I am sure many of you may have wondered what a food blogger does all day. Well if you ever had that question in mind, then this post is just what you have been looking for. Let me walk you through all the fun, craziness and the yumminess behind the scenes of my blogging life.

Recipe Ideation & Development
One of the common questions my friends put out to me is what type of recipes I prefer to post and where do I get my recipe ideas from. Ideas are there everywhere; sometimes it’s from a casual talk with friends/family, or an inspiration after trying out a new dish at a restaurant, or books, magazines, cookery shows, etc. My husband and me are ardent foodies with no boundaries; we love to try new cuisines, understand the flavour and spices, and recreate the memories in our own style at the comfort of our kitchen.

With Pepper Delight I try to focus on recipes with seasonal produce, seafood, meat, chicken, drinks, cakes and desserts. Healthy recipes are one of my main targets for this year and I look forward to include more salads, soups, & smoothies, and of course traditional variants of Indian/Kerala recipes from my hometown. I also prefer to have recipes with a cooking time of 30 minutes or less, keeping it simple and delicious.

To finalize a dish for an upcoming post, a lot of factors play in. It may be a dish I recently tried at a restaurant, or one for an upcoming festival, or even from the many ideas which come across you. Once that’s figured out, we start searching for the best restaurant nearby to try it out, especially if it’s a dish we haven’t tasted at all. At times I even do try the same dish at multiple restaurants, to cross reference the taste and ensure that I get to try an authentic version of it unlike the local customized ones.

Once my dish is finalized, comes the recipe preparation. At this point, it would be more of a draft version as I would be looking to get the basic dish, portions, and the recipe right, giving it my own variations & style.

Now let’s move to my favorite part of the recipe development, and that’s Shopping…! What I love about shopping is, being able to visit different authentic country stores in search of their local ingredients, and learn more about their produces, vegetables, food products, desserts, etc. Once back home from shopping, it’s time to put on my apron and head to the kitchen. If it’s a new dish I’m cooking, I usually start with a trial run and end up experimenting it a couple of times until it’s up to my satisfaction.

Food Styling and Photography
Once my dish is ready, the next critical phase is styling and the photo shoot. Food Styling & Food Photography are two areas where I cannot predict the time required as sometimes things work out pretty well and I get to wrap up quickly, but mostly it’s a time consuming process and at times it takes more than that required to cook the dish. Styling is usually a trial and error, it’s a combination of the right props, lighting, and how finally everything turns out to look like. I try different styles by arranging the props, sometimes I pen down my ideas a day before the shoot which helps me to stay planned and wrap up the shoot easily. I’ve had days where I used my entire plates and bowls for getting a single shoot right, but the real pain begins when you start cleaning them, I hate cleaning…!!!

Coming to the details of food styling, vinyl tiles and chart papers are the most common backdrops I use for my photos. I also love the depth and volume which parchment paper, kitchen towels, paper bags and wooden cutting boards give, to make a perfect picture.

Understanding your food and its details help you find the right props to compliment your photos, like the fillers/garnishes used depending on your meal time (for e.g. it’s ideal to use milk/coffee on the side for a breakfast shoot)

One of the best advises I received was from my photographer friend Arjun, who told me to “get inspiration from others and try creating your own style”. That’s true; I love to spend time on Instagram and Pinterest seeing the beautiful photos people post all around the world. Talking about my photography, I don’t have an elaborate kitchen or a studio to shoot, but I do live in a beautiful apartment with plenty of natural light. Shooting a photo usually takes more time than cooking, I click many different angles, taking tons of pictures a day, and at the end of it I am down to the best 3 to 5 photos.

Ingredient photography is one of my favorite, especially shooting with raw ingredients. They define the depth of your picture / dish, and take a viewer through the visual experience of the recipe and its preparation. I am still a novice at step-by-step recipe photos, so I try to make the best out of my ingredient photos giving it everything I have to make it memorable. And I must say I am pretty happy of the improvements I have been able to make over the year.

Post and Share
So now my pictures are ready and my recipe is written down, it’s time to pen the content and the story, edit the photos, and finally post. My post uploads on the blog and the shares across other social networks happen usually at midnight. I love to wake up and see the likes and comments the first thing next morning, and that makes my day…!!

Usually I utilize the day after my recipe post to review, approve and reply to comments, check emails, submit the post to Tastespotting, Foodgawker, Tastologie, etc. As a blogger it is also important to encourage and promote your fellow mates of the Food Blogger’s community; I do spend time on Instagram, Pinterest, and feeds on similar media, pinning, liking, commenting, and giving back to the community.

So that’s it, A peek into the life of a food blogger….!!! Happy Blogging…!

Follow me on Instagram, try out the recipes and tag #pepperdelightblog to all your pictures of Pepper Delight recipes you prepare.

The post Behind the Scenes of Food Blogging appeared first on Pepper Delight.

Two years back if someone had asked me what a food blog is, all I could say were the names of a few blogs out of which I seldom visited any. Never did I even think in my dreams that one day I would have a food related website of my own. Life changed so much during this one year and I must say I couldn’t be happier. As days went by I kept on falling in love with my blog and an even more desire to work towards it. It’s all you dear readers and my followers who have made me feel so special throughout this journey, and I thank you everyone for the huge support you have given me.

When I started this blog, people often asked me the reason behind doing a food blog, my recipe sources, ideas, and many more. So, I thought to sit down and pen my first year experiences and the journey as a food blogger. Shortly I will be uploading my second part of this feature too, a “Behind the Scenes” episode! So stay tuned!!

The Story
I don’t believe in luck coz it never favored me, and it was the unexpected which gave me positive results. There were a lot of ups and downs in my life and the one lesson I learnt is that the realities of life are always the same, but if you push yourself you can surely achieve your dreams… and Sky is the limit!!

Chocolate Hazelnut Semi Naked Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

After I met my husband, I took my first year to enjoy life and be a good housewife. As months went by, I started getting bored and slowly the urge to do something more in life began to haunt me. And I think it gets even worse if you had been working or had a job in the past. Quickly things changed as we moved to the US for my husband’s work assignment, and once again I got engaged and busy with the new phase of life. But as you get further away from family n friends, and being unable to work on a dependent visa, boredom really kicks in. I started looking out for new hobbies, ideas, volunteering, and even thought about higher studies and getting an MS (like any other dependent Indian wife). But I wasn’t really interested in spending time again in a classroom, writing exams, or back to college life. In fact I wanted to do something which makes me happy, carefree, have a balanced work life, and gives me plenty of time to enjoy and be with family. And that’s how Pepper Delight started!!!

The Inspiration
I love cooking and experimenting with food but until recently, I used to confine myself to Indian recipes, in fact South Indian to be specific. Like as I had mentioned in the Inspiration page of my blog, it was after meeting a few friends did I get the courage to explore and cook international recipes beyond my comfort zone. And after moving to the US; the exposure to various global cuisines, the easy accessibility and availability of all ingredients in your nearby grocery stores, having a full sized conventional oven at your apartment/home (it opened the world of baking to me); all of these instilled my desire to start a food blog. Once I had that figured out, then came even bigger confusions; like I need a good website, need to learn photography n food styling, will I be able to write well, can I find time to blog and carry on my household chores, and so on. A millions questions kept on popping daily during my initial blog days, as if I opened a can of worms. So I started spending time to research, did a lot of reading about the experiences of other food bloggers, realized the importance of food styling and photography as the first big step to a good food blog, and as I started to cook, photograph, practice; the real fun began! In fact, if you compare the photos of my initial recipes vs the recent ones, you would get a picture of my learning phase and the journey so far.

Spaghetti with Garlic, Mushroom & Peas

My favorite question I get asked is, where do I get my recipe inspiration and how do I understand food styling? Inspiration is everywhere; it’s all about your priorities and looking out for it. For e.g., I used to tell my husband that only after I sat in the driver’s seat and started driving did I start noticing the sign boards and signals, although they have been there all the time. Same is the case with me after I started blogging; the food blogger’s community out there is my biggest inspiration! Instagram & Pinterest helped me in getting to know an amazing pack of friends who support you and share the same desires in this journey.

Green gram/Parippu Curry

Just like the inspiration, an equally important fact is the criticism. Though it’s been only a year of blogging, I consider myself lucky to not have had that much of a negative feedback. But there is this perception of this profession which some carry and I get asked when I tell people that I am a blogger; “Is that seriously a job?”, and I hate that!! Are white collar jobs that only matter?

People don’t understand the hard work we put before publishing a post. Sometimes it takes days to complete the whole work behind a post. Somedays you lack inspiration for a good recipe, or your dish doesn’t turn out well, otherwise your photos don’t, or being a cloudy day you do not have enough sunlight for photography, at times you struggle to get the right words to pen down your inspiration behind your recipe; there is a lot of effort and work which goes behind the scenes for each and every recipe post.

Red Fish Curry / Meen Mulakittathu

It was a bit stressful initially to hear such criticism, but now it’s my motivation to write even better. All I have to say is; do something in life which you enjoy and makes you happy! Money cannot buy happiness, but the satisfaction in doing something you love and being successful is priceless…

The Journey
Food blogging is a competitive career, and now it is my full time job. One year down the lane with 92 recipes …that’s a big baby step in my journey. Each recipe takes hours and hours of preparations before posting online. Starting with the recipe planning to the grocery shopping, food styling, photography, writing, and posting online, everything involves a lot of work & focus. And finally the least exiting part of it; cleaning up!!! After every post goes live (which usually happens at midnight), I look forward excitedly to wake up in the morning to view the likes, comments, & shares, and make my day bright and happy!

Strawberry Banana Chia Smoothie Bowl

The beautiful part of my journey is the learning phase in photography. And of course, the happiest moment for any food blogger is when someone tries your recipe and shares their wonderful feedback…

Future plans
Into my second year of blogging, I look forward to embrace “staying healthy” as my mantra. I will be focusing on clean eating, and introduce a lot of healthy recipes & detox recipes like smoothies, salads, soups, and so on.

Blueberry Virgin Mojito

Being a travel lover, I also wish to write travel posts (hope I get to travel a lot) focusing on the local and international cuisines/produce available at the places I visit. Collaborating with bloggers, inviting guest posts on my blog is another to-do item on my wish list. And of course, I would love to explore my photography skills and shoot for local restaurants and farms who wouldn’t mind amateurs like me.

So, Thank you all once again for all the love n support; Stay tuned for the second part of this feature, “Behind the Scenes”!!

The post A Year as a Food Blogger appeared first on Pepper Delight.