061: Dina Polyashov | Simply Home Cooked

Dina Polyashov is a self taught cook, photographer, and recipe developer behind the blog Simply Home Cooked. When she’s not working on her blog, she enjoys quality time with her Bulgarian/Ukrainian family.

After getting married in the summer of 2012, Dina Polyashov took a three-month break from college, which gave her a lot of time to learn and experiment with cooking. She dove deep into cook books and food blogs and discovered how fun cooking could be. It amazed her how only a few ingredients could come together and become such delicious food!

Shortly after giving birth to her first baby, she published her first blog post. From there Dina continued developing recipes and photos for her blog despite all the challenges that came with her second pregnancy, and having her energetic toddler running around while she worked.

With her easy to follow step-by-step photo recipes, Dina hopes she can inspire other new cooks to discover how simple and rewarding cooking can be.

Dina Polyashov Show Notes

Contact:

Simply Home Cooked
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest

Mentions:

Robin from Grits Design

Books:
This post contains affiliate links, which means I get a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you click the link and buy something . You can read my disclosure here.

The Flavor Bible – Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg

Camera and Lenses:

Canon 5D Mark IV
24 – 70 mm zoom lens
100 mm macro lens

Kitchen Favorite:

Breville Oracle Espresso Machine

Most Popular Post:

Smoked Salmon Cucumber Rolls
Salmon Wellington
Vanilla Cake Pops

Questions:

What did you do before you became a blogger?
What made you want to go into the dentistry field?
Why did you start blogging?
When did you start?
How did you pick the name of your food blog?
When you first started, did you start on wordpress.org?
What about the theme?
When you first started, how many times a week did you publish a post?
How many do you publish now?
How many drafts do you have to be ready to be published, right now?
Once you started, how long did it take for you to start making money?
Do you do sponsored posts?
Is there a reason for that?
What is the best thing you did for your blog?
Did you take any courses or did you just jump in and do it?
Do you have anyone that helps you with your blog?
You don’t realize how much time you get back, is that how you felt when you hired yours?
What is the hardest thing you have found about blogging?
From start to finish, how long does it take you to photograph an average recipe?
What kind of camera do you have?
What about your favorite lens?
Do you have anyone helping you with the pour shot or do you do it yourself?
Do you use artificial light or natural?
How did you learn to do the strobe lighting?
Is there any advice that someone who knows blogging gave you that you wish you had listened to?
What do you use for backgrounds?
You say you do the majority of your photos in the living room, are there a lot of windows and natural light in there?
Do you do your own SEO or do you have someone do it for you?
What is your most popular post?
What is the most surprising thing that you have found since you started blogging?
Did you have a viral moment?
Is there anything that you did that catapulted you to the next level in your business?
How long have you been doing video?
Is there anything your fans would be surprised to know about you?
How old were you?
Did you have a plan mapped out on how you would get to where you want to go?
How did you persevere through the times you wanted to quit?
What is your biggest food failure?
Do you remember what month it was?
What is your favorite cuisine?
What would be your last meal?
What is one thing in your kitchen you can’t live without?
What is your favorite cookbook?