In episode 042 we talk with Dan Porta, husband of food blogger and podcast host Megan Porta, about the supportive role a spouse can play at any level of this entrepreneurial journey.
We cover information about how to relate this is a job and has responsibilities just like any paid position, a reminder to be cautious about what you take from the fridge and how to be a time protector and help to control the chaos so bloggers can be creative and get their work done!
Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
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Dan and Megan have been married 13 years and have two boys. Dan works in the travel industry and enjoys driving the family in their RV, going sky diving and being a hand model for his wife. He fully supports having a fabulous food blogger in the family and does so very well.
Takeaways
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Dan knew Megan had potential to do this job because she was creative and had the skill set. Dan saw the potential in this job and gives Megan the flexibility to care for the family they both wanted.
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Dan has learned to be helpful by getting pets and/or kiddos out of a room while Megan works or films.
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Recognize that food blogging is a full time job with irregular hours. If you can grasp that, then it can make the other stuff easier to understand.
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Be encouraging, and share ideas together. A spouse can be a taste tester, be helpful in giving honest feedback. Generating ideas together is a good way to involve one another if you aren’t working together.
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Sharing on social media your spouse’s content. You can help by liking a post, sharing it. Social media is a big part of a bloggers job. Spreading the word is important via word of mouth too.
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Communication is important so you understand each side’s expectations especially if a blog isn’t earning money yet but you’re working the hours like it does.
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On the financial side, look ahead month to month. Be intentional together that you are both comfortable with what is or isn’t coming in. Planning ahead is important.
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Look to see the potential and determine each month what you’re trying to accomplish and how that benefits you as a business. If you don’t see growth in 5 years, maybe you reevaluate but most of the time you can look at the analytics to find some positive growth and that helps you move forward.
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Lean times can be gotten through if you are working together as a team and communicating
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Self care is helpful with a spouses help. A spouse can see that the food blogger needs to take a break.
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Talking about the benefits of having a job as a food blogger to keep it at the forefront of the family’s mind is important and a part of regular family conversation.
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Dan reminds us if your blogger love what they do, then this is a non dollar benefit of your blogger’s job. We all want to do something we love day to day. So it’s important to find metrics that show there is growth and eventually it will lead to a pay off.
Desire To Work With Your Spouse?
We have a chat with Todd Bullock in episode 075, who joined his wife Susie in their growing blogging business.
Transcript
Click for full text.
Intro:
Welcome to Eat Blog Talk, where food bloggers come to get their fill of the latest tips, tricks, and insights into the world of food blogging. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll provide you with the tools you need to add value to your blog. And we’ll also ensure you’re taking care of yourself, because food blogging is a demanding job. Now, please welcome your host, Megan Porta.
Megan Porta:
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Hello food bloggers. Welcome to the Eat Blog Talk podcast made for you, Food bloggers for seeking value for your blogs and your lives. Today’s episode is one that you might want to listen to with your spouse or your significant other, or maybe a friend or family member, or give it a listen to yourself and send your loved ones the link. I am going to be interviewing Dan Porta. Yes, that is my husband. And we are going to have a discussion about playing a supporting role in the life of a food blogger. Dan is a former school teacher, skydiver and dancer. Currently working in the tour and travel industry, he has lived with a food blogger for 10 years, so he’s definitely an expert in this area. Okay. I have to have you clarify dancer. Sorry, that made me laugh because it sounds maybe a little bit like you have a history of stripping. So please clarify the dancer for us Dan.
Dan Porta:
Well, if the definition of professional is being paid for a service, I’ve technically been paid to dance. So every now and then I will throw that out there just to have a little fun. It was not stripping. I was just minding my own business dancing and I got paid for it. My friend Jeremy was also there and he too was paid to dance.
Megan:
By a woman admirer, correct.
Dan:
A few random admirers from a distance. Yes, we didn’t actually dance with them.
Megan:
Pre-marriage of course, because that wouldn’t happen after marriage.
Dan:
Uh, yes, this was a long, long time ago.
Megan:
All right. So in addition to that, do you have any other fun facts for us?
Dan:
Well, if we go with the skydiving stuff, I guess you could say I’ve been involved in a wedding, took place in an airplane and one on the ground that was nerve-wracking carrying a large diamond ring in my pocket. And I’ve also been puked on in the sky.
Megan:
That is not fun. You have been kissed in the sky by me. We’ve kissed mid free-fall.
Dan:
True, better than being puked on.
Megan:
I hope so! You have a lot of fun facts that revolve around falling from the sky, which is really cool and fun and something that not a lot of people do.
Dan:
Everyone should try it once.
Megan:
Totally agree. Thank you for sharing that. Now on to our main topic, which is playing a supporting role in the life of a food blogger. I think it’s important first to state the obvious, which is food blogging, as you know, is a pretty unusual job that most people don’t know much about, unless you either are a food blogger or you are an immediate family member of a food blogger. I have extended family members who still have no idea what I do on a daily basis. And that’s okay. I’ve been food blogging for a really long time. So my goal for our chat today is that it will shed some light on food blogging from the perspective of you, a spouse who has been in it for well, nearly a decade. So to start our conversation, what are some normal to you, but maybe not normal to everyone, things that you deal with regularly from my kind.
Dan:
Well, I suppose one of the first things that jumps out is double-checking which food supplies I dig into, as they may be saved for a recipe to be made the next day or later that day. So that was a new one to get used to.
Megan:
You’re very used to it now.
Dan:
Yes, I am very used to it. If there’s new foods, that’s a pretty clear indication to double-check first.
Megan:
So that’s your first sign to maybe ask or not touch.
Dan:
And also if there’s multiple of one item, it’s always good to double check how many are needed before just assuming a few are okay,
Megan:
Because that does happen where I ask, did you eat my pear? You’re saying yes. Was I supposed to not eat the pear? So being a spouse because you’re living with them every day. I think it is a good idea to either have a process, because we do kind of have a process. I will hide foods in the back of the fridge or in a weird drawer so that you don’t see them, but you’re really good too at asking me and just making sure that you’re not eating something and that rarely happens anymore. I would say we have a pretty good unspoken process that we’ve agreed on. What are some other things?
Dan:
I’ve gotten used to hand modeling, which isn’t that hard, pretty easy way to help.
Megan:
Is it annoying though? Like when you’re in the middle of something and I ask, Hey, I have like three seconds. You need to come over here right now.
Dan:
It’s not too annoying, I can handle it.
Megan:
You have really nice hands. So your hands look good in all of my shots, just so you know.
Dan:
Well, I appreciate that. I mean, they’re, they’re relatively small for my size, so I don’t know if that helps in the whole photography of it.
Megan:
It would be weird if you had just big burly, dirty hands that probably I wouldn’t be as inclined to ask you. So it’s kinda your fault.
Dan:
Oddly enough. I really don’t have hair on the backs of my hands or really on the top of my feet.
Megan:
Yeah, I agree. So what are some other things that you’ve just gotten used to over the years that someone else might have to keep on their radar that they don’t know about?
Dan:
This is too unusual, but I think maybe more time sensitive as far as with children in the house and pets; controlling the environment at times, which I think is usual in any family, but with a food blogger, it’s more probably time sensitive where you have a specific timeframe to get pictures done or get a video done. So just have to pay attention to that basically.
Megan:
So give us some examples.
Dan:
Like on a weekend is probably when this mostly comes up; if there’s something that you have to get done, you’ll usually cook the recipe and then you’ll have to take the pictures. A lot of the good lighting is over by the door on the floor. So it’s a good idea to boot the dog out and grab the children so that they aren’t running through. Again, not a big deal, pretty simple.
Megan:
Yes, but something that’s very helpful.
Dan:
Yeah. And just at specific times, paying attention to that.
Megan:
So being alert, seeing when we are doing our crazy cooking or baking and picture taking and just kind of helping out in little ways. What are some other things?
Dan:
Well, I think an overarching one is just recognizing that it is a full-time job with irregular hours. If you can kind of grasp that, then it makes all the other stuff a little easier to understand or help because the time, even though it’s a full-time job, isn’t set. It’s not nine to five every day or 10 to six. So I think it’s important to keep that in mind that it is a full-time career job. It doesn’t fit into the standard Monday to Friday 40 hour week. So you have to be able to just get used to helping at different times.
Megan:
And kind of adapting. You’ve been so good at that. Just adapting to very strange hours for me. I know that this holds true for all food bloggers too. Like you said, we work and do weird things at weird times. Something that you’ve been really good at is just being a good protector of my time. If I have, for some reason, something to work on at 8:00 PM, when the boys are going to bed, you just step in and you tell them no, mom’s got to work. So I think it’s really important that spouses and significant others, especially, are really in tune to that because I can see if they’re not, there would be a lot of problems because it’s not a normal job. It’s not a normal work hour, work week. So I think that’s probably one of the main things to keep in mind is that it’s just odd. I mean, odd times, odd requests. I need your hand, don’t touch the food, it’s just a weird job.
Dan:
Yeah. It is different. I think just having that general understanding from the get-go helps to make all the other stuff kind of just come naturally.
Megan:
So let’s talk about that. And then maybe if a food blogger is not earning money yet, how do you frame that. It’s a quote full-time job, but maybe you’re not making a ton. So how do you balance that?
Dan:
I think you just have to communicate basically, and on the financial side you have to sit down and look, even month by month because normally in a food blog and you have an idea a month in advance. I think you just have to be real intentional to make a plan together that you’re both comfortable with and look and say, yeah, just real detailed next month, here’s what’s coming in. Here’s what is needed to cover expenses. If you wanted to invest more, here’s how much and what the possible payoff would be. So I think that comes down to just communicating a whole bunch and planning ahead.
Megan:
But I can see where maybe a spouse would say, well, why do I need to give you an evening or a weekend to work when you’re really not bringing in any or not much money. So how do you justify from your perspective that you need to give us the time we need and the weird hours and all of those kinds of strange things that we do. How do you justify that if not a lot of money coming in?
Dan:
Well, a couple ways. I think one, ideally, if you’re doing the food blogging thing, you love it. If you’re doing what you love, you’re generally a happy person in life, which is just nice. We all want to do something we enjoy. So that right there is a non-dollar earning benefit. But then I think you can see where there are little growths and see the potential. I mean, if it’s been five years and you haven’t earned a dollar, I mean, that might be time for a different conversation, but like I said, you can see a month in advance and you can see how many people are visiting the website and can start to see the work pay off. But for us initially, when we started out, it was really nice for you to be doing something that you loved to do. Luckily it started to pay off, a little bit, you see just a little come in here and there, and then you see it grow. Again, as long as the two people involved can be comfortable with the plan and what’s happening, then I think it makes it easier to get through the lean times.
Megan:
I think that’s a good point is if you’re relying on ad revenue, especially, and even just looking at your traffic, you can always look back and see if progress is being made. It’s so easy with Google analytics and if you’re with an ad network, you can easily look and see your growth. So yeah, I mean, if you’re a couple years in and you see absolutely no growth then that’s probably an issue. But if you’re seeing steady growth, which we always have, thankfully, then it’s just a motivation to keep going and probably for you just motivation to keep being a supportive person. So I liked that perspective. So I truly want this episode to be a valuable resource for people who play supporting roles, like you, for us, food bloggers. So what are some things that loved ones can do directly and indirectly to help us out?
Dan:
Well, I think the first thing is kind of understanding that going back to the topic before that it is, it’s a full-time job. I think it’s easy for people to think that you’re working from home, you’re working on a website, it’s not really working or not a real job, but it is. It takes a whole lot of time and skill to get good at. So that’s the first step for me is just understanding the bigger picture and all that’s involved. This is a job. Then beyond that, I think there’s a lot of just encouragement, even sharing ideas because so many of the recipes and a lot of the work involves being creative. For me, I like throwing out ideas here and there just for fun. Some of them sound good, some of them are dumb, but that’s all right. So I think trying to be encouraging in a creative way, but then also being honest too, if the food stinks.
Megan:
You’ve never said that to me.
Dan:
Well, thankfully it hasn’t stunk yet. I will if it does.
Megan:
Wow. Nine plus years and I haven’t had a bad recipe?
Dan:
Well, honest taste testing is important. Normally if they’re bad, you don’t even bother sending them to me. You know that already.
Megan:
Yeah. But you’re pretty dang nice. You’ll be like, well, it’s got salt in it. You always find something good.
Well, yes. But yeah, if it’s truly horrible, I will let you know. Sure.
Megan:
In a very nice way. Of course.
Dan:
I try.
Megan:
So what are some other things? You do give great creative encouragement. That’s one of the things I love about you, is that you’ve got this uniquely creative side to you. Your job, your day job is not necessarily creative. So I love it when you just pull out these random suggestions, hey, you should do this. Or take something I’ve done and put just a crazy spin on it. And sometimes I actually go with it. There’s much value in that. I love it. So what are some other things that loved ones can do to support us?
Dan:
Take you out to dinner and let you try new foods, different restaurants, share your stuff that they genuinely loved. Share it with other people. I mean, social media is a big part of the business and industry. So if there’s a recipe again that you genuinely love, share it, talk about it.
Megan:
So maybe going on Facebook, liking posts, commenting on posts, Instagram, actually looking at the stories. Then if there’s something that you just love, share it with your friends, your family. You’re so good at that too. Just telling your friends, Hey, there’s an awesome thing Megan did and sharing it with them. So that that’s super valuable because the more eyes that get onto our content, obviously the better. Then those eyes share it with other people. So spreading the word is huge. What are some other things you have on your mind?
Dan:
Well, for, I think people who are really close, significant others and spouses, I think it’s good to help you say no, because it does take a lot of creativity. I think that other people see that. Then they’re naturally inclined to ask for creative help, whether it be, Oh, you have a website, can you help me build mine? Or you can take pictures. Can you teach me how to take pictures? Or you can get a whole lot of ask, which is fine. It’s good to share your talents, but it’s also good to say no at times when it gets to be too much because you do have a regular full-time job. So I go to work and I come home and I don’t have a whole lot of outside ask from people wanting things from me. So I don’t have to deal with that. But I think in your industry, where you are working from home and you have a skill set that other people want, from little tasks or projects here and there, you get a lot more of that attention and asking. So it’s good to be encouraged to say no, because there’s only so much time in the day and so much energy that you have.
Megan:
Yeah. That’s been a big one for me. I don’t think that we always see it as the creatives. We’re like, I can take really good pictures too. I’m going to go take pictures for this family. There are so many different avenues, like you said, and sometimes we aren’t able to see it, but sometimes you say to me, is this something that you really want to be doing? That kind of stops me in my tracks. Maybe this isn’t what I want to spend my time on. There are exceptions to that. Obviously you want to help out really close friends and family. If you can do a quick logo for someone who you’re really helping out, there’s always exceptions. But as a general rule, it is good to say no more often if you’re trying to get things accomplished on your blog.
So that has been a big one for me. Also to kind of go along with that, helping me to see when I need to take care of myself. I don’t know if this was on your list. I’m kind of taking over, but every once in a while, I think you can see when I’m needing to take care of myself and you’ll suggest like for me, it’s naps and baths and what else, those are the two main things. You’ll really encourage that. Why don’t you take a bath tonight? That is so appreciated because I get so involved in my head, I need to get this done. I need to get some photos edited. You stop me once in a while and just remind me that I need to take care of Megan.
Dan:
I think that’s very important because there is no strict boundary in a more traditional career where you’re not leaving the office. You’re constantly around your work. It’s always in front of you. So it’s good to be forced to go to a coffee shop or nap and take a bath. I think those are your top three, probably.
Megan:
Yes. You know me well. Do you have any other ways that loved ones can help us out directly or indirectly?
Dan:
I think we’ve covered a lot of the main things. I think the understanding is part of it. Sharing stuff that you like through social media.
Megan:
And word of mouth too. I’ve heard you say that before, Hey you should check out Megan’s cookbook or whatever it is that I’m promoting. You’re really good about that too. So not just social media, think outside of that.
Dan:
Then honest critique and also sharing ideas. I think those are the main ones that come to my mind and kind of circling back to that first one, I think is just respecting it as a career and a job that requires talent, requires hard work. It’s not just, I threw up a website and now I sit around in my pajamas all day.
Megan:
The idea of giving it respect as if I were going to any job, at an office or any job really. It’s a hard job and it should be respected. We work really hard. I think it’s so important for supportive people of food bloggers to know that. Then I have one thing to add. Asking how it’s going, because food blogging can be really lonely. We work mostly from home. So at the end of the day, it’s like you people who go to an office and you get to chat with your coworkers and you get that social interaction that involves adults, which we really typically don’t get. So once in a while, it’s really nice to just kind of say, Oh, I did this today and to kind of unload a little bit in a positive way.
So I think asking once in a while, Hey, how was your day? What did you do? What did you work on? Super important. Then I was just going to run through a couple things that I appreciate about you as a person who has supported me for so many years. I’ve kind of covered a lot of this, but I have it written, so I’m going to go through it. So I just love that you give me space when I have to work. You literally never complain about me working, even when I’m in quote seasons when working is plentiful and by seasons. I mean, almost always. If you were to sit down and work repeatedly night after night, when we were trying to watch a movie or hang out, I don’t know that I would be as gracious, but you’re so gracious with me and you never complain. But at the same time you recognize when I’m stretched, you recognize when I’m stressed. You encourage self care. Plus here’s the ironic thing. You make me dinner most nights, which is kind of crazy considering the fact that my job revolves around making food. So I appreciate a ton about you, Dan, my husband.
So do you have anything to add to that? I have a few questions I want to run through before we say goodbye, but is there anything you want to say before I get to that?
Dan:
I think most of the stuff I had in my head, we’ve already gone over. The whole cooking dinner thing most nights is, I’m usually just throwing something together, but I think it also goes back to that main point of understanding the bigger picture. It’s not like you’re cooking a five course meal to be served every single night. There’s a lot of other work that goes into it, even beyond just making the food. So, yeah, I think that’s a part of just taking the time to understand the career and all that goes into it.
Megan:
Didn’t you have somebody recently say to you, Oh, your wife’s a food blogger. You must get fed so well every night. You’re like, uh, no, that is not what happens.
Dan:
I do get fed very well, I eat lots of good food, but yeah, I’m on dinner duty.
Megan:
I think people just have this notion that every day we’re just creating a perfect Turkey and a side dish of mashed potatoes and maybe a veggie. That is not how it goes. Sometimes we make the weirdest, most random things that can’t be consumed for dinner. Not everyday we’re cooking either. I do that like once or maybe twice a week. So it’s just funny, the perception some people have about it. So I think if we’re done with that part, I’m going to move on to a few questions. Are you ready for a few questions? You’ve had a ton of grace with me over the years through some long financial, dry spells and some stretches of having a really crazy workload AKA forever. What were your thoughts about me becoming a food blogger back in the very early days?
Dan:
I didn’t really worry about it because I knew you were a talented individual, very creative, but also very smart and able to learn anything you wanted to. You work hard. So my initial thing was okay, cool. I mean, it’s kinda got to work if you’re smart and you work hard and you have creativity, that’s kind of the ideal combination for this type of work. You had started early while you still had a job and you hadn’t been able to dedicate a ton of time to your blog and it was still doing well initially. So I guess I just didn’t worry too much.
Megan:
Oh, thank you for all that. That was very nice of you to say. Okay, next question. I know that you saw potential in me to begin with, because you told me that a lot and I could just tell that you weren’t freaking out about anything and my business. So you saw potential in me and the fact that I could carry this into an actual business, because otherwise you wouldn’t have put up with all of my working over the years and cooking and craziness. So what did you see coming out of this venture, once you saw that I was really serious about it and once I kind of moved out of my full-time office job.
Dan:
Well, I saw a career for you that would last. One of the nicest things about it is that it does offer that flexibility that I know you wanted to have with the young kiddos. I guess I just thought it was your job. You know, as it grew like, Oh cool. This is Megan’s job. She can have more time to do boy stuff when she wants. That work will still have to be done obviously, again with the kind of flexible hours. I don’t know if that makes sense. It became your job very quickly.
Megan:
Is there anything negative you saw about it in the beginning?
Dan:
And I think having to be careful about how consuming it can be, but I don’t think we ever got to that point where we had to have a chat about that, but I’ve heard you and coming across other people and you can spend just way too much time doing it. So I think that’s something to be careful with.
Megan:
You can probably tell. Right? I know you can tell because that’s when you start offering naps and baths, but there are weeks and months and stretches of time when I’m obviously more consumed, if I’m working on a special project or something. So what are your signs like? What should other people look out for? If they have a food blogger in their life who is just working way too much and way too hard, what are those things to look out for?
Dan:
That’s super individualized because, I think you just have to know the person to really know exactly when they’re hitting their threshold. In general, I think time’s obviously a good indicator with how much time you’re spending on stuff and general life happiness. I know I’ve said this to you a whole bunch, but if you’re not happy doing it, then we need to change something. I think that flexes quite a bit person to person because some people, they work 10 hours a day and they’re going to be okay, they’re going to be happy. Where the other person’s going to work 10 hours and they’re not going to be. So I think that’s knowing your spouse or partner, just knowing them very well. As the longer they’re doing this, the sooner you’ll pick up on when it starts to be overloading.
Megan:
And start offering naps.
Dan:
Yes, naps, or whatever else works.
Megan:
Baby, do you want to nap today? Oh, am I looking stressed? So what messages do you think my being self-employed has sent to our boys over the years?
Dan:
Actually. I think it’s been very good. They get to have time with you. I know we’ve reinforced that, quite a bit at times, cause I know there’ll be like, Oh mom, we never get to see you. Well, wait a second. You actually get to see your mom more than probably most kids do. We’ve been able to do some more fun things as far as travel, just because it’s easier to work around one working schedule then two. So I think that’s been a big plus for them. I think we do a good job of talking about it and the benefits of it and making them aware. Mommy’s working, this is mommy’s job. It’s a full-time job. We’re lucky that she can do it from home and we can have the different flexibilities that we do have. So I think making them aware and knowing that it’s still, again a full-time job, but really a very lucky one that helps have more family time.
Megan:
So just making it more, a part of your family conversation. We do, that’s the wording we use. This is my work. This is my job. When I go downstairs and get on my computer, I’m not just Googling Halloween costumes, I’m actually working. So I love that we both use that terminology. You too. Just say like stop complaining. You get plenty of time with your mom and most moms and have to send their kids to daycare, who go to work from nine to five. I think it’s really important to just use those words and be on the same page.
Dan:
It helps when you have to drag them out of the room too. Mommy’s working, time to get out.
Megan:
Yes, that helps. Okay. What is your favorite memory relating to my job or any memory that just stands out that has to do with food blogging?
Dan:
That’s a tough one.
Megan:
What about the Apple pie bread incident? Probably not a favorite memory, but one that stands out for you.
Dan:
What? This is bad. Cutting your thumb.
Megan:
When Sammy was little, I was making Apple pie bread for my blog. I was peeling apples with a paring knife and I sliced off a good portion of thumb. Blood was squirting all over our kitchen. Sammy was in the corner crouching down and saying, I don’t want my mommy to die. Did you block that one out?
Dan:
I was going to say some of the road trips and travel that we’ve been able to do.
Megan:
Oh, I like that.
Dan:
Because we probably wouldn’t have been able to do that in a more traditional two job household.
Megan:
I like that a lot. Just being able to buy an RV, like we did a couple of years ago. Literally we traveled all summer one year and that would not have been able to happen if I’d had a traditional job. Then every summer, since we’ve traveled on some level. Working around your job obviously. I like that you think of traveling over gushing blood in the kitchen.
Dan:
Yeah. I must have blocked it out.
Megan:
I went straight to the blood.
Dan:
I blocked it out. I don’t have a good memory anyway. I’m too old.
Megan:
I’m older than you. What are some of the most memorable foods I’ve made over the years?
Dan:
First thing that came to mind with some of those cookies, specifically the white Russian one, because I’m not a huge sugar guy. So I usually just took a bite to taste test. But when I had the white Russian ones I had about five of them, I think.
Megan:
I remember that I found you in the fridge and you were like, what just happened? This guilty confession, but you loved those. Those were really good. Those are from my cookbook. Those are not on my blog, if anyone wants to look for them. But yeah, those were amazing. Anything else on the blog side that you remember?
Dan:
A lot of the dips stand out to me. Those are really good.
Megan:
Club sandwich dip.
Dan:
The club sandwich step. There’s a Buffalo dip in there somewhere. I’m a dippy kind of guy. Then we did the Stromboli thing for a while too.
Megan:
Those were amazing. We liked the comfort food, a lot of comfort food for a while. One more question, actually, two more. Do you have any blooper memories in addition to the Apple pie bread, that you don’t remember relating to relating to food blogging?
Dan:
Well, I don’t know if you were actually cooking a meal or not, but I do vividly remember hearing about your hand getting caught in the hand mixer.
Megan:
I was making margarita cookies for my cookbook, but I was in a different house. I was with some friends at a rental property. I used this foreign hand mixer and I pressed the wrong button and my left ring finger got caught in the beater of a hand mixer. Twisted it to just this weird, I watched it happen. It was so gross. Literally for a year I couldn’t move that finger normally. It’s been almost three years now and I can still feel it. So yeah, that’s memorable for both of us.
Dan:
I think the other ones would probably revolve around Buddy. I believe he ate part of a cake once.
Megan:
Yes. I remember that.
Dan:
And I think the best part is we covered it up and served it still.
Megan:
We did not cover it. Oh my gosh, no one’s ever going to eat our food. He also ate an entire batch of Cinnamon French toast cookies off the table. I’m talking about 10 to 12 cookies. Do you remember that? He got up on the table, ate every single cookie and then was sick afterward.
Dan:
Yeah, that was not good.
Megan:
So to kind of say goodbye and I know Elijah wants to say some words too. Is he around?
Dan:
Yes. He is.
Megan:
Hold on though. Before I put them on, do you have any last words that you feel are important to impart to friends and family members of food bloggers before I put Elijah on?
Dan:
Be understanding. It’s a job. It’s a career. I think that’s the best way to be supportive.
Megan:
All right. Well, I’m going to wrap up before I put him on. So thanks for being here today, from the upstairs, hubby and for sharing, encouraging words with food bloggers and their loved ones. Do you have any additional words of inspiration or a favorite quote or anything you’d like to share with my listeners before you say goodbye?
Dan:
I suppose one thing I usually say just in general, in life, is very rarely is anything ever as good or as bad as it seems in the moment. Take a deep breath. We have it pretty good. We are not getting shot at and we have clean water close by.
Megan:
Can I put that as a quote on your Instagram post? We are not getting shot at?
Dan:
Sure.
Megan:
It is valuable though. It’s true. That kind of explained you in a nutshell because you’re super easygoing and laid back and you’re a pretty grateful, generous guy. So perfect.
Dan:
Sometimes.
Megan:
Most of the time. Yes you are. Well, thank you hubby for being here. I really appreciate it. I’m going to let you put Elijah on because I know he has a few words he would like to say as well. So after he’s done, you can tell him just to say goodbye.
Dan:
All right. I have him right here. Say hi Elijah.
Elijah:
Hi mommy.
Megan:
Elijah! So you are being recorded right now. Okay. You’re on Eat Blog Talk. So daddy and I were talking about just how people can be supportive to people like me, who have a food blog as a job. So what are your thoughts about being a kid of a food blogger and how can other kids be really supportive kids to their moms or dads who blog?
Elijah:
I don’t know. I think it’s just a cool thing.
Megan:
Why do you think it’s cool?
Elijah:
It’s not a common thing.
Megan:
It’s not, you’re right. Because Do kids ever talk at school like, Hey, my mom is a financial planner, like nobody ever says, Hey, my mom is a food blogger. Right. It’s kind of a weird, unique, cool job. Yeah. And I get to be home with you guys pretty much whenever I want to be. I can see you before school and after school, sometimes I can do field trips with you and take random days off.
Elijah:
Yeah, you’re the best for that. I love you.
Megan:
Oh, I love you too. I just feel so grateful that over the years, I’ve been able to do all those things with you, easily because of my job. So I’ve been super grateful. You’re such an understanding kid when I have to go downstairs and get some work done. You always understand. So thank you for that. Anything else you want to say?
Elijah:
I love that you take us on vacations. I’m grateful. I’m thankful for the presents. Birthday, Christmas.
Megan:
I’m so glad kiddo. That’s all good stuff to be grateful for. So why don’t you give us some parting words of wisdom? What words do you want to share with food bloggers? You have their ears. So share it now.
Elijah:
I think it’s a good opportunity to have a food blogger as a parent.
Megan:
That’s great kiddo. All right. Does Sammy want to get on or are you guys done? No, he doesn’t.
Megan:
All right. Well, I will see you in a little bit.
Elijah:
Goodbye, I love you.
Megan:
I love you kiddo. Thanks for being here, Elijah and daddy, Dan, thanks for listening today, food bloggers and I will see you next time.
Outro:
We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk.