Welcome To The New Italian Food Forever!


Having had an Italian recipe blog online for almost 10 years now, has meant that both I personally, and Italian Food Forever have gone through a number of changes over the years, and after three years with the same old look, I decided it was time for one more. Italian Food Forever has had facelift, and I am very pleased to unveil our new look! As well as a cleaner look, I wanted a more functional blog that would be easier for me to work with, and easier for my blog visitors to navigate, so decided I needed to make the switch from Joomla to WordPress with lots of help from some very talented people.

The amazing Lindsay of Pur Designs did all the initial logo and blog design work, and incorporated gorgeous watercolors I commissioned from Etsy artist Laura Herron into the design for me. Laura did the farmhouse with sunflower image above, as well as the two sunflower images in the header. Lindsay was wonderful to work with and seemed to know exactly what I needed after asking just a few questions. I’d highly recommend her work! After Lindsay handed over the new blog, it took almost six long weeks of work on my part loading recipes, blog posts and other content. As well as what I was doing, I also had lots of help from Mark W. Law who has been overseeing Italian Food Forever along with his wife Lori since it was first launched almost 10 years ago. Mark made all the many tweaks on the new blog to get everything just the way I wanted it (and I tend to be very picky!), and I am really thrilled with how everything turned out. Thanks so much Lindsay, Laura, and Mark for all your help!

You may ask what improvements we’ve made on the new blog, and I assure you there are many!

The recipes are now easier to find by using the Recipe Category Page, search by ingredient, or by using the basic blog search function. For categories that contained many recipes, the category is broken down again into subcatories to make it easier to find the perfect recipe you are looking for. The recipes have now all been formatted according to Google restrictions, (lots of work!) so are now easier to follow, and all will print out without images. Soon, we hope to be partnering with Ziplist and will allow IFF guests to save their favorite recipes in their own personalized recipe box. Presently, no recipes were posted without an image, although I will be going through the older recipes and taking photos of those I feel are too good not to be included.

The recipes are now in a separate category from blog posts, and the blog posts have been separated into two separate formats; those focusing on featured ingredients and cooking techniques you’ll find in the Mangia Bene Blog , while the blog posts relating to our time spent every year in Umbria can be found under Life In Italy.

Under Kitchen Resources, you’ll find handy substitution and conversion charts, a glossary of Italian ingredients, my cookbook reviews, and a list of my favorite Italian and food blogs.

Under Italian Resources, you’ll find all those related links I had on the old blog including Italian online products, ceramics, plus some cultural and wine links.

I have also switched newsletter delivery services and am now using FeedBlitz. I feel this service will be much easier for folks to sign up for the IFF newsletter, and it will be sent out automatically by email once a week and include any new recipes or blog posts from that week. It is a great way to keep up with what’s new on IFF, and much easier on me as well, leaving me more time for recipe development. Although I have done my best to import all the newsletter subscribers over to FeedBlitz, if you are worried you may miss a mailing, simply add your name to subscribe in the box found at the top right side of every page.

I hope you like the new Italian Food Forever as much as I do, and now that the work behind getting the blog in order has been completed, I can once again spend my time in the kitchen developing new recipes to post!

Deborah Mele
November 2011

35 Comments

  1. Love the new website! Love the recipes! One of the best pages on the web. I always look forward to receiving my newsletter! Your riccota gnocchi recipe is the best.

  2. Phewww what a lot of work but so worth it. I love the new fresh look. Anything that makes life easier when contemplating cooking is a plus with me! Welcome to the mysterious world of WordPress.
    ciao for now
    lisa

  3. Brava Deb!! Your new site looks really fabulous and I can’t wait to explore more in depth. I’ve always enjoyed reading your posts and look forward to visiting updates on this beautiful new site!

  4. Deborah: It’s beautiful. You have worked really hard and it shows. I can’t wait to try more of your great recipes.

  5. Love your page – found you via Renovating Italy (Lisa) – we would love to take our family to Italy one day, and we love Italian food 🙂 nice site!

    Cheers
    Lisa

  6. Deborah!
    Its so fantastic to see how you site has featured the watercolors I did for you. I’m so proud to point people your way and I can’t wait to try some of your beautiful (and sure to be delish) recipes!
    Grazie!
    ~Laura

  7. Deborah,

    I’ve followed you for awhile now, I found you on ThePioneerWoman/TastyKitchen! Your site is gorgeous and I’ll be checking in often. Great job! I hope to visit you one day!

  8. Deborah, the new site is “bellissimo”. The colors are very soothing…just like life in Italy. Keep cooking and writing.

  9. The look of the new web site is beautiful! Love the artwork and the simplicity of the overall design. Those Cranberry Walnut Squares are calling my name! Must check those out.

  10. What a pretty and refreshing look to your site. I look forward to receiving this every month and your recipes are a very large part of my collection. Molte grazie, Deb!

  11. Congrats on the new blog design! I’ve been following Pur Design’s work for a while now; they seem fantastic. Even though I follow your blog in my reader, it was fun to hop over and see what’s new. (Sometimes I forget what all my fave blogs actually don’t just look the same!)

    Keep the great Italian recipes coming!!

  12. Usually I hate it when a website’s format is changed, because it’s means re-learning the way the site works. Your website, however, looks AMAZING. The artwork and pictures are gorgeous; I love the font; everything is so easy to find… I could go on and on. I LOVE it. And I’ve already discovered a recipe that I missed earlier. I’ll be making your meatless “meatballs” immediately! Thanks and congrats on a beautiful job!

  13. Dear Deborah,

    Your new site is wonderful and I love the artwork by Laura Herron. It makes me miss living Italy! Strangely enough, I just recently found my ring I had bought at a market in Siena. Maybe this is another sign to go back.

    Great job!

    Amanda

  14. deborah
    I think you do a tremendous service for all of us who love italian food and italian cooking. your new website is great!

  15. I love the new look! I always feel like I’m opening a little gift each time I visit your website. Thank you for sharing authentic Italian recipes and cooking techniques. I made pici a few weeks ago and it was amazing!

  16. I absolutely love your new artwork and overall design. I recently found your site, which is one I’ll visit frequently. The theme of most all my travels is food, wine and hiking- I write about them on my blog. I’m sure I’ll find lots of the first two here! Look forward to trying many of your recipes Deborah 😉

  17. Hi Deborah! Love you and love your blog! What amazing things you do. I am such a fan of your recipes and really enjoy living vicariously through your writings of Italian living. You have a blessed life. Thanks for sharing so much of it with all of us.

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