Wherein I explain my Pinterest embarrassment.
I love food photography, and I love it when people share my pictures on Pinterest. But I have a problem. My most popular post on Pinterest is a great recipe, Baked Chicken Thighs with Mustard and Herbs. But the picture with that post? Ugh.
It's from the early years of my blog, taken at night under the harsh fluorescent lighting in my kitchen. It's an arrangement of brown chicken on my (then) brand new, Fiesta Ware lemongrass green plate. So, so awful.
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| Oh, the shame... |
But that recipe is so good, people keep passing it around on Pinterest in spite of the picture. On the one hand, good for me, I've transcended the entire point of Pinterest. On the other hand…I couldn't take it any more. I had to go back and fix the picture.
I try not to go back and fix things, other than obvious misspellings, grammatical errors or cut and paste issues. I cringe when I read my early writing, and I know myself. Once I started wholesale fixes, I wouldn't be able to stop. By the time I got done fixing all my old posts, I would have learned enough to go back and fix them all again. I'd be trapped in a time loop, constantly updating the blog, never posting new stuff.
But this was too much, even for me. So, please, go enjoy my updated version of Baked Chicken Thighs with Mustard and Herbs. (I rewrote the recipe while I was in there. I had to.) It really is a great recipe.
To reward you for reading this rambling post, and to showcase some recipes from my archives, here are my top five recipes according to Pinterest, all with much better pictures...
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Baked Chicken Thighs with Mustard and Herbs |
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Fiery Mexican Martini |
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Foil Pouch Grilled Green Beans |
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Pickled Dilly Beans |
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Rotisserie Boneless Pork Loin Roasts |
Now, if I can just avoid going back to fix any other posts...like the Homemade Barbecue Rub pictures that were #6 on my Pinterest list...Darn it.
What do you think?
Questions? Other ideas? Any other posts I have to go back and update? Leave them in the comments section below.
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Chris Lukowski says
I completely understand when it comes to style and photography. I was speaking strictly of recipe and procedural improvements, like if you gradually evolved your methodology of making chicken stock or learned that a particular recipe step was overkill and a waste of time. Stuff like that.
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.
(Apologies to Brad Bird.)
Mike V @ DadCooksDinner says
The problem is, it's like pulling the thread on a sweater. It's not the recipes or techniques that I would change, its the language. I'm not saying I'm a great food writer right now...but I'm a lot better than I was back when I started. And, that way lies madness.
(And, again, don't get me going on my early photography. The natural light shots are OK, but the night time pictures, illuminated by a flash? Yikes.)
That said, if there are any particular recipes you want me to clean up, let me know.
Rhonda says
Don't look back, move forward!
Chris Lukowski says
"By the time I got done fixing all my old posts, I would have learned enough to go back and fix them all again." Believe it or not, I don't see a problem with this at all. You don't just post recipes, you post thought processes and scientific data. I'll come out and say it: One of my biggest pet peeves of Alton Brown is that as his knowledge progressed and early theories and explanations of his were debunked or improved on, he never made much effort to annotate his old proclamations. Now granted editing TV episodes isn't a practical thing to do, but an online catalog of corrections would have been nice. You, on the other hand, can easily edit old posts with updates and therefore spare newcomers to your blog of committing any outdated knowledge to memory.