In the new issue of min this weekend we find that traffic to magazine branded Web site in September generally was down for many sites that had enjoyed a strong summer. And yet any site with a good story to tell could break through this lull before the holiday traffic storm. At Saveur.com, which saw a 40.77% spike in unqiue users for September and a 56.59% rise in page views, the story revolved around garlic peeling. No kidding. In a world of elaborate advertiser schemes to “go viral” with inscrutable video clips and YouTube now throwing enormous resources behind creating a TV-like experience at its site, a simple video about peeling garlic went ballistic in late September. “How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds” attracted over 1 million views in its first five days, the site reports. It was distributed across YouTube and Vimeo. Actually, it is exactly the kind of neat trick that makes a video go viral through gotta-see-this pass-alongs. Call it the kitchen geek’s version of skateboarding successfully off of that garage roof. See below.

Saveur reports that the viral video hit was only part of an overall push into enhanced video production and new site features that have produced a 218% year-over-year gain in traffic, by their measures. The garlic peeling video clearly was aimed at marketing the site, but the newly launched mobile destination for the brand is also reaching out to everyday Saveur lovers on the go. Editors had noticed increased traffic coming to the site from handsets and so now have an optimized site where recipes pour into a highly kitchen and store friendly scroll through ingredients and instructions. The mobile site has a wonderful drop-down menu that gives quick access to most recipe types as well as social sharing and emailing functions.

Like a number of service-oriented magazine brands lately, Saveur is making good use of the emerging platform of shared media at Pinterest.com. This site lets publishers and users “pin” and share content of all sorts but especially anything with lush images. Saveur has over 1,000 followers of its “pins” at the site . And as we report in this week’s min, RealSimple has over 25,000 followers on this site and got more traffic from Pinterest in October than any other social media source.