Wednesday 2 May 2012

cut to the chase

Food bloggers: you don't need to photograph every single step of your recipe. Or if you can't resist doing this, please just put the full recipe at the bottom of the post. Because I really hate it when recipes are like:

First, bring the butter to room temperature.
[Photo of butter being removed from the refrigerator.]
And now I'm going to prattle on about butter and insert a witty quip about butter here. Woooooweeee I love butter! Don't you? It's like bacon! I LOVE BACON!! Next, put the butter and sugar in a bowl.
[Eagle eye view of sugar being tipped into a bowl.]
Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Hey, did I ever tell you this lengthy story about my little girl and that time she ate an entire 2kg bag of castor sugar? Well, it was back in June and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
...three paragraphs later...
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
[Arty shot of flour wafting through the air into a Williams and Sonoma ceramic bowl.]
Add the flour mixture to the butter, and add the eggs, vanilla, and milk.
[Obligatory shot of an egg being cracked, with shells scattered about in a seemingly random manner. May also contain added wooden spoon.]
[Photo of batter being mixed. Just in case you forgot how to use a spoon.]
[Photo of the batter being tipped into cake tins. Just in case you couldn't figure out how to get it from point A to point B.]
More hilarious anecdotes, possibly unrelated to cake.
[Highly stylised photo of finished cake, wildflowers cascading down the side.]

JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN RECIPE.

7 comments:

Blork said...

I agree! (Can you tell we're both technical writers by trade?)

Also, it helps if you break up your paragraphs according to steps, instead of having one long paragraph that begins with something like "Preheat the oven" and then runs eight or nine steps without a break.

Mrs Dee said...

Exactly! It doesn't bother me so much if it's just a normal blogger, but there is a "famous" food blogger (who also has a show on Food Network) who goes on photo overload. You'd think someone of that calibre would have an editor!

Anonymous said...

*snort* I read your blog and then I read this: http://www.thelondoner.me/2012/04/skinny-spaghetti.html

Mrs Dee said...

MY EYES!! MY EYES!!!!!!!

(And anyway, my courgette pasta is far superior to stinky cabbage. Hmph.)

natalie said...

Firstly - yay! You're back!! When I read this I immediately thought of PW and came to say so and then see that you've beaten me to it. Well, at least that's who I think you're referring about...

Mrs Dee said...

Thanks, Natalie! :)

hahaha yes, it was PW - although to her credit, she does put the full recipe (without all the nonsense) at the very end of her posts. But still...ugh. Me and scrolling do not get along.

laputain said...

this just made me laugh hard. and, like your previous post about 'big bloggers' chimed with me a lot about some of the reasons I stopped blogging. right enough there's not a lot i can do about the main reason (MedSchool) but it was cool to see i'm not alone in my frustrations with the internet.