Khymos highlights from 2007

Although I started blogging in August 2006, it wasn’t until 2007 that things got rollin’ so I thought I would post a “metapost” about my first whole year of blogging.

Most popular blogpost
The most popular post by far this year has been the post on how to achieve a “Perfect steak with DIY “sous vide” cooking”. This is also the post which was most commented, counting 42 comments so far. I really enjoy that this topic has become so popular. Low temperature cooking can make a huge difference in people’s cooking, yet it doesn’t require any sophisticated equipment apart from a thermometer. It’s perhaps the best example of a technical application of molecular gastronomy in a home kitchen.

Most popular static page
The khymos site got a jump start in January as the static page on “How to prepare the perfect boiled egg” made it all the way up to the front page of digg.com (many readers left comments here). It’s amazing how this can drive up the traffic on a site!

Most time consuming post
The single post which took the most time to research and prepare was without doubt the one were I presented the collection of hydrocolloid recipes. I spent quite some time searching for recipes and an equal amount of time formatting and converting them all to metric units and shortening down the text. Reception has been good, and since it was published in August, it has been downloaded more than 7000 times. I hope to publish a revised edition in 2008, and I am of course always eager to hear from you, especially if you have some recipes that you think should be included.

Most fun to write
I blog because I enjoy it. But if had to chose which posts were most fun to research and to write, I think the list would include “Perfect steak with DIY “sous vide” cooking”, “Two flavour pairing case studies”, “New perspectives on whisky and water” and “First experiments with sodium alginate”.

TGRWT
The first round of the food blogging event “They go really well together” was launched in April. Since then 7 rounds have been completed with almost 90 submissions in total! I’ve had a lot of fun both preparing dishes and browsing through the round-ups. The current round is on white chocolate and caviar, and since December has been a busy month for most people (including myself), the deadline has been extended to February 1st. So if you’ve never participated before – why not try out one of the “classic” flavor pairings of molecular gastronomy?

DMBLGiT
I admit that I am a passionate amateur photographer, and I have submitted a couple of pictures to the monthly “Does my blog look good in this” contest. But with around 100 contributions every month, and most of them of very high quality, I haven’t had great expectations of winning. Therefore it was a pleaseant surprise that my picture of cherries (used to illustrate “Ten tips for practical molecular gastronomy, part 6”) made it all the way to the top of the August 2007 round of DMBLGiT (click to view gallery).

2008 blog forecast
One of the first things I’ll do in 2008 is to complete the series of post with “10 tips for practical molecular gastronomy” which I started in January. Apart from this I have a number of unfinished projects that only need a little more research and experimentation – so let’s hope that I can find some time for this besides my full time job and my family!

A great thing about blogging is that it allows me to interact with the readers – you. So far there are 514 comments to my 112 posts – thank you very much for taking time to comment my posts! Some of you also contact my by email, and I try my best to answer all emails, but if you haven’t heard back from me – don’t hesitate sending me a reminder to webmaster (at) khymos (dot) org!

Because of all the spam comments (67,506 so far!) it’s difficult to say something about the number of people actually visiting the site, but there’s at least a couple of hundred unique visitors every day which is very nice and encouraging. So to all my readers I just want to say Happy New Year! (and in case you missed it, go back and read “Happy New Year with the Science of Champagne!” from last year).