Mastering Baking, Blogging and Photography with Broma Bakery's Sarah Fennel

In this episode of Chefs Without Restaurants, Chris Spear speaks with Sarah Fennel, the founder of Broma Bakery and author of the new cookbook Sweet Tooth. What began as a simple creative outlet during her college years has now become a widely successful platform that combines her love for baking, photography, and blogging.

Sarah shares her journey of building Broma Bakery into a thriving business, as well as her approach to creating recipes that are as delicious as they are accessible. In addition, we dive deep into the development of her cookbook Sweet Tooth, which features a range of recipes from quick weeknight treats to more elaborate desserts for special occasions. Whether you're a home baker, a food blogger, or simply love sweets, this episode offers valuable insights into the world of food blogging and content creation.

Topics Discussed:

• Sarah’s journey from photography to baking and blogging
• The evolution of food blogs and the influence of social media
• How Sarah balances photography, recipe development, and SEO
• The creation and development of her cookbook Sweet Tooth
• Tips for bakers on recipe development and photography

SARAH FENNEL
Sarah's Website, Instagram and TikTok
Buy Sarah's cookbook Sweet Tooth
Meet Sarah on her book tour

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS
If you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links).
Get the Chefs Without Restaurants Newsletter
Chefs Without Restaurants Instagram, Threads, TikTok and YouTube
The Chefs Without Restaurants Private Facebook Group
Chris Spear's personal chef business Perfect Little Bites

Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris Spear: How do you build a successful brand combining baking, blogging, and photography? Today we're finding out from someone who's done it. Maybe this episode will even inspire you to give it a go. This is Chris Spear, and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting.

[00:00:22] Chris Spear: I have 32 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants, and currently operate a personal chef service throwing dinner parties in the Washington, D. C. area. Today I'm talking with Sarah Fennell, founder of Broma Bakery, which is not an actual bakery. But a blog she started more than a decade ago.

[00:00:41] Chris Spear: Sarah's built an incredible platform that combines her love for baking, photography, and blogging. And what started as a creative outlet has turned into a full time business with a loyal following of millions online. In our conversation, Sarah shares her journey of creating her first cookbook, Sweet Tooth.

[00:00:58] Chris Spear: The book's a culmination of her [00:01:00] years of baking, blogging, and photographing with Broma Bakery. It features recipes that highlight her love for desserts, from all the classics like chocolate brownies to unique interpretations of well known sweets. Wanna make chocolate lava cakes for just two? There's even a whole chapter on small batch baking and single serve desserts.

[00:01:18] Chris Spear: And I know, because I've already made said lava cakes. If you enjoy this conversation, make sure to check out Sarah on all her social media platforms at Broma Bakery. And be sure to pick up her new cookbook, Sweet Tooth, out October 8th. If you're in the DC area like I am, you can meet her at Bold Fork Books on Thursday, October 10th.

[00:01:38] Chris Spear: I hope to be there as well. And something I'd like to tease out here. In November, this podcast will be celebrating both 5 years and 250 episodes. The show will be going on hiatus throughout the holidays. During that time, I'll be focusing on my personal chef business and a new podcast. Do I have your attention?

[00:01:59] Chris Spear: More details coming [00:02:00] soon, but for now, enjoy the show. Hey, Sarah. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on. 

[00:02:06] Sarah Fennel: Thank you so much for having me. So excited to be here. 

[00:02:10] Chris Spear: I guess we should probably start with a little bit of your backstory because you went to school for anthropology, but today we're going to be talking about baking, a food blog, maybe some photography, social media, and a new cookbook.

[00:02:22] Chris Spear: So how did we get there? Because clearly we're not talking about anthropology today. 

[00:02:28] Sarah Fennel: Like how, how did any of us get anywhere? It's a bunch of. Figuring it out as you go, I feel like, but, um, yeah, I, I started off, um, well, I mean, I feel like I kind of have to start in high school. So in high school, I was really into photography.

[00:02:45] Sarah Fennel: Photography was like my real first, like, creative passion. I, I would say it always been kind of like an artistic kid. Like I did theater and I did dance and I, I just, I loved Like art class in general, [00:03:00] but photography felt so special to me because it just felt like this way to flex this creative muscle, but also be documenting things that were real.

[00:03:09] Sarah Fennel: And I just love that sort of intersection between, like, reality and art. Um, so I did that in high school and I actually created a portfolio. I wanted to apply to art school, but. It was 2007, 2008. Being a photographer was not a very well known career path. I didn't really feel like there was a lot of different things that I could do with it.

[00:03:28] Sarah Fennel: So I ended up just going to regular liberal arts school for college. So I did my first years at NYU. And I just decided to major in anthropology. I always loved the intersection of, like, culture and learning about different types of people and things like that. So anthropology felt like a good, I guess, like, general idea.

[00:03:52] Chris Spear: But that sounds so interesting because you said you didn't think there was a, um, an avenue for photography. But if I looked at the two, even in 2007, [00:04:00] I kind of know what I would do as a photographer. I have no idea what my career path or job would be as an anthropologist. But sure, I'm with you. I 

[00:04:07] Sarah Fennel: know. I know.

[00:04:09] Sarah Fennel: I guess I go to school for 

[00:04:10] Chris Spear: philosophy or something, you know, about people who go for a philosophy or even psychology. And then they just don't do that. 

[00:04:17] Sarah Fennel: So I was studying bioanthro, which was like primate bones and human evolution. And so I, like, I literally, like, thought I was going to, like, work for a museum or something.

[00:04:26] Sarah Fennel: Like, I, I just loved. About or like working in academia, but then it was like, Oh my God, no, love people who do that. Not for me. Um, so I basically went to college and I missed my mom's baking and I missed photography. And so I just decided to start photographing baked goods that I would make. It was really like as simple as that.

[00:04:49] Sarah Fennel: And it was totally just a creative outlet. It was something to do in my spare time that gave me happiness. And it. It was never really something that I thought of as, as my [00:05:00] career. 

[00:05:00] Chris Spear: Now, was that a blog at that point? Or were you just doing photographs of food and it wasn't going anywhere except like a photo album or maybe sharing on like Facebook or something?

[00:05:10] Sarah Fennel: It was a blog. So at the time it was, um, dot, it was like brahma bakery dot blog spot. com. So I like didn't have a custom domain. I had 

[00:05:20] Chris Spear: one of those two perfect little bites was perfect little bites dot blog spot. com. So my business also from way back then. Yeah. 

[00:05:27] Sarah Fennel: I love that. Um, yeah, blog spot was the place to be.

[00:05:30] Sarah Fennel: Um, so I was, it was, it was a, it was a blog like from the beginning. Um, but you know, like very, very bare bones blog, like blogs nowadays have so much going on. This was like a, I'd write three random sentences that were whatever I was feeling that day, and then just like post a photo in the recipe. 

[00:05:50] Chris Spear: But don't you miss that?

[00:05:51] Chris Spear: Because that's when I started and I kind of miss that now. It's like, I get it. It's a business. You have to monetize it. There's SEO. I'm not getting into the whole like, don't tell me your [00:06:00] story. Just give me the recipe. But I love those days where I followed all these food blogs where there was a great idea and it didn't take 8000 words.

[00:06:07] Chris Spear: It was just like, hey, today I was in the kitchen and I started playing with kohlrabi and I decided to pickle it and Like, here's what I did. And that was it. And I loved that. And now it's become a whole very different animal. And I almost personally want to get back to just like very bare bones blogging myself.

[00:06:22] Sarah Fennel: Oh, I totally agree. You know, it's so funny. Like, I'm sure you've seen those memes online that are like, don't tell me your 15 page like story about your grandmother and why you make this. I'm like, wait, I want to, I want to know that. Like, that sounds so interesting to me. Like I love the personal stuff behind it.

[00:06:38] Sarah Fennel: So yeah, I'm totally with you. 

[00:06:40] Chris Spear: Broma Bakery, that was the name from when you started it. To this day, you still carry that. I was wondering, do people think you have an actual bakery? Because to me, I hear that and it sounds like you have a place, like I can come visit and can come get baked goods. Do people think that you have like a bakery or had a bakery and can come get baked goods?

[00:06:58] Chris Spear: Is that something that comes up? 

[00:06:59] Sarah Fennel: [00:07:00] Oh, like all the time. Well, I think now, like, Uh, there are a good amount of blogs and influencer pages and things like that that like use those terms more loosely. Um, but especially in the beginning, yeah, everybody was like, can I order something from you? I'm like, no, sorry.

[00:07:21] Sarah Fennel: And honestly, the only reason why I called it Baker is because I'm really bad at names and like, I couldn't come up with something better. Uh, it is, it is funny though. Like I get that question a lot. Like, Oh, so do you have a physical space? Like, no, not do you cook for other people? Not really. And once you start building 

[00:07:40] Chris Spear: brand, you're kind of committed to that.

[00:07:42] Chris Spear: Cause I've thought about that too. Again, like I have a. Personal chef business now called Perfect Little Bites. And that was like a spinoff of the name of my blog. And it comes from like a story of my wife and I, like when we go out to eat, we would like to make a perfect little bite and share bites. And I always said offhand instead of fiber of a business, it [00:08:00] would be that.

[00:08:00] Chris Spear: But now almost 15 years in, it's like, I don't know, does that name represent exactly what I do? Does it convey it? But I've built this brand since like 2008 or nine on that. It's like, I'm just so committed. We're going to stick with it. 

[00:08:15] Sarah Fennel: That's how I feel as well. I mean, like, I, there's something about like Broma that like, I, I still love, I love how it sounds.

[00:08:21] Sarah Fennel: I think it's like just a fun, like, it's a fun brand word, but, but the bakery part, it's like, Ooh, this doesn't apply so much, but yeah, no, you're stuck with it. Yeah. 

[00:08:34] Chris Spear: So you started kind of just doing other people's recipes, right? Like you were making recipes you found and then photographing, but then you evolved into doing your own tinkering.

[00:08:43] Chris Spear: So when was that along in the process that you decided, Hey, I want to actually start putting my own mark on these things? 

[00:08:51] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, so I. I would say for the first like three years when I was in college, it was very much taking other people's recipes, giving full credit, [00:09:00] sometimes not even like writing out the recipe, just linking to their blog.

[00:09:03] Sarah Fennel: Um, cause that was always something I was very conscious of. Like I was never trying to take a recipe credit away from someone. I was just wanting to photograph it and show it in my own way. And then when I got out of college, that's when I started to feel like I understood baking more. And ultimately when I went full time, I was like, okay, if I want to do this full time, I have to be making original content.

[00:09:25] Sarah Fennel: So I'd had these years where I had started to become familiar with the idea of baking. And I think baking, like cooking and really like anything, it's like the more you do it, the more you develop the sixth sense and the more you understand sort of how things work. And so that was a really great way for me to become comfortable with baking as a thing and then be able to pretty easily transition that to doing my own recipes.

[00:09:51] Chris Spear: What's your approach? Do you have an approach or like a way you think about baking? Because there are so many people who bake. You just go online and search for a recipe for anything [00:10:00] from a chocolate chip cookie to a white cake, and you're going to find a million different recipes. So how do you personally approach like your style of both what you like to make, but also like how you're writing your recipes?

[00:10:12] Sarah Fennel: Um, love that question. I have so much to say on that question. Okay, so let's do 

[00:10:18] Chris Spear: it. 

[00:10:19] Sarah Fennel: So like for people listening. I think that to have a, to have an understanding of like what happens when you search for a recipe and like why a certain recipe pops up is really important to understand. So basically like when you type something in on Google, Google's algorithms are going to recommend to you the thing that they think that you're going to like the most.

[00:10:41] Sarah Fennel: But the way that they decide if you're going to like it the most is based on constantly evolving factors and it's kind of based on like how. among other things, how the blog post itself was written. So for example, if you type in yellow cake, probably the top yellow cake that you're going to find [00:11:00] is going to be like, here's my favorite recipe for yellow cake.

[00:11:03] Sarah Fennel: How to make the best yellow cake. Here are the ingredients for yellow cake. What makes a yellow cake special? They're like doing the SEO thing, the search engine optimization thing, like they're, they're optimizing their site to show up at the top of Google. So that doesn't mean that it's the best recipe.

[00:11:20] Sarah Fennel: It just means that the actual post itself is optimized in the way that Google thinks people want. So you have to. Understand that when you have these recipes that show up at the top of Google, not only is it important to make sure that they like look good from the photos, it's also really important to see how those recipes have been, um, rated.

[00:11:39] Sarah Fennel: So seeing how many ratings they have, literally going into the comments, seeing what people liked about it, what people didn't like about it. I think you can find out so much from that user, like trial and error that you can then go and make little tweaks yourself. So like if everybody's saying this was so good, but there was way too much frosting, I was left with two cups extra frosting, then you can like kind of [00:12:00] go down and try to have the frosting yourself or something like that.

[00:12:04] Sarah Fennel: So the other really interesting thing is because so many people are, who are recipe developing are looking on Google to figure out how to recipe develop themselves, a lot of these recipes are very, very, very similar. And it's not necessarily because it's the perfect way of doing something. It's kind of just because everybody's looking out of the same playbook.

[00:12:24] Sarah Fennel: When I'm developing a recipe, because I've been doing this for so many years, not only am I looking at what those general structures of a recipe are, what people are looking for, but I'm then also taking my knowledge of what I know about baking, and I'm really trying to incorporate that into what already exists.

[00:12:42] Sarah Fennel: So for example, with cakes, so many people either do an all butter cake or they'll do an all oil cake. And what I've found is that There's reasons why you want to have both in your cake. The butter helps to give it really nice structure. The oil helps to keep it [00:13:00] really, really moist. So in almost all of my yellow cakes, I'm doing half butter and half oil.

[00:13:05] Sarah Fennel: And that's not necessarily something that like you find online. It's just what I have noticed through years of testing. So I'm always trying to think of like those innovative ways where I can make a recipe my own, but also really make it so it's the best it can be in this way that's still really accessible to people.

[00:13:21] Sarah Fennel: So that's all. 

[00:13:22] Chris Spear: And I was like a 

[00:13:23] Sarah Fennel: very long 

[00:13:24] Chris Spear: winded no, no, no, because I love this stuff. And, you know, I talk about trusted sources a lot. You know, when I was running, uh, I was an executive chef running a kitchen and, you know, we didn't create really any recipe. I mean, we create some recipes, but my cooks would come and say, you know, we need like four desserts this week, find some recipes.

[00:13:40] Chris Spear: And they would just print off random things from the internet. I'm like, like, do you know where this came from? Like, this could be anything. Like some woman's like great aunt could have made this recipe. We don't know that it's good. Yeah. Who are you trusting? Like going back to like baking, like Stella Parks, Brave Tart.

[00:13:53] Chris Spear: Like I've used a lot of her recipes. They were great. And I would say like, go in and type carrot cake, Brave Tart and see [00:14:00] what comes up or, you know, like serious eats, whatever, because you know that they've been tested somewhat and it's not just some random person who knows how to play the SEO game and is at the top of the search, but they've actually done the work to do it.

[00:14:15] Sarah Fennel: I'm going to say, I think that's one thing that I think is so special about cookbooks that again, I don't think a lot of people understand, like, anybody can write a blog post and publish it online. And like you're saying, anybody can get good at SEO and get that recipe to the top of Google. Cookbooks, The whole process of a cookbook, there's so many layers of testing that goes into the recipes that make it into a cookbook because you can't change it once it's printed.

[00:14:41] Sarah Fennel: And that's something that I think makes cookbooks so special. Like the recipes that are in these cookbooks are the most tried and true. So like, if you are looking for The best yellow cake or the best brownies or whatever, like cookbooks are the place where you should be looking. That's at least my, 

[00:14:59] Chris Spear: my, my [00:15:00] stance on volumetric versus weigh it, you know, like a quarter of a cup versus 50 grams because, you know, a decade ago, you weren't really seeing here in America, people weighing things.

[00:15:11] Chris Spear: Although we have been weighing things in the baking and pastry kitchen for a long time, but now you are seeing people at least including that maybe exclusively going with metric and weight. But what's your thoughts on that? 

[00:15:23] Sarah Fennel: I would say my thoughts are evolving. Um, because I'm coming from having blogged for over a decade.

[00:15:32] Sarah Fennel: I also agree that Primarily, American audiences, they bake by volume metrics, so they're doing cups, they're doing tablespoons. Um, I think that we're in this cool turning point now where a lot of people are starting to be more comfortable in the kitchen, feel like they can flex their muscles in the kitchen more.

[00:15:54] Sarah Fennel: And so I think that weight measurements are more accurate, and generally. [00:16:00] Like the better way to bake. It's always a, a toss up for me because I want to appeal to the people who don't necessarily have that comfortability in the kitchen and they need things to be the most easy that they can be, so they feel like it's the most accessible to them.

[00:16:19] Chris Spear: Also, because talking about scales, I scale things a lot, so. Sure. You've got a recipe for a dozen cookies, but like, what if I want to make six cookies? And now it's like a quarter cup. What is half of a quarter cup? An eighth of a cup. Great. That doesn't exist. Like it's just easier if it's 50 grams and now it's 25 grams.

[00:16:37] Chris Spear: So I've been like team scale for quite a while. And I don't have a background in pastry. I'm a savory chef. And you know, it's always like the, we don't, we don't weigh things. We cook by taste. And I've gotten over that a decade ago. 

[00:16:50] Sarah Fennel: No, I think like if, if you are willing to buy the scale by the scale, like it's going to make your life better.

[00:16:58] Sarah Fennel: It's interesting though, like in this book, [00:17:00] I only did volume measurements because I felt like that's what more people wanted. And there's so many people who have said, I want weight measurements. And so now. We're like, okay, we'll include weight next time. 

[00:17:12] Chris Spear: So what I do is like when I make you like a recipe from your book, even though it says a quarter cup, I'm actually going to weigh it and make notes.

[00:17:18] Chris Spear: And I'll, I'll put it in a word document. I use the Me's website, which is great for scaling. So the first time I make something, I'll put it all in there and then it scales. So you can have a recipe and I can take it from, you know, a dozen to five dozen and it'll just scale it up. So. 

[00:17:33] Sarah Fennel: Oh, every time 

[00:17:34] Chris Spear: I do a recipe that exclusively has volume, I still weigh every ingredient.

[00:17:37] Chris Spear: And that goes back to like having recipes from my grandmother because she was, you know, very much like to taste like, you know, put enough pepper in it until it tastes sufficiently peppery. And it's like, like, what does that even mean? Is that a quarter teaspoon or a tablespoon? I don't know. So on the question about scaling, I actually have a very, um, this is a personal cause I need to [00:18:00] know you have a lot of single serving desserts, which I think is amazing.

[00:18:03] Chris Spear: And I want to talk about that a little bit. I literally actually have to make, um, a chocolate lava cake this weekend and I've never made one before. I've never made one before and I'm kind of nervous and your recipe is for two. Do you think that it efficiently can be scaled up to eight from that? And it'll all work out the same.

[00:18:20] Chris Spear: Are we going to be good if I try this? 

[00:18:22] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, absolutely. So that, so, so in the book and the single, there's a whole chapter of single serving desserts and one of them is chocolate lava cakes for two. That was actually originally a scaled up version and we scaled it down. So send me, send 

[00:18:36] Chris Spear: me the scaled up version.

[00:18:37] Chris Spear: No, I just, I've never, I've never made them. And the interesting thing about working as a personal chef is while I have my own recipes and things, sometimes customers are just dead set on something, right? They cut, it's this guy, it's my wife's birthday. This is her favorite dessert. And I'm like, Listen, I've, I've been cooking for like 30 years and I've literally never made one and I don't like, I don't know you want me.

[00:18:58] Chris Spear: So I'm going to be, I'm executing this at a [00:19:00] customer's house and I've never made it before. So I'm going to do a dry run probably tomorrow to see how it works. And I saw it in your book. I'm like, this is perfect because there's so many recipes and going back to going back to comments, you read the comments.

[00:19:12] Chris Spear: And the number one search result comes from like a New York Times recipe. I think it's a Jean Georges recipe. And all the comments are like, this is terrible. It's overcooked, like don't make this or don't cook it for 12 minutes. It's eight minutes. I'm like, I don't know that this is a recipe I want to do.

[00:19:26] Chris Spear: So I'm going to try this and I hope that you're going to be my savior this weekend and that these people are going to love this cake. 

[00:19:32] Sarah Fennel: You're going to love it. I mean, we've made it quite a few times because we have tested the scaled up and scaled down. It's, it's great. And it's very chocolatey. I will say too, if you have the ability to, get some Dutch process cocoa powder.

[00:19:43] Sarah Fennel: Dutch process cocoa powder is amazing in baking. It's basically cocoa powder that's been de alkalized. So it removes a lot of that like acidity and the harsher notes of the chocolate. So basically you just end up with a super chocolatey tasting chocolate. And for something like [00:20:00] that, it's like, Next level.

[00:20:02] Sarah Fennel: It just makes sense. I 

[00:20:03] Chris Spear: already have that in my pantry. Who do you think you're talking? 

[00:20:04] Sarah Fennel: Okay. Okay. 

[00:20:06] Chris Spear: We're good. But I know what was like I mean, I love the idea of the single serving desserts. Like, when did you start playing around with that? Because, you know, there are a lot of people who are single or just a couple and they don't want to make two dozen cookies.

[00:20:19] Chris Spear: I followed a recipe the other day and it made two dozen cookies and we have a lot of people in my house, but I'm like, I don't know, do we need 24 cookies? So when did you start kind of messing around with the single serve desserts? 

[00:20:30] Sarah Fennel: I feel like I started doing them like two and a half years ago. And the way that I approach a lot of my recipes is really taking cues from my audience and taking cues from what people are enjoying.

[00:20:45] Sarah Fennel: And that's like a whole, like a whole other thing we can talk about. But specifically, I think I started with a single serve chocolate chip cookie and it went viral, both on TikTok and Instagram, and it went really viral, like, Through [00:21:00] Google searches, like people were searching for it. So anytime something like that happens, I'm like, okay, how can I replicate this in a new way?

[00:21:07] Sarah Fennel: So then we did like a double chocolate cookie. It also went viral. Then we did a single serve cupcake. It also went viral. And so just like taking those cues and being like, oh, wow, like people really need this. And it totally makes sense. It's like so many people. Okay. I'll back up. I think there's a lot of different reasons why people bake.

[00:21:27] Sarah Fennel: Some of them are because they want to make a cake for someone's birthday, or they have a holiday celebration, or they're like doing a party or whatever it is. But a lot of people just want to bake during the week. And when you bake during the week, you don't need two dozen cookies. And so I think it makes total sense that having those smaller scale things.

[00:21:46] Sarah Fennel: are something that is really enjoyable and exciting to a lot of people because it's like this need that people have to just have like, just a little sweet treat. Yeah. 

[00:21:57] Chris Spear: We like every night in our, like, it'll be a Wednesday [00:22:00] night at 7 30. And my wife's like, I just wish I had like a little something like, yeah, can we make something really quickly just to take the edge off?

[00:22:08] Chris Spear: Right. A little sweet, something you made dessert in the house. Like, what do we have? And I love that. And I, I can see why that's so popular because we do that. We sometimes just, you know, it's like Rice Krispie Treats for two, you know? 

[00:22:20] Sarah Fennel: Yes, exactly. Yeah, we got one of those in the book too. It's a peanut butter and fluff Rice Krispie Treat.

[00:22:25] Chris Spear: Looks amazing. 

[00:22:26] Sarah Fennel: Um, but also something I will say is if you have a recipe that you absolutely love, especially a cookie recipe, I love making full batches of cookies and then Taking them and portioning them out into three or four in small Ziploc bags, and then putting all of those in the freezer. So, when you feel like it, you can take out four, and then like, have your four that you do, but the rest are still there.

[00:22:48] Sarah Fennel: And it's just like, the perfect way to sort of like, cheat the system and get like, a little dessert, but also have four. Next week, 

[00:22:56] Chris Spear: I want to understand because you do a lot of cookies, the whole, [00:23:00] like letting it rest versus not, you know, a lot of people, you know, you make your dough, roll it out, put it in the fridge.

[00:23:04] Chris Spear: It should sit overnight to hydrate. Some are like scoop and drop. Is there a time, like, how do you decide when you do those? Or doesn't it matter? I mean, I know, like, they're spreading, right? Like, if it's, you just took it out of the mixer and you put it on the sheet tray, it's gonna spread, but, like, is there a time when you should definitely refrigerate them, whether it be a couple hours or overnight versus, like, a scoop and go?

[00:23:27] Chris Spear: Because I just don't know the science of, like, making cookies. 

[00:23:31] Sarah Fennel: Totally. So, uh, when in doubt, do whatever the recipe says. So if the recipe says that you should chill the cookies, chill the cookies. If the recipe says go, go. Um, the reason why some cookie recipes call for you to let them sit is because Well, there's a few reasons.

[00:23:50] Sarah Fennel: One is because the longer that dough sits together, the more the, uh, sugar crystals are able to break down and interact with [00:24:00] the flour in this way that leads to, like, a chewier texture. and a softer cookie. So that's lovely. But also it allows the entire cookie to like really marinate. And I know that sounds really gross, but it helps to deepen those flavors.

[00:24:18] Sarah Fennel: It's almost like this tiny little bit of toasting that like happens. Like, that's how I like to think about it. It's just like an enhanced flavor profile. So it can really help for something like that. And, and so for that reason, it's like, if you have something like a brown butter chocolate chip cookie. I always for my brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipes will chill them because you want to enhance that toasty warm flavor and you get that when you let it sit.

[00:24:42] Sarah Fennel: And then, of course, when you put something in the fridge overall, it's gonna like firm up and get a little bit harder. So then when you go from the fridge to your oven, It's going to spread less, so sometimes recipes will call for you to put something in the fridge because without doing it, it's going to spread too much, but the [00:25:00] ratio between the butter and the sugar and the flour is like perfect as it is.

[00:25:04] Sarah Fennel: So if you added more flour to combat that, it wouldn't taste the same and it wouldn't be the best. So there's like a lot of 

[00:25:11] Chris Spear: it's just so hard because like, I like in our house, we rarely have the forethought of like, I want cookies tomorrow going back to like, why the single serving? It's like a craving hits you.

[00:25:22] Chris Spear: Like, I want cookies now. And then I'll look at a recipe. I'm like, well, this is the recipe I love, but this is supposed to sit overnight, you know, so sometimes we'll take one of those recipes and then I'm making it for like now, you know, 

[00:25:34] Sarah Fennel: If you're doing that in general, like this is like very, very loose guidelines, but I would say if you really don't want a lot of recipes, add two tablespoons of flour for every cup of flour that's in that recipe.

[00:25:47] Sarah Fennel: That should be just about right where you can bake it off right away. 

[00:25:51] Chris Spear: Amazing tip like that's the kind of stuff i've never heard before yeah yeah because sometimes there is that really solid like i know this is a great cookie and when i [00:26:00] do it right i let it sit but i want it now and i've never modified that at all so i think that's a good baseline so you we've been kind of talking around it but you have a new book that will be out i mean this uh this episode should drop a couple days before the book comes out so a book a book like you How?

[00:26:20] Chris Spear: Why? I mean, you, I mean, clearly you have a blog with tons of recipes, um, but I mean, you have a great, so you have a great background in recipe development and obviously photography. So what made you decide though, that it was the time to, to put it in book form? 

[00:26:36] Sarah Fennel: I think people do books for a lot of different reasons and I think every reason is, is valid.

[00:26:42] Sarah Fennel: For me, I knew that I didn't want to do a book until I felt so supremely confident across all of the different. like avenues of creating a book. So I wanted to be so confident in my photography, so confident in my recipes, so confident in my marketing abilities and really [00:27:00] make sure that I could create this book that I would look back in 10 years and still be really proud of.

[00:27:06] Sarah Fennel: And I think because I'm self taught, I feel like that it took a long time for me to gain that confidence and be like, okay, let's like, Literally put a pen to paper, like I'm ready to do this because I just, I just knew that if I was going to create a book, it's a two year process. So I knew that I would be devoting all my time and energy to it.

[00:27:27] Sarah Fennel: And I wanted it to be something that I was just so, so, so proud of and so happy with. And like a book that, you know, could like not compete, but like a book that could compete with the best of them. Like, you know, so, um, that, that was really my reasoning. Um, And I also felt like I got to this point where like, I feel like I had something to say, I feel like there are so many incredible baking books out there, but I didn't feel like there was a baking book like this and like this, meaning this baking [00:28:00] book that's very about Incorporating baked goods into your life and not the other way around.

[00:28:06] Sarah Fennel: I feel like a lot of baking books are project bakes, so like things that take 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours, things that require multiple components, things that require 12 bowls. And I wanted to create something that felt like it was something you could pick up on a Tuesday night and find 10 things that you could bake out of.

[00:28:26] Sarah Fennel: So it's been an amazing process. Like I've loved it. I mean, you've interviewed a lot of cookbook authors. Like it's a lot of work and it's a lot of writing and editing, but like I I've loved it. I feel like coming from the social media world where you're producing like 20 pieces of content a week and just like pushing things out and then starting over and doing it again and iterating and all this stuff to go from that to something that feels like.

[00:28:54] Sarah Fennel: It's something you're chipping away at and it's something you're perfecting. Like, I loved getting into that space. It was [00:29:00] just like, it was like tapping into a different part of my brain. 

[00:29:03] Chris Spear: And you know, like you touched on it, but I do think you do have to a little. Express how you differentiate yourself.

[00:29:11] Chris Spear: Like, do we need another chocolate chip cookie recipe? Like, not taking anything away from you or anyone, but like, in this day and age, there's probably 4, 000 of them, you know, like, even if you put like a little spin on it, it's like, why should people buy this book? Use this recipe. I mean, the amount of cookbooks that are out there and just blogs in general, it's a ridiculous amount.

[00:29:31] Chris Spear: So how Do you convey that like, as you're getting ready to market this book, you have a lot of things like, yes, there's, you know, sugar cookies in there and chocolate cake and all that. So how do you kind of communicate what your vibe aesthetic, you know, and why people would maybe pick this up and haven't seen some of these versions before.

[00:29:50] Chris Spear: Have you thought about that? Like in your marketing plan? 

[00:29:52] Sarah Fennel: Oh, like so much. So I think, um, I, I think a lot of. that sort of like [00:30:00] why this book is something that you really tease out in your proposal. So your proposal is basically like your outline of your book, your reason for doing the book, what's going to make it different, how it's going to fit into the market.

[00:30:13] Sarah Fennel: And so all of that work I've been thinking about from the very beginning when I really was just thinking about this broad idea of a book in general. And For me, within that proposal, I really wanted to nail down, like, what are my foundational beliefs about baking? How do I feel like I fundamentally approach baking?

[00:30:33] Sarah Fennel: And how do I feel like people don't have this right now and this would fit in in this way? Um, so all, all really, really important questions to think about because, like, If you want to create a cookbook, that's amazing and go do it, create a cookbook. But, but that why is like the most important thing when it comes to translating that to marketing the book to an audience.

[00:30:58] Sarah Fennel: And I think I'm [00:31:00] in a really unique and privileged and cool space where I'm getting feedback all the time from my audience. And so it was really important to make sure that the book was an extension of the stuff that I'm already doing. But also I think people do pick up a book for slightly different reasons than they might go online and search for a recipe.

[00:31:22] Sarah Fennel: Um, picking up a book is definitely more of a commitment and you're excited to bake something unique and exciting. And so I also really tried in this book to be more expansive with our flavors, be more expansive with our forms, really flex the bounds of what kind of like accessible baking can be. And I think, I think we did, I think we did it.

[00:31:49] Chris Spear: You'll find out in a couple weeks once the feedback rolls in. 

[00:31:52] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:31:53] Chris Spear: You know, and I'm sure it's hard because they're, I mean, I talk a lot about like having a reference point as a good thing, but you [00:32:00] are also then being somewhat judged against. Other because there is so much like someone makes your chocolate chip cookie.

[00:32:06] Chris Spear: It's like, okay, this was good, but like my mom's is better or sell a part is better. Or I love the Alison Roman cook, you know, like, so in some regards, that's probably hard because it's like, you're making things that there have been other iterations of, but hopefully people will find one or two or 20 things in your book and be like, this is the book that I've been waiting for on baking.

[00:32:28] Chris Spear: Right. That's what we're going 

[00:32:29] Sarah Fennel: for. Absolutely. And I think too, like, That's why going back to this idea of a trusted source, like that's why finding your trusted source is so important. Like you were talking about serious eats earlier. My husband, every time he's coming up with a dinner party menu or like a Sunday thing that he wants to cook and really have fun with in the kitchen, he always goes to serious eats because he trusts whatever Kenji does.

[00:32:52] Sarah Fennel: Like he loves everything he creates. He trusts how he thinks and he knows that no matter what, it's going to be good. And I think that [00:33:00] that's also. Something that I was really thinking about in this book, like, how can I make sure that with every recipe I'm getting people to one, trust me more as they're baking through it and also kind of helping people to learn and become better bakers themselves?

[00:33:17] Sarah Fennel: That was like a really fun thing to be thinking about as I was going through the book. 

[00:33:23] Chris Spear: Yeah, and it's, you know, a lot of it's nostalgic. So on the good side of like having a reference point, it's nice to kind of see these things like, Oh yeah, I used to like a hostess cupcake, right? Like I love a good chocolate cupcake.

[00:33:34] Chris Spear: That's like that. And kind of bringing, evoking those memories where it's like familiar, but like maybe even a little better or slightly different, I think that's nice. Cause that's what, what I do in my business. Like I. Create, I provide desserts for all my guests for a personal chef dinner, but I'm, I don't have a strong background to that.

[00:33:52] Chris Spear: So I'm always thinking about, like, what are things that are really classic that people love? And how can I just, like, change it a little bit? Like, I do a key lime [00:34:00] pie, but I do a biscoff cookie crust, right? So it's not your traditional graham crust, but so it's similar enough. People know what a key lime pie is, but it's like, that's my little twist.

[00:34:08] Chris Spear: And all you really do is change like, ounce for ounce, like biscoff cookies for graham crackers. And That's kind of my style with desserts is keeping it pretty traditional. 

[00:34:17] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, I love that style of cooking and baking. Um, so there's a chapter in the book and it's called inventive sweets. And the whole idea is taking familiar flavors, just like you're talking about, like key lime pie in, in this chapter, there's things like.

[00:34:32] Sarah Fennel: peach crisp and turning it into something totally different. So we're not making peach crisp, we're making peach crisp ice cream or we're not making lemon meringue pie, we're making lemon meringue pie macarons. Um, and I think that that's such a fun way to both really appeal to a lot of people, but also have the people who are baking it feel and the people who are eating it feel like, Oh my God, I've never had this before.

[00:34:54] Sarah Fennel: I love it. So I, I like, I, I love, love, love those like mashup y [00:35:00] recipes. 

[00:35:01] Chris Spear: I feel like this is a book I'm going to be cooking from, and hopefully it's okay. I'm going to be taking some of these and trying them out on some of my customers and see what they think. 

[00:35:09] Sarah Fennel: Hell yeah! Hell 

[00:35:11] Chris Spear: yeah! And then, and then, you know, like, I provide a lot of gifts, so, like, one of my favorite things to do, especially a couple weeks later, is like, after you've had a dinner, it goes off really well, it's like, Put a cookbook in the mail and send it over to them.

[00:35:20] Chris Spear: Like, Hey, I really know you love this thing. Check out this book. You can find that recipe in there. And, uh, yeah, so I'll do a little extra promo there. Um, yeah. So with my daughter being 12 and loving baking, what do you think we should start with? Like if I were to just, you know, pick a couple of things, like something that's.

[00:35:38] Chris Spear: You know easy, but she you know, she has a good base I mean she made a cake covered in fondant for her birthday this year last year She made these little like japanese like little candies with like almost like a mochi with a rice flour stuffed with like So so we do like she's very more into the decorative like I when when we're like Making something like, I don't know that I want to do this.

[00:35:59] Chris Spear: She's like, yeah, we're going to [00:36:00] do a jelly roll cake. So let's say we're going to do like two or three things from the book. Do you have anything that you think would be like fun to tackle? 

[00:36:08] Sarah Fennel: Yes. Okay. So the first thing is lunch lady brownies. Um, These are so good. It's a sugar bomb, but like in the best way.

[00:36:17] Sarah Fennel: So it's a brownie that you make in a sheet pan. And then when it comes out of the oven, you put this very thick icing on top and the icing melts so perfectly over the brownies where it develops this like shiny top. It's so good. Okay, these are super easy, but they're absolutely delicious. And it's, it's the fall.

[00:36:38] Sarah Fennel: Um, Spiced Pumpkin Snickerdoodles. Oh my God. Like so easy. Take a snickerdoodle, but like add pumpkin, add a little bit of cinnamon, add a few more spices. 

[00:36:48] Chris Spear: Actual like pumpkin in there, like canned pumpkin. 

[00:36:50] Sarah Fennel: Actual pumpkin. And this is another one of those, like, you won't find this in a lot of recipes online because we like just kind of like stumbled our way into figuring [00:37:00] it out.

[00:37:00] Sarah Fennel: A lot of times when you add pumpkin to cookies, the cookies will end up being way too puffy because The combination of pumpkin and egg, it's too much fluffy stuff. So what you do is you take out the egg white. So it has, I think it's something like a third a cup of pumpkin puree in it. Like it's a good amount.

[00:37:19] Sarah Fennel: First, you squeeze out some of the liquid. I literally just suggest putting it in like a, uh, What's it called? In a paper towel? Like a strainer. Strainer's too complicated. We're paper towel people over here. Paper, okay. Literally just like squeeze out just a teensy bit. Um, and then instead of using a whole egg, you just use the egg yolk.

[00:37:37] Sarah Fennel: So the egg yolk helps to bind everything together, but you don't get that puffiness. So you end up with this really like delicious pumpkin cookie that still has a really nice chew and density to it. That one's, oh my god. It's so good. 

[00:37:50] Chris Spear: Uh, one thing I wanted to touch on quickly is like you had your food photography course, which you're not doing anymore.

[00:37:58] Chris Spear: Can you talk about that a [00:38:00] little bit and kind of specifically like the decision to close it? Like, I guess I'll lead in with, I heard you talking on another podcast about like you were helping people kind of build and grow their own thing, but you felt that at the end of the day. Yeah. You weren't really doing what you love, right?

[00:38:18] Chris Spear: Like you weren't serving yourself. And this is something that I'm dealing with because I'm a personal chef. I started this podcast as community. I love it, but I'm talking to you right now, and I'm essentially helping you build your brand and promo your stuff and get your work out. And I'm like right now should.

[00:38:33] Chris Spear: We'll be answering emails about my business and marketing my business and like walking that balance. So it's something that really struck me that like, yeah, I totally see that. Like I did this thing and it's successful for me, but I kind of taking my eye off the ball here. Need to be focusing on my business.

[00:38:51] Chris Spear: So, you know, I'm not doing away with the podcast in the community. So I don't know, maybe that's a roundabout way of saying, like, can you talk about your food photography thing? And then also the [00:39:00] decision to like, yeah, do that. 

[00:39:02] Sarah Fennel: So I basically started, it started out as a course and I called it photography school and I started this course in 2017 and it went super, super well.

[00:39:13] Sarah Fennel: And so basically I expanded the course into a business. So we ended up with, I always forget if it was like, I think it was. It was either eight or nine employees, but like there was, we had, we had a lot of lovely people working together. Um, and it turned into a series of courses. We had like five or six courses.

[00:39:31] Sarah Fennel: We had presets, we had downloadable templates and guides. We were doing free classes for people. Like there was, it was basically just like an educational school where you could learn, pick and choose and learn a bunch of different things. Um, so, you know, we had like a, Course on iPhone photography. We had an advanced course.

[00:39:48] Sarah Fennel: I did a mastermind at one point. We had like, uh, uh, influence, which was like a social media course, all of these different things. And it was like, [00:40:00] I would be a different person today if I had not done that. I learned so much from running my own business with multiple employees, learning how to manage, learning how to delegate.

[00:40:11] Sarah Fennel: Learning how to do sales and marketing and speak to an audience and how to iterate. Like I learned so much and so like I would, I would never change it. And I also feel so proud of. how many people's lives we changed. And I know that sounds so sappy, but like, we really did change how food photography and food blogging was like, we, we helped so many people's careers and feeling like they had the confidence and had the knowledge to be able to do that.

[00:40:46] Sarah Fennel: Um, I did feel like as time went on and I saw my personal brand growing and growing and growing and growing more rapidly over time that I was starting to lose [00:41:00] the time and energy that I knew that I should be devoting to my own brand. And so really, it was a decision that I feel like other people might have felt differently, but like, ultimately, I loved teaching, but my ultimate goal is not to be a teacher.

[00:41:18] Sarah Fennel: I want to be doing what I'm doing now. I want to have this baking platform where I'm helping people learn how to bake. I'm bringing joy to their lives in that way. I'm building my own personal brand. I'm writing cookbooks. Like, that's just ultimately what I wanted to be doing. And so, it was really just a decision about, like, do I?

[00:41:40] Sarah Fennel: give my own brand the space and energy necessary to do this? Or do I kind of let that slip away and keep focusing on helping other people, you know? So like, it was like, it was a hard decision, but it was kind of like, [00:42:00] The entire point of photography school was like helping other people with their brands.

[00:42:04] Sarah Fennel: And I had to reflect and be like, now help yourself. 

[00:42:08] Chris Spear: No, a hundred percent. But it's a bit, it's good because you did touch on that. Like the side roads then also help you go back into your own thing, you know, because I started this as like, I started my personal chef business and people all the time. Hey, can I buy you a coffee or a beer and tell me how to do this?

[00:42:23] Chris Spear: Because I want to do that. And I was like, Oh, well, this isn't a great use of time. Why don't we have an online like Facebook group? And then, you know, we're like 2000 members now. And that's like, why don't you have a podcast? And then it's globally scalable and you can tell people how to do this. And then it just grows beyond what I thought it was going to be.

[00:42:38] Chris Spear: It's like, I don't know. I can't even, I can't put this back in the box at this point. 

[00:42:42] Sarah Fennel: But it's tough because like, I'm sure with the podcast, it's like you feel like maybe. People are relying on you doesn't like fit as much, but like people love what you're doing and people want to hear from you and so it's then hard to be like, so let's stop.

[00:42:57] Sarah Fennel: Like, it's this weird thing where people are [00:43:00] asking you for more and you really have to like sit back and be like, Oh, gosh, like what, but I enjoy 

[00:43:06] Chris Spear: it. I mean, I love, you know, as someone who works by themselves now, I miss the camaraderie of people in a kitchen and having people to talk to. So I love it.

[00:43:15] Chris Spear: It's when I don't enjoy that. I'm not going to do it anymore. So sitting down and talking to people and getting their takes on things and, um, you know, it's education for me. It's like, oh, this person's doing this thing. This works for them. You know, so a lot of it, I think you have to be a little selfish in your interview questions and kind of get out kind of what.

[00:43:31] Chris Spear: Yeah. Is really interesting to you. 

[00:43:32] Sarah Fennel: I think that the, the most important thing that I have taken out of it is that, like, I wouldn't change it. And I do think like, if you're somebody that like, you're struggling between two things or like, or you feel like you're balancing between things, I think there's a lot of like, self criticism about like, well, you shouldn't have done it this way or like, you shouldn't have even whatever, uh, like all these shouldn't have.

[00:43:55] Sarah Fennel: So with like this very like hindsight mentality, and I really feel like. [00:44:00] Like you said, like you're learning things in the podcast all the time and you're having fun with it still. And like, it's great that you're doing it. I think it will become clear when you're like, okay, I'm good. And I think that just that listening to your gut is so, so important.

[00:44:16] Sarah Fennel: And it's like when that, when that voice is saying like, I think it's time, I think it's time. Like you have to listen to that. 

[00:44:23] Chris Spear: And I think, you know, I'm someone who does enjoy like looking back on things and seeing the road to where you got, you know, it's like I did this catering event. Notoriously, it was the worst event I ever did and it was horrible and I hated it and I would never do it again.

[00:44:35] Chris Spear: But it was a collaborative 

[00:44:37] Sarah Fennel: event. 

[00:44:38] Chris Spear: Uh, it was just not well planned. It was like year one of doing an event. Uh, there was no money. I was doing it for free. Supposedly it was all this, like, media that was gonna be there. And it ended up being, like, influencers. But they weren't even, like, good influencers.

[00:44:51] Chris Spear: There were people with, like, 5, 000 Instagram followers. And it was, like, on a boat. And I'm, like, schlepping stuff down, like, a long pier. And onto a boat. Cooking for a bunch of, like, entitled, [00:45:00] like, 20 somethings. So, but one of the people there has turned into one of my closest friends in the chef community and just personally.

[00:45:09] Chris Spear: And we, he's been on my podcast a number of times and we hang out and I just go back to like, I wouldn't have met him had I not done this event because he was also involved in that. Right. So you can't have one without the other. It's like people ask if, would you go to culinary school again? It's like, Like, no, but also I met my wife there and I met my best friends there.

[00:45:28] Chris Spear: Right. So it's like, you can't remove it. Would you, should you go? Like I have opinions on that, but for me, it's like some of the best things in my life came out of that and you can't have one without the other. And I just think. You know, go through life and experience it as it is and cool things are going to come out of things and maybe look for the silver lining.

[00:45:45] Chris Spear: And, you know, it is what it 

[00:45:47] Sarah Fennel: is. I totally, you 

[00:45:49] Chris Spear: have grown an immense following online, right? Like, I mean, there's people with, you know, decent phones, but you have just like tech talk and Instagram over 2 million followers, which seems insane. [00:46:00] I don't know how you see that. Um, so, I have so much I want to ask about that so many people who listen to my show are content creation space and do this kind of stuff I guess one of the things is like, how do you see that?

[00:46:13] Chris Spear: And how do you or do you stay connected? Right? Because I think a lot of people, especially as they get big followings, maybe they were really engaging. They were answering comments. They were talking to people. And then, you know, I'm sure it's super hard. Like, you can't answer every comment, dm, whatever. Um, what's your take on that now?

[00:46:30] Chris Spear: Like, I guess your relationship with your community? In social media when you have that many people following you. 

[00:46:36] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, um. So, I think that one of the reasons why I have such a strong community is because I devote so much time to comments and DMs, and it is a total slog to be sitting on your phone for hours just Answering people over, like, and over and over again, like [00:47:00] iterations of the same thing.

[00:47:01] Sarah Fennel: Um, but I think it is one of the most important things to do if you're looking to grow a community and if you're looking to grow a strong community. As an influencer, you are someone who people look up to. And So to be able to then connect with that person who you look up to on a personal level, it strengthens that connection so, so much.

[00:47:25] Sarah Fennel: It's such a small thing for you to just respond to somebody one, one sentence and it makes someone's day. So I feel like it's so important to do and, and it's really annoying to do it day after day after day after day, but like, I, I. I truly, like, owe the strength of my audience to doing that. 

[00:47:46] Chris Spear: Yeah. I mean, you, you have, I don't want to say you have nothing without them, right?

[00:47:49] Chris Spear: But like you, you've built your whole business on sharing your stuff and people being interested in the stuff you share. Yeah. 

[00:47:56] Sarah Fennel: I, I think similarly, um, content creation [00:48:00] is. Also such a slog. I like right now I'm producing five videos a week that then get like syndicated across all the different platforms.

[00:48:08] Sarah Fennel: Um, and that's like, in addition to like full on blog posts, but like these, you know, five reels and tick tocks, that is no time consuming. I'm taking two full days to shoot all of those videos. Um, and I'll find myself being like, Oh my God, I just wish I didn't have to do this. But then immediately I'm like, But like this, this is the reason I can do everything else I do.

[00:48:31] Sarah Fennel: So I really think of like content and those videos that you create, that's like the top of your marketing funnel. And without that, you can't do everything else that comes with, you know, having a following and having that, that influence. So, um, I would also say it's just, it's so important to consistently create content.

[00:48:53] Sarah Fennel: Not only are you consistently creating it for your audience and for like being like good to the Instagram [00:49:00] algorithm gods and things like that, but you're also going to be getting better with every single time you do it. And you're going to be learning how to do things better and learning how to do things more efficiently.

[00:49:07] Sarah Fennel: And like, you're going to be improving the more and more that you do it. 

[00:49:11] Chris Spear: I think it's both interesting and exhausting, like, kind of learning, like, the platform. It's like, you take one video, it's like, can I share the same video on YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Reels? Or like, what do people respond with? Like, do I need to change the first three seconds, or I need to change the caption, the hashtags?

[00:49:27] Chris Spear: And like, you're like, wow, this video only has 56 likes on Instagram, but has 200, 000 views on TikTok. Like, I don't understand what's happening here. 

[00:49:36] Sarah Fennel: And I will say, I I share the same video to Instagram as I do to TikTok as I do to YouTube shorts. Um, I think that if I were producing way less content, I would be a little bit more strategic with that first three seconds because On Instagram, your video is primarily going out to [00:50:00] your audience before it goes to anyone else.

[00:50:01] Sarah Fennel: On TikTok, it's really going out to, like, the world. So the way that you speak to the world is going to be different than the way you speak to people who already know you. But the way that I've sort of combated that is really just trying to make sure that whatever I'm doing, it's the most universal that I, that I can.

[00:50:19] Sarah Fennel: So I'm not going to start something off with like, well, you know, my favorite something is this. It's like, no, you don't know. And just like really keeping that sort of like going out to this broad audience in mind and top of mind. 

[00:50:32] Chris Spear: I think that's a great tip, and I'm sure, um, that's rattling around in the heads of some of our listeners out there, as they're always, you know, so many people are always asking me.

[00:50:41] Chris Spear: I'm like, listen, I'm not the one with like a million followers. I'll just tell you what works for me and what I found doesn't work. Um, I hate to be like, what's next, but like, your book isn't even out as we're talking, but where, what, what do you have planned? Do you have anything cooking besides the book and just getting the book out there?

[00:50:57] Chris Spear: Are you already a couple steps ahead? 

[00:50:59] Sarah Fennel: Um, [00:51:00] I am currently planning a book too, um, because again, books are a two year process. So it's like, yeah, I'll start that now. So I can't talk about specifics, but I, I do have a book too in the works, which is really exciting. Then I keep saying this, I literally haven't done anything with it.

[00:51:13] Sarah Fennel: I've just said that I want to do it for like literally years. Um, I think it would be so fun to start a food company. Like, Like making like cookie dough or something like that, that people can buy and then just bake off. I just feel like it would be so fun and I would love to do it, but I also feel so overwhelmed.

[00:51:32] Sarah Fennel: I'm like, I have too many things to do. 

[00:51:35] Chris Spear: You have to prioritize. Yeah, 

[00:51:37] Sarah Fennel: yeah. I mean, especially with creating so much content, I'm like, I don't have time to do anything else. Like, I just, I know that's, 

[00:51:43] Chris Spear: that's, that's the biggest thing. And I'm sure this could be like a long answer, but like, when do you feel like someone should hire someone to help them, whether they're just creating content or doing something?

[00:51:53] Chris Spear: Like, when is the point where like, I feel like I got something here. I'm, you know, I'm getting a following. I've got a lot of things I want to [00:52:00] do. I don't know. Is it worth money to pay for someone? Like when, when did you bring on the first person or even in hindsight, like when do you think someone should maybe consider hiring help?

[00:52:10] Sarah Fennel: There's definitely no right answer to this because every situation is going to be different. I will say for myself, I've hired people for two different reasons. The first reason is when I am. doing things myself and I'm finding that I'm getting bogged down in the busy work. So for example, I just moved from Boston to New York in Boston.

[00:52:32] Sarah Fennel: I have a girl who works full time for me. She still works full time for me, but when we would have a shoot days, she would be assisting in the kitchen. When I moved to New York, I didn't have her. And so for the first two months, I was shooting videos by myself. And what used to take me three hours was taking me six.

[00:52:50] Sarah Fennel: So that's like right there. If you find you're getting bogged down and your time is not being spent on sort of like the things that only you can do, [00:53:00] that's when I think it's really important to hire someone. So like, if you are Private cheffing and you're taking a half a day to like, wash dishes. I don't know.

[00:53:11] Sarah Fennel: But like, you are the owner of your business. It 

[00:53:14] Chris Spear: takes a lot of time to wash dishes. Yeah. 

[00:53:17] Sarah Fennel: Like, if you feel like you taking that half day could be spent elsewhere building your business in some way, I think that's a really important time to hire. I will also say with that, that doesn't necessarily mean like you're like rolling in it and you're like, Oh yeah, I have so much money I could hire someone.

[00:53:35] Sarah Fennel: But I think it's really like important as long as you're being really strategic about like making sure that it's the right move. It's really important to remember like as soon as you hire someone to do that busy work, it frees you up to do the building that's going to make your business bigger. So thank you.

[00:53:51] Sarah Fennel: You can't think about it monetarily in terms of like, I need to wait until I have so much money to hire. Like, if you have any wiggle room at all, [00:54:00] and you're seeing yourself being bogged down, like, I recommend hiring out. I've just found that like, every time I've done it, it's only made my business bigger.

[00:54:09] Chris Spear: Yeah, as long as you're not using that extra time to like, Netflix and chill, right? Like, oh, now I don't have to do this stuff. I can just sit back. Yeah. Like, keep your workday solid. 

[00:54:18] Sarah Fennel: The idea of thinking about what your zone of genius is, is really important. So this is just like this marketing business concept.

[00:54:26] Sarah Fennel: I don't know. Um, and it's basically, I love 

[00:54:28] Chris Spear: that stuff. I follow that stuff all the time. 

[00:54:30] Sarah Fennel: It's like, what is, what is the thing that you do that nobody else can do? What is the thing that makes you special? And if you are only spending like 10 percent of your time doing that and the rest is like responding to emails or doing cleanup or like going grocery shopping, like, You're not going to be able to get to that next level.

[00:54:49] Sarah Fennel: You have to find ways that you can be in that space more. 

[00:54:53] Chris Spear: Oh yeah. A hundred. I was just talking to someone the other day about like Instacarting and they're like, I would never let someone else pick out my stuff. I'm like, what's the worst that [00:55:00] can happen? Like I'm spending six hours a week, like grocery shopping.

[00:55:04] Chris Spear: Like if you have one gig cool, but like, I don't care. It's a cucumber, whatever. If there's like 90 percent as good as mine. Go, but let's speed. It's gonna be okay. Like, like yeah. I love when I opened the app and like, you've saved 782 hours using Instacart. I'm like, cool. Money well spent, you know, because I can do those other things.

[00:55:24] Chris Spear: Yeah. And it's not something that everyone agrees with me on. I'm like, cool. Like go to 800 farmer markets and hand select every single piece of produce, like. Good luck getting more leads and handling that. Yeah, totally. Like you're not going to have the time to do anything. I do want to say that I am in Maryland.

[00:55:41] Chris Spear: I'm close to D. C. I know you're rolling through the D. C. area on a tour. I believe it's like October 10th. I'm hoping to make it out there. I know that's a Thursday, so I don't have anything on my calendar. So I'd love to come to D. C. and, uh. That would be 

[00:55:55] Sarah Fennel: incredible. See you in person. If you can't, I totally get it.

[00:55:57] Sarah Fennel: But that, that would be a pretty [00:56:00] cool full circle moment. 

[00:56:02] Chris Spear: Nice. Well, so many of our listeners, you know, I got my start here in the DMV and a lot of them are listening. So, uh, go check that out. I'll link all that in the show notes. You'll be able to find her, but I think it's, uh, I think it's at bold fork books if I'm correct.

[00:56:16] Chris Spear: Yeah. They host a lot of, 

[00:56:17] Sarah Fennel: you got it right. They 

[00:56:18] Chris Spear: hope host a lot of things there. Yeah. Cool. Well, I hope to see you there. Uh, the book looks amazing. I'm gonna start baking from it. ASAP. And let me know what your daughter thinks. 

[00:56:28] Sarah Fennel: Yeah, I'll take pictures. She's the one I'm looking out for. 

[00:56:33] Chris Spear: Well, thanks for coming on the show.

[00:56:34] Chris Spear: I had a great conversation with you today. 

[00:56:36] Sarah Fennel: Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to talk to you and, uh, looking forward to seeing you in D. C. Hopefully. 

[00:56:44] Chris Spear: Yes. Yeah. And to all of our listeners is Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. You're still here? The podcast's over.

[00:56:53] Chris Spear: If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place, and that's [00:57:00] chefswithoutrestaurants. org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter, get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef, catering, and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads.

[00:57:12] Chris Spear: And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page, where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission, which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links.

[00:57:27] Chris Spear: As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at chefswithoutrestaurants or send me an email at chefswithoutrestaurants at gmail. com. Thanks so much.