“Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors—it’s how you combine them that sets you apart.” – Wolfgang Puck
The guest we have today is one such wonderful food blogger, Shikha Shetty, who is so passionate about food that she took it as her second profession!
Ever wondered how life would be if you get the same taste every time you eat something? Well, if it’s the taste of your favorite food it doesn’t matter, that’s what one might think right? But trust me it’s not. What makes a plate of food complete is a combination of different flavors! You see, life is no different, all the ups and downs, twists and turns are what make life interesting and lively!
Food is one of the most constant things in our lives, we eat it every day. But since we are so caught up with our daily routine we don’t get enough time to even look at our food properly. Noticing the beauty of the food, its colors, its aroma, how multiple layered it tastes, and what all ingredients are in it, we just fail to notice them quite often.
But there are some people who don’t! These food aficionados can never overlook the beauty of food. And these people are known as food bloggers! Food blogging is a profession that has emerged rapidly in current times.
Food bloggers are people who are passionate to the core when it comes to food! They showcase every aspect of food right from the ingredients, the making, the plating, each and every essence of it and they do it so beautifully that it would make your mouth water. They cook different cuisines, experiment with food, and come up with excellent dishes that make us think, ‘I will try this one today itself!’
We introduce you, to Shikha Shetty, also known as ‘Chief Foodie Officer!’ Let’s hear about this flavorsome expedition of hers from Shikha itself.
At an age when I started, I was very confused about whether to follow my career or passion. I have a corporate job which I got after my MBA degree but I was also passionate about my strong desire to explore the food space. As the saying goes, ‘Passion drives you to a solution!’ And so I found mine!
The Bedrock!
How did you think of coming into the food blogging world?
In the year 2015, I finished my MBA in Marketing from Welingkar Institute, and soon after that, I started my career and I pretty much loved it. Whenever I used to go out with my friends or family, I had this habit of clicking pictures of food. Since both my father’s side of the family are involved in the hospitality business, fascination for food runs in the blood. So soon after I started a page randomly, called ‘Chief Foodie Officer CFO’ in 2017 and started uploading food pictures on the page.
Thereupon my family and friends started following the page, giving shout-outs to the page, and soon people started following the page, and the page started growing. I always loved connecting to people and so as the page was thriving I also started thinking of what else I could do, so I started doing the DIY videos, tips & tricks, going to restaurants and trying different dishes, and used to write reviews about them on my page, etc.
It was after eight months after I started blogging, that I received an invitation from a classic restaurant, they wanted me to visit and review their newly designed menu. An endorsement like this is huge for us content creators! If the big guns from the industry come to you, then you are on the right path.
There came a time when the page was doing well, I was collaborating with different brands, my followers loved my content, and they loved the Chief Foodie Officer. While my career was something that I liked as well, so instead of choosing one and quitting the other, I thought of quitting neither! I Will follow my passion and my profession simultaneously and that is how Chief Foodie Officer came into being!
The Metamorphosis!
2020 is the year of Change! Was this change a curse or a boon for you?
Well, the pandemic has been a tough one all over the world. I feel sorry for all of those who had to experience the sorrow and pain of the disease and losing their loved ones. These lockdown times, were a boon for me. Before the lockdown times, it was all good. I was quite into visiting restaurants and reviewing them. But when this lockdown thing happened, everything came to a halt, we were stuck in our houses 24/7.
This was the time when the concept and the content of the CFO had a major shift. I started exploring different elements and layers of food, I started experimenting with different cooking techniques and being creative with the food as much as possible along with maintaining the deliciousness of the food.
The idea was to make use of this ample time and to give something new to my audience that could easily be recreated. I was not very sure of how it would be received but I have such a lovely audience and they received it very well. As everyone is sitting at home, food is the only thing that binds everyone together and since the restaurants are working and everybody loves to eat! So I just hit the right chords at a perfect time!
What’s in a name!
The name, ‘Chief Foodie Officer’ is surely a unique one, how did you come up with such a name?
So what happened is, I used to work in a company before and was very friendly with the term Chief Finance Officer (CFO). I really like the sound of ‘CFO’ so the thought came to me randomly and I just thought of changing the finance to something that would define my food blog. So that is how Chief Foodie Officer ‘the name’ came to me. Honestly, what I wanted was my identity to stand out, there are many food bloggers out there so what makes me unique? And this name did that for me!
What Cooks in Shikha Shetty’s mind?
What goes into your mind when you are creating content?
Initially, it was just about dishes, photography, and reviews, but since lockdown, I came up with this different thing. Whenever I create a post, I think of a theme for each week. By theme I mean I pick up an ingredient as a theme and hero them in 4 dishes. So suppose if I choose ‘Pav’ as a theme, I’ll create four recipes that would hero ‘Pav’. Or I would pick dosa and come up with four dosa dishes.
The trick behind this is, to be as unique as possible both in recipes as well as themes. For instance, the most common thing that we come across is ‘leftover food’ so I came up with 4 new recipes with the leftover food such as rice pakoras, or Frankie from the leftover chapati, chapati pizza, etc. The aim behind every post is to provide my audience with something simple yet unique that they could recreate at their home with the basic materials available.
Overcoming the Odds!
Being in this world of food blogging for almost four years now, what were the hurdles you came across and how did you overcome them?
The toughest hurdle throughout this journey has been time management! As I said, I have a full-time job and I love my job as well. So I never chose between my passion for food or my career, I just opted for both. So balancing between the job and food blogging has been quite a hassle. But then, as I said, ‘Passion drives you to a solution.’ Along with time management comes consistency, to build an audience you need to be consistent enough in any business. You have to be punctual, active, and post regularly and that is how you grow.
The Motivation Factor!
What has been your inspiration throughout this journey? Someone, you look up to?
My family! I feel blessed to have such a family. They help me with my work, they will help me to shoot the video, help me come up with recipes, etc. There are always highs and lows, some ideas work while some fail, but they keep backing me up and pour those motivating words in my ears, ‘No worries if it doesn’t work, you can come up with something else! Keep posting!’
They help me with cooking, shooting, and also cleaning! Cleaning is the most tedious job in cooking in my opinion. But they are just always there for me! If it weren’t for them, I don’t think I would have been able to do it.
Is Cooking just a Daily Chore?
Since you have come this far with cooking, what would you want to tell those women for whom cookery is a daily errand?
Hats off to them! Feeding a whole family every day, and thinking of what new can you cook each day for people with different tastes under one roof? It’s a hefty task! Before the lockdown, it was just very thought of as a mere thing to cook food. But since everyone was shut in their homes, now people must’ve understood what it takes to cook and to manage the whole house. Housewives are the real heroes as they have to do all that stuff every day and quitting is not an option at all!
Accomplishments!
Any achievements or awards you would like to mention?
Not any awards as such but achievements, yes there are a lot. I have been featured by various publications such as Business Standard, India Today, Business World, The India Post, Times of India, Channel 46, Daily Hunt, etc. I was also selected for a program organized by Instagram itself for content creators where they provide training on how to generate and enhance your content, etc. It has helped a lot to understand this industry better. Also, recently, I have created a filter on Instagram that is related to food items. It’s an interactive food filter where you have to guess the food by decoding the emojis. So these are some of my achievements.
Fan Moment!
Since you have a lot of fans who adore your work, are there any memorable fan moments that you would like to speak of?
There was this one moment when I got a text over Instagram from a follower in which there was a video of a two-and-a-half-year-old kid saying that I recreated your mud cake, and I really loved it. This kid had baked it for mother’s day. It was really heartwarming that I am not only a content creator who influences people of a specific age group but I am also able to reach these small kids and they love my content and recreate it!
Also, almost every day I get a text or two from my followers with pictures of something they recreated from my page, they not only just cook but they also love to share it with me. I really feel so good when I get such messages. Media can cover you, and you can do your own thing, but when it comes to telling you that your work inspired them to do something, there is no greater feeling than that!
Blessings in Disguise!
If you were to name three things that this page gave you in life, what those things would be?
The first and foremost is the love I receive from the audience! I’m really grateful for that.
The second thing is the deeper connection that I have now with food and ingredients. This deeper insight is something I really cherish.
Lastly, a way to explore so much more, where I got to meet fellow bloggers and learn so much from them. I learned that mistakes happen, some dishes will be hits while some would be complete failures, but you should always keep going.
Significance of this journey!
How would you summarise your journey until now?
The whole journey has been a holistic one. It includes cooking food, restaurant reviews, and brand collaborations. So if I were to summarise this whole journey, I would say it was an adventurous one, full of fun, experimentation, doing various things together, meeting different people, an entire circle of engaging with brands, restaurants, various platforms, cooking and developing my own self along the way. It had many highs and lows and it has taught me to keep going no matter what! It’s an emotion!
Sneak Peek into the Future!
What are your future plans?
Well, I would love to have my personalized studio where I would cook my food and shoot my videos. In a modular kitchen, I would just keep cooking different recipes for my followers! That’s the dream!
Life: split into two!
If you were to describe your life before and after @chieffoodieofficer came into being, how would you describe it?
There is not a specific difference as such, the liking for food was there from the beginning so I used to click pictures of it. After I started food blogging, I realized that my content is being loved by not only my friends but also by other audiences as well. And so the page thrived gradually. It came very naturally and that is the beauty of this whole journey as I didn’t have to struggle much. Yes after it started I had to up my game and the bar keeps rising.
If any change I would say that now I have a deeper knowledge of the ingredients of the food. Usually, we just look at a plate of food as a whole. But after I started blogging my focus shifted from the whole to the minute details as well. The small ingredients that go into a dish, are what make the dish taste different from the others. The knowledge gave me an insight into how important every ingredient is!
Words of Wisdom!
Most of the time, what holds a person from doing something innovative is the thought, ‘What if I start and fail?’ The fear of failure is deep-rooted within us. But until and unless we start something, we won’t ever know that we might succeed as well! So move the fear aside and just take the leap of faith!
Another thing is that there is a quote saying, ‘Success comes to those who are willing to work for it.’ Consistency is something that will lead you to success for sure! There will be good days, there will be bad days, and there will be days when you feel like doing nothing but You have to be consistent with your efforts. Whenever you start a venture or something, it’s like a baby, you just don’t attend a baby for a day and leave it for the rest of the week right? You have to nurture it every day, little by little and gradually it will grow!
And what if you fail? Well, if you fail, guess what? It’s ok! It’s ok to fail. Not all days have bright and warm sunshine, right? There are rainy days as well. So it’s ok even if you fail, you can always start again. What matters is your efforts and how unique your work is. There are thousands of people trying to do the same thing as you, but what makes you different is you! The way you do things differently. You need to have the confidence in yourself that you can get through!
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