Blog Tales
or y'all know it takes lots of money and time to be a successful food blogger these days, right?
I tried my hand at being a food blogger for about 10 years. I genuinely had no clue what I was doing but I tried my hand at it anyway. I’m a relatively creative person — I need to engage my mind in something that’s creative at all times or I’m a pretty cranky person. I figured this out about myself my senior year of college and knew it to be true in my roaring 20s but didn’t really hone any real creativity until I entered the world of blogging. My first couple posts included ripping off other people’s recipes, mainly Ina Garten’s, and posting a lot of heavily filtered pics within the blog and Instagram. Make someone else’s recipe, post that recipe on the internet, bam! I’m just seconds away from my own Food Network show. I’m just sure of it! Except it quickly became clear to me that a) oh sh*t, I’m plagiarizing and b) there’s a lot of folks out there doing the exact same thing and calling themselves food bloggers so I’mma need a hook. Also, maybe learning how to cook would be a good idea too.
I spent the majority of my time in this world feeling like an imposter and truthfully, I was. What the F did I know about cooking? A whole lot of nothing. I didn’t really start cooking until about 2 years prior to starting a food blog and so the idea that I would or should be seen as an expert in my field is so laughable. Ahhhhhh, early 30s Whit was a skosh extra and naïve. But, nevertheless, I persisted and started doing decently. Food Network never came knocking on my door but a pair of very reputable literary agents did in 2020, seconds after I had accepted my current role of Executive Director at The Hillel at Miami. I was quite literally being offered an opportunity for validation and becoming an actual expert in the field (or, at least, expert adjacent), but the time commitment and lack of constant paycheck would, alas, mean that I had to say “thanks, but now’s just not the time”. That was a hard one. That one hurt.
I started thinking about my time in this world of food blogging about a week ago when Molly Yeh’s new cookbook landed on my door stop. I met Molly in 2011 via email. She had somehow found my tiny blog, left a lovely comment, and then we struck up an old fashioned e-pen pal situation. We stayed in contact and I watched her blow up into the much deserved successful Food Network star she deserves to be while I chugged along in food blogging mediocrity while finding success in my actual professional life. Molly was kind and generous enough to include me in her wedding by asking me to make a pie that she’d recreate at her wedding reception. This generous ask coincided with the birth of my second kiddo and my creativity was just in the hole, not to mention we could not afford to invest in better photography equipment so my brisket pie wasn’t winning any awards. I was a bit embarrassed to submit the recipe, but I did nonetheless. She asked all these cool girl food bloggers to submit a pie recipe as well as little ol’ uncool me and I’ll never forget that generosity.
Molly Yeh and me (2015).
The food blogging subculture is an interesting one. I have no idea what it’s like now but I can’t imagine it’s changed that much. You run into A LOT of interesting personalities in this world. Some are incredibly generous like Molly, or Amy (Kritzer) Becker, or Adeena Sussman. For me, these three women never gave a rat’s a** if I was cool or not or, as I found a lot of other people to be during my time in this world, only interested in what I could give back to them. Amy and Adeena, especially, were like my food blogging fairy Godmothers. They gave advice, guided me, offered support, and were overall so generous with their expertise and following and never once asked anything in return. Now, if I was a nasty gossip, I’d tell y’all about the kosher food blogging queen who doesn’t actually keep kosher but claims to just for the follows and likes. Or that other food blogger whose parents hired a major PR team at a very young age all so they could be a famous Instagram food celebrity. Or that other food blogger whom I privately called out for only contacting me when they needed me to repost their content but would never do the same for others. It’s a dog eat dog world out in food blogging country, y’all. I’m just happy I got out alive.
Meeting up with Amy in San Fran in 2018
I’m so glad you started a Substack!!
Yahoo Whit! So happy to see you here and online in a space! I love your writing and hearing aka reading your voice! Have missed you and your presence online! I also have thought of starting a Substack. Shana tovah 5783 and gmar chatima tovah! Hugs, Sara T aka Sadie Stone