002: Liren Baker | Kitchen Confidante

Liren Baker is the food photographer, writer and creator of the award winning food blog, Kitchen Confidante, where she shares seasonal recipes that are inspired by her life in California as a wife and mother of two, the flavors of her heritage, and her travels.

Liren Baker is a New York native with a background in marketing research and a Master’s degree in clinical psychology.  But despite her education and training, Liren found her passion for food too irresistible to deny.

After she moved to San Francisco in 2000, Liren embraced life in California and immersed herself in the Bay Area’s vibrant culinary culture. She founded her food blog, Kitchen Confidante in 2010 to express both her great love of food and her love of photography.

Her work has been featured on sites including Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Huffington Post, the Kitchn, Food52, Today, and Refinery29.

Liren also works extensively with brands and websites as a recipe developer and food photographer.  She has spoken at conferences on how brands and bloggers can effectively work together, as well as on the subjects of food styling and photography.

Liren was honored to receive The IACP Legacy of Julia Child Award in 2012 for her piece: Homework with Julia. Kitchen Confidante was also featured as one of the 10 Best Food Blogs of 2013 by PBS Food.

Liren Baker Show Notes

Contact:
Kitchen Confidante
Instagram
Pinterest
Facebook
Twitter

Questions:
When did you start blogging?
Did it start as a food blog?
How long was it before you realized you had to change it?
When you opened the letter, were you really surprised?
But how would you know, in your case you looked online probably?
Why did you start blogging?
I wish I had started when you started because I’d be so much further along – response.
When you first started, when did you feel that you could make money doing this?
When you first started, how many times a week did you publish a post?
How many words would you say your posts were?
How many do you publish now?
Do you have someone that helps you with social media and all that?
When did you find that you first needed the help?
What do branding people do?
How many iterations of the website have you had?
What caused you to redesign?
When you redesigned, did you reach out to a designer?
Do you do your own SEO or do you have someone do it for you?
What was your biggest food failure?
When you cook for the food blog, how many times do you have to make your recipes?
What is your favorite social media platform?
What about Pinterest?
Do you have a favorite marketing tool?
Is like the scheduler I sent you?
So do you have to pay for this, like a monthly or yearly fee?
What is your favorite cookbook?
Did you have a viral moment?
What can’t you live without in your kitchen?
What is your favorite cuisine?
What is the soup?
Did you have a big picture mapped out?
What advice can you give to someone just starting out as a food blogger?

Meal:
Uta Caldo Soup