"To Be at It All the Time, Only Then Can You Ever Be Good at Something." - Mizan Siddiqui

Anurag Jaiswal July 23, 2020

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1. Tell us about your background and journey.

My background, honestly speaking was always related to food. My mother is an amazing cook and I would always be found in the kitchen trying to sneak in a kebab that mom would be frying for dinner. 

Although, I came to be a lawyer but I loved reading and writing about food from the word 'go'. I started food blogging near about 5 years back. Instagram was really at its nascent stage and it was a very liberating experience to be recognized on such a new platform in such a short period of time. 

Restaurants were also opening up to blogger meets and individual reviews and as everyone knows the food blogging boom happened just then. It’s more of a creative field today than a review and you have to keep updating your content in every few days. 


2. Which is your favorite cuisine and dish?

Looking back to my roots, I would say food given to us by Mughals i.e. the Mughlai cuisine is what interests me the most. There are hundreds of recipes for Korma and yet only a handful of them get to do justice to the real thing. 

You have to have a real love for spices and aroma to be a person cooking Mughlai. From this cuisine, I guess a good Nahari would be my favorite, as this particular dish showcases the labor that goes into its making. 

The actual authentic dish even today takes an overnight cooking which really brings out the flavor of the curry.


3. Should food blogging be just a passion or can it become a regular career?

Gone are the days when people used to think that digital marketing or social media managers were only for hobbies and not as a profession. 

Since businesses are now ever more present on social media, hence the need for blogging to be a profession rather than a freelance or hobby is the need of the hour. 


4. What makes you appreciate a particular restaurant or dish and talk about it on your blog?

I think when I visit a restaurant, the way they think out of the box to present the food and with a twist is what really gets me going to write about it. 

Many restaurants now are presenting food with a twist and "what you order is not what you get" is the new mantra at so many restaurants. I guess that really forces us to thing about those dishes and write about it.


5. Is there a dish you particularly associate yourself with?

Yes. Definitely, KEBABS! I am a huge kebab fan. I have delved into the history of kebabs when it first came to India with the famous traveler Ibn Battuta and then have just spiralled into so many variations. 


6. Which is your favourite book and why?

Not a huge fan in today’s world to take recipes from book when you can open up the internet and search for anything under the umbrella. However, if it comes to food books and recipes I will always trust Nigella Lawson and her book Nigella Bites among others.


7. What is one piece of advice you would like to give to the future aspirants?

My one piece of advice would be - To be at it all the time! Only then can you ever be good at something.

- Mizan Siddiqui

- Interviewed By: Pallavi Surana