“Often it is said that food makes a way to your heart. I don’t know about others but for me, food and cooking are the source of utmost joy and make a way to my heart and of course make me feel happy. My name is Pooja Jaggi and I hail from dil walon ki dilli (Delhi) . I believe there is no place as good as Delhi. It is the heart and soul of the country, home to many talented people and the food capital. I have never seen a better place than Delhi, it has an amazing environment, restaurants, and some of the best places to visit and enjoy. Henceforth, you will have the best time ever here.
In 2017, I started my food page @hardcorefoodie5, on Instagram to share my recipes and innovations and present them virtually to the world through a social media platform. I used to decorate Thalis for lunch and breakfast and share it on the social media outlet in different styles using various crockeries. I started posting and got in contact with various other food bloggers. I worked hard and made quality content so that I stand out. After this, I enrolled in various loops and engagement groups. Gradually people started recognizing me and appreciated my work. Their act of appreciation has always kept me on my toes to create drooling dishes and mind-blowing ideas for my foody family along with managing my personal life.
After continuously posting different dishes online, I started getting texts and requests from people to share the recipe of the dishes, this gave me a sense of happiness and brought tears of joy. I began started shooting recipe videos for my followers and since then, there is no turning back.
Becoming a Food blogger is not as easy as it seems to be. It requires a lot of patience and a great amount of effort. Apart from just cooking, one needs to be confident in guiding, presenting, and answering the queries while cooking. It is hard to manage passion and personal life when you are married. But good things take time and finally lead you to success. The biggest challenge for me was to make my family understand what were my duties and what were my interests. I was too much occupied with my daughters, but I wanted to pursue blogging as well. I did not want a boring life and wanted to pursue things that I enjoy. Also when you are doing something good, there are a lot of people who try to pull you down and criticize your acts. I too have faced the same but instead of stepping back, I decided to not get affected by it. Because for me, actions speak louder than words. I kept doing what I wanted without bothering what people think of it. This attitude of mine back then helped me reach this stage today.
Food is itself a complete emotion and cooking is an art, when combined it produces a magnificent dish. Colorful spices, their aroma, fresh veggies, and mouth-watering non-veg fills me with energy and gets me on high level excitement. The most lovable part of food blogging is that with every new recipe I feel more confident and more knowledgeable. For me, food blogging is a medium for exploring myself and knowing my capabilities. It gives me a sense of freedom through which I can share my feelings and emotions with everyone. I feel escalated when I meet people who are equally passionate about food and cooking. People who are foodies, chefs, house makers, or even cooking enthusiasts, it feels so good to share common interests and take suggestions and give them as well. Surely, food is something that connects everyone irrespective of caste, color or gender.
With being a good food blogger comes the responsibility of endorsing a quality brand because your virtual family chooses to follow your words. Hence, I pay extreme attention whenever I collaborate with any brand. Our duty does not end after posting a recipe video, one needs to be careful of what products he/she is using while creating a recipe.That’s why my feed is not filled with unnecessary brand endorsements. I only collaborate with brands I trust in terms of quality like Vaya, Balzano, Hamilton, Hathi chukka fresh, etc. There’s one thing I have realized after coming this far is that we live in a world where every other thing is in trend and people choose to follow the trend to meet the demand of the virtual world. They get lost in the crowd, loosing their creative ideas. But what I believe is that one should not follow the trend rather follow your heart and your passion because it is the only thing which can give you immense happiness. Rest all is fake. Patience, perseverance, consistency, and originality are the jewels that will only lead to a successful life. No shortcuts will lead you to a fortunate end. You need to work hard, try and fail and, then try again. Don’t rely on miracles, rather be determined to gain things by striving hard.”
Instagram : @hardcorefoodie5
*The views expressed in the above article are of writer and not the Winged Club.