My original post on driving traffic to your food blog remains one of my most popular—and surprisingly, after almost three years, the information is still all very relevant, in my opinion. But there is one MAJOR traffic-driver that was not on the old list, as it’s only recently popped up, virtually out of nowhere: Pinterest.

If you are a food blogger and you are not on Pinterest, create an account and start pinning NOW. Seriously, do it now. ALSO—look to your right and click the button to follow me on Pinterest. Please and thank you.

Most likely you’ve heard the buzz about Pinterest; but take it from a blogger than has seen incredibly rapid results (God, I sound like a Xenadrine spokesperson … )—this is the real deal when it comes to driving traffic to your food blog. Recent reviews of my Google analytics are seriously jaw-dropping: Pinterest went from a nonexistent source of traffic to one of my top referral sources in a matter of weeks. In fact, it contributed to a day of record-breaking traffic to my blog earlier this month—thanks in large part to a single pin from Kevin at Closet Cooking (thanks Kevin!)

Yay Pinterest!

Pinterest can get you traffic regardless of if you have an account and are active; doing so, however, greatly increases the effect. Plus, it’s the world’s most addictive productivity killer.

Here are my Pinterest rules to live by:

1. Get an account just for your food blog. Give your blog a little shout-out in your profile description and only create boards and pin things that are relevant to your blog.

A peek at one of my Pinterest boards

1. Pin early, pin often. Don’t sit and wait to pin only your blog’s content—especially if you don’t blog every day. At first, I was a little stuck with what to do when I created my account. After all, I joined with the sole purpose to promote my blog (although it’s turned into an obsessive time-waster/procrastination-enabler). Should I only pin my posts? It seemed counter-intuitive to pin other bloggers’ posts when I was trying to drive traffic to mine alone. But when I really thought about it, I realized a few things: A) People don’t want to follow someone who only pins a few things each month; B) Pinning other people’s posts and re-pinning other Pinner’s pins (and you thought Twitter lingo was tongue-twisting …) can help draw their attention to your boards and blog; C) The more solid content I pin on my boards, the more likely I am to get active, quality followers who will visit my posts and re-pin; and D) Pinning other blogger content is just good karma. So there you have it—pin other people’s stuff!
2. Quality matters.Just like with blogging, the quality of the things you pin matters. I try to always pin things directly from blogs to avoid re-pinning what I call “ghost pins.” Ghost pins are pins that lead nowhere, for all intents and purposes (inexplicably back to Pinterest, to Google, to main pages of blogs or sites instead of to a specific page or post, etc.).
   

   Don't pin directly from FoodGawker! The blogger might not get the traffic!

    

   

   Do this instead.

   To piggyback on this point, I like to pin content that features beautiful pictures. Put simply, they attract more people and re-pins and make your board WORLDS more appealing. Which brings me to my next tip …

3. Mine the food porn sites. I suspect that a major hurdle for some Pinterest users is where to find good content to pin. Your RSS reader is the first logical choice, but if you don’t follow a ton of other blogs, you may hit some dry spells. I pin almost exclusively from Foodgawker and TasteSpotting for a few reasons. First, there’s a wealth of content—much of which is fairly unique and eye-catching (a good thing when it comes to attracting Pinterest followers). Second, thanks to the strict photo submission guidelines, all of the content is gorgeous to look at (another attractive trait for your Pinterest boards).
4. Pin recipes that inspire you. As I continued to pin (and pin, and pin and pin) Pinterest took on another form for me. It’s my own personal stash of epicurean inspiration—posts I will go back to when brainstorming for my own blog for ideas. Thinking about it this way makes posting each pin even more satisfying.
5. Timing matters. It’s 3 pm on a Tuesday. I’m bored at work. I’m not the only one. How do I know (besides sheer common sense)? Because I get the majority of my re-pins from content I pin in the afternoon. Evening is also a great time. Experiment with a few different pinning times and days, watch the email notifications roll in and judge for yourself the best times for you to pin.
   

   LOTS of repins.

6. Add Pin It buttons to your posts. This is easy to do with WordPress plugins. I use the Pinterest “Pin It” Button plugin. Sure, lots of people have the widget in their bookmarks bar, but this makes it easier and is a reminder to pin. You can also add a “Follow me on Pinterest” button to your sidebar—get the button directly from Pinterest.
   
7. Monitor. I use PinReach.com to check on my stats, see my most popular pins at a glance, etc. This activity can help guide future pinning. And it’s free!
   
8. Don’t limit yourself. Re-pin from the main Food & Drink category under the “Everything” tab at the top of the Pinterest homepage. If you only re-pin other people in your network, you won’t catch as much attention from other potential followers.

Scour the Food & Drink feed

The smell of spring—and bacon grease—is in the air, and both are equally intoxicating. If you care to fill your kitchen with the latter, these little fried morsels will do the trick. While I’m tempted to recommend them alongside more fried food (fried chicken anyone?) they’ll probably seem less gluttonous as an appetizer shared among friends. I had to troubleshoot a little with these because my first batch was a little dry, so I suggest dropping one in the frying pan first to test, then adding a little more butter, cheese or perhaps a little dollop of sour cream to the batter if you need to moisten them up a bit. I served mine with some garlic-herb aioli, but I suspect they’d be even better with a really creamy ranch dip.

Beets are one of my recent obsessions. The taste, the color, the nutritional benefits—what’s not to love? Even the most thrown-together beet and goat cheese salads look fantastic, but I wanted to really up the ante to break in my new Sigma 70mm f2.8 EX DG Macro Lens.

The result of some kitchen experimentation and a little consultation with the The Flavor Bible was my very own Beet “Lasagna”: delicious slices of roasted red and golden beets sandwiching creamy goat cheese, crushed walnuts, razor-thinly sliced shallots, topped with crisp micro greens and drizzled with blood orange balsamic vinaigrette. It looks beautiful, tastes better, and is easy as can be. And the new lens rocked it out.

Beet “Lasagna”: A beet, goat cheese and blood orange salad

(serves 2-4)

You’ll need:

2-3 medium sized red beets

2-3 medium sized golden beets

1/2 cup of walnuts

1 small container of micro greens

small package of goat cheese (about 6 oz)

one shallot, sliced thin

1/2 blood orange, sliced, for garnish

Blood orange balsamic vinaigrette dressing

1/2 blood orange

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon balsamic or balsamic reduction

1/2 cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees scrub beets and remove greens. Place on a sheet of tin foil and drizzle generously with olive oil, then cover with another sheet and fold the edges in to create a foil packet. Put in the oven and cook for about an hour, or until beets are tender and the skin easily slides off when scraped with the side of a fork.

Meanwhile, blend all the ingredients for the dressing and refrigerate. Prep other ingredients by slicing shallots, crushing walnuts and peeling and slicing blood orange half for garnish.

When beets are finished roasting remove from oven and *carefully* open the foil packet. Let the beets cool slightly and scrape the skin off with a fork.

Cut beets in thin slices and begin to layer your “lasagna”. Start with a red beet, spread a small bit of goat cheese, sprinkle with walnuts, place a slice of shallot on top of the goat cheese/walnuts, and top with a golden beet slice. Repeat once more and top the final red beet with a dollop of goat cheese and micro greens.

Garnish the plate with whole walnuts and blood oranges, and drizzle with dressing. Top with fresh-ground pepper.

There’s nothing quite like St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago.

Starting at the crack of dawn, the city is a blur of green beer, irish whiskey and way more Flogging Molly music than should be legal. Our tradition is to wake up early, gather at someone’s house, eat green eggs, get a good buzz on and head for the bars. This year, I’m bringing a special pre-party treat that should have everyone feeling lucky.

Courtesy of Jelly Shot Test Kitchen (with which I am OBSESSED), I give you, the Luckytini jello shot:

Luckytini

You’ll need:

3/4 cup pear flavored vodka

1/2 cup Midori

1/2 cup diet Sprite or diet 7-up 

1/2 cup 50/50 mix of lemonade from concentrate and water

2 envelopes Knox gelatin

Combine the soda and lemonade mix in saucepan and sprinkle in gelatin. Let sit for several minutes. Heat over very low heat, stirring constantly, until gelatin is fully dissolved (approximately 5 minutes). Remove from heat. Add the vodka and Midori. Pour into standard loaf pan, and refrigerate until fully set – several hours or overnight.

Cut into cubes (it helps to run a butter knife under hot water, then cut the jello squares with the warm, still slightly wet knife. Otherwise, the knife creates jagged edges). Garnish with edible gold glitter.

No one ever said tacos were sophisticated. Nonetheless, once the suburban soccer mom’s festive alternative to sloppy joes (ground beef and Old El Paso taco kits anyone?), they’ve become a more en vogue meal option. Exhibit A: the hipster-infested patio of Big Star on a summer evening.

The humble taco: delicious, it is, pretty it’s not.

So what’s an aesthetically-obsessed hostess to do? Why, stacked tacos, my dear. Admittedly a smidge over-the-top, they’re a manifestation of my feelings of domestic inadaquacy (spurred by complaints about one too many oven-baked chicken breast dinners).

But, they’re easier than they look, and as delicious as ever. Mine were a little heavy-handed, ingredient-wise—if I had to recommend ditching one ingredient, it would probably be the refried black beans (although delicious, they weighed the dish down a bit)

Baja shrimp and chorizo “stacked” tacos

Makes 8-10 soft tacos

You’ll need:

1/2 lb of uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined

6 oz chorizo

1 can of refried black beans

1 poblano pepper, diced

1/2 yellow onion, diced

2 cups shredded cabbage

1/2 cup corn

2-3 avocados, sliced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 cup queso fresco, crumbled

small flour tortillas

1 Solo cup, with the bottom cut out

Chipotle sauce for cabbage and to garnish

1/2 chipotle pepper with sauce (canned)

1 cup mayonnaise

First, cut all the veggies as instructed and set aside. Then make your chipotle sauce by blending half a chipotle pepper in its sauce (less if you can’t handle spice) with the mayo. Mix a desired about in with the cabbage and corn and put the rest in a piping bag (or sandwich baggie with the corner snipped) to garnish.

Cook the peppers and onions with a little butter or olive oil over medium heat until tender. Add crumbled chorizo to the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes until cooked through. Add shrimp and cook for a few minutes until pink. Careful not to overcook! Remove from heat and set aside.

Before prepping, heat the refried beans (if you’re using them) and the tortillas a bit.

For assembly, make sure you’ve cut enough off the bottom of your solo cup to be able to easily stack the ingredients inside. I greased the inside of my cup with butter so the ingredients wouldn’t get stuck or fall apart when lifting the cup.

The rule of thumb is to stack the heavier and more sturdy ingredients first. Set your plate out, lay a tortilla on top, and place the solo cup, bottom up, in the middle of the tortilla. I started by spreading a layer of refried black beans at the bottom of the cup. I then arranged the avocado slices in a neat, even layer. Then the tomatoes, onions and peppers, cabbage/corn salad mixture, and finally the shrimp/chorizo/onion/pepper mixture. Slowly lift the cup off the plate. Garnish with crumbled cheese and chipotle sauce.

You’ll need to serve these guys with a few more tortillas—based on Dave’s taste test, each “stack” will make about three small tacos.

¡Viva el taco bonito!

I’m a pretty loyal Southwest Airlines flyer, but with the frequent-flyer program revamp and climbing fare prices, I’ve been feeling a little … restless. So when Dave and I found cheap flights for our trip to California through Virgin America, I was ready and willing to be deflowered.

I thought Southwest peanuts and pretzels were the last vestiges of edible airline snacks, so imagine my excitement over Virgin’s great food and drink selection and nifty personal touch-screen ordering.

Regardless of the fact that we were sipping them from plastic cups, the specialty cocktails made us feel fancy. Along with expected snack-food stand-ins, Virgin stocks natural, off-the-beaten-grocery-aisle bites and libations. Best of all, I felt no judgement from the flight attendant when accepting my sixth bag of 479° Fleur de Sel Caramel Popcorn. Everything is free for us Main Cabin Select passengers (told you I was fancy), and I took full advantage.

The cheese plate was also surprisingly delicious—with smokey gouda, cheddar, brie, swiss, an adorable little dried fig, grapes and rosemary lavosh (which, dare I say, was better than mine). Dave’s BBQ roast beef wrap was good also—far more exciting than your typical turkey croissant (which they also offer, in case you’re feeling bland).

I can now say that nibbling on brie, sipping a Cloud Hopper cocktail (Honest Ade Pomegranate, vodka and ginger ale) and watching The Sitter on your own personal TV really is the only way to fly.

Don’t book your tickets to Portofino just yet. There’s still two more virtual Italian food tours to go. Next stop: Tuscany.

First off, let’s talk accommodations. There’s only way to stay in Tuscany, and that’s to take the agriturismo route, shacking up on a vineyard or a fattoria (a farm). We stayed at Fattoria Casa Sola outside the tiny village of San Donato in the Chianti region. Our room was an old converted farmhouse smack-dab in the middle of rolling vineyards as far as the eye can see.

Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful and impossibly romantic, but you also have instant access to the best Tuscany has to offer: LOTS of vino. Before we get our buzz on, let’s talk about our fantastic cooking lesson experience–right in the kitchen of our little converted farmhouse.

The wonderful Giovanna was our personal tour guide to everything edible in Tuscany.

I’ll share her recipes in later posts—chicken liver crostini, fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with anchovy, homemade spinach ravioli and strawberry-mint tiramisu—but for now, enjoy a little Tuscan food porn:

What to eat in Tuscany:

Chianti

Yes, technically this isn’t a food, but many would say it’s just about the most important part of a Tuscan meal. I would have to agree. Wine tasting events in the Chianti region are plentiful and the number of wineries that participate is buzz-inducing—literally. We paid €15 for unlimited tasting and a souvenir wine glass. Chianti isn’t for everyone, but Dave and I happen to love it. Needless to say, we got our money’s worth—especially since several of the bottles sell for more than €100 in stores. Many of the vineyards also had a Vin Santo for tasting, an amber-colored, extremely sweet, high-alcohol dessert wine, typically served with biscotti.

Casa Sola has several fantastic Chiantis, which added a few lbs. to my suitcase on the way home.

Crostini di Fegatini (Chicken-liver pâté)

Don’t knock this Tuscan staple until you try it. The rich flavor of the fatty liver—combined with the mushrooms, onions and white wine—is undeniably delicious. If you’re squeamish about offal, fear not—it’s rendered unrecognizable by the immersion blender.

Tuscan bread

Tuscan bread has no salt, but that didn’t stop me from inhaling entire loaves of it. Slathered in fresh butter, sprinkled with a little salt, or sandwiching scrambled eggs, salami, spinach and ricotta, it’s what dreams are made of.

Yes, I grocery shopped and cooked on my honeymoon. I’ll accept my Wife of the Year award now.

Cured meats

One glance at the salami selection in a local San Donato butcher shop was enough to make Dave salivate. I’m a little less into cured meats—although I do love me some prosciutto—so I abstained; but for all of those salami lovers out there, Dave assures me it was some of the best he’s ever tasted.

Olive oil

Many of the same vineyards that produce the aforementioned Chianti also make extra virgin olive oil. It’s another can’t-go-wrong food souvenir.

Other Tuscan specialties that I either didn’t have the opportunity to sample, or that didn’t live to be photographed, are Bistecca all Fiorentina (a thick, T-bone steak, usually served rare), gamey meats, including hare, and meat stuffed pastas. Stay tuned for the best bets in the Amalfi Coast.