Blogger Highlight: *My Wife Makes*
Happy Wednesday! Hope y’all are keeping warm in this frigid December weather! Today’s post is a special one – I share with you a candid interview with my friends over at My Wikes Makes! Levan and Amrita are the husband and wife behind their colorful, vibrant and wacky blog! Every week they post yummy, new, unique and easy to make eats that will make you wish you had Amrita cooking for you for dinner! 🙂 They are transitioning more & more towards a vegan & vegetarian blog – their Vegan Oreo Cheesecake & Vegan Homemade Nutella Cookie Sandwiches will have you drooling!
1. What’s your story? Tell us a little bit about the two of you behind the blog!
Amrita: Levan and I got married in 2013, after knowing each other for 7 years. We were just friends for most of that time. Levan is a PHD student, studying anthropology and tutoring (nerdy). For myself, I’ve always had an interest in baking and cooking. I started experimenting in the kitchen at age 11. Needless to say, I was a disaster in the kitchen in the beginning but got better in time, slowly. So, anyway, after years of practice and selling my cakes to friends, I decided that it was time I brought my interest to a new level and enrolled myself at Le Cordon Bleu London. I graduated end 2012. I then moved to join Levan in Melbourne, Australia and we now live happily with our three deviant kitties in our small apartment!
“We now live happily with our three deviant kitties in our small apartment.”
2. What inspired you guys to start food blogging?
I starting cooking and baking a lot when I first moved to Australia, mainly for Levan! And he’d randomly post iPhone photos of the stuff I had made on Facebook, just to show his appreciation. He always began his photo statuses with “My wife makes…. <insert so and so food name>”. He was doing it for fun, really, and maybe to annoy people with non-stop food statuses. But, surprisingly, our friends loved the amateur photos and actually encouraged us to start a food blog. So, well, we did! And that’s how we came up with the name ‘My Wife Makes’. It was an accident more than anything else!
Vegan Pistachio Milk & Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies
“He always began his photo statuses with ‘My wife makes…'”
3. What’s your favorite recipe to whip up in the kitchen?
Honestly, I get really lazy sometimes. I have quite a few things to do in the day and there never seems to be enough hours to cook something fancy or elaborate. So I tend to go for really simple dishes. My favorite things to make are Vietnamese Veggie Rolls or one pot soups. I go by the idea that the less to clean, the better! I also absolutely love making sushi! When I’m feeling energetic or up for a challenge, my favorite thing to make are French desserts for my family and friends. They’re hands down, the best desserts in the world! That’s one of the few things I miss since going Vegan.
“I go by the idea that the less to clean, the better!”
4. What is your number one favorite meal in the world?
Levan absolutely loves Mushroom Aglio Olio. When he was living in a student hostel, he’d go to this nearby Italian restaurant and ordered that same dish every day for weeks on end! Geez! As for me – I actually love having tropical fruit as a meal. Papayas and pineapples taste like heaven!
5, What sets your blog apart and makes it stand out from the rest?
I think we’re quite honest about things, and we don’t take things too seriously. We insert a lot of random memes and descriptions in our posts, which is something I find a lot of food bloggers maybe feel a little afraid to do. We are 100% ourselves, whether people like it or not (but who wouldn’t like a couple of misfits?) I also think that ours is one of the few blogs out there that is mainly run by a husband, for his wife. If it were up to me, we’d never have had a blog…ever! I have no idea about coding and html and how all these things work, neither do I like being the center of attention, so having Levan do all these things truly does help.
“We are 100% ourselves”
6. What’s your favorite (and least favorite) part about blogging?
Favorite – We love how it feels to realize that hey, thousands of people around the world have ACTUALLY seen the stuff I make from our tiny apartment down south of the world. That’s amazing and honestly the best part about blogging.
Least Favorite – Taking photos! My goodness, photos are the cause of huge arguments between us sometimes. I’m quick to give up if the lighting or composition is bad, and I tend to get really stressed over it. Levan always helps me calm down and tells me to take a breather before trying again. Photos can be so difficult to get right… especially when something tastes amazing but you just can’t seem to get a good shot of it! It makes me go like RAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!
“people around the world have ACTUALLY seen the stuff I make from our tiny apartment down south of the world.”
7, What invaluable tip can you share about food blogging?
Be yourself – honestly, that is the most important thing to us. There is no need for anyone to try to replicate the style of another blog or the way they write. Believe that you are good enough on your own terms, and the rest will follow. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends to promote your blog as well – they are the best kind of social media support! Also, there is no magic formula to success. You just have to keep working on every aspect of your blog again and again and again, even if the results aren’t immediate. Levan and I are both new bloggers, so we’re learning things as we go along as well. At the same time, we are also both perfectionists so when results aren’t immediate, we feel a little bummed. That’s still a hurdle we are working on getting over together.
8. It’s Friday, 10pm. People can usually find you ____.
Watching re-runs of 24, Fringe, Survivor, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Supernatural! We’re asocial people! Sometimes we go upstairs to the neighbors house and have tea. Other times I’m blending stuff just because I like the sound of the blender, it helps me mentally prepare for my beauty sleep.
Homemade Nutella Cookies Sandwiches (Vegan)
9. Let us get to know you better: Name 5 random facts about both of you we don’t know!
Levan:
- Levan tries to touch EVERYTHING he sees in supermarkets – I’m talking magazine covers, boxes, toilet paper, utensils, chip packets, cookie wrappers, etc. He just has this uncontrollable urge to feel the texture of everything! That’s why I prefer going there alone….
- He has a soft toy sheep named Bobby. He’s had it for about 27 years. 27!! He still talks to it every night, no, seriously. I hate that sheep!
- Levan is an albino (yes, like the ‘evil’ characters you see in Hollywood movies!). But no, he doesn’t have red eyes (they’re greyish blue)
- He is well and truly a nerd. He reads the most boring books about… I don’t know. Boring stuff.
- He used to be a full-time musician in a punk rock band. He’s since retired from that scene to become a food blogger, which he enjoys far more! 😀
Myself:
- There’s nothing really that interesting about me!
- I have 26 tattoos! The most obvious ones are on my arm. Almost all the designs are dessert-related: cupcakes, donuts, macarons, a bear….(?!)
- I am your stereotypical cat lady. I’ve had up to 15 cats at once before. I even have a ‘cat lady coat’ which I wear everywhere, rain or shine.
- I try to avoid talking to people as much as I can. If people talk too much to me on Facebook, I block them. Hehe.
- I spend 20 minutes on average every night, pretending to be various imaginary characters and talking to my non-imaginary cat Richard Parker. Sometimes I’m a police officer…other times I’m a lustful young bombshell, craving for Sir Richard Parker’s soft touch. Levan finds this very, very, very weird. I don’t. I think Richard loves it. Mummy’s boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vegan Cheddar Jalapeno Biscuits
