The recipe thing, there's two different people that read these. People coming in from search only care about the recipe, and in that situation the story is mildly annoying. But even if I don't read it, I do find it at least a mild indicator that there's a human being that actually tried the recipe.

But I've subscribed to some food blogs because the recipes are decent and the stories make it interesting - otherwise, a series of recipes in my rss would just be incredibly boring. In this case it's closer to a tv personality you'd watch on tv than a recipe book.