My New Cooking Blog

[Chris]

http://www.thefoodicook.com/

Yes, I reuse designs frequently.

I'm not 100% happy with that turkey though. I felt like I needed something to fill the whitespace, but I think it is a little too much.

I've also considered an Amazon Omakase ad up there, Amazon sells so much cooking stuff it could work well. But I thought for launch that might make it seem too ad heavy and could interfere with link building.

I'm also not 100% happy with the BG fill, it is a colorful peppercorn supposedly seamless image... except it isn't seamless. I'm still trying to contact the graphics place (turbosquid.com) about a refund since it was marketed as seamless.


I think I'll like this blog... ideas for posts keep rolling up in my head... and they're all "compound" posts too. Like I'll think of a post, and I'll think of 3 or 4 different things I want to reference in the post that all need their own post to avoid me going off on too many tangents.

[agua]

Chris - you have this in the header still
<a href="http://www.gardeningblog.net" accesskey="1" title="Backyard Gardening Blog">Backyard Gardening Blog<span title="Backyard Gardening Blog">&nbsp;</span></a> and to the top left of the header image - its looks like the text has been colored to blend in with the background.

Also with the header and the turkey - why not center your logo and place some more food images on the left hand side to get people really hungry :)

I can see now that the background image isn't seamless - but it took me a while to spot it - I think its due to the nature of the image. Its totally up to you (of course :) ) - but I wouldn't worry about it.

Its a great take on what is a saturated market... "a man’s take on cooking"

I've had a cooking site on the ideas board for a while (different take again of course) - so don't think I'm copying if I ever do get it off the ground :D

[Johnny Gulag]

Hey Chris

I have improved that logo code:

Change the .css from what it is to this:


.logo, .logo em {
width: 341px;
height: 155px;
position: absolute;
top: 10px;
left: 5px;
display: block;
cursor: pointer;
text-indent: -9999px;
}
.logo em {
background: url(images/bloglogo.gif) top left no-repeat;
}and the link:
<span class="logo"><a href="http://www.thefoodicook.com/" accesskey="1" title="The Food Cook">http://www.thefoodicook.com/<em title="http://www.thefoodicook.com/">&nbsp;</em></a></span>

[Cutter]

Nice, do any grilling? I noticed most of those posts were about healthy cooking, which most grilling isn't exactly :D

[Chris]

Grilling is extremely healthy. You're cooking without any liquids/oils so without any added fat (except maybe a little in a marinade if you use one).

I'm working right now on foundation posts I need to link to when I start posting my recipes, but one of the first recipes I'm going to post is my gourmet burger recipe, which can be done on a grill or in a broiler.

Thanks for the code updates Ben, (and pointing out the error agua)

[deronsizemore]

Looks great Chris! I'll be checking it out regularly. I love to cook, but I'm not that good at it. :-) Maybe I'll learn something.

[Todd W]

I like the idea but the background kills my eyes and attention.

Grilling recipes, sweet!

[Chris]

How big is your screen Todd?

[BGray]

I think it looks good Chris. The background doesn't bother me at all.
I'm viewing at 1920x1200 in IE7

[Kyle]

Maybe you could slowly add black over the background so its not so bright?
Like put solid black over it, then change it to 5% in photoshop.

Experiment slowly increasing the % and find what suits you.

[Chris]

Thats not a bad idea... the whole point with the BG is to give a not-white fill so when you're using a very large resolution (like BGray's for instance) you're not getting eye strain from inches of white shining at you. So, if it really is too bright, darkening it would be a logical step.

[deronsizemore]

Chris, I usually browse at a very high resolution and I may be an exception to the rule, but the extra white space a center layout will display on the left and right side of the content really doesn't bother me. :)

[sheena]

Your site looks great

[Emancipator]

i digg it ive been thinking of doing a cooking site for awhile. I love to cook.

[Todd W]

How big is your screen Todd?

1600x1200