharing all your wit and recipes! Love your way of blogging!

  31. Ha, this is great!! One of the best April Fool’s posts I have seen all day! Now, you just need to re-do this post next week with sincere tips. I would love to hear all of your advice!

  32. So totally what most folks think they need to do to become popular which is VERY sad. I have been blogging 12 years and am amazed to see some blogs become superstars while others that are breathtaking get hardly any atention.

  33. There’s more truth in this one post than in the entire world. And can we start writing anti-kale posts? I wonder if “Death to Kale” would get some attention? It’s time Swiss Chard got the same kind of love.
    Thanks for your brilliantness. I know that’s not a word but it is now!

  34. Omg Joy, this made my day! I’ve been bitten by a major case of the envies lately over how fabulously everyone else’s blog is doing and looking at my pitiful kitten-less, rusty-utensil-free blog and thinking “why not meeeeeeeeee?!” This post made me laugh and appreciate that my blog is the perfect representation of myself. I especially loved the line about kitten paws holding a little mason jar. I actually laughed out loud, literally!

  35. number 3 made me realize that this was sarcasm and to the end it was awesomely written hahaha made some great points

  36. You just wrote my ode to these painful vintage eatery. Your post It’s hilarious! True will set you free!!! No more vintage looking food please!!!!!! Lol! Who eats like that any way right?….let’s start a campaign of no more torturing food! You are awesome. Thanks for the laugh!

  37. There we are – no cat & no person to hold a mason jar! Guess its a sign to get pregnant & a cat both a reason to move to a farm …

    I love your april fools post

  38. Brilliant. I didn’t put it together with April 1st until I got to the end but I did get the “tone.”

  39. Haha, oh Joy. Don’t know about Ikea but people in Goa have been using hipster towels for centuries. You forgot enamel bowls! Or is it enamelware?

  40. Haha! #3 “Consider getting engaged, having a baby, or getting a kitten. This will do wonders for your food blog!” Made me laugh out loud only because it’s sort of true.

    EVERY.SINGLE.BLOGGER is newly engaged, or newly inseminated, or has a cute dog or cat.

    (P.S. this is not me being jealous. it’s a reality)

  41. You are brilliant. Thank you so much for both the laugh and the reminder. As a fellow food blogger, I totally get it and chuckled at every point. I definitely fall into these traps and need to find my way out, my own style, and my own voice. Pinterest is a total killer of creativity. I know that sounds backwards but we are all starting to think we need to be Pinterest-worthy to be successful.

  42. Gah! My wood is too new looking. I own no marble. My cutlery isn’t tarnished. I don’t have cute straws or awesome pants! And my cat is too old to hold a mason jar. I knew it. My blog is doomed.

    Thanks for the laugh. :)

  43. I was having a down morning and came here for a little sunshine. Thanks for my frown turned upside down :)

  44. OMG this had me laughing so hard! I love your posts and have to agree about brown butter…LOL. You started my day off right so THANKS for that Joy!

  45. I love this. I think your blog is uh-mazing. My sister got to meet you at a book signing a few years ago, and now that I’m a regular reader of your baking-meets-blog-meets-perfection blog, I’m so jealous of her! Hope NOLA is fab.

  46. OMG?! Are you SERIOUS!?!? What kind of advice is this? Not everyone can afford a farm table! This post totally sucked!!!! lol. April Fools!! Absolutely LOVED this post!! Your pictures are freakin’ GORGEOUS and that’s no joke. Thanks for the laugh, today, Joy! And happy April Fools to you! :)

  47. love the post (although not the hammer pants). In number 3 you forgot to add “go through a breakup”. sad life event drama = readership skyrocketing!

  48. All of this = hilariousness. The “get a farm table or you can’t play in this game at all” and mason jar + paper straw bits made my lol all over the place. there really are so many arbitrary food photo fads out there — love that this article points out some of the ridiculous whilst making us laugh.

  49. Giggling! I didn’t realize it’s April Fools until I got to the very end of your post. Thanks for the heads up. :) Oh and I caved and bought a pastry slab at Crate and Barrel last weekend.

  50. Hahaa.. ahh.. thanks for the laugh!! one of the best post ever written! “Even better yes… a child’s hands holding a small mason jar.” , ” Consider getting engaged, having a baby, or getting a kitten. This will do wonders for your food blog!”, “The plan always is to look really cool. Never forget.”… these were my favourite!

  51. But you didn’t post any fake-out food as “adorable” April Fool’s jokes on your loved ones :) This post made me laugh… thank you!

  52. I came here hoping to find tips here on how build a matching spice rack and garden hose holder out of a wooden pallet.

      1. Dude, I totally made your peanut butter birthday cake for a coworker. And even though I got canned (fired, let go, 86’d) the day after bringing it in, they’re still talking about that cake, and asking for the recipe. Maybe if I had brought the Red Velvet Marble, things woulda worked out differently, but whatevs.

  53. This is the perfect way to start April 1st. Handy tips, and even though I don’t blog about food, I’m going to get a kitten and a marble slab! :-) Maybe it will drive my ratings.
    Karen

  54. and to top this: JOY I LOVE YOU EVERYDAY MORE. I mean… snark is the way to go, and since I am myself the sarcasm sponsor of the year.. thank you. Between me and you: I’m putting together pre-blog material (starting off real soon) and i laughed solo hard cause I am doing so many of these things!! thank you so much!
    P. S. red cat in common!
    hugs, Ludi

  55. lol! Love it, Joy! : ) On a serious note, this marble slab I bought just isn’t working out for me photography wise. I had high hopes but I think the slab I bought isn’t big enough and it’s just not panning out. oh well…I’ll have to hit Ikea for those towels instead. ; )

  56. Sarcasm is my native language. That was right up my alley and even though it was for April Fools day, it’s actually very spot on!

  57. Ahh….hahahahahahaha!!!! You had me going… I was going to stop at the SPCA right after work to get a kitten… Heck, maybe two kittens!! Amazon for the marble slab (which I’ve been wanting one anyway..)… and the linens! oh, the linens… I was like “Yes! I’ve nailed that one”… because I’m a linen freak. I buy them all the time! And was so happy to know that I could just be me. Just be myself with my messy kitchen, and my pajama pants…. :-)
    Awesome post. LOVED it. Happy April Fools Day… :-)

  58. Um… you forgot to mention that every food blogger absolutely always keeps a stocked bar cart- probably gold, absolutely a DIY project. And the liqueur array is probably color-coded. (;

  59. As a fellow food blogger (who’s currently working on a site redesign), I’ve been talking about these exact things VERY SERIOUSLY recently ;) Very funny post and spot on!

  60. Best tag line of them all “10 Quick, Easy, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Salted Caramel Tips To Be The Best Food Blogger On The World Wide Web!” Happy April Fool’s Day!

  61. You cracked me up with this post Joy, seriously, I’m in tears… :DDD
    Can I add that of you want to be a successful food blogger you to buy yourself an old barn.
    With dirty windows that will let in the perfect light, thousands of rusted cutlery and tons of worn out linen dish cloths.
    Get the old barn -> Success. That easy!

  62. You forgot:
    “At least once a week, post a ‘recipe’ for something that absolutely does not require a recipe. See ‘how to make nachos without a recipe’ and ‘black bean and (insert grain here) bowl with salsa and veggies, a la chipotle’ “

  63. I’m awake earlier than I want to be, and I have to say this is a great way to start my day. Even in a not serious context, your photos are great.

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