Blogger of the Moment: Two Red Bowls

Two Red Bowls is a Brooklyn-based food blog by Cynthia, a full-time lawyer. We’re big admirers of her delicious recipes and beautiful Instagram feed, so we were thrilled when she agreed to be our newest Blogger of the Moment!

Here she shares a glimpse into her daily routine, what inspires her recipes, and how she balances blogging and a full-time career as a lawyer.

What’s a typical day in your life?

A typical weekday is mostly just filled with work at my full-time job as a lawyer, so I won’t bore you with that! But a typical Saturday usually starts with a sleepy pourover coffee, then cooking or baking for the blog in the morning, followed by shooting in the early afternoon if the food goes well. The afternoon is a mix of procrastinating, cleaning up my blog messes, actually cleaning, and spending time on the couch with my fiancé, where we’ll watch a few episodes of some TV show or another while I unwind and edit photos. Our living room gets a dreamy spot of light in the late afternoons these days that I absolutely love — it washes the whole room in golden light as the sun sets. At night we’ll venture out for a date night or dinner with friends, if we’re feeling adventurous. Then the night ends with more quality time on the couch (lately, full of conversations about wedding planning!) and a good talk in bed before we go to sleep. That late-night chat is my favorite time of day.

How do you balance a full-time job of being a lawyer with blogging?

It can get a little overwhelming sometimes! But with a little planning (and luck), it’s been a lot better than I expected. Although there are definitely late nights here and there, I don’t think that the problems I face in juggling law with blogging are really all that different from anyone who blogs and works full-time. I tend to cook and shoot all my food on weekends, and then it gives me a nice break from work (or a way to procrastinate) during the week to do the smaller things, like read other blogs, answer comments or emails, and otherwise engage with this wonderful blog community. I’d say the biggest snag is that my job can be a little unpredictable — it’s always possible I’d have to work on a weekend, so I generally try to shoot and plan out posts at least a few weeks in advance, and sometimes up to a few months ahead, in case those (figurative and literal) rainy days come along. But for the most part I’ve been really lucky!

Can you describe your blogging process for us, starting from where you get your inspiration to how you get to the final product?

Sure! Overall, I think my inspiration always just starts with what we want to eat! It has to be a dish that I, and whoever I’m cooking for, will enjoy and find delicious. Sometimes it’s a dish we have in a restaurant that I want to recreate, other times my fiance will suggest something, and still other times it’s recipes I see on other blogs or in food media. But it’s always something I think we’d relish eating. Food is celebratory, and I think (or hope) there’s always a way to make it exciting. I also think the seasons are always a rich source of inspiration, especially sentimental times of year like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or late summer and early fall when it seems like absolutely everything is ripe and ready to pick.

Once I have an idea of what I want to make, I usually spend a few days writing out what I think will work, researching what other recipes are out there, and what flavor combinations or ingredients I could try. I don’t have quite as much time to test the recipes as I would like, so I try to do as much research before trying the first batch as possible. Then I’ll test out the recipe, usually in smaller batches or during the weekdays, and if it turns out how I like it, I’ll make it again for the blog on the weekend and photograph it. Cooking and photographing the final product takes about three or four hours, I’d say. Then I edit the photos, which takes a few more hours, and the week before the post is scheduled to go live, I’ll do the writing. Writing always comes last, and I feel like I should give it more time but I never get to! That’s on my list of things to improve. Luckily, my fiance is an inspired, thoughtful editor, who can give me feedback when I get stuck. I don’t always like hearing it, especially at the eleventh hour, but it’s always valuable, and almost always right!

What are some of your favorite tools to take and edit images?

Most of the time, I shoot with a Nikon D610 and a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. On the computer, I mainly use Lightroom; on my phone, I use VSCO and Instagram. I’ve been really impressed with Instagram’s built-in editor in their last upgrade!

What are some things you learned about life throughout your blogging years?

I think one thing that has really struck me is how much the blog both creates and preserves memories — it’s both a journal and an ongoing, evolving project. The other day I was looking through my old iPhone photos from a few years back, before I had the blog, and I was struck by how many more photos I used to take back then. Of the mundane, of food, of hangouts with friends, anything. I’ve always had a kind of compulsive need to document my life, like I feel like I won’t remember it if I don’t have a photo or words that encapsulate that memory or that feeling. I used to drive my fiancé crazy because I always wanted to take a picture of my food at restaurants! And I don’t do that so much anymore. (Which he’s super relieved about.) I realized that, after I started this blog, most of my restless documentary energy has gone into that one weekly post, that one meal, one story that goes along with that meal. In some ways that makes me feel like the “record” of my life is a little less comprehensive than it used to be, but in other ways I find that so fascinating — the idea that a journal of the things you’ve done can be as much about active, intentional creation as it is about passive documentation.

How did you find out about Bloglovin’, can you tell us how Bloglovin’ has helped you in your blogging journey?

I found Bloglovin’ when Google Reader went away and I needed a fun blog reader to replace it. I love that Bloglovin’ combines a touch of social media with its readership functions — it makes the reading experience feel more interactive and community-based than solitary, and I think that’s such a fun and valuable thing. One of my favorite things about blogging will always be the remarkable sense of community around it and the ability to find people who are like you in what they love. I think Bloglovin’ has helped foster that sense of kinship, both by helping me keep up with bloggers and by connecting me with new ones. I’m so thrilled to be talking with you all today — thank you!

If you had all the time and money in the world where would you go and what would you do?

This might be a super lame answer, but I think I’d just move somewhere close to my family or my fiance’s family, and blog and cook to my heart’s content. Hopefully with lots of babies! Family, food and a camera is the ideal life for me. And sunshine — did I mention that my fiance’s family is from Hawaii? :)

Thank you so much, Cynthia!

Follow Two Red Bowls on Bloglovin’ and never miss Cynthia’s amazing recipes!

Read last week’s Blogger of the Moment feature with Framboise Fashion here.