Archive for 2008
no cooking today–
mom’s here!
If you’re looking for What’s Cooking Wednesday, tune in Friday when I’ll be hosting La Buona Cucina Americana . . . and making something American with my mom! She’s here! Woohoo!
But for now, can I interest you in seeing our very first homegrown artichoke? It’s a cross between a normal artichoke and the wild kind, thus the interesting spiky look.
Can you see an unwanted guest? Look closely!
Enjoy your Wednesday my peeps!
La Vucciria Market in Palermo, Sicily
I intended to only write one post combining the markets and gardens of Palermo. When I started it, though, I quickly realized that I can’t. There’s simply too much good stuff to try to cram it all together.
So today won’t be the last Palermonday after all! Today we’ll hit the markets, and next Monday, the gardens, OK? And if you *really* want, perhaps we’ll even explore the Catacombs as well.
So tell me, would you like to see dead people?
Palermo’s markets are famous, and just from what we saw, I have to say–with good reason.
Unfortunately for Cherrye and me, our time in Palermo was limited, so we only had a quick pass through La Vucciria market the morning before we left. The other markets are Capo, Ballarò, and Borgo Vecchio, and then there are tons of little markets, or mercatini, on various days throughout the city.
La Vucciria is split up into food items and then everything else. Here’s a glimpse of part of “everything else”; sorry for the lighting. Didn’t catch the angles of the sunlight well I’m afraid, but you can still get a feel for the streets of the city, right?
There was a lot of nice knock-off stuff that was better quality than at our markets here, and yet I came home with souvenirs from an Indian shop of all places. What can I say? We don’t have any Indians in my village.
The food part was full of lovely sights and smells (except the fish, which doesn’t smell so good). The colors sure were pretty though.
We loaded up on spices but realized later that we should have grabbed some fruit for the train ride home. Lesson learned.
I would go back to Palermo just for the markets, I tell you.
Come back next week for the gardens!
P.S. I should warn my faithful readers that from now until at least early July, I will be cutting back on posting to three times a week. My mom is arriving shortly, and I want to have as much time with her as possible. Woohoo for mom visits!
5 ways to increase blog traffic & make money with your blog
One of the questions I get asked most frequently via email involves how to make money with a blog, so I decided to write a post about it.
If you’re not the least bit interested in making money from your blog, that’s your choice, and I respect that; it’s certainly a personal decision. But this is a post for those of you who wouldn’t mind having a couple more dollars, euros, pounds, whatever in your pocket each month. I’m far from an authority on the subject, but hey, you asked!
I imagine I get this question because you can see that I have BlogHer Ads, Google AdSense and an Amazon store. I’m not making a fortune by any means, but I am covering my online operating expenses including web-hosting and my Internet service, so I can’t complain.
There are two aspects to the question of how to make money with a blog; the first involves what kind of advertising opportunities are available for blogs.
As mentioned, I use three of them, but for even more options, see Problogger Darren Rowse‘s article How to Make Money From Your Blog – Direct Methods.
[On a side note, search around Darren’s site for *tons* of great advice. Seriously, if you’re interested in making money with your blog, you *need* to subscribe to Darren’s Problogger.]
Since revenue is intricately linked with blog traffic, the next issue becomes how to increase blog readership. There are many ways to increase blog traffic, some which require more time and dedication than others but all likely to get more people reading you and, hopefully, clicking on your ads.
To get you started, here are some helpful articles:
- How to get traffic to your blog (Seth Godin)
- How to build your blog’s readership (Problogger)
- How to Build a High Traffic Website (or Blog) (Steve Pavlina)
- 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (SEOmoz.com)
- Tips for Building Blog Traffic (Deb Ng’s Freelance Writing Jobs)
Now here are my 5 ways to increase blog traffic:
1. Decide on what your focus will be and stick with it, more or less.
Anyone who has ever taken a writing class has heard “write what you know.” I’ll see that advice and raise it a “write what you like” when choosing a focus (or foci!) for your blog.
How do you choose a focus? Other than picking a topic you enjoy, if there’s something special about you that you can highlight, use it to your advantage as your “hook.”
You don’t *have* to stay on your topic 100% all the time, but do take cues from your readers (like they’re not coming anymore) if you stray too much.
An example of a hook: I live in Italy, so that’s certainly something that draws a certain number of readers to me. Will they come back to the blog only because I live in Italy? Probably not, which is where the next tip comes in.
2. Write quality content.
My best advice? Write posts that you’d like to read. And then proofread. Please! Provide links to other sources for more information. Use photos, either your own or through sites like iStock, Stock.xchng, Creative Commons, etc.
Many of the posts I listed above have more in-depth content writing advice, so do check them out.
A small tip regarding formatting: use paragraphs, more so than you would in normal writing. Seeing white space every so often is pleasing to the eye. Am I saying that I’ll skip over large blocks of text even if it’s award-winning? Well, yeah. My Internet attention span isn’t the longest, and I’m not likely to keep returning to a site that won’t give my eyes a rest no matter how much I might like what the writer is saying.
3. Visit blogs in your niche and—capital letters here—COMMENT.
How do you find more blogs like yours *and* blogs that have readers that might be interested in reading yours too? Blogrolls and comment sections of other blogs like yours are great places to start. Another tip is to go the Technorati page of blogs like yours or blogs you enjoy and see who has linked to them.
Now, go visit blogs and get your blog name out there by leaving quality, insightful comments (more than just “Great post!” is advised), and people will get curious and come and visit you.
A small tip here: I sign my comments “Bleeding Espresso.” Why? Because if I use “Michelle,” would that make you click over and see my blog? Perhaps, but “Bleeding Espresso” is much more likely to entice someone. Yes, I could also do “Michelle of Bleeding Espresso,” but that’s more typing, and time is money peeps!
*EDITED: I find myself going with “Michelle of Bleeding Espresso” more often; I think it’s better for when commenting on new blogs since it gives people a name to go with the blog name and in most commenting forms, the information is stored anyway, so no typing and retyping (so no time-wasting either).
Now please don’t take this to mean that you should be visiting blogs willy nilly and leaving your mark like a dog. Too graphic? Ahem. Then how about this? Take time to read the posts of your fellow bloggers, carry forward an online conversation, and you will be rewarded with more visits.
4. Enable comments and put a contact form or email address on your blog.
This is a personal preference, and you may feel differently, but here’s my take: I rarely, rarely read blogs that won’t let me comment and/or that don’t give me a way to contact the author.
Ever been around someone who only talks about himself/herself? Blech.
In conjunction with this, respond to comments you receive, messages through your contact form, and emails. I don’t like being ignored, and I don’t think my readers would like it either. You don’t have to respond to every comment, but letting your readers know that their opinions matter will encourage them to return and make your site feel more like a community.
5. Participate in blog events, social bookmarking/networking, etc.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it’s true: blogging is a community, and the more you’re involved, the more traffic will come your way. Of course if you’re lucky you’ll also make some great friends along the way like I have.
Participating in blog events like 5 Minutes for Mom’s Ultimate Blog Party and various food events and groups–especially The Foodie Blogroll–have brought me many readers that may not have found me otherwise.
For more info on social media (places like Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook) see (you guessed it) Problogger’s Using Social Media to Grow Your Blog’s Readership.
Now it’s your turn:
Is your blog monetized?
What has worked for you in increasing your blog traffic?
Buon weekend, and be sure to check out My Bella Vita for Cherrye’s
La Buona Cucina Americana recipe–Chicken and Mushroom Quesadillas!
love thursday:
tokens of love
Like most gals, I love getting gifts.
P’s not the best at giving “real” gifts even on birthdays and holidays, but lucky for both of us, I love gifts the most when they are out of the blue and for no reason at all other than “I was thinking of you” like this seashell:
Because P remembers that “conchiglia” means “shell” in English…
Seashell…Mi-chelle…get it?
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
What’s Cooking Wednesday: Pennette alla boscaiola
Drawing inspiration from Cherrye’s recent Pazzi for Porcini post, this week’s What’s Cooking Wednesday dish is Pennette alla boscaiola, pasta with porcini mushrooms, pancetta, and heavy cream. It’s supposed to have prosciutto cotto (cooked ham) in there too, but I got to the store too late and the slicing machine was already cleaned. Next time.
You should know that P and I both love mushrooms. He loves them so much that he goes out looking for them. He’s brought me itty bitty ones like this and monster ‘shrooms like this:
And on *really* good days, he makes my kitchen table look like this:
All the above photos are from the fall, prime mushroom picking time. For this recipe, I used dried porcini, which are truly lovely, especially since you get the added bonus of using the liquid you used to reconstitute them.
In fact, from the original recipe (in Italian), I cut out the butter and used liquid from the porcini instead. This dish is a *big* winner in our casa. So fast, easy, and delicious . . . a new favorite!
Pennette alla boscaiola
(Penne pasta with porcini, pancetta, and heavy cream)
- Dry pasta (I recommend penne/pennette or tagliatelle/fettucine) for two
- 30 g (about 1 oz) of dried porcini mushrooms
- 1/2 to 2 cups water to reconstitute mushrooms
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 150 g (about 5 oz) of pancetta, diced
- 200 ml (about 3/4 cup) heavy cream
- 50g (about a 1/4 cup) of grated cheese
- Salt to taste
1. About an hour before you’ll start cooking, put dried porcini in bowl and cover them in water.
2. When you are ready to cook, put the pasta water on to boil.
3. Use a fine strainer to drain mushrooms, placing another bowl beneath the strainer to catch the water; you’ll need it. If you want to chop the porcini into smaller pieces, do so now; I just leave them as is.
4. In a pan large enough to hold the pasta as well, heat oil over medium heat and then add onion. Let sauté for a few minutes until starting to turn translucent.
4. Add pancetta and let cook for a minute or two.
5. Add mushrooms, about 6 tablespoons of the porcini water, and salt and let cook on low-medium heat for about 15 minutes. If you see that it’s starting to get dry, add porcini water as needed.
6. In the meantime, prepare the pasta so that it’s still rather al dente (it will cook some more with the cream) and drain.
7. Test porcini mixture for salt (if necessary, add more), and then add pasta to the pan, giving it a few turns with a wooden spoon to combine with the pancetta, mushroom, and onion mixture.
8. Make sure the pan is on low heat and add cream, stirring to combine everything.
9. Sprinkle in cheese and stir until mixed in well.
10. Serve hot with extra grated cheese.
Buon appetito!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
Recipes
