Shopping & Reviews

Sites We Love: delicious days

Gorgeous photos? Check. Engaging writing? Check. Seriously inspiring recipes, tips, and culinary curiosity? Check, check, and check. The best food blogs all seem to have a lot in common — but what separates them out are the strong personalities behind them. In our Sites We Love series, we sit down with some of our favorite bloggers to find out how they do it — and why it’s as much fun for them as it is for us.

This week's site we love is delicious days, where Munich-based blogger and cookbook author Nicky Stich shares her love of food and design with tasty recipes, elegant web design, and beautiful photography. Here's what Nicky has to say about her site:

Blog Name: delicious days

Live since: March 2005

Posting rate: Depends on my schedule, I try to post once a week, but oftentimes life gets in the way.

Geographic location: Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Why is the site called "Delicious Days"? When I had decided to start a food blog, I began thinking about a suitable theme and name and came up with "delicious days". It perfectly summed up my culinary life and had a nice sound. And — 7 years later — I still like it very much!

What's been your most popular post? Actually I don't have a clue, I stopped following statistics long ago. But the recipes most readers get back to me or leave a comment are 15-Minute-Gnocchi or Scones with Sultanas and Cranberries.

Oh, and our lengthy article about the Do's and Don'ts of Foodblogging still gets great feedback.

Cookies

What's your favorite post? I love recipe posts in which I showcase traditional fare, oftentimes old faves from my grandma, like her Schoppala recipe. Or Zwetschgenknodeln. Or Griebenschmalz.

Just recently I posted about annoying holes in shirts and was so relieved to see many more people were having the same problem and didn't realize their cooking might be responsible: Tiny holes in your favorite shirts? Kitchen mystery solved!

What's something great that you've learned or that's happened to you since starting your blog? We made many wonderful friends around the globe. The first people I met though our blog were Hande and Theo, a couple who followed our blog and spontaneously invited us over to their New Year's Eve Hangover Brunch back in 2006. We've been close friends ever since and love to travel or spend time in the kitchen together. Or the fact, that you can always contact another food blogger when traveling, no matter where you go — they love to get together and share their city's culinary secrets. And not to forget: my career change. I left advertising in 2007 and became a fulltime food writer and photographer.

Yogurt

What's the usual process for developing one of your posts? That varies. If I have a great idea, the ingredients at hand and a free afternoon, some posts may only take a couple of hours to cook, photograph and write, while others lounge somewhere in the Wordpress' backend, waiting weeks and weeks to finally get finished. No fixed agenda here.

What are your favorite ingredients and tools? That changes constantly. I tend to become obsessed with ingredients for a certain amount of time, currently oranges and Stilton cheese rank high on my shopping list. My all-time favorite tools include my Kitchen Aid, MicroPlane and various knives, as I use them almost every day.

What are your favorite food and cooking resources? If you'd ask my partner Oliver, he'd say "cookbooks" within the blink of an eye. I really try to pace myself, but to no avail. I stopped counting when I reached 1000 — there are huge stacks everywhere, in my office, the kitchen, the bedroom. Cookbooks can be so much more than just recipe books. They tell stories about the author's personality, cultural heritage, and they can be the most wonderful coffee table books to flip through and instantly get inspired.

Delicious Days

What photography equipment do you use? A Nikon 70s as well as a Nikon D700. A couple of Nikon and Tokina lenses, my favorites for food are 50:1,4 and 100:3,8.

Where else can we find your work? Currently I am working on my third cookbook (my first cookbook delicious days was published in 2008 in both German and English), which I will — again — write, style and photograph myself. I also occasionally do magazine assignments, just recently I did a Christmas special for the German ELLE Decoration about edible gifts. And of course you can connect via Twitter and Google+.

Nicole Stich

What food blogs do you follow? Way too many! It is amazing, how many talented food bloggers are out there. They spread new trends way before cookbooks can. Feedly is my tool of choice, it's great for following numerous blog feeds with an elegant, customizable magazine-like start page.

Do you know a blog or blogger who deserves to be featured in this space? Email a nomination — including a link to the site and a few sentences on why they're worthy of love — to siteswelove@saveur.com.

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