Category — Blogging

Inspired by my youngest sister’s New Year resolution of “allowing more pleasure to enter her life”, I started 2010 with three resolutions of my own.

1. Love my body
2. Love my creativity
3. Love my time

Restaurant Baby was a product of nurturing my creativity. For 2011, Restaurant Baby will have resolutions of its own.

For 2011, I resolve to:

• Incorporate writing into my weekly routine
• Take more photographs of my everyday world
• Post at minimum twice a month
• Make the connection. Reach out and ask people to allow me into their kitchen – especially older relatives. The times with them are precious.
• Back up my computer. With 2010 coming to an end so did my loyal and trusty laptop of four years. I lost all my upcoming material – lesson learned.

What are your resolutions?

Keeping Resolutions:
I am one to make my life easier. To help me with my new resolutions, I’ve sought out a writing partner – my friend and fellow yelper, Rachel. We got an early start and met in Dec 2010 for our first writing session.

Rachel and myself on a Saturday afternoon

I work best with structure, and friends who keep me accountable. Though blogging is an introverted activity, I’m constantly seeking friends out for a work session or a writing session. Fellow bloggers and writers– what are your tips for producing material?

My oldest sister Sonia got me a gift certificate to Institute of Culinary Education for my birthday. ICE now offers a new series of classes on food media. Since I constantly feel unprepared, instead of taking a cooking class, I choose “Start Your Own Food Blog” by Brooke Parkhurst.

Myself and Brooke. Did I mention that Brooke is an absolutely stunning blond.

Some tips from the workshop:
• Conceptualize your angle and unique slant.
• Start with a free server such as Blogger or WordPress.
• Post short post and post often – ideally 5 times a week, but at least 3 times a week.
• Create a separate email account from your personal contact.

I had already started Restaurant Baby when I took the workshop, and I am in no position to hire a website designer or to find an editor (topics that Brooke touched on). My main take away from the workshop was to get a Restaurant Baby email (restaurantbaby@gmail.com) and twitter account. Do you have twitter? Let me know your user name so I can follow your tweets.

Back in July I shared my struggles in taking mouth-watering food photographs. Since then, I’ve gotten some good tips from family and friends. My youngest sister Kim sent me a great post from Vegan Yum Yum on photography.

I’m looking forward to trying out the tips and taking pictures at my new apartment. I have great natural lighting here. What are your photography tips and tricks?

On Blog Photography

Food bloggers makes posting appear effortless. They create the illusion that they snapped a picture of the sausage ragu from dinner last night, and shared the recipe with us the next day. Lies! Lies! All lies! They didn’t have it for dinner. They had ragu for breakfast! How dare I make such bold allegations?

[Read more →]