What is the best way to build a portfolio/blog site?

It depends on the position you want to apply. If you want to apply for a job as wordpress developer, there is nothing wrong to build your portfolio using wordpress in my opinion, even if you don't want to become a wordpress developer in fact, because you could still be a web developer who have developed severals applications who decided to show his jobs using wordpress for ease... As far as the content is good, there is nothing wrong doing it I guess.

I think it can even show that you are able to take advantage of the right tool in the right circumstance, as It seems you want a dynamic website with a blog, wordpress could be the right choice.

Otherwise, I think building his own portfolio from scratch might be as well a good opportunity to sharp your skills.

If you absolutely want a blog It's true that you won't go that far using just HTML & CSS, well you could still do your blog but that won't be very much appropriated...

In this case you have no choice you need to learn a server side language to build your blog.

This will require:

• Knowledge of database management (SQL, to create your requests and etc...)
• Knowledge of a server side language, such as PHP maybe ?
• Obviously CSS and HTML...

On the other hand if your objective is to become a fullstack Javascript developer, you could do everything using Javascript ! So you have to adapt this little list to your needs.

Anyway, all of these topics are covered within Treehouse.

I don't know your level but what I would do If I were you is this :

• I would start by creating a static portfolio website, using plain HTML and CSS, with if necessary some Javascript, using JQuery as example to make things easier.
• Then only, I would adapt my website and add the blog part using the knowledge acquired in this field (PHP, SQL as an example) in the meantime.

One last thing, there is nothing wrong to just show at first a static website to show off your jobs. I know some webdesigners, who focus only on webdesign and most often HTML & CSS integration. They don't necessarily have a dynamic website...

The conclusion, use the tool that fits your needs, if you want to take this project as a project to sharp your skills, just use the technologies you expect to master to get your job.

And about that, a little advice: Don't learn 5 dynamic langages at the same time, this doesn't mean you can't test some them and pick the one you like the most, the one you are the more confortable with, but when we begin, in my opinion, that's really better and easier to focus on one language.

Hope my post will help you a little bit.