It's almost been a month the Food Blogging Workshop completed and finally here I am with my little bit of experience sharing.
Flashback!
Around a year back I went to a cooking competition with an aim to learn something and was not able to secure a place there but I came home with some questions from the fellow participants and especially 2-3 ladies who were above 60. They were curious about BLOGGING and started discussing with me about the technicalities at first followed by how was my experience etc. One aged lady shared that she wanted to curate her family recipes and I found that really important. That was the day I felt that there is a need for a friendly environment and knowledge sharing to help people or better to say to encourage people to start their own blog. It was quite obvious for me to think about Food Blogging instead of the other arenas as I prefer to blog about food. Now that the idea was there, I propose the same to few groups who I thought can vouch for the same and finally Social Bong found the idea productive it was decided over a cup of coffee that there will be a Workshop solely for the purpose of Food Blogging soon!
The Reality!
It is indeed easy to conceptualize an idea but the toughest past is to structure it as per the conception. Zomato helped us a lot with the foundation work starting from a venue negotiations to the provision of a special session during the workshop to mention a few for the Food Blogging Workshop.
The Aauris came up and joined us as the venue partner for the Food Blogging Workshop and it is worth mention that their overall arrangement was quite good.
Four Seasons Wine joined us to provide valuable input on wine tasting. Design My Cake came up with Food vouchers for the panelists.
The Mentors, Presenters, and Influencers!
This probably was the trickiest part I though initially before contacting the chosen panel but I was nothing but wrong! The wonderful panel was nice from the very beginning. Well, I did not do it on my own but the support system for the workshop was for sure Indrajit Lahiri who writes at https://mohamushkil.wordpress.com/ and co-founder of Social Bong.
He was there during the entire workshop and before and after just like a positive catalyst; in fact, the entire management of the program including the creative, event management, contacting the mentors, participant coordination etc. was done by team Social Bong very nicely.
Next person contacted was Poorna Banerjee who writes at www.presentedbyp.com and probably Kolkata's one of the best lifestyle and food bloggers and as expected from the very beginning Poorna was there with lots of good ideas and innovativeness apart from her session on writing skills.
Our next choice was the Pikturenama couple Anindya S Basu and Madhusree Basu Roy who write at www.pikturenama.com. This power couple is well known for their writing as well as pic-stories and gladly accepted our proposal to share their story of blogging.
Food blogging is incomplete without the pictures; this is something I learned years back but I am still juggling with my skills of photography and naturally there was a need for a good food photographer as well as for the food stylist. Sayantan Sarkar and Rani Sarkar came into the picture at that point and they took the responsibility to share their experience with us (not only with the participants but the mentors who were the eager
learner for the photography session).
When it comes to blogging, influencers play a critical role these days and Dolon Dutta Chowdhury & Sammya Brata Mullick joined as panelists to share their rich experience.
Given I am also blogging since last 6 years, by hook or by crook I have gathered my little bit about food blogging and ended on sharing that with the participants.
The D-Day! Food Blogging Workshop, 24th September 2016!
We were provided with the Black Bar by the Aauris for the workshop and our day started with an icebreaker by Indrajit Lahiri followed by an interactive session by the Pikturenama couple on their story of blogging. I had a session on the technicalities and dos and don't of food blogging. We also had a session by Samridhi Singhvi who represented Zomato and shared the trick and tips for using Zomato as a blogger. The Food Photography session was accepted by the participants very well and there was a session on Four Season wine by Mr. Abhay Kewadkar. Poorna's season was on the writing skills and blogging skills and the workshop ended with a panel discussion were Anindya, Sayantan Dolon, and Samya joined as panelists.
The Aauris's Pujo special Menu!
The aauris decided to indulge us with their Durga Puja special menu and ended on serving an awesome Bengali buffet inclusive of Different types of Bhorta (Aloo Bhorta, Tomato Pora, Begun Bhorta), Mangsher Chop, Dimer Devil, Bhetki Paturi, Beguni, Cholar Daal, Chingri Macher Malaikari to mention a few along with Rice and Luchi. the Lunch ended with Misti Doi, Rosogolla, Langcha and Chanar Payesh.
The Participants!
Last but not the least; the participants, who actually were the best thing happened to the workshop. Starting from the members of Facebook food groups and Zomato foodies to newbies and enthusiastic Instagrammers and even some of the known Kolkata-based bloggers; the group was indeed heterogeneous and participatory in a productive way.
It's just a beginning, not the End!
It will be wrong to say that everything went well or everything went as planned. that can't be possible and that's not probably what we wanted. To organizing a Food Blogging Workshop for the first time was a challenge to us and it was a learning experience for us as well. Our plan was to present something fruitful and to share our little experience of Food blogging with the participants and also to exchange the knowledge!
Goodbye until we meet again! Yes, we will be coming soon with the Version 2 of the Food Blogging Workshop. Until then sayonara!
Picture Curtesy: Subhadip Mukherjee who writes at The Indian Vagabond.
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