Hi Im Jazmine
I like to cook, and annoy my dinner guest with food facts.
How do I start a newsletter? is that what this is?? newsletter, a blog, a new social media platform, I’m so confused. And I can just write about anything I want.
My first newsletter should be an introduction, Right? Yall will want to know who you're signing up to read about. Well, buckle up because I have a lot to say.
I guess I should start by saying, I’m completely lost in this world. I am at sea adrift, and I can’t find the damn lighthouse. I’ve been lost I think my whole life. Stuck between what my heart wants and what my family, society, my brain want. My heart begs for unique flavors, untold stories, and experiences. But I’m a mom with no college-level education, in a small town typical America with limited opportunities. Rural Pennsylvania to be exact, surrounded by corn fields, cows, and the Amish. I shit you not outside my house, to the left corn fields, followed by apple orchards, followed by multiple Amish/Mennonite families. (who are kind and make some of the best pastries) then to my right, cows. Behind my house, any guesses? Yup, more cornfields. I do get some of the best sunsets here.
Everyone always starts with their childhood when they make an introduction. So here’s mine.
adopted
loved
happy
some shit is not interested in talking about
loss
done.
When I was a teen I had to cook dinner pretty much every night for my family of 6 sometimes 7, all we ate was processed food, Hamburger Helper, shells and cheese, white cheddar pasta, and meat, pork chops, or chicken. (I can’t believe I ate chicken with so little spice my whole childhood)I hated it. I hated cooking. The food tasted bland and my family was so picky about meals that if it wasn’t spaghetti at least 3 people wouldn’t eat it. So I could never experiment with meals and it was just another chore. Once I moved out and started cooking for my husband and me it took me a while to learn how to cook for just 2, and I could cook whatever I wanted. I can cook whatever I want!
Now my channel, my Cozy Novice Chef. Who am I? Why food? why social media? why? why? why?
So many questions so little time. About 2ish years ago, I had given birth just days before Christmas. I was laid up in bed recovering and chilling with my newborn son. My husband had paternity leave and we would spend our days over that Christmas break watching movies, YouTube videos, and snuggling our son. I would watch YouTube at night because as a new mom, I was terrified to sleep. So i’d watch Joshua Weissman, Binging with Babbish, and this Bon Appitet channel with 3 levels of chefs. I watched their videos over and over again, meticulously pausing and playing the videos, rewatching every step of how a recipe was made. These were professional chefs and there was no way I could keep up with them. But it tweaked this old passion in my brain that I had long lost…Food.
I decided to start posting my food on social media. It started with Instagram pictures of the food i’d make, then I started filming little videos after my sister convinced me to download TikTok during the pandemic( thank god I was so bored).I would film with a crappy ring light( I got for $20 bucks on Facebook marketplace)in my crapy first apartment as a way to break up the monotony of caring for a newborn. Seriously all you do for the first 5 months is carry around a sack of flour that will get you sent to jail if you drop it. (Don’t worry I freaking love my son and he is the driving force behind everything I do.) I wasn’t a very good cook at that point, I could cook anything from a box, processed foods, and tacos. Bland food with limited spices. But TikTok opened my eyes to the world of food. The colors, the flavors, the seasonings. I remember the first time I went to the grocery store and spent so much money on just spices. There were so many I had to turn the whole cabinet next to the stove into spice storage. I learned about different salts and how they affect flavors. Salt is very important. I watched more youtubers, and more documentaries,my love for food grew.
I loved food but I hadn’t decided to put all my focus on social media. I instead tried multiple food businesses. I opened a pop-up pizza tent, then a charcuterie business(small-town people didn’t even know what that was), and even a snow cone shop. Each has its own story of triumph and failure. After my last attempt, at a snow cone shop,
it closed and I was crushed,devestated. I wanted to talk about food and share my love for it with other people, but no one seemed interested.
In October of last year 2023 after another breakdown over my life and how messy it is, my wonderful, loving, kind, just perfect human being of a husband said to me “Just do what makes you happy, I’ve got us” I sat on that for days before I decided to pick back up my social media accounts.
Now I’m not at all a big influencer type person. I have less than 2500 followers across my platforms, but I’ve been fidgeting with the social media world for almost a whole year now, learning everything I possibly can before I put my full focus into this.
So here’s what you're going to get with Cozy Novice Chef. I want to make YouTube videos where I challenge my skills and learn new things. Taking recipes from cookbooks, famous chefs, and magazines, and recreating them to the best of my abilities. All while showing my struggles and my wins for y’all to laugh and join along. I also want to create food documentaries where I show people where their foods come from. I’m talking farms, truffles growers, mushrooms, production facilities, butcher shops, growers, etc. Bridging the gap between our food and the people that bring it to the table. But that’s a big production so I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I can do those types of videos. that’s the dream though, to travel the world showing where our foods come from. Then I’ve got my TikTok and Instagram with short-form videos of recipes I find from creators that inspire me, recreating them as well. Then we have this substack which I’m crazy excited about. A place where I can take my absolute passion and love for writing and share my thoughts and opinions on food, my life, and maybe some travel journals if I get the chance, I can write about my life, my challenges, my failures, and successes.
So if you're interested and like what I have to bring to the table join along, and I hope to get to share my passion with the world
.