What’s it really like being a food blogger? Gastrogeek gives us a snapshot.

Is food blogging as glamorous as it looks amidst the recipe testing, photo props and rewrites? We asked Rejina Sabur to give us the lowdown about her blog Gastrogeek, including her typical food blogging day, the reasons why she started it, and the evolution of a community.

On why she started her blog…

“I started my blog for purely practical reasons. I had this massive folder at uni full of recipes I’d torn out of magazines or scribbled down in my mum’s kitchen and needed somewhere to organise them all. There weren’t really that many UK food blogs around at the time and I wanted to create something that would appeal to like minded food obsessives. I’ve always loved writing, so it seemed like a natural step to combine the two.”

On a typical day…

“When dedicating a day to it, I’ll usually think about what I’m going to make as I’m falling asleep the night before. I like to do creative things with whatever needs using up as I’m pretty waste-averse. I’ll wake up and note down a rough method and ingredients list. Then I’ll cook the dish, see if it works and tweak as necessary. I like to spend time researching and testing my recipes, I’m a total feeder and like to test my dishes out on friends and family, even my eight month old son gets to enjoy the fruits of my stove.”

On admitting your recipe mistakes…

“I’m a firm believer in being completely open about mistakes. It’s so much easier to identify with people who share hits as well as misses; we’ve all had nights where we’ve had to order a last minute takeaway or irreversibly burnt a saucepan.”

On the glamour of food blogging…

“I don’t know about blogging being “glamorous”, I always find it really bizarre when people recognise me from my blog or treat me in a certain way. It’s just a great outlet for something I love doing and it’s a great way of meeting like minded people. The best thing has been seeing the whole food blogging scene blossom over the past few years, there are some really niche food blogs out there now and a genuinely creative community of people.”

On starting a food blog…

“My advice to anyone thinking of starting a blog would be to ignore all those emails from companies trying to cajole you into advertising or tweeting for them. Also keep posting regularly, even if you think no one’s reading. If the passion’s there it’ll always come across.”