Q&A with Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen

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Jaden Hair (pictured above with her sons Nathan, 5, and Andrew, 6) is one of an increasing number of bloggers who have made the leap from hobbyist to media professional. With incisive wit, lush imagery and craveably simple, family-friendly recipes, Jaden's blog Steamy Kitchen became the hub of her ever-growing media empire in online, print and broadcast media. Her first book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, brings easy Asian recipes into the home. We were able to get a few minutes of her time to discuss the Steamy Kitchen phenomenon.

Congratulations on being one of the latest to make the blog-to-book jump. When you began the blog, did you have a book in mind as a goal?
When I started the blog, it was really a way for me to store my recipes. I had previously written recipe on 3 x 5 cards (and then would lose them) and on my hard drive (BSOD FAIL!) before I realized that maybe the smart thing to do would be to publish them via a blog so that the data would be safe.  When I first started I really had no intentions of anything more than sharing it with friends, family and students who took my cooking classes. But then I started making friends online, participating in the world of food blogging and falling in love with recipes and stories from David Lebovitz, Smitten Kitchen, Lucy's Kitchen Notebook and Simply Recipes.

It wasn't until three months into the blog that I decided that food writing, photography and blogging would make a fantastic business. That's when I started getting serious about creating Steamy Kitchen as my full-time job. At first, I contacted a small community newspaper and asked them if I could contribute a recipe each month. They said, "YES!"  and then a few months later a bigger newspaper called wanting me to write for them, and then an even bigger newspaper called. Now I am published every Sunday in the Tampa Tribune Newspaper. Same for television. I called the teeniest tiniest local television station and asked if I could go on once a month in the morning. They invited me on ... and then a bigger station called ... and then a year later, a syndicated show called Daytime asked if I wanted to come and cook regularly.

How did you find your publisher?
When my blog was six months old, Holly, an editor from Tuttle Publishing emailed and asked if I was interested in writing a book. Her sister, who lives in Tampa, had been reading my column in the newspaper and thought I'd make a great author.

You had to convince your publisher to let you do your own photography. What’s different between blog and print photography? What did it take to get your images print-ready?
Oh wow, yeah. That was hard work,  convincing my publisher to let me do my own photography. Two years ago, my photography was fantastic online, but it wasn't anywhere near the quality required for a beautiful cookbook in print. So for six months all I did was practice with styling and food photography. I didn't have a contract yet from my publisher, but I would take photos, send them print ready files, and they would send back my photos printed on glossy cookbook paper. We went back and forth three times during those six months and finally they told me that I was ready. It took a lot of studying, observing, playing around with my camera.

Do you have any specific tips you learned during your photography learning curve that you can pass on to budding food photographers?
Well of course having a dSLR camera is important for nice pictures. But it's not about how expensive that camera is nor is it about a specific lens. I shot parts of my cookbook with an entry-level dSLR (Canon Rebel XT) and a $90 lens (50mm 1.8).

What's important is having an eye for what looks good on plate. I could have the best camera in the world, but if I just plopped a big spoonful of ragu sauce sloppily on the plate, it will still look sloppy in the camera.  I studied the photos in cookbook after cookbook and loads of food magazines. Look at a picture that I liked, I asked myself, "what makes that look so good in this photo?" Conversely,  if I don't like a particular photo of a dish, I asked myself, "why does this dish look so crappy?"

I'm not