Today’s Blog of the Year Pick: Serious Eats.

I love food, but I could never quite put my finger on what was wrong with the food blogs I’d tried to read until Serious Eats came along. As it turns out, I like cooking and I like learning about restaurants, but what it turns out I really love is simple: Eating.

Ed Levine’s assembled a team of extraordinarily talented food lovers (which, it should be noted, includes my wife), and they stay true to the site’s mantra of being passionate, discerning and inclusive. I feel like an old-timer in the way I look at blogs, because I still think of them as being fairly static affairs consisting largely of text. But Serious Eats features a formidable video section with original programming from Mario Batali, a burgeoning recipe section and a guide to eating out that all complement the site’s own editorial blog posts. Wrap it all up in an incredibly well-designed, beautiful aesthetic that combines elegant details with frequent fun illustrations, and it’s an unquestionable winner. Pick of the Posts:

• Talk: This Q&A section is the heart of the Eats, for me. I’m mostly a lurker here, but I never cease to be amazed how often I’m saying, “I wish I’d asked that!”
• Serious Eats Thanksgiving: Sure, the holiday’s passed, but if you want a look at how the site does well-trod topics in a unique way, this is it.
• Extended Meatloaf Coverage: From recipes to National Meatloaf Appreciation Day to photos of dozens of loaves, I discovered this staple of mashed meat this year thanks to the site.

If you like this, try: Elise Bauer’s Simply Recipes gets me every time — not because of the recipes, though they’re great. It’s the photography, which is simply beautiful.

This is one in a series of posts about Blogs of the Year for 2007. They’re my subjective picks about blogs that inspired or influenced me this year, and you can check out my introductory post to find more.