Coffee & Crayons is a newer find for me, one full of Jessica’s self-taught journey in food photography. Along with some delicious recipes she also shares bits and pieces of her life as a mother – the good days and the bad.
Cotter Crunch is helmed by Lindsay Cotter, a gluten-free nutrition specialist who focuses on fueling active people with real food. Because so many of her recipes are grain-free, many are adaptable to my type 2 diabetes lifestyles as well. Lindsay is clearly passionate about what she does and that enthusiasm and dedications is 100% contagious.
My Baking Addiction appeals to my gigantic sweet tooth – the one I’m not supposed to have – and baker Jamie clearly relates to my love of sugar. With autumn fast approaching my baking game is about to go up a notch, and I can’t wait to dig into these recipe archives.
Running to the Kitchen offers everything from butter-laden to paleo recipes and everything in between. I love this kind of site because it’s realistic for most of us – a moderate amount of healthy fuel with occasional indulgences. Gina clearly agrees and has a backstory worth reading over as well.
Shutterbean‘s Tracy Benjamin dabbles in a lot of areas – everyday life, organizing tips, the occasional decorating post, photography, and food. I love that she admits that she’s constantly thinking about food, which is probably the #1 reason you should be a food blogger!
Heartbeet Kitchen is a celebration of sweet and savory recipes along with some other tidbits from author Amanda’s life in Minnesota. The recipes are based around seasonal vegetables and whole grains, as well as eggs and dairy from happy animals. Many are vegetarian, and all are gluten-free with a specialty in baking with alternative flours.
The Vanilla Bean Blog, aka Sarah Kieffer, is a site I’ve been following for several years now. Started as a way to document her family’s food history, it’s also a space full of baking recipes, kitchen moments with friends and family, occasional musings and reflections, and some poetry and prose – in another word, connection.
Salt and Lavender is full of delicious from scratch recipes that are also simple to make. Fresh, real ingredients play a big role, with not nearly as much salt as the name might indicate. Author Natasha provides a healthy mix of good for you foods mixed with a few indulgences.
The Almond Eater is the place where self-taught cook Erin shares the wholesome recipes created in her kitchen. Each one is double-tested before she shares it on the site. (Quiet admission: we also both live in Pittsburgh and have the same two major food dislikes – mustard and pickles!)
What to Cook Today is a newer find, there are just so many talented Minnesotans out there! Marvellina shares recipes she grew up with in Indonesia that have a heavy Chinese influence as well as local flavor – think lots of boldness often sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and umami all combined into one dish! Marv also experiments with plenty of foods from other continents though, if southeast Asian flavor isn’t your cup of tea.
The Kitchen McCabe is all about wholesome recipes that by no coincidence are also delicious. Blogger Kayley is a culinary graduate with a passion for making and baking pretty things that are healthy without being restrictive.
Naturally Ella is a phenomenal resource for natural cooking and vegetarian recipes. Find a meal to cook, explore an ingredient, or create a solid pantry – you’ll find it all and more right here.
Minimalist Baker is where blogger Dana creates recipes full of flavor that require ten ingredients or less, one bowl or pot, and 30 minute or less to prepare. Most recipes are special-diet friendly, specifically plant-based and gluten-free.
FoodieCrush shares recipes that are fresh, seasonal, mostly simple, often healthy, and also comfort food. I’d say blogger Heidi does an amazing job balancing all of those things with a delicious result.
Always with Butter is food, photos, recipes, and life written by Julie Marie Craig. She doesn’t post terribly often, but when she does trust me that it’s oh so worth your time.
Joy the Baker has been one of my favorite food blogs for years, not just the moment. If you’re not already familiar, she’s a self-taught baker who’s all too relatable in her writing and all too drool-inducing in the recipes she creates.
Kitchen Konfidence is another site that’s been a quiet and steady source of cooking inspiration. Brandon creates some the most epic cocktails, desserts, and so much more.
Love & Lemons is run by couple Jeanine and Jack, and it’s a great site full of mainly vegetarian recipes. Everything is bright and seasonal – perfect if you’re trying to eat healthy or just enjoy the harvest.
Tartelette was very likely one of the first food blogs I started following years and years ago. Former pastry chef Helene Dujardin perfectly captures her beautifully seasonal recipes – many gluten-free – in words and photos.
Dolly and Oatmeal is a mainly plant based, gluten- and daily-free blog written by Lindsey Love. By cooking seasonally with fresh ingredients she promotes the natural timeline of nature’s bounty through her recipes.
Fix Feast Flair is the perfect mix of baking, cooking, and mixed drinks. Food blogger Alana focuses on coming together around the table, be it cooking, baking, dining, or nerding out on provisions.
Kitchen Konfidence was born out of blogger Brandon’s desire to cook outside of his comfort zone. Plenty of desserts, seasonal ingredients, and multicultural experiments will have you waiting for the next recipe he shares.
Love & Olive Oil is the culinary adventures of Lindsay and Taylor catalogued. The site’s pages overflow with flavorful dishes that won’t break the budget.
Yes to Yolks is where self-taught cook Molly shares healthy, well-balanced dishes with a dash of indulgence. And after years of cooking food for friends and family she decided to get it together and put all of her thoughts, recipes, and pictures in one place. We’re all benefitting immensely from it!
Spoon Fork Bacon is the collaborative food blog of Teri Lyn Fisher and Jenna Park, and between them the two create some seriously delicious recipes with a DIY thrown in here and there for good measure.
Not Without Salt focuses on foods that are simple, fresh, seasonal, and delicious. (Most of my favorites do.) Ashley really focuses on helping you eat well and enjoying the cooking and baking that goes into that process.
Local Milk is helmed by Beth, who has a serious way with both words and camera. Sometimes I forget that I’m reading delicious recipes and get completely wrapped up in her prose.
Hungry Girl por Vida‘s main babe, Cindy, shares recipes that I want to eat. Immediately. All of her savory and sweet dishes are easy and taste mind-glowingly delicious.
The Faux Martha‘s Melissa shares the recipes that dress her family’s table day in and day out. Weekday meals are down and dirty while weekend feasts are more time consuming, and I love the realness behind that.
Baked the blog is a collaborative site run by seven Canadian food bloggers that celebrates all things sweet. Posting about one recipe a week, each blogger takes a turn sharing one of their delicious creations accompanied by photography that’s sure to make you drool even more.
Brooklyn Supper is the lauded blog of Elizabeth Stark and Brian Campbell, a couple who focus on eating seasonally. The two share simple, straightforward recipes (with a fancy one thrown in here and there) for home cooks at all levels. Some of the best salads you will ever see are right here.
Cookie + Kate is a longtime favorite of mine with a focus on whole foods and vegetarian recipes. Kate’s hallmark is that she believes in recipes being flexible, and practices what she preaches. Several of her recipes are in constant rotation in my kitchen year-round.
Another longtime favorite, How Sweet It Is (aka How Sweet Eats), is the food blog baby of witty Jessica. Healthy recipes, comfort food, and indulgent desserts all have their place here, where Jessica’s banter and realness make you want to hang around and have a cocktail.
Billy Green is one hilarious mofo, and his site Wit & Vinegar is as funny as it is delicious. His graphic design background shines through with beautifully styled photos that will have you Risky Business-sliding into your kitchen ASAP.
Since being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year (whomp whomp), food porn has become even more prevalent in my carb-counting lifestyle. Thankfully there are not only plenty of ways to adapt recipes (zucchini noodles and mashed cauliflower have become my favorites), there are also plenty of sites that create beautifully developed recipes that are photographed so well I can almost taste them through the screen of my laptop. Here are five that make my tastebuds daydream.
Hipsterfood is a vegan site run by couple Cara and Bob. Their ironically named site is full of sometimes healthy, sometimes decadent recipes that are made from “95% cheap, easy-to-find food, and 5% sort-of-pricey, specialty food.” I love how realistic and unpretentious these two are and look forward to the day when they write a cookbook.
Butterlust is the work of the witty and intelligent Katie, who runs her site kind of like a test kitchen. If something goes wrong you’ll know it because she’ll tell you, just like how she sometimes uses cake mix and is super messy in the kitchen. Honesty is always refreshing.
Lady and Pups is a self-proclaimed “angry food blog” of one woman and her move to Beijing three years ago. You see, she kind of hates it so she’s turning all of that frustration and angst into lovely meals. I’m totally down with that – some of the best creativity is born from situations we can’t control.
Seasons & Suppers is Jennifer’s cooking diary as she makes her way through the seasons Ontario, Canada. Seasonal and healthy, hearty and comforting, occasionally decadent recipes fill each post with a focus on taking advantage of what’s fresh and at its best.
My Name is Yeh follows the hilarious Molly through her adventurous in food and life. Most recipes are inspired by her Jewish and Asian roots, and now that she’s moved from Brooklyn to a farm in North Dakota there’s a bit of that as well. It seems she’s always on a adventure.
It’s been awhile since I’ve shared some of my blog favorites, because I don’t spend that much time trolling the blogosphere. You might find it a little odd that most of my favorite sites aren’t other curatorial or art and design blogs, they’re usually food and lifestyle based.
First up is Wit & Vinegar. Billy creates recipes that make me want to lick my laptop’s screen and spews funny like few others. You should definitely follow if you like food, sass, and dogs.
Henry Happened is full of thoughtful posts and resources that I wish I had the time or foresight to figure out on my own. Thankfully this site takes care of it all for me. Follow if you’re looking for DIY, style, home, and food.
In the words of creator Sarah, “The Sugar Hit is a cooking, eating & living blog. It’s a resource for the young, the broke, the hungry, and anyone wanting to live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget.” Follow along if you’re into all of the above. I am.
No doubt by now you’ve already read countless posts from other bloggers speaking about everything they learned, how awesome the other bloggers are, and how inspired they left. And you know what? It’s all true. This year marked my fourth year attending and speaking at Altitude Design Summit (affectionately Alt) and I’m still not tired of the feelings I leave with every January. It’s basically impossible to not bond with these people who are on your wavelength, who get your obsession with analytics and tolerate you anyway.
Most attendees arrived in Salt Lake City sometime Wednesday. Past years I’ve had punishing early morning flights, but this time around lucked out and didn’t even have to depart Oklahoma City until after one o’clock. I had a lovely traveling partner in Rachel Shingleton of Pencil Shavings fame, and we arrived in SLC shortly before everyone started heading off to their Wednesday evening sponsored dinners.
I has signed up for a lovely meal with Joss & Main, a members-only site that curates 3-day long shopping events, at Sapa Sushi Bar & Grill. I ended up having such a great time and so many quality conversations that I forgot to snap even one photo! That has to be a record.
Thursday morning’s sessions started bright and early at 9am, and in the main hallway I immediately noticed what was one of my favorite new additions to Alt this year – three sheet metal boards ripe with magnets for showing off business cards! Business cards are the equivalent of gold at this conference, and the boards were the perfect way to showcase everyone’s creativity and long hours. They also unintentionally gave me recognition of someone before ever meeting them face to face. I can’t recall how many times I exchanged cards with someone only to say how I’d hoped I would meet them after spotting their card first.
Thursday night brought with it the much anticipated Clue party. We had all been instructed to dress in the color of Mrs. White, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, or Mr. Green. I thought for sure one color would be dominant but nope, the room was a rainbow of vibrant color! All of the board game’s rooms were represented, sectioned off and identified in the classic Clue font and projected in light from the ceiling amidst the apropos furniture setting.
I loved all of the little touches that went into the planning, from the huge array of colored flower arrangements to the artistic takes on each weapon, to the colored lights in the rear of the room! (This is obviously the end of the night, these tables were packed!)
This is the lone good photo of me from the entire conference – as Miss Scarlet! – because the next morning I woke up with a raw throat and aching ears. I’d been sick for most of January and traveling lots, so I don’t know why I was surprised. But I was. Guess I should have taken more note of all the hand sanitizer being handed out and not put that plastic bear mask on in the Bing photobooth. But speaking of Bing…
… they had a great footprint on the entirety of Alt, in a very genuine way. Their support of creativity and voice were palpable, starting with the amazing lounge they put together around projects nominated by the attendees. (And from what I hear, people ended up winning and taking each one home!)
Land of Nod also threw one heck of a tea party, complete with a full-size plastic swan boat (you can see a photo of me and my roommate, Jaime Derringer of Design Milk, canoodling in it on Instagram!) and plenty of polka dots and stripes.
Three cheers for Bing, Land of Nod, and all the sponsors of Alt for helping it reach its full potential!
We had the opportunity to see three fantastic keynotes, one Thursday and two Friday. First up was Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and former longtime editor-in-chief of Wired magazine. To be honest Chris’s talk was a little over my head, but I’m looking forward to reading the copy of his book – Makers: The New Industrial Revolution – we were all gifted at lunch.
Friday’s lunch keynote resonated most, no doubt because it was one of my long-standing graphic design crushes – Stefan Sagmeister of Sagmeister & Walsh. His talk focused on the exploration of happiness through his projects The Happy Film (which finally has backing) and The Happy Show. We had the chance to preview twelve blissful moments of the movie, which will be at film shows this coming year. Needless to say, totally amazing.
The closing keynote was the lovely Katie Sokolov of Color Me Katieand street art fame. I have to confess that I didn’t make it to this one, cold meds had me taking a short nap in my room instead. But this is what I missed out on…
Friday evening brought with it the much loved Mini Parties! Each sponsored room has its own distinctive decor and vibe, I think my favorite was Go Mighty‘s valentine-themed crush party with plenty of red, balloons, and candy. I also had a great time visiting with Better Homes and Gardens and Hayneedle!
Oh, the trends! Alt wouldn’t be Alt if the ladies (and handful of gents) didn’t bring their A-game. I was excited to see the latest (colored denim, mixed patterns, fascinators) and the reliables (topknots, big glasses, totes).
Some sights became old hat by the end of the conference – water to fight dehydration, Sagmeister kissing everyone in photos, and killer calligraphy to name a few.
Every year the business cards get better and more outrageous. This year was no exception with trends like thick cotton letterpress, blind embossing, and colored edges making their mark.
It seems like this year more than ever people were above and way beyond with their cards, some were flat out gifts. Prints, notecards, calendars – even a hamburger yoyo and wooden corgi pin!
If you couldn’t make it to the conference you should definitely look into it for 2014! In the meantime, here are a few links to reviews of some of the panels. I’ll continue to update the list as new ones come out!
– we were all gifted at lunch.
