Food bloggers, am I right?

I recently stumbled across a blog post by someone who writes about food and some other things about how the person made her first $500 blogging. The key was that she got on with a successful ad network company once she met its minimum requirement of 30,000 page views a month. (To put that into perspective, I've had less than 25,000 page views total since I started this here blog 60 months ago.) Thanks to the increased ad revenue, her blog is now, she says, a "six figure business" netting enough to support her family, including her six children and her husband who quit his job so that they could do the "blogging gig" together full time.

After that, I took note of another post by a different food blogger who says that she also makes a "full time income" from her blog, which "feeds [her] family" that includes her husband and four kids. She mentioned that people complain about the annoying ads, but opined that putting up with the ads is a small price to pay for free access to the recipes she works hard on. Fair enough, but I have to say some of the ads are a wee bit counterproductive to the purpose of a food blog. For example, this is a portion of an actual screen grab from right at the start of one of the second blogger's recipes:

 

Yum-o! I don't know about you, but nothing makes me want to try a recipe more than a picture of an open toilet and an IBS quiz. [1] It could be a good thing for the blogger, I guess, in that if you get the shits from eating her cake that's made with 3 cups of sugar (not including the 2½ to 4 additional cups of sugar for the cream cheese frosting), she can say it's IBS or sucrose intolerance rather than the cake. Plus, you have to hand it to the ad firm for knowing enough to use a picture of a shiny new john instead of one that somebody crapped in after eating the sugar bomb.

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[1] Yes, I know the ads are supposed to be targeted to the user so that, presumably, not everyone would see this particular ad. But trust me, if someone thinks I need to take the IBS quiz, either their algorithm needs some serious work or there is a major dose of randomness involved in the ad-generation process.

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On to the latest recipe now that I've whetted your appetites. This one is from The Art of Simple Food, one of the mighty "nine cookbooks." Back when there was such a thing as the book sale, I bought each of you a copy. Dylan has been wanting to learn how to cook more intuitively so he's actually been reading his copy, which includes over 200 pages of cooking "Lessons" in Part I of the book. Part II has some simple recipes to get you started, including this one that Dylan highly recommended. I made this last night for Mom and Brad and it didn't last long. This is a great fall salad, with warm flavors to match your warm kitchen when you turn the oven on to roast the sweet potatoes. Good choice, Dylan!

Moroccan Sweet Potato Salad

Adapted from The Art of Simple Food (2007) by Alice Waters

Time: ~45 minutes

2 medium-large sweet potatoes (about 1½ pounds)
40 grams (3 tablespoons) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for roasting the sweet potatoes
¼ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus more for roasting the sweet potatoes
1 tablespoon (15 grams) freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger root (use your Microplane)
⅛ teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons minced cilantro (leaves and thin stems)
1 tablespoon minced parsley (leaves and thin stems)

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 375 degrees.
    2. Peel the sweet potatoes, then chop them into approximately ¾-inch cubes. In a 13-by-9-inch baking dish, toss the sweet potatoes with oil to coat and a few pinches of salt. Roast until cooked through, about 25 to 30 minutes depending on the size of your cubes; a thin, sharp paring knife should not meet any resistance when poked into a cube. Let cool for a few minutes.
    3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the 40 grams oil, lemon juice, paprika, ginger, ¼ teaspoon salt, and cumin. Stir in the cilantro and parsley. Pour over the sweet potatoes and mix well. Taste for salt and lemon juice. Let stand for up to 30 minutes, stirring now and then. Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 3 to 4.