It started with a Dream About Cheesecake
During Covid, I had a strangely vivid dream. I was walking around Downtown Idaho Falls (where I lived at the time) and everyone around town was excitedly leaning out their doors or windows and looking at me saying, “Hey! There’s the cheesecake guy!”
It was kind of like the beginning of Beauty and the Beast when Belle is walking around town and everyone is singing about her. Only there was no singing. It was just people waving and saying, “Hey! Cheesecake guy!”
I would point back and them like I was the Fonz or something.
I woke up from that dream feeling all cool. I said to myself, “I bet I could make a good cheesecake” even though I had only made just one before.
So I set out to find the World’s Best Cheesecake Recipe. And I accomplished that goal by developing “The Ultimate World’s Best Cheesecake Recipe.”
And thus Go Sweet Fox was born.
Getting Into Food Blogging
For a bit, I thought about trying to open a cheesecake retail store. But I was doing my solo law practice and just didn’t have the time (or money) to invest in that. So, instead, I thought I would just make a blog all about cheesecake.
I did about four posts before I realized that I only had so much to say about cheesecake.
Moreover, all of my recipes use the same cheesecake batter base, so there was not much variation in the recipes themselves.
It was just, “Remember that cheesecake you made last time? Just do that but put in Oreos crumbs this time.”
Or, “Instead of Oreo crumbs, put in some white chocolate chips and raspberries.”
I probably should have just buckled down and stuck with the cheesecakes, and I may do that, but I tried to expand to include other foods.
But that got overwhelming, so I hit the pause button to regroup.
The Rating for Food Blogging
Using my Hobby Rater System, I came up with these results:
Creative Expression — Score: 7
How satisfying is this activity as a creative outlet?
I really enjoyed creating the artwork, the Go Sweet Fox branding, and the concept. I enjoy being on the web and seeing my ideas come alive of the screen.
There is creativity that is involved in coming up with recipes and taking pictures of the food, etc. But most of that is also formulaic. Most of the creative aspects I enjoyed was playing around on the web. The cooking and recipe creation process was not all that great.
Cost of Participation — Score: 5
How satisfied are you with the costs of the hobby?
Food is expensive. And if you want to try different iterations of recipes, you end up having to buy a lot of food.
For example, if I want to test how much lime juice I should put in a Key Lime Cheesecake, I have to make several different batches of key lime cheesecake. Cream cheese is not cheap, so it ends up costing a lot.
Then, if you don’t want to eat 10 key lime cheesecakes, you are wasting a lot of food.
Candidly, I did not spend that much on ingredients because I only tested one iteration. I made my best guess on how much of each ingredient to add to the cheesecake base. As long as it turned out decent, I just went with it.
Then I felt a little bad about not doing that thorough of a testing process.
Intellectually Interesting — Score 7
Learning new things or stretching the mind.
I’m giving this a 7 because there is so much you have to learn: SEO, photography, keyword research, etc. So there’s always something new to learn or improve upon.
However, it is not that interesting to write about a recipe. In my view, a recipe should be an index card.
I don’t have a whole story to go with it.
But according to food blog SEO experts, it is best practice to have a post be of a certain length because that’s what Google expects to see.
It just feels like writing a bunch of fluff, which is not interesting to me.
Challenging/Learning Curve — Score: 5
Are you satisfied with the level of challenge this hobby brings?
I like to challenge myself, but only to a certain extent.
Food blogging is a very competitive space. If you want to be successful, you have to be committed to learning all of the things you have to learn to make a successful food blog.
Of course, that’s probably not unique to food blogging. For me, when things get overwhelming, my fickleness starts to get the best of me.
One of the biggest challenges is that food blogging is, as mentioned, there is a certain amount of monotony and fluff that comes with food blogging.
Stress Level — Score: 6
Is this hobby adding or taking away stress?
The most stressful part of food blogging is competing for eyeballs. The second most stressful part is knowing that people are going to be bashing your recipes if things don’t turn out right.
For me, I only had to worry about the first part because I was not getting the eyeballs to even worry about the second.
I give this criteria a 6 because I wouldn’t say it causes more stress, but it’s not particularly relaxing. It just depends on how hard you want to compete for attention (and if you want to be successful, you have to compete pretty hard).
Time Commitment — Score: 2
Are you satisfied with the time required for this hobby?
I was trying to post a recipe at least once a week if not more. My theory was that we eat every day, so I just have to document what we eat.
It just takes a lot longer than you think it will take.
Plus, not everything you eat during the week is something you want to make a recipe about.
Fun — Score 7
Are you having fun doing this hobby?
This hobby has two main aspects: creating the recipes and creating online. I had a lot of fun being online. But creating recipes was not that great. But overall, I think it was fun.
Escapism/Recharge — Score: 5
Does this hobby help you recharge or escape so you feel more ready to take on life’s challenges?
Meh. Not really.
Sociality — Score: 5
Are you happy with the amount of socialization that comes with the hobby?
Talking about recipes is not really that great. I just don’t have a lot to say other than “Here’s how you make the world’s best cheesecake…”
Most of the social interaction I had was participating in a Facebook group about food blogging. And that’s mostly people asking about how you get more traffic to your website so you can get on Mediavine.
I didn’t have any good answers to those questions.
So the social interaction I experienced was “meh.”
Payoff — Score: 7
When you are done with the hobby, do you step away admiring your accomplishment?
I like posting stuff on the internet for some reason. So I liked doing that with my food blog.
I guess I feel like it’s adding something from me out into the cosmos.
Overall Score for Food Blogging: 5.6
Here is how a 5.6 fits on the Hobby Rater scale:
1 – Terrible fit
2 – Not a good fit
3 – Probably not good for you
4 – It’s alright, I guess
5 – Very mixed feelings
6 – It’s pretty okay
7 – You like it!
8 – You really like it!
9 – You love this hobby!
10 – Bruh, you know this is the best hobby ever!
Based on this scale, food blogging scored between “Very mixed feelings” and “It’s pretty okay.” And that feels about right, which is why I stopped doing it as a hobby for the time being.
My summary of food blogging is that it can be monotonous at times. I think the most social discussion you will have is either about the recipe itself (why it didn’t work or what would make it better) or you’ll be talking to other food bloggers about how to make money food blogging.
Those are just not things I want to talk about all that much. So 5.6 feels about right. Food blogging is mostly pretty okay, I guess.
If I were to approach this hobby again, and I may do so in the future, I would probably delete everything but the cheesecake posts and posts I was doing about Filipino candy and treats. Then I would only blog about those things. I think I got sidetracked by trying to make it grow into something I wasn’t that interested in making — a large recipe blog.
