Live Food Blogging While On TV – No Pressure, Right?

I thought I knew blogger’s pressure. That pressure that hangs over all of us, waiting in the wings, because we’ve left recipes too long,  or foolishly didn’t take pictures and have to remake something or have taken on a paid project and the deadline is coming up faster than we thought it was.

So yes, I thought I had a good handle on what blogging pressure was. That was until I live blogged on Breakfast TV on May 15th.

Holy Dinah. That is some pressure to get out a blog post.

There were three segments that I needed to participate in, indeed I was asked to take the reins and plan what I wanted that morning.

Gulp. Me? Plan some of the content of a morning television show? Oh boy. I rolled up my sleeves and dived in.

The first segment that was planned was talking about myself, the blog my background and what went into creating a recipe. I really wanted to try to capture as much as possible how much work goes into creating recipes for a website.

That first segment can be viewed here and to be honest is my favorite of all. I loved the part where Ryan asked me in a roundabout way how much money I made, I still laugh. Talk about being put on the spot! Truly, I will let everyone know when I hit six figures a year on this website. You will know because I will be living and blogging from San Francisco. Ah, to dream!

The montage of family pictures was so nicely done, family pictures of us hunting and fishing that perhaps gave everyone a better view into why I love the outdoors so much and am getting back into my family traditions more every year.

I will be blogging more and more on this subject as the summer progresses. Regular readers will notice that I have a new section called The Wild on the front. I realized that more and more my recipes and outdoors adventures were reflecting the way I grew up, now that my children are grown enough that I – as the Mommy- have some freedom for myself.

I’m the taller girl in the picture and the short one is my sister. She still looks like trouble, just like she does in this photo.

The second segment I invited Cabela’s to come on the show and show off some gear for the newbie fisherman. That can be viewed here. This was a fun segment to do!

Meanwhile, during the segment breaks I was frantically writing up my Shore Lunch Whitefish recipe, hoping that I would indeed, finish the post before the end of the morning. One would think that three hours in studio would be enough time to write a post but between the major segments I would chat about minor things for a few minutes, or start setting up the kitchen, or…or…

..staring straight into this camera waiting for the moment someone would pop over and tell you that they would start taping you – live of course – working hard writing your blog post.

This camera, this was the source of a lot of the pressure, right here. Good pressure. Motivating pressure.

Yeesh. I was surprised how fast the morning went. Before I knew it, my last segment was up, where I cooked the whitefish recipe. This segment allows you only around 4 minutes camera time, which is why I chose a fast, simple recipe.

Again, I wanted to convey the work that goes into writing recipes for food blogs. The gear we all use, the pressure to capture those exact moments of cooking and the experimentation that goes on.

The resulting mess in the Breakfast TV kitchen was pretty much on par for an average day in my own kitchen. I did have a hard time believing that I wrought all this culinary destruction in a mere 4 minutes.

I should never underestimate my ability to make a mess.

After I cooked the fish, I had literally only 20 minutes to shoot the main photo, edit the main photo and get it up on my website.  The goal of the morning on TV was to show a blog post being written and a recipe cooked, so I had to get that post up on my website or the entire purpose was lost.

I ran outside with my plate for the natural light – with a lovely Breakfast Television gentleman helping me out – shot a few pictures, zipped back to my computer, threw them on the drive, picked the one that I though would do, edited it up and BAM.

Post was finished.

Now, the picture wasn’t my best so obviously I need to learn to shoot better under pressure. I also should have brought props with me to make a better picture, but all in all I was, and still am, very happy with the result.

So again, a huge thanks to the team at Breakfast Television for challenging me as a writer in ways that I have never even thought of before! It truly was exciting for me to see what I could pull off and exactly what I am capable of.

Now if only I had that pressure at home….I’d have all my cookbook ideas written and published, my house would be clean and my yard perfect. Ah, to dream!

Thanks for stopping by and reading!

Love,

Karlynn