John and I get tons of questions from friends, family, email, social media, and comments every day. I thought it might be a fun idea to answer some of the most asked questions here.
Maybe one of these questions is yours or something you’ve always wanted to ask. We’ll continue to add questions as more come along. They are in no particular order.
Berly’s Kitchen has been up and running since November 2015. We started our second site, More Than Meat and Potatoes, in February 2020.
For privacy and safety concerns, we’ve decided not to mention our exact location. However, we’re in Florida. We’ve lived in Miami, several towns across west Florida, various locations in Arkansas, and in Southern California. John has lived in Texas and the southwest. But, Florida is where we call home.
Nope! Running both websites takes about 50-60 hours a week on average, sometimes up to 70-80 hours during busy seasons.
First off, no. Second, if you find my life story in any of these posts, please let me know. I might write a book about my life one day, and that would give me a great head start.
In all seriousness, there is very little about John and I, or our family, in these articles. Despite having an online presence, we’re pretty private people. You might find a few paragraphs about us or our families in each post at best. The rest is storage information, FAQs, tips, and links to other recipes you may find interesting.
For those that only want the recipe, we’ve got you covered! Every post has a “Skip to Recipe” link at the top.
Did you try entering “Berly’s Kitchen” along with the name of the recipe in the search bar on Google? A lot of times we didn’t get rid of the recipe or change the picture. Google just moved it making it more difficult to find.
We have a Skip to Recipe button, so you can get to the recipe faster! We understand that not everyone needs extra tips and information to make a recipe. However, some people do.
The information in the post is not just to fill space. It’s information to help make the dish successful, so you don’t waste time or ingredients. It answers questions we see asked most frequently and addresses common issues.
Please email us, so we can discuss your request further.
Since we’ve lived in so many places since starting the blogs, there are a lot of stores. Here are the ones that come to mind: Publix, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Von’s, Harps, and Amazon.
There are a few reasons we may change a recipe.
The first being if it isn’t getting a lot of positive feedback from our readers. Positive feedback means, star ratings, comments, pageviews, shares, etc. It’s AWESOME when we see a comment on Pinterest or Facebook saying that you love a recipe. We really, really appreciate that.
On the downside, those comments don’t come back to this site, so we can’t track them. When we’re reviewing a recipe, it looks like no one likes it because there are minimal reviews and no comments. So, we change it or even delete it completely. If you like a recipe, please, please, let us know here on Berly’s Kitchen or More Than Meat and Potatoes. It would help us so much!
The second reason is because an ingredient is no longer available. It’s rare that this happens, but it does happen.
The third reason is because the recipe was sponsored by a brand and the timeframe for the sponsorship is over. In that instance, we “may” change the recipe if it doesn’t perform well.
We have a very good spam filter than automatically deletes a lot of the comments before they ever get to us.
If the comment does make it through the filter, it may still get caught up as spam for one reason or another. In that case, it may still get deleted.
The comments that go through moderation are reviewed by John or myself. Folks, we DO NOT approve every comment. That goes for 5 star comments, too. A lot of spammers, and people in general, will put some nasty, vulgar things into a comment and add a 5 star rating thinking it will get approved. It won’t.
We approve comments that are 1 star all the way through 5 stars, as long as the comments are helpful, thoughtful, and not hateful, insulting, or rude. John and I want both of our sites to be safe and enjoyable places for people to come and get recipes.