Dark Chocolate & Toffee Macadamia Bark + Steamy Secret #1

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With a photo like that, do I really need any words?!

I firmly believe that in order to start off the New Year properly, one must have chocolate. And lots of it.

Janet, wonderful customer of my husband’s company brought these Chocolate & Toffee Barks into the office a few months ago. While totally intended for Russ, one of Digital Doctor’s helpful techs, I snuck a piece.

Crunchy. Chocolatey, Nutty. Toffeeeey.

And then snagged another.

And shhhhh….another.

Crap. I was addicted, and had to email Janet for her recipe, partly because I needed to feed my new addiction…but mostly because I had to replenish the stash that I snuck. Surprisingly, it was no more than a handful of ingredients that I already had on hand and the only skill needed was stirring, spreading, chilling and eating.

Steamy Secrets to Becoming an Internet Food Stupidstar

Christmas Eve, as I was spreading the melted dark chocolate for these treats, I had an epiphany. As defined by Websters with my edit in red:

“a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience or SPREADING CHOCOLATE.”

Suddenly, the motion of spreading gooey heavenly chocolate was much more than just Step 3 of a recipe. IT WAS THE ANSWER.

What is it that transcends a normal food blog into Internet Foodblog Superstardom? Here’s the beginning of Steamy Secrets to Food Blog-Whoring.

Now, I know some of you are just food blogging to share with close friends, family and blog-friends. Great. But…some of you yearn for something a bit more…maybe the next level where you can actually make some moolah from blogging? Maybe a food career? Become a professional food blogger? Be a food blog stupidstar? Have a big ego? (check)

I really think that 2008 will the year of the food bloggers. Food reality competitions are soooo 2007, and the Food Network was soooo 2006. (well, for me, anyways. and i bet you one day, i might just eat my words).  My fav celeb chefs are the ones who make themselves accessible – Zimmern, Ruhlman, Greenspan, Gower, Nguyen, and others I’m sure I’ve left out. These are chefs who enjoy a dedicated, proactive, progressive and massively influential fans (psst…that us, the food bloggers.)

Here’s my take. If you’ve always had a dream to make a little splash in the food world, why not go for it in ’08?

Listen well, young grasshoppa. A blog-whore you shall learn to be.

First off, I’ve always said that any moron can come up with a recipe.

Case in point. The World Wrestling Federation has a friggin’ cookbook. Savory Smackdown? Seriously.

So, given that recipes are a dime a dozen, there is is an exception:

STEAMY SECRET #1: Post insanely irresistible, no-brainer recipes or tips

Like the recipe below, Dark Chocolate & Toffee Macadamia Bark, or maybe even Rolo Turtle Pretzels. Recipes that are so easy that a 4-year old can make it.

You see, these are recipes, tips and tricks  that are so simple, readers get an uncontrollable urge to just swiftly flick their wrist, and click on the del.icio.us button so that the link is safely tucked away for fu.tur.e re.fere.nce. These are also recipes and tips that popular food blogs, like Epicurious, Chowhound, SlashFood, The Ktchn, Stumbleupon and Lifehacker enjoy highlighting.

The lesson is to add value.

• So, what do people want to know? Read cooking forums for questions, like SeriousEats, Chow or HowStuffWorks
• dude, you don’t even have to come up with your own tips…ask a chef, your mom or your grandmamma.
• Pick up an issue of Fine Cooking Magazine or Cooks Illustrated – find a great tip, make it better and show me some pictures of it in action, baby!
• Dedicate an entire post to this one irresistible tip – and make it easy to find and link to.
• I think I got close to a quarter of a million page views in 5 months for just for: $5 to $50 steak (that’s just for 1 post)

Great Cooking Tips. What’s a kitchen tip that saves you SO much money, time or hassle? How much time/money does it save? How did you come up with the tip? Give some practical applications. Remake Popular Recipes. Take a popular recipe and make it even better. Ok, so my No Knead Bread post didn’t really remake the recipe, but I bribed my son to be chef with a whale tattoo and showed that it was so simple that a 4 yr old could bake bread. Google “No-Knead Bread” and I think I come up #2. Anyone have a pet orangutan? Bread so easy an chimp could make it! (kidding guys…kidding)

The #1 bread book on sale at Amazon right now is Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, based on the super popular No-Knead Bread recipe. But authors Zoey and Jeff took it a step further and adapted the technique with recipes for 100 different breads, including savories and sweets. I’ll be reviewing this book in the next week and will publish some of my results of their recipes. So, what are some of the most popular recipes that have been circulating the web…and how can you make it different/better/faster? An example is my Lobster Mac ‘N Cheese.

• read
• these
• really
• super
• duper
• cool
• mighty
• awesomely
• radical
• articles. pssst…I got dibs on the Fragrant Indian Brittle recipe!!
• who is going to remake one of Paula Deen’s most popular recipes, Oooey-Gooey Cakes, but give it an ethnic twist?

Wanna know what are popular recipes?

Young Padawan…No Longer.

When I started this blog 11 months ago, it was because of these wonderful, generous folks who inspired, nudged, cheered, befriended, laughed with and advised me. Some gave me a start in my food career. Others wooed me with food porn (and inspired me to be a food photographer). One special friend coached me on television presence and inspired me to garden. And my most dearest friends, Julie, Lisa and Kelly were my homegirl cheerleaders.

And hey, my turn to give back to this year’s crop of young padawans new food bloggers. Steamy Secrets will be an ongoing series as long as I have the brain capacity to continue. Next week, I’ll share with you my top secrets of food photography for people who ARE NOT professional food photographers (because I’m not one either!)

I’ll teach you how to take drool-worthy photos like this:

So, what Steamy Secrets would you like to learn? (ahem….about BLOGGING I mean)

Share with the world.