I’m a bit fickle. I usually have only a couple of blogs that I follow at any given time. The first blog that I ever read with regularity was Chocolate and Zucchini. This blog was started by a French woman who was able to quit her day job as her food related website gained a following and she wrote her first cookbook. I actually ended up as a ‘reader – recipe tester’ for her first cookbook (with a kind mention in the acknowledgements.)
I think the second blog to sustain my interest for any length of time was The Pioneer Woman. A blog that also includes food related sections, Ree Drummond also writes about life on a working Oklahoma cattle ranch.
My current two favorite blogs are The Walden Effect and Hunter, Gatherer, Gardener, Cook.
The Walden Effect is written by two prolific bloggers living on 58 swampy and hillside acres in southwest Virginia. They have a poultry related business utilizing the internet for marketing and grow a diversity of foods in their no-till garden. Anna Hess, one of the couple behind The Walden Effect, shares her detailed research into the science and varied relevant ‘back to the land’ methodologies via the blog, a monthly e-book series, and an upcoming paperback book.
Anna and Mark are prolific writers, many days with 3 new posts. When I first found the blog, I actually went back through and read the entire archive! There is a lot of information and experience shared in this ‘homesteader’ type of blog with plenty of photos for those of us visually oriented folks. [I am especially drawn to Anna’s spreadsheets and charts!]
Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook is a blog by Hank Shaw. The above image is the cover of his related book published last year, Hunt, Gather, Cook. This blog is also about food (there appears to be a theme among my favorite blogs.) Mr. Shaw though introduces folks to the gathering and hunting of diverse wild foods and advises on their use and preparation. With this blog, I was able to identify berries found at Cape Sebastian last summer as salal berries. I’m anxious to collect madrone bark this coming summer after reading his relevant post. And I made a complex manzanita cider, following his instructions. While I’m sure that folks everywhere will find the information and stories interesting, I’m most interested because he lives in Northern CA and much of what he hunts and forages is easily available in the Oregon Coastal Range where our new property is located.
All of these folks ended up with book deals after starting with more modest blogs. A lot of the information in their books is available within their blogs. But these are my favorites for now. My notable mentions: (which means I follow, just not as regularly)
a middling life 