Support can be beautiful

Before I even actually started this blog I already knew a few things that I wanted and things I didn’t.  I didn’t know how to do any of them, or even where to begin.

I look at a lot of food blogs daily and their recipes.  Enough of them to notice things that I like and things that I absolutely hate. 

I like when someone tells a story then provides a recipe they have experimented with, tweaked and felt it was ready to share with the world. The blog post is easy to read with nice photos to break up the writing. Their recipe is provided at the bottom. The recipe is correct. The recipe is their own. 

What don’t I like? Well, let’s start with ads!  I hate having ads pop up while I am trying to read. I hate when the blogger’s own videos start popping up. It interrupts my reading and I have to stop to and X out of the ads and videos so I can continue reading. The third one that pops up and I am out of there. I don’t give a damn who’s blog it is or how good their recipe may have been. So annoying! 

Here’s the thing that I think is unethical, copy and pasting a recipe from someone else and calling it your own. These are professional bloggers!  That my friends is stealing and a bunch of bullshit.  If you are going to steal the recipe at least change the wording for Pete’s sake. So not only are you a scumbag, but a lazy scumbag. 

How do I know they are stealing? Like I said I read a lot of recipes. I will always go to a reputable source like Bon Appetite, Williams Sonoma, Tasty, New York Times recipes or King Arthur Flour, etc. to see what their recipes are like.  My short rib recipe I’ve been using for years I found at the Food & Wine magazine’s website. 

Then I start looking at the big food bloggers, all of their recipes are similar but still are written in the bloggers own cooking style, using their favorite ingredients and culinary language. The smaller food bloggers or the wanna-be’s you know the lazy scumbags, just blatantly copy and paste. This makes me so angry I shout at my phone when I see it. 🤬

The first thing we did when we set up my blog is to pay for my domain name, along with a hosting site and no ads for a year. A year? Gulp!  This was a big commitment. I was afraid to spend this much money for a whole year and I didn’t even know if my blog would be good or if anyone would read it.  As I wrote more posts I decided I wanted to use Grammarly, another 1 year expensive, but totally worth every penny.

All of my recipes that I will ever post will be my own recipes. If I ever share a recipe that isn’t mine, I will just give the link and let the owner of the recipe get credit. I feel very passionate about this.  Ha, it gets my “Jersey” up. I grew up in NJ, “You can take the girl out of Jersey, but not the Jersey out of the girl.” 

My recipes are a true labor of love. I really want people to be able to try what took me sometimes years to perfect. Even just typing it up correctly takes a great deal of time. I’m not talking about the actual typing, but the proper and correct ingredients, measurements, and instructions. 

Support can be beautiful, yes that was a bra commercial from my childhood but also brings me to the next part. My ad-free blog and my recipes are all free to everyone. You can share my recipes or blog posts. The more people who read it the merrier!  You can subscribe and receive it by email or you can read it on my Julzie Style Facebook page. I really appreciate how many people have subscribed or liked my Julzie page. It’s so exciting! 

We have added a support my blog option on my page. I am not doing this blog to make money, I am doing it because I have a lot to say, teach and share. I don’t expect people to support my blog, it is my blog and I assume the financial responsibility.  It is not my style to ask for things, I am a giver, not a taker. The support pays me for my time spent creating food, research, writing recipes, and my stories. 

People tell me all the time I would buy a cookbook if you had one.  I’d sign up for cooking lessons, I would pay you to cook for me.  If you are enjoying my blog, learning something new, or using my recipes, if you want to or able to make a small donation there is a safe PayPal place where you can.  You will see a support my blog section on the sidebar.  I understand that everyone can’t, especially during this pandemic.  Most importantly please don’t feel like it’s necessary just to read my blog.

I hated the thought of asking people to support my blog, but then I remembered when we danced at free gigs we always put out a tip basket.  We really appreciated it when people who watched or videotaped our performance put a buck or two into the tip basket.  Musicians put out a guitar case or tip jar.   Support can be beautiful especially when you know your subscribers are enjoying what you are doing.