Those familiar with the Elton John - Bernie Taupin classic would have guessed the direction of this blog post.
In 2016, I decided to become a tad more fancy with my blog and set up a nice chic website to continue writing about all the wonderful ( and not so wonderful) food experiences I was privileged to be a part of. It was, in all honesty, a sincere attempt at becoming a proper full time writer focused on food and travel and maybe recreate a minuscule portion of what stalwarts like Anthony Bourdain, Julia Child, David Chang and even many India-based writers were doing, for myself.
Long story short, the world changed and I was not quite up to the task of changing with it. Social media has ruined my relationship with writing about food. I felt more pressure to put up posts daily, be a part of every new restaurant opening, take horrid pictures ( my wife says I'm being overly critical about my pictures here) and wax eloquent about what, in hindsight, was fairly repetitive and derivative food and drinks.
I had stopped enjoying food ...and worse, I stopped enjoying writing about it. (Who reads long form content anyway?) The darn pandemic didn't make things easier either. It's taken me a while to reignite the fire to write more than a handful of words followed by a barrage of food related hashtags on Instagram, but I think (and pray that this isn't yet another false start) that I am ready to do this once again.
Invoking the spirit of 'The Yellow Brick Road' song, I'm all set to go back to my plough and write about something that continues to be dear to me. I'm tired of waiting to design a fancy website, optimize it for SEO and all the bells and whistles. (This sort of thinking is unhealthy for a marketing bloke like me.) It's time to go back to the basics and just focus on the writing. I'll leave the reels, vlogs and threads to more determined folks. May the force (of the algorithm) be with you.
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