Meet Our Sponsors - HarperCollins Publishers India

We’re happy to announce that HarperCollins Publishers India is joining us as one our sponsors at the Indian Food Bloggers Meet in Bangalore. HarperCollins India is a well-known book publisher and they have very generously offered us copies of some of their popular and recent cookbook publications, so every food blogger joining us at the Meet will be taking one of those cookbooks home with them.

HarperCollins India will be also launching their latest cookbook “Spice Sorcery” by Husna Rehman, at the Indian Food Bloggers Meet. Please watch this blog and follow our posts for more details about this event.
 

About HarperCollins Publisers India:

HarperCollins Publishers India Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of HarperCollins Worldwide. HarperCollins India has shown phenomenal growth in the past few years and publishes fiction, non-fiction and poetry by diverse writers like Nayantara Sahgal, A.P.J Kalam, S. Radhakrishnan, Kamala Das, Kunal Basu, Tarun Tejpal, Deepak Chopra, Ruchir Joshi, Rana Dasgupta, Kiran Nagarkar, Meghnad Desai, Mukul Deva, Jaishree Mishra and Anita Nair.

It has also successfully built a list of talented first time writers including Advaita Kala, Anuja Chauhan, Karan Bajaj, Jahnvi Achrekar, Amitabh Bagchi, Kishwar Desai, Pallavi Aiyar and Ameen Merchant. HarperCollins India is also the publisher of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008.

 

HarperCollins has also publishes cookbooks and some of their recent releases include F word by Mita Kapoor, Bong Mom's Cookbook by Sandeepa Mukherjee , The Sood Family Cookbook by Aparna Jain, Good Food, Good Living by Karen Anand, Hyderabadi Cuisine by Pratibha Karan, Vicky Goes Veg by Vicky Ratnani and Spice Sorcery by Husna Rahman.

Fourth Estate, Harper Perennial and Harper Litmus are a few of HarperCollins India’s local publishing imprints and the growing list of writers in the Harper Hindi programme include Geetanjali Sree, Jyotsna Milan, Sara Rai, Ibne Safi, Teji Grover and Indu Jain.

 

Collins Business: Ideas for Everyone was launched in May 2009. They are committed to building a quality poetry list and have published Priya Sarrukkai Chhabria, C.P. Surendran and Karthika Nair. Apart from the world renowned Collins Cobuild and Collins Gem Dictionaries.

HarperCollins India’s distribution includes books by writers such as Doris Lessing, Paulo Coelho, Agatha Christie, Jack Welch, Jack Higgins, Alistair Maclean, Ken Blanchard, Isaac Asimov, Isabelle Allende, Michael Crichton, Sam Bourne, Amitav Ghosh, JRR Tolkien, Cecilia Ahern, Jeffrey Archer, Andrew Gross and The Dalai Lama.

 

Apart from India on Television by Nalin Mehta winning the Best Book on media, HarperCollins India has made a mark as a marketing leader in the publishing industry and has won the Excellence Award at the Asian Multimedia Publishing Award 2009 and 2011.

You can find and follow HarperCollins Publishers India on Facebook and Twitter for updates on their new publications.

Social Media for Food Bloggers with Nandita Iyer

Nandita Iyer has been a food blogger (saffrontrail.com) since 2006, well before 'food-blogging' was a thing in India. She is very active on social media and has a legendary twitter following that benefits from her tweets on food, nutrition and beyond. According to Nandita, several valuable personal and professional associations have been formed via the various social media platforms she is active on. These have translated into many professional engagements and she regularly writes columns and research oriented food and nutrition stories for several magazines and newspapers. Her blog has been featured in several leading publications, Business Today, The Hindu, Mint, Afternoon Despatch and Courier being a few of them. 

Nandita will speak at the IFBMeet on "Social Media for Food Bloggers" The session will attempt to answer questions on why social media is important to food bloggers. She will share with you the best tools you can use to promote your work, how best to use each medium, what platform works most effectively in each of the instances, building a follower base so that what you say is heard by more number of people, etc. 

Why social media? And more importantly, how can social media can fuel your blogging experience are some of the questions that bloggers grapple with. 

As food bloggers, your work needs to be shared and promoted. You are your own PR machinery. Social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram helps bloggers in distributing their content. These platforms are an essential part of a blogger's identity and hence need to be nurtured. 

During her talk, Nandita will share with the audience, the best tools to be used to promote your work. How best to use each medium and what platform works best in varied instances and are some of the questions many food bloggers have which will find answers in this session. 

How do you build a follower base on Facebook and Twitter so what you say is heard by more number of people. This is another useful secret that will be shared. What do food bloggers stand to gain by being a prominent voice on social media? Nandita will explain from her personal experiences and instances about using social media effectively. 

She will also outline for you a basic social media plan for your blog. The session, she promises, will be fun, useful and practical and very hands-on! 

Strike gold by creating your own unique experience on social media. Join us at IFBMeet 2014 in Bangalore this August.

Food Photography with Aparna Balasubramanian

If you've been a food blogger long enough, Aparna's blog -- My Diverse Kitchen -- embellished with her trademark minimalistic, gorgeous food pictures, needs no introduction. And if you've marveled at her photography skills for many years now, this session will particularly interest you.

 Did you know that Aparna’s interest in photography developed only after she started writing a food blog in 2007. Her first set of photographs, taken with an inexpensive point and shoot camera and very little understanding of photography left her deeply dissatisfied with her efforts. A desire to create better photographs had her doing vast amounts of reading and enrolling for a basic photography class to understand the concepts. Realizing the limitations of a point and shoot, she moved to using a dSLR. With a lot of practice and through much trial and error (a lot of error!), she has come far on her journey with photography. And her pictures today, are testimony to this journey of learning.

Aparna is predominantly a food photographer but also loves taking pictures of people and life on the streets and just about anything that catches her interest. She particularly enjoys black and white photography in food and life for the variety of textures it reveals through shadow play. She has done a large number of interior shoots for homestays, been a food stylist for Prasad Pankar and has also conducted workshops on photography. She has also exhibited her work, won an award and sells her images.

If there is anything written about food these days, it is almost always accompanied by a photograph. The truth is that before we actually eat our food, we have already “tasted” it with our eyes. Our visual perception of food and the way it is presented, has largely changed the way we look at our food. As food bloggers, we are acutely aware of this fact, and are constantly working on bettering our food photography in order to enhance the experience our readers have when they hop over to our blogs. Once you've got a hold on Food Styling, you can take things up a notch by bettering your Food Photographs as well. 

Aparna will talk about what is important in the making of a good food photograph. If you want to know what makes a good food photograph, learn some basic tricks and tips, and embark on a similar journey, this session will be of immense value. We're extremely grateful that apart from lending her time and effort in organising this meet, Aparna will also be speaking at IFBMeet 2014!

Secrets of SEO with Ashish Verma

The reticent Ashish Verma is passionate about start-ups and scaling them fast. His extensive experience and understanding of the marketing need of start-ups and small and mid size business enterprises is a channel for this passion. Ashish is always open to new ideas and is keen on exploring how learning from one industry can be applied to other industry.

It is with this spirit that he was excited to share his insights on SEO and how to use it in blog building at the IFBMeet 2014. 

Ashish is digital strategist & consultant by profession. E commerce, Strategic business development,Online advertising/monetization, Social Media, Brand management, Media planning & buying are his specialties. His expertise is in Digital Marketing and Sales. His success stories include the much recognised Indian start-ups such as Myntra & Olacabs.  Currently he leads digital Media strategy at Ogilvy in Bangalore. 

For all those who have grappled with SEO and other technical stuff that makes blogs more effective with their audiences, Ashish will demystify and simplify the concepts. He has successfully applied innovative strategies to drive online channels such as SEM, SEO, Affiliate, E-Mail & Mobile marketing. Data driven behaviour and understanding the customer need are some of the areas that he cover which will help make blogs more reachable. He will also address how consistent brand imaging & positioning among the internet audience is important. 

Ashish has MBA in Marketing & Strategy from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.When taking break from work, he loves to travel. 

Blogging and beyond with Harini Prakash

Known in some circles as 'Sunshinemom', Harini Prakash is a full time government employee and mother to two teenagers. Her love for photography has had her moonlighting as a photographer and blogger in her spare time. She hopes to get into professional food photography very soon.

One of Harini's childhood dreams was to learn magic. She feels the closest  she has come to being a magician is when she creates recipes and captures the taste and feel in her camera . Harini is vegan and her website Tongueticklers features allergy friendly and healthy alternatives of traditional lacto-ovo vegetarian foods for a plant based diet. 

Harini has a beautiful blog and her recipes and food photographs have been featured in many online and print magazines.. Her website has received the recommendation of Chef Sanjeev Kapoor.  

We are delighted to have Harini share this passion of hers at IFBM. She will be on the panel sharing her experience of developing a passion towards an alternative future career and about the opportunities that can develop out of it. If you too hope to someday develop your photography skills into a full time career Harini's experience will definitely inspire you! Register yourself to attend IFBM and catch this session.

How to Self-Publish your Cookbook with Aparna Jain

Most of you would know Aparna Jain as the author of The Sood Family Cookbook. But how many of you know that it was initially self-published before it got picked by Harper Collins?

We’re excited to have Aparna share the ins and outs of How to Self-Publish Your Cookbook at IFBMeet 2014! Food-writers and aspiring authors, this one is going to be particularly exciting for you.

Aparna Jain is the Country Manager for Partridge Publishing India - a self publishing company (A Division of Penguin Random House). She has a postgraduate degree in hospitality but decided after a year of working in the industry that the world of pasted smiles wasn’t for her. She moved to technology and worked in the Internet, tech and telecom space for ten years in the madness of Silicon Valley before moving to media. As marketing head for Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, she was immersed in the lifestyle space. She then joined Tehelka and was part of the core team that launched THiNK.

She is also India’s only Integral Master Coach and runs her own marketing consultancy and Integral-based coaching practice called Zebraa Works. Her leadership coaching practice, she says, is like good food. It allows for meaningful connections and helps navigate through most problems.  Because she is an insomniac, she also manages to fit in a love of reading, very basic cello lessons (Think Twinkle Twinkle)  and the occasional cooking up of fancy meals into her days.

Join us, listen to Aparna's story and be inspired -- who knows, maybe you have a cookbook writer in you! Register yourself for IFBMeet 2014 today.

What to expect at IFBM 2014

When we planned to organise the Indian Food Bloggers Meet, we wanted it to be an exciting event that gave bloggers the opportunity to share their passion for all things food, exchange ideas and listen to inspiring talks. We wanted it to be an event that would go beyond meeting and eating :) Apart from being the first ever national gathering of food bloggers, we wanted it to be a meaningful and insightful experience that would hopefully add a generous helping of inspiration and loads of value for every blogger who is attending it.

We reached out to friends from within and outside the food blogger community — people who we have known as inspiring, accomplished bloggers, to come share their stories in different capacities — and we have been extremely fortuntate to have virtually every one of them respond favourably. 

We’re delighted to share the entire lineup at IFBM 2014 with you today. Here’s a sneak peek at what the agenda for 1st and 2nd August 2014 looks like.

Food Styling

The best blogs that lure us back time and again are usually the ones with food that looks stunning. And to tell you how to make your food look good, styled to the T and eye-catching, Deeba Rajpal will be sharing her tips and tricks about food styling. Talking about her own distinct style of impeccable beautiful set-ups and a penchant for food props, Deeba will tell us what inspires her and what you too can do to achieve great results with just a little effort and attention. 

Food Photography

When you’re a food blogger, just making your food look good isn’t enough. You have to make your food photograph well too. Aparna Balasubramanian is a food photographer par excellence, and all of us who frequent her blog will agree that her pictures form an important part of the story her blog tells. Aparna will be joining us to share some basic and simple principles of food photography and how to shoot better looking pictures.

Food Writing

Good food writing is what makes some blogs more memorable than others. If you’re the kind of blogger that bookmarks a post as much for the story it tells, as the recipe it shares, then you will enjoy this session by Rushina M Ghildiyal. After the successful release of her first cookbook, A Pinch of This, A Handful of That, Rushina will be talking to us about how to make every blog post compelling and the kind that will be memorable in your reader’s minds.

Cookbook Publishing

Many of us secretly nurture a dream to write a cookbook, to write out a food story that’s waiting to be told and share our words and thoughts about food. But the thought of putting it out there, finding a publisher and carving out an audience, is intimidating and holds many of us back. Aparna Jain, author of the recently-published book, The Sood Family Cookbook, will be joining us to share her journey from self-published author to cookbook writer, telling you how you can make it happen too.

SEO and Social Media Marketing

Most of us and our blogs are nothing without the heaps of love and attention we get online, via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and the like. Nandita Iyer well known food blogger, columnist and culinary trainer, along with SEO Expert Ashish Verma will share with you the best social media tools out there, how you can use them and harness their potential to take your food blog to the next level.

Beyond blogging

This session is a panel discussion that brings a host of bloggers from various backgrounds to one common table. Each of these bloggers have successfully taken their passion for food and blogging to the next level by branching out into a unique and niche field. Whether it is commercial photography, food styling for food/culinary brands, or culinary training, cultural food walks or cookbookwriting — this discussion will give you a glimpse into the stories of some of these bloggers we know and applaud for steering their careers to new directions.

Apart from these sessions, the Indian Bloggers Meet will also include the following:

Wine Appreciation — Aneesh Bhasin from Hipcask will give you a flavour of the various kinds of wine there are to be had, a gist about pairing and techniques — minus the snob value usually associated with wine!

Exclusive Book Launch — Harper Collins will be joining us to launch their new cookbook Spice Sorcery, by Husna Rahman, with a chance to talk to the author and grab your very own copy!

KitchenAid Masterclass — More than just stand-mixers, KitchenAid will be joining us in an exclusive MasterClass that will display three of their leading appliances, and the marvelous ways in which you can use them in your kitchen to transform your goodies!

Food Writing with Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal

Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal is a well known face in the blogging world. She is a corporate food consultant, food writer, food stylist and author with more than 10 years of experience in the Indian food industry. Most recently, her first cookbook, A Pinch of This, A Handful of That, was published in December 2013 to much acclaim.

Rushina began her food career in 2004, as one of India’s first food bloggers, at a time when the genre was relatively unknown. Her blog became one of the most popular food blogs in India, and grew into A Perfect Bite® Consulting, a premier food consulting firm she began in 2009. In 2012, Rushina launched India’s first home cooking studio – the APB Cook Studio® with the aim of inspiring food-lovers to explore and expand their worldview of food through various initiatives. 

Rushina is passionate about Indian cuisine and has explored it through customised cooking workshops and food tours that focus on and celebrate Indian food in all its complexity. She also runs kids cooking classes in a bid to teach children the importance of eating healthy and the joy of cooking. Rushina is committed to inspiring people about food through her food endeavours and adventures. She also conducts sought after workshops exclusively on food writing.

We are excited to have Rushina join us at IFBM, conducting a session on Food Writing which promises to enable us to make our food stories better, compelling and definitely more memorable. She will also join the panel discussion to share her experiences and insights on how her blog opened up a whole new area of opportunity. To hear this and more from her, join us at IFBM 2014. Register today!

Blogging and beyond with Sanjeeta KK

Sanjeeta KK began her online journey with a strong passion for food, a few recipes, a pocket size camera and a tiny URL: Lite Bite was launched in 2009 and since then Sanjeeta has found this platform to be the perfect place to string the beads of happiness together and keep her passion alive. 

In her words, "Working on my blog has taught me pick up new skill sets - digital food photography and food styling, to name a few. From managing my food blog, I gradually moved on to do commercial food styling assignments in Chennai. I have successfully completed projects for many popular restaurants, brands and television commercials over the last couple of years." 

While Sanjeeta's career in food styling has taken off on a successful path, her Lite Bite continues to thrive, featuring vegetarian recipes. Her quest for egg free baking and healthy cooking is extensively shared though all her recipes, most of which are easy and accessible. She likes to share stories behind the origin of her recipes, and speaking about homemade, unprocessed and healthy food is what she strives for each day.

She defines food as nostalgic, comforting and an important factor to connect with people and make community. We're delighted to have Sanjeeta on our panel who will be discussing how they took their blogs to new heights by venturing into new territory and embracing career changes. If you have wanted to switch streams and want to hear of others who did the same, you don't want to miss this session. Join us at IFBM 2014, register yourself today!

Blogging and beyond with The Tadka Girls

Ranjini & Ruchira, also known as the Tadka Girls, first met in the United States about a decade ago as neighbors, and discovered they had many things in common, of which the love for good food and good books stood out substantially. They started their food blog, Tadka Pasta, much later on a lark, really, in 2011, and their friendship has since transformed into a powerful working partnership, to which their two best-selling books stand testimony. 

Mango Masala: 60 Indian Recipes From Your Local Supermarket was launched as an eBook in the American market, in collaboration with the publishing company, eBooks2go in 2012, and has fared remarkably well on iTunes and Amazon. Around The World With The Tadka Girls, by Westland-Tranquebar Press, was out in bookstores in December 2013, and is riding the waves steadily in both brick-mortar and online bookshops. 

If you have ever nurtured the dream of taking your blog beyond the virtual world and into print, this session at IFBM 2014 will be of interest to you. Ranjini and Ruchira will be part of a special panel discussion of bloggers who have turned their blogs into successful ventures -- everything from cookbooks to photography, teaching, writing and several other interesting food-related businesses. Hear their story on day 2 at IFBM 2014. Register yourself today! 

Food-o-graphy with Deeba Rajpal

Deeba Rajpal ~ Food writer, stylist and recipe developer blogs at www.passionateaboutbaking.com and literally needs no introduction. We're glad to have her conduct a session on Food Styling titled Food-o-graphy at IFBM 2014!

Deeba describes herself as an obsessed baker and cook, a 'locavore' by design, who enjoys getting food to the table with seasonal ingredients and local produce. 

Give her an ingredient, offer her an idea ... that's enough for the magic to begin! Thoughts flow, the lens focuses and she begins to dream!

Deeba has been writing her food blog since Aug 2007 made her move from just baking, to baking and taking pictures. Then came the abundant inspiration from the magical internet. Styling the food for the lens became second nature and stuff her dreams are made up of.

In her own words "I want to tell my story, and most of the time it is through pictures with some words to tie the post together! I am seldom lost for inspiration as seasons, colours, ingredients, people all inspire me. When I hit a road block, you will probably find me at Pinterest."

Those of you who have seen and admired Deeba's beautiful blog and her stunning pictures make sure you're joining us at IFBM 2014, to get some tips, tricks and some ideas about styling and photography with Deeba. Register yourself today!

Places to stay

If you are considering travelling to Bangalore to attend the IFBMeet, you might have already made your travel plans. This is a list of places in and around 100 ft Road, Indiranagar, which is the closest residential area to Marathahalli, where out venue (Aloft Cessna) is. You can consider some of these for your accommodation during your stay in Bangalore.

1. Aloft Bengaluru Cessna Business Park Book your stay here
2. Ginger Hotel http://www.gingerhotels.com/bangalore/hotel-profile.aspx 
3. Ramada Encore, Domlur Layout http://www.ramadaencorebangalore.com/ 
4. The Paul http://www.thepaulbangalore.in/ 
5. Escape Hotel http://www.escapehotels.in/ 
6. Basil Ikon http://www.thebasilhotel.com/basilicon.htm 
7. Chalet Ishaya http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g297628-d1585462-Reviews-Chalet_Ishya_Boutique_Apartments-Bangalore_Karnataka.html 
8. Splendid World http://www.splendidworld.in/ 
9. Justa The Residence http://www.justahotels.com/indiranagar-bangalore/ 
10. Royal Orchid http://www.royalorchidhotels.com/royal-orchid-hotel-bangalore/overview.asp# 
11. The Leela Palace http://www.theleela.com/locations/bangalore 
12. A list of Serviced APartments across Bangalore: http://www.servicedapartmentbangalore.com/

Group Accommodation at Aranha Serviced Apartments
Alternatively, the kind people at Aranha Homes have offered their 2 bedroom serviced apartments for participants of IFBMeet. These apartments accommodate 4 people on a twin sharing basis and are priced at Rs 3,200 per apartment per night, which when shared (by 4 bloggers) amounts to a nominal Rs 800 per person, per night with breakfast thrown in.

Located about 7-8 kms away from the venue, it is another good option for you to explore in groups of 4. If you would like to share these apartments with your blogger friends, do make reservations in advance. Commuting to and from the venue can also be done in groups to save time and effort.

You can check out the available accommodation at their website www.aranha.in. All bookings and transactions for this will have to be made by you, directly in contact with Aranha. If you are interested in taking this forward, please write to Sanjeeta Krishna Kumar at sanjeetakkumar[AT]gmail[DOT]com and she will put you in touch with the concerned person at Aranha.

The People Behind The Indian Food Bloggers Meet

Once upon a time, there were two girls who loved food and wrote about it. They had an idea, and they talked about it to two more of their food loving friends. Then one day, the four girls sat down and decided to make that idea work. 
Introducing to you the four food bloggers behind the Indian Food Bloggers Meet -

 

Aparna Balasubramanian a freelance photographer with a particular interest in food styling, food and interior photography. Her food photography reflects the belief that “less is more”. She has been writing a vegetarian food blog for over 7 years, and her recipes have been published in magazines and newspapers. Aparna also conducts food photography workshops.

When she isn’t busy with things involving family, blogging or writing about food or photographing it, you can find Aparna dividing her time between all the things she enjoys which include photographing whatever grabs her interest, or sitting in her favourite corner with a book and a steaming cup of tea if the weather demands it.

Aparna is based in Goa where she lives with her family which includes a food loving Cocker Spaniel aptly named Fudge!

Aparna blogs at My Diverse Kitchen. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Arundati Rao loves train rides and sunflower stretches. This psychology graduate has a postgraduate degree in International Business. She has had a decade long career as a corporate trainer. She is impatient with fussy, tedious multi step recipes. Her 7 year old food blog explores easy to put together food that tastes as good as it looks.

She writes a weekly recipe column for a newspaper and is a features writer with a popular Hyderabad magazine. Her weekend classes for cooking and baking are popular with both hobbyists and corporates. Their success has prompted her to open a first of its kind cooking studio. She is a true blue Hyderabadi and a lifelong dog slave.

Arundati blogs at Culinary Escapades. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

Nandita Iyer has been a foodblogger since 8 years and counting, with a focus on healthy vegetarian cooking. She writes for several magazines and newspapers as a columnist on food and nutrition.

She lives in Bangalore, is mum to a 5 year old boy and loves pottering around in her kitchen garden. She conducts cooking workshops in Bangalore and Chennai and has recently launched her own YouTube channel.

Nandita  blogs at Saffron Trail. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Instagram. 

 

 

Revati Upadhya is an independent writer, avid blogger, die-hard lover of everything food, amateur photographer and self-taught artist all wrapped in one. She is the voice behind the words, pictures and music on Haathi Time, a personal blog, and all the food adventures on Hungry and Excited, a food blog that recently turned into a cake shop.

Previously an unflinching Bangalorean, she has turned into a staunch Goan.

Revati blogs at Hungry and Excited as well as at Haathi Time. You can aslo find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Indian Food Bloggers Meet

The Indian Food Bloggers Meet (informally referred to as IFBMeet) is the first ever meet of its kind, of Indian food bloggers, and the effort of four food bloggers living in different parts of India. The idea behind the IFBMeet popped up somewhere in 2010/ 2011 during routine conversation between two friends and food bloggers, Arundati (Escapades) and Aparna (My Diverse Kitchen). They thought that it was time for food bloggers from around the country to get together as a community, meet one another and put faces to the many Indian food blogs.

That idea kept bubbling on the back burner, coming out of the pot when it would get discussed, on and off over the next couple of years. Sometime in late 2013, the idea featured once again in conversation, this time when talking to another friend and food blogger, Revati (Hungry & Excited).

Then one warm afternoon, the three of them met for lunch under some coconut palms not far from a beautiful sandy beach in Goa and the idea was put down on paper. A fourth friend, Nandita (Saffron Trail), also a food blogger joined the discussion and the IFBMeet was born.

The purpose of the IFBMeet is to bring together food bloggers from across India at one venue so that they can interact with others in the community who enjoy food and blogging about it, and also make the Meet an enjoyable, interesting and learning experience for those who attend.