Are food bloggers a little bit mad?
A brief self-reflection on why we are driven to cook food, write about it, photograph it, and eventually eat it cold.
I have been a food blogger for nearly 20 years, with a few breaks in between, and that world changed radically in two decades. But would I expect? EVERYTHING changes in two decades.
From being a sprightly 20 something, cooking and blogging every-damn-day, to a not so sprightly middle-aged woman who eats Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodles for lunch most days (sorry-not-sorry) and cooks and blogs on a healthier schedule, I often ask myself, where did those years go?
I started on the blogger platform with my experimental blog, Writing at the Kitchen Table (subscribers can view all those posts!), where I would cook all sorts of random meats and ingredients and then blog wittily (I thought) about them. My ex-husband would often post one of his amusing rants about something like a zombie barricade, and we had a small, but dedicated following.
And then, just as the blog was probably at it’s most popular and about to break out and hit the big-time (probably), I quit. I walked away from it and didn’t look at it for another 4 years. I had burnt-out and hit the wall. Those two painful metaphors allowed me to breath and relax and concentrate on running a family business for a short time (but that’s for another story).
I had been constantly cooking, constantly writing, working full-time and seeing nothing in return. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, a book deal? To be the next big thing in cooking? I had cooked myself dry as surely as a pan of water left on the hob for a day.
I had spent days cooking things like pigs heads, spending money on ridiculously expensive ingredients and it felt all for nothing. More than that, I had given myself to this blog, to the world. And I think my ego felt a little bruised that the world hadn’t accepted me (had they even been aware of my existence).
But back then, blogging was a lot less structured than it is now. Today there are blogs dedicated to writing blogs. There is no reason for anyone to not know how to setup a blog (with a little bit of time and guidance), and even how to start making a bit of money. But back then, it seemed like a mystical secret. I would marvel at how other bloggers had ads on their pages, had collabs with companies. And here I was sitting at my desk waiting for things to happen.
Ah. There was my big error. Waiting. In this cut-throat world of people wanting to make money from sitting at their computers (or phones) writing about things they enjoy, instead of data analysis or accounting or making coffee for a living, you have to seize every opportunity. But more than that, put yourself in front of people. Everything I kind of hate doing.
I often wonder if I had kept blogging where I would be now. Would I have a cookbook deal, would I have been able to give up the day job? But there is something to be said for starting afresh, a clean slate, a plain white page and many other analogies for renewal.
As I said, a lot changes in a two decades - everything - and maybe I would have stagnated. The food writers I loved so much then, seem to be caricatures of who they used to be (with the exception, of course, of Nigel Slater), larger than life characters who have had to move, shape-shifter style with the faster-paced times we live in, lest they become dinosaurs like Fanny Craddock.
Starting a blog again, in a new decade, and a new generation was invigorating. I switched immediately to Wordpress and devoured everything I could about running a food blog as a business as well as a hobby. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning but found it (and still find it) exciting, challenging and rewarding.
In many respects, at times the food has become secondary to running the site, but now that it’s set up and looking after itself, I can concentrate on what I really love: exploring food, transforming food into plant-based delights, photographing it and eventually eating it. Cold.
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