I just ran your page through the NET console on Firebug just so I could see what was loading … and wow … you have a lot of things loading that don’t need to be.
From the looks of things, the following plug-ins are adding scripts and other collateral files to your load which are slowing things down:
- Fancybox for WordPress
- RecipePress
- PowerPress
- SHJS Syntax Hiliter
On top of that, you’re loading a SWF JS object, but I don’t see any Flash on your home page. Adding extra JavaScript will almost always impact your page load time and site performance.
I’m guessing that some of these extra files are hooked on to the init event, and will load on admin pages as well (slowing things down there). But you probably also have a lot of plug-ins adding additional (unnecessary?) filters and hooks that are causing the ~7s load of your page’s basic HTML file.
Things you can do
- Turn off all but the most necessary plug-ins. If you’re still using more than 5-6, reconsider how things are put together to try dumping a few more.
- Use a caching system to serve up HTML. W3 Total Cache is pretty good, and it will return static content for things that haven’t changed (which means fewer database hits and filter calls = faster HTML return times).
- Use image sprites for your social media icons and other static images on the home page. There’s no need to serve up 7 separate images (i.e. 7 separate requests) for social media and RSS images.